I hope you're right, Shane. a population climax followed by a natural decline would be the best answer to the problem, but what concerns me is the consequences we are left with if that doesn't happen. I think right now the best thing to do is to raise awareness of the issue, then go from there. If we are going to hit a peak, I hope it happens soon. It seems like were are getting pretty crowded right now.
Unfortunately a "natural decline" would be a combination of starvation, disease, famine, flooding... I don't know about you, but 95% of the human population dying within a handful of months doesn't make me feel warm or fuzzy.
The Russian famine of 1891-92 affected an area of around 900,000 square miles in the Volga and central agricultural areas. Ironically, these were once the most fertile and productive parts of Russia. This area included the provinces of Nizhni-Novgorod, Riazan, Tula, Kazan, Simbirsk, Saratov, Penza, Samara and Tambov. It affected between fourteen to twenty million people, of which 375,000 to 400,000 died, mostly of disease. Due to malnutrition caused by the famine, people were more susceptible to infection. One of the largest relief campaigns in Russian history was undertaken by the government to help alleviate the disaster in which eleven million people received supplemental rations from the state. Count Leo Tolstoi was the main critic of the government. He blamed it for its policies regarding the famine itself while also criticizing the relief efforts implemented by the state. There were also major relief efforts from the West, particularly the United States, which sent grain and money to the beleaguered area. Western correspondents reported regularly on the situation to the rest of the world. The Russian famine illustrated without a doubt the internal weakness and utter backwardness of the Russian Empire. It also demonstrated the poor standard of living and the medieval conditions that the majority of the population endured. The famine proved that the tsarist government was inept and inefficient in a way that made it incapable of foreseeing the disaster. Furthermore it mishandled the relief effort in spite of the tremendous effort that was undertaken. Throughout its long history, Russia has been plagued by famine. The Nikonian chronicle, written between 1127 and 1303, recorded no less than eleven famine years during that period. In 1873 when he was visiting his estate in Samara, Leo Tolstoi became aware of the seriousness of a famine there. Alexander I in 1822 was the first to attempt to create a comprehensive famine relief system. Modified by Nicholas I in 1834, it had changed little since then. It provided for a network of granaries that theoretically would have been filled by the peasants in good years and relied upon during a crop failure. While this theory looked good on paper, in practice it was a complete failure. Even in the best years the peasants were too poor to contribute, and where the granaries actually existed they were usually empty. <2> Causes The famine in 1891-92 was initially caused by the bad weather in 1890 and 1891. The dry autumn delayed the seeding of the fields, and the winter, which began early, was more severe than usual, with only light snowfall. Heavy snow usually protects the seedlings from the cold. Melting snow and ice caused the spring floods of the Volga that spread over the plains whose grass is used as fodder. This year the small amount of snow caused the ground to freeze. This killed the young plants because the late planting did not give them enough time to take root. The poor weather eliminated the main source of feed for the animals. They were crucial to the peasants because they provided the power needed to plow the fields. The cold weather lasted until mid-April, followed by a summer in 1892 that was extremely hot and dry. Five rainless months contributed to the smallest total grain harvest for European Russia in a decade. Despite the poor harvest of 1891, there was enough food available to feed the population, but this would only have been possible if the harvest was rightly distributed. <3> This was almost impossible because the limited means of communication could not establish equilibrium between certain areas. In some areas there was a surplus and in others there was a deficit. Most of this grain, however, was exported. This was due to government economic policies that encouraged the sale of Russian grain abroad to strengthen the national economy. Even though the crops were diminishing yearly, exports remained the same; the grain reserves were thereby reduced. Due to a worldwide agricultural crisis, the price of grain was declining. Peasants received less and less for their crops so they sought to increase the size of their crops at the expense of fallow, pasture, and forest land. This led to the reduction of the herds which were the only source of power and fertilizer, the chopping down of forests, which were the natural wind breaks, and the rapid exhaustion of the soil. Before examining the situation of the peasantry at the time immediately leading up to the famine, one must first look back thirty years to investigate the