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U.S. Population Hits 300 Million
Posted by
Zonk
on Tue Oct 17, 2006 08:19 AM
from the conserving-most-of-our-planet's-resources-since-1776 dept.
from the conserving-most-of-our-planet's-resources-since-1776 dept.
ChrisK87 writes "The United States' population will hit 300 million on Tuesday morning, just 39 years after it reached 200 million, the US Census Bureau estimates. A 'population clock' will record the milestone at 0746 (1146 GMT) — a timing based on calculations that factor birth and death rates and migration." From the article: "But it is not possible to say if the 300-millionth American was a new-born or crossed one of the US borders. Correspondents say that there is not expected to be the same hullabaloo as when the figure of 100 million was reached in 1915, or the double century in 1967 when President Johnson gave a speech and newborn Robert Ken Woo Jr was hailed the 200-millionth American by Life magazine. Today, the population figure is mired in the divisive politics of immigration — a hot-button issue ahead of the 7 November mid-term elections, they say." The story has lots of interesting stats and graphs, for those of us so inclined.
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Hola (Score:5, Funny)
Racist? (Score:4, Insightful)
If you are white, it's racist to even mention that hispanic people are moving into the country in large numbers. If you aren't white, it isn't racist to say, "Let's get rid of whitey."
Personally, I think race is a red herring, an idea designed to keep the working class of all races from recognizing their true enemy: the hereditary owning class. Damn richers! Kill all dollarheads!
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All because of me ... (Score:3, Funny)
400 million (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Tokyo metropolitan area has 35 million people and is still growing. I'd say the risk of your cities getting full is not an argument.
Re:400 million (Score:4, Funny)
Yea but, in Tokyo a hotel room is a 4' shelf and your feet hang off the end. We're far too fat in this country to ever sardine ourselves together like they do in Japan.
~Rebecca
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Re:400 million (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Plenty of Room (Score:4, Funny)
It is a defense mechanism that all animals possess. When your survival is in jeopardy, start popping out offspring with the slim hope that some will actually survive to adulthood. In the animal kingdom all but the most fit just die off. But in our world of welfare, the rest of us keep them alive and make the problem worse.
It is just a problem of morality. I could never look at a 1 year old baby that is starving and say that we should just let it die. But to fix most of our societies problems, we shouldnt be helping them. But because most of us are not immoral monsters, the lowest class of our citizens will continue to reproduce rapidly.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It is WRONG and IMMORAL to have children if you are on welfare. It is WRONG and IMMORAL to have children if you are in poverty. But in today's society, it seams to be wrong and immoral to even mention that the poor citizens in our society are causin
Re:Plenty of Room (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, your prejudices are apparantly based on what you've seen in Deliverance and on the Jerry Springer show. The south truly is a New South. Sure, if you go out to rural areas you'll find plenty of rednecks, but rednecks tend to not bother anyone and they basically just want to be able to live their lives without anyone messin' with 'em.
This shows another reason why problems such as poor education are difficult to fix. You cannot even mention the problem without someone calling you prejudiced. Here we have someone who is probably fairly intelligent, but is in denial that there could possibly be a problem is the society that he/she came from.
I have never seen Deliverance and I cannot stand Jerry Springer. If you want to use anecdotal evidence, there are plenty of rednecks in Illinois too. But I do not use anecdotal evidence, the truth is much more useful.
In the summer of 2005 Toyota passed up building a new plant to produce RAV4s in the south; passing up huge financial incentives to build in various southern U.S. locations (which are trying to build up their economy). Why did they do this? Because the educational level in the Southern United States was so low that trainers for Japanese plants in Alabama had to use pictorials to teach illiterate workers how to use high-tech equipment. Toyota passed up over $150 million more in incentives (to build a $800 million manufacturing plant) to have a workforce that could actually read.
Notice that in my previous post I did not call all southerners stupid. I just said that the average level of economy and education is lower. It is like saying Americans have more money than Germans. I know that their are alot of Germans with more money than me, but that does not mean my statement is false.
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Would this be with or without illegal aliens ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Anyone know why the US is stilling growing significantly, as opposed to most European countries? Which demographics are producing most children? How much does the number of legal immigrants contribute to the growth?
