Population is stable, we simply adjust that age to increase or decrease based on the birth rate.

Yes, I did see Logan’s Run recently.

Especially given that most of these people will have died of old age. Given that dying of old age is a euphemism for dying of diseases (usually infectious ones) that your body has succumbed to, I don’t see it becoming too popular.

As for the Malthusian nightmare scenario what traditionally happens is that food production actually increases exponentially (albeit there is a finite amount at some point) – if the West gave the pest-resistant strains of crops and better fertilizer to the third world farmers, especially Afica, then they’d be able to feed themselves. Also, as countries increase their wealth they tend to reduce the size of their families. I hope that India, China etc. will increase their wealth and decrease their birth rates before famine becomes a population stabiliser.

On a slightly more off-beat note: why not eat dead humans? Make sure there are no pathogens or other issues then we can also decrease the amount of land wastefully used as burial grounds. If we all go vegetarian to maximise the population of humans (to the extinction of domesticated animals!) then the only meat going will be us.

(By the way, I do not like bacon.)

Also if you want to substitute “current ecosystems” for “planet” then preventing global warming IS saving it since after a few degrees there will be a mass extinction of species and ecosystems. The fact that others will replace them doesn’t change the destructive nature of global warming.

In terms of “feeding us all” we already produce more than enough food to go around.

Alan — sorry but it really is that simple since if everyone is vegetarian we will have to grow far less crops than we currently do — so the land would be existing crop land minus millions of square kilometres that can become condominiums, golf courses and shopping malls. Or forests…

Also, if everyone was vegetarian, where would all the land come from to raise enough crops? It’s not as simple as that.

However, this will never happen. If the US cannot agree to provide health care to their own people how can you expect them to give up meat to feed the poor in other countries? If we cannot agree to cut carbon emmissions to stop the spread of desert conditions and climate change in our best growing regions then there will never be a global accord to enable 12-14 billion people to live on this rock.

On that point, for all your pointing out of the illogical positions humans put themselves in you have made a critical error here yourself:

…will be doing the planet, humans and animals a great deal of damage all for nothing.

The only damage humans could do to the planet (by planet I mean nature, not the ball of rock hurtling through space) would be to launch an all out nuclear strike on all habitable land masses. Even then life would come back from the depths of the ocean and eventually repopulate the earth.
What we are doing is damaging the current conditions that we happen to find rather comfortable. Animals would adapt to any climate change we cause, nature would recover but we may suffer.
The idea that stopping human-caused global warming is saving the planet is beyond stupid, beyond ignorant, it is self-centred and short-sighted and shows a lack of knowledge of the ‘nature’ they want to save.

By processed I meant filled out with preservatives and filler.

As for dogs, what would your diet be like if you had a pet pig (which is as pet-like) as a dog? Actually I wanna get a pet pig.

I don’t really agree about the processing in principle: the problem is that most processing these days is adding filler that has little nutritional value. But for feeding the masses, it would have to be the opposite. There is already a project with a heavily-processed peanut-based paste that has far more nutrients than anything in the diet of malnourished populations.

On the other hand, I could never eat dog and have to avert my eyes often from the front of restaurants in China, because of an emotional connection with dogs.

I’m all for the mass raising of insects for nutrition. As long as they don’t end up coming to us heavily processed. Lemon grass cockroach stir fry sounds good!