origins of rural poverty. When the Emancipation Manifesto was proclaimed on 19 February 1861, the peasants initially regarded it as a great blessing granted to them by their beloved little father, Tsar Alexander II. This blessing, however, eventually became a curse on the peasantry because of the harsh provisions that were thrust upon their shoulders. The allotments they were given were woefully inadequate to supply even their limited needs. It was estimated that ten to fourteen hectares were needed to maintain a peasant family, but most only received two to three hectares. <4> The peasantry also had to pay for the land at a high cost--the supposed loss to the landlord by emancipation rather than the market value of the land. Most also had to hand over the land to collective farms, the mfr. It was responsible for the payment of redemption money for the land as well as the taxes, and was responsible directly to the government. Thus, the foundation of Russian agriculture was viewed as radically weak and ultimately responsible for the famine. One of the major problems caused by collective ownership was that the peasant had no incentive to cultivate the land intelligently because it was eventually passed on to other members of the mir. He worked it for what it ". . . will immediately yield for him, caring little for its future condition, for he does not know how soon the mir may allot it to another." <5> Another problem was that as the peasant families grew, the commune land was further subdivided. The apportionment was barely enough to maintain the peasant in even the most primitive manner. Before emancipation, most peasants could rely upon their owners for help since they were the source of their wealth. At emancipation, most landlords, however, left their estates, since they lacked skill in cultivation of the land and depended on their serfs. They only visited for a few weeks out of the year and as to the condition of the peasants, the landlords were legally released from all responsibility. <6> And other factors made the situation worse. The development of railroads that raised the value of land and produce encouraged some landlords to devastate the forests, impoverish the soil, and raise the already high rents on their peasants. Burdened with heavy debt and taxes, peasants were left with only two viable options--to rent land from the village usurer, the kulak, or to leave the mir and go to the cities in search of factory work. <7> The peasants were also burdened by their own backward methods of farming which dated back to the Dark Ages. They used primitive methods and medieval implements, such as wooden ploughs that were incapable of plowing deep enough. They were also ignorant of new fertilizers such as phosphates. They usually used manure as a fertilizer, but not in the Volga region. There it was used instead as a fuel because the area was bare of forests and the winters were severe. The reduction in the number of animals, the source of their fertilizer, further exhausted the fertility of the soil. The peasants also lacked any adequate agricultural knowledge and had neither the material means nor desire to improve the condition of the land. They had no inducement to raise the productiveness of the soil because anything produced above the subsistence level would have been surrendered in the form of dues and taxes. Government efforts to educate the peasantry on the best modes of cultivating the land were insufficient. The only school of agriculture in the entire Empire was the Petrovsky Academy in Moscow. Even these graduates were not permitted to make any practical application of their knowledge. The government also conscripted the strongest and ablest of the young peasant men into the military as soon as they were old enough. They were thereby taking the best workers away from the land where they were most desperately needed. Many critics argued that one million men in the army at peacetime was not justified and if those men had been in the fields the famine may not have happened. <8> Critics also state that the money saved from this could have been used to construct lines of communication and make agricultural improvements. To the Russian peasant the harvest meant everything because he was unable to save; he depended on the harvest to carry him from one year to the next. The crop was not merely just food for the peasants; it also provided their clothing, fuel, taxes, and fodder for the animals. If the crop failed, everything failed. A crop failure spelled certain doom for the peasant because not only did they have little or no food to eat, but also no material to make clothes from home spun flax. They also had no material to make fires to keep warm during the long, cold winter or any means to pay taxes or rent. Constantly living on the edge of starvation even during the best harvest years, the famine showed just how bad a life the peasantry endured. In the fields it was known as early as June 1891 that the crops would be a complete failure, and with supplies exhausted, a famine appeared to be inevitable. Despite the early warning of the impending disaster, the chinovniks, agriculturists who occupied