Re:Would this be with or without illegal aliens .. (Score:5, Interesting)
Higher birth and immigration rates.
Which demographics are producing most children?
Red states. I'm serious. Comapre Utah to California. (I'd give you the stats if I were less lazy.)
How much does the number of legal immigrants contribute to the growth?
Don't know, but for comparison, I read that of all immigrants in the world (people who leave one country for another to live), 3/8 of them have the US as their destination.
Another stat I can't be bothered to check, but sounds reasonable.
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Re:Would this be with or without illegal aliens .. (Score:5, Insightful)
Wider-spread religiosity and gender-equality are the factors according to this article [economist.com].
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Re:Would this be with or without illegal aliens .. (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, Europe is comprised of very old, mature set of societies. Less social and economic mobility; all the land is owned and in use. The US still has large amounts space and sparsely populated cities. The rustbelt has a negative population growth for example.
Finally, I think the social objectives are a bit different. Speaking in very broad terms, most European societies are not as materalistic. There's alot of negatives to materialism as a motivator, but it does give your economy a very powerful engine. This creates oppportunity, which in turn attracts immigrants.
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Re:Would this be with or without illegal aliens .. (Score:5, Insightful)
Legal immigration and hispanic birthrates are what contribute to the growth. In some states (ie Utah) Caucasian birthrate is above replacement level, but in most states it is not. Europe has the same problem, Caucasian people are pretty much dying out. African Americans aren't much better, as they are right around replacement rate (2.1), and I suspect in a few years they will fall below it.
As cultures/people become intigrated into western society they tend to have less children. The availability of Birth Control, higher education, and workplace oppurtunity for women are what I believe causes it, along with dropping sperm counts.
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Re:Would this be with or without illegal aliens .. (Score:5, Informative)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Speaking as a Catholic... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
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Unless you believe in jesus christ, it doesn't matter how "nice" or "righteous" you are, you are going to hell or at least be denied god's presence (really their alternate definition of hell= being denied god's grace), or perhaps your soul will just cease to exist (NVP).
Of course as a zen buddist, you have no soul and conciousness is transient.
As an ancient norse person, you'll either go to valhalla if a warrior who dies well or some other place if not.
And Augustinian, Thomist,
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"the average employed American works a 46-hour work week" http://www.libraryspot.com/know/workweek.htm [libraryspot.com]
no national health plan
"Most individuals not covered by private insurance are covered by government insurance programs like Medicare and Medicaid, and various state and local programs for the poor. Much of the cost of outpatient medical supplies and durable medical equipment is borne by state and federal governments in the form of Medicare and Medicaid. Medicare patients and veteran
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It is amazing that we will destroy our own country just so we can have cheap labor.
Although I dislike Political Correctness, it isn't why the US is letting in illegal immigrants. PC is part of it, but it isn't the root cause. Yes, we will get what we deserve when the US is broke and China assumes its place as the dominant power in about 40 - 70 years.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You're thinking about it backwards. Has it occurred to you that rich and middle-class people are well off precisely because they don't have kids? Kids are expensive. They reduce the overall household income (by causing one or both parents to work less, or even quit their career altogether), in addition to raising household costs (increased food consumption,
Even worse the younger the parents are. (Score:3, Insightful)
The only thing I'd add is that it gets even worse when you consider people that have children at a very young age -- i.e. the phenomenon we politely call "teen pregnancy." When someone has a child before they're even able to support themselves, they essentially create two loads on their family (and/or the tax-supported public welfare system): themselves and the child. Not only do they create a new non-worker, but they take themselves o
Go Forth and Multiply (Score:4, Informative)
America is the only developed nation which is still robustly growing. Our own average fertility rate is just above 2 kids per woman, which is enough to sustain population. The substantial immigration provides grows.
Economist [economist.com] thinks, religion has something to do with the fenomenon...
"the divisive politics of immigration?" Nice Try. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's *Illegal* immigration that causes the rift.
Don't lose control of the words. Words mean something.
Tarring with a heavy brush. (Score:4, Insightful)
There's no "immigration debate," at least not in mainstream politics; the debate is over illegal immigration.