salaried positions and were far removed from the actual tillers of the soil, were oblivious of the situation and continued to send favorable reports to St. Petersburg. <9> Therefore the government proceeded to collect taxes that the peasants in the afflicted regions could not pay because they had no income from grain. To compensate, the tax collectors seized the peasants' horses, cows and pigs. Physically able men, although usually suffering from dysentery or scurvy, often left their villages to wander the countryside, begging for food and employment. The movement of these large masses of starving peasants was the main reason for the rapid spread and frequent outbreaks of diseases such as scarlet fever, typhus, diphtheria, cholera and smallpox throughout the region. The rest of the village population, the old, young, and females, were usually required to stay at home. <10> The staple of the peasant diet during the famine was "hunger bread" that was made from weeds, chopped straw, cockle, tree bark, and sometimes, sand. It was described as ". . . a lump of hard black earth covered with a coating of mold" <11> and as ". . . so disgusting in smell, taste and appearance that it is difficult to imagine that mankind could be reduced to such an extremity as to be forced to eat it." <12> It was often blamed for prevalence of typhus. The winter was especially harsh. The peasants had to resort to using their straw roofs for fires, thus leaving them unprotected from the elements. Suicide and, surprisingly, alcoholism were prevalent amongst the peasantry during this time. Some peasants were reported to have spent their donated money or sold gifts of food for vodka or other strong drink
You're getting on my fucking nerves. SOURCES! Stop posting random encyclopedia articles and express your own damn thoughts.
I guess some people feel compelled to dwell on the negative. A natural decline could just a easily be gradual decline in birth rate.
I don't know, several of the European nations have slowing growth rates. I don't think it will be enough to make a dramatic change right now, but at least it's a step in the right direction.
that's right they say that once a pop' reaches a certain point they stop breeding like italy has the lowest birthrate in the world now.
Europe could have a birth rate of zero and it wouldn't change a thing, it's the 3rd world nations that are the issue....
actualy it's about total human population in relation to the rest of life and nature's cycles of renewal on the entire planet. aggreed zpg in just one or a few isolated and fortunate places won't do the job. but it isn't just the traditional 'third world' either. population growth is pushing 'first world' nations toward 'thirdworldism' too. redily observable in the u.s. =^^= .../\...
For the love of, we have to colonize either the moon, mars or venus in the next 50-100 years, that's our ticket. Or start having major wars like we did back in the old days, wars use to control population back then.
Unfortunately war is the traditional tool of population reduction. Personally, I think our society can be better than that. If we learn to control our own numers voluntarily by reducing the birth rate, then we could have a peacful society with a tolerable population. I It may seem like an unrealistic Utopian vision, but it's a good goal to aim for. If enough people share the vision, it could become reality.
Well, we could kill off all the profound mentally handicap individuals, rapists and murderers. That would be like 100 Million people a year. If not more.
point is, morality aside of course, wars do NOT control population. sure they kill off some. but everyone who survives goes home and makes babies like mad and in less then a generation there's more then there were to begin with. no, the only thing that WILL do the job is lowering birthrate. which there may be more then one way of doing. but expecting abstinance to be widely enough practiced to do the job is just plain idiocly silly. exporting population to some airless rock or floating tin can in space is both absurdly not cost effective and is part of the same irrisponsible slash and burn mentality that has gotten us into the mess we're in. as is this nonsense of expecting wars or genocides to rationaly do the job. i mean get real. sure you can make big holes in the ground full of unhappy dead people, but you're still gonna have survivors screwing like hell to make up the difference which in almost time they invariably do no the only thing that really can or will do the job is lowering birthrate. put something in the water or in the air or in the food do it on the sly if that's what it takes or face nature's answer of plague and starvation if not now then later certainly not to mention mental illness caused by people HAVING to live to gather in excessive numbers. and with out the excape and gratification of exploration. =^^= .../\...
Greetings Gravity, Interesting name . But in any case I was just curious have you seen the movie Soylent Green? sine cera
And that's one of the big issues. Personally I'm for a peacefeul solution. themnax is right, reducing fertility would solve the problem.