Immigration per se isn't a divisive issue at all. Except for the very far-right fringe, I don't think anyone is seriously arguing that we should stop legitimate immigration of people with skills that are in-demand, here in the United States. The disagreement is in how to deal with the large number of illegal immigrants, doing mostly low-value work, and the consequent social problems that having an effective sub-class of workers entails.
The only debate I can think of that involves legal immigration has to do with the way the U.S. grants refugee status, and the "anchor baby" phenomenon, but those are closely tied to the same issues that make illegal immigration important; they're not really fundamental questions about immigration.
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Meanwhile in El Paso... (Score:5, Funny)
200th Reflecting on the 300th (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.newhousenews.com/archive/tilove092006.
300 million... (Score:3, Funny)
What is an "American"? A *citizen*, right? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:One thing I would like to know... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:One thing I would like to know... (Score:5, Funny)
How does that saying go?
Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for the night; light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
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Re:One thing I would like to know... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:One thing I would like to know... (Score:4, Funny)
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Soylent Fuel! (Score:3, Funny)
Overpopulation: Overblown? (Score:3, Interesting)
Furthermore, people are not hamsters. Each person who is born has a brain, and intelligence that can be applied to solving problems such as "overpopulation". I suspect inefficient resource allocation is a larger part of the poverty problem than raw "mouths to feed" numbers.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll grant we can probably figure out some way to "exist" with 9 billion people on the planet.
But only 1% of them will have a good life and the other 99% are going to live very constrained existances.
There's only so many beaches- so many ski mountains- and either only the rich or powerfull will
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Here, however, the nutritious topsoil is about 19' deep on average - some years annually growing with river deposits. Also, in California there are an estimated 1500+ very-long extinct volcanic vents which are loaded with nutritious soil thousands of feet deep. The only places in the world that have only "9 inches" of topsoil are deserts. Just because you only dig
Re:Overpopulation: Overblown? (Score:5, Insightful)
http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/about/history/speeches/1
The Black Belt of Central Texas: This region, whose fame as a cotton-producing area is known to the ends of the world, once was a real black belt of highly productive black clay, rich in lime, humus and plant nutrients. Vast changes have come over the region since it was broken out of the prairie sod some 30 to 50 years ago. It is no longer an unbroken black belt, but a mixed black and white belt with countless areas scoured off to the underlying white chalk or marl.
Erosion in the Red Plains Region: A large part of the 36 million acres of predominantly red sandy lands extending from western Oklahoma far down into Texas has undergone terrific erosion during the past generation,
Effects in the Corn Belt: A tremendous amount of land has been severely impoverished in the rolling counties of northern Missouri, southern Iowa, eastern Kansas and southeastern Nebraska, and many farms have been abandoned as the result.
These are from 1933.
Do you think it we have reclaimed any of that lost land?
More recently
http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange2/c
The world's croplands are in decline due to the pressure of human activities. The figure shows the regional and global trends in the total available area of the world's croplands.
Worldwide the amount of cropland per capita has declined due to population growth. North America and the former USSR have substantially more cropland per capita than the rest of the world.
The total loss of arable land can be summarized in the following figure. Of the total available (1500 million hectares, signifant components have been lost due to the combined effects of desertification, salinization, erosion, and development activities.
Summary
# Degradation of land includes soil erosion, salinization, nutrient depletion, and desertification. The rate of degradation has increased dramatically with growth in human populations and technology.
# Severe land damage accompanies large scale agriculture. Restoration is very problematical.
# Continued loss of arable land will jeopardize our ability to feed the world population.
# Land degradation is worldwide - both developed and developing countries.
On the oceans...
http://agonist.org/20060803/the_dying_oceans [agonist.org]
First global map reveals rapidly shrinking hotspots for tuna, marlin, swordfish - Diversity has declined by up to 50% over 50 years due to fishing
http://www.net.org/marine/fish.vtml [net.org]
What's left behind is a dead zone, like a forest after being clearcut, except that it takes centuries rather than decades to grow back.
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I'm not so pessimistic as these folks are. I think it could recover in a generation if we would stop killing everything. But as the human population increases- there are not any more real fish out there.
So what's more likely-- 9 billion or 3 billion? I'm thinking 9 billion and my investments in scarce resources and global luxury property (fidelity has a nice new fund just for this which I'm not in yet) are doing nicely.
I agree with you on the waste. We deal with it inefficiently because it's cheap. But again the root problem is too many people. If the world population was 50% lower, the trash would be less and there would be a lot more places to put it.
It's bad.
It's going to get worse.
And we can't or won't do anything about the fundamental problem-- too many people. Every exit scenario I see is very bad. I'm hoping I get to die comfortably before that point.
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Re:Overpopulation: Overblown? (Score:4, Insightful)
This certainly doesn't take into account the fish that we consume. Many fisheries have been wiped out or nearly wiped out. Chilean sea bass are the most recent example. I don't know any "REAL" marine biologists (I roomed with an undergrad in college, but the last I heard, he was selling office furniture). However, I have talked with more than a few fishing guides and here in Florida, they will tell you that the fishing is not nearly as good as it was in previous decades.
Now I'm not a rocket surgeon or brain scientist, but it seems pretty obvious that particular species of fish populations have decreased much more than 1%. Maybe these fish have been offset by gains in plankton or brine shrimp, so the net change is less than 1%. However, I'm not too interested in an "all you can eat" brine shrimp special down at Red Lobster or an old-fashioned New England plankton bake.
I'm a big fan of the free market. Under normal pressures, it can adapt to handle supply/demand fluctuations. However, the free market doesn't deal well with extremely tight supply. As an example, every Christmas there's the hot new toy that everyone's gotta have but nobody can find through the regular outlets. People lie, cheat, counterfeit, steal, and even assault each other to make thier kids happy. Now, imagine what these same people would do (myself included) if the shortage is food or water or land or energy. As a consumer, I would rather compete with 6 billion other people than 9 billion other people.
For a good example of the environmental impacts of overpopulation (and piss-poor government), check out Haiti.
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World's biggest commons. (Score:5, Insightful)
I notice that the '1% decline' folks haven't responded to you.
The only thing I have to add is that the last time I went shopping for fish, except for the stuff that was farmed, the selection wasn't nearly as good as it used to be a few decades ago.
And although it's before my time, if you read historical accounts of the shellfish harvests in New England, they're nothing like they are today. Lobster used to be so common in Maine that it was considered a poor-person's food; you could basically go and pick them up from the rocks in many bays and inlets. Don't even bother trying that today. Similar with clams, although there you also have toxic contamination to worry about.
Were it not for international treaties, I think it's safe to assume that a whole lot of both whale and large sea-fish species would now be extinct. (We got pretty close with swordfish; it's just getting back to normal now.) The free market is great for a lot of things, but that "tragedy of the commons" is a real bitch. Sometimes the market -- and people in general -- aren't really forward-thinking. They'll slaughter the goose today rather than have the golden eggs later a startlingly large percentage of the time.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Must be Nutrasweet. (Score:3, Informative)
Don't be foolish: just because you could concievably live in five square meters doesn't mean that you'd want to, or that you could somehow cram all the infrastructure that it takes to support a person (food production, waste management, power generation, etc.) into that space. Not
Re:Nuclear (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Too many people = the root of all evil (Score:5, Insightful)
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Negative marginal GDP contribution (Score:3, Insightful)
It is when it's a few million, and if the immigrants in question consume more in services than they contribute in GDP; if that's the case, then they are a net economic loss, and decrease per-capita GDP and with it, the overall standard of living. While previous generations of working-class immigrants were basically self-sufficent and used little in the way of public-sector social services, this is not the case today with many people who are i
Re:Funny how quickly Russia (Score:4, Informative)
More like 290 million, at the peak of the Soviet Union.
> Didn't think the Baltics and Kazakhstan had that many people.
Kazakhstan has about 15 million people.
The three baltic republics together have about 7 million.
For reference, Ukraine has about 50 million. That's the second biggest (after Russia) population of the ex-Soviet republics.
As I recall, Kazakhstan was third. Then Belarus with close to 10 million. Then the others.
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