What Are Your Thoughts? - Davenport,FL

Nope. I'm not worried about it. The Earth will take care of population control in the end. As it always has. Unfortunate things (for humans anyway) have always happened and will continue to happen. Such is the cycle of existence on Earth.

Nope.

1) I've made a concerted decision not to worry about anything that I can do absolutely nothing about (or rather, am not willing to... I mean, I could kick off a plague or something pretty easily, anyone with a bio chem background could, but I, like most, am not willing to).

2) Population doesn't bug me. I've spent too much time in the empty spaces of this planet. It's easy to forget living in urban and suburban sprawl that most of the world is 300 miles to the next population 10 town whose gas station may, or may not, be working. AKA there's more than enough SPACE for our population and many many times our current population. As a matter of fact DECLINING population is a HUGE problem in many areas of the world. So much so that governments are doing their darndest to create incentives worth it to their current pop to "go do their patriotic duty". And we haven't even touched ocean dwelling yet, and that's where the vast majority of our surface area is (and not part of what I was talking about above, above is purely landmass). There's also more than enough food, it's just getting it from point a to point b that's problematic. So if we've got space, need, and food... the only worry after that is sanitation. Which nearly every country in the world has scientists working on (the perpetual problems of cities = how dirty they are; human waste, industrial waste, pollution, illness).

Why would you worry about something over which you have no control?

I can't control whether or not someone else gets pregnant. I can only control what me and my immediate family do.

What might happen? Darwin - if we allow him to work...things have happened in the past that have "naturally" decreased the population, however tragic those events might have been - Tsunami's, earthquakes, plague, etc...yes, it's pragmatic and it may sound cold and cruel, but I cannot worry about things I cannot control.

From my experience in working with exporting huge quantities of food to the developing world, I can say with great confidence that we do not have any food shortages. That is not to say that we don't have problems with famines--we certainly do, as evidenced by the current famine in the Horn of Africa.

We must ensure ACCESS to the food supply that is so plentiful. We send billions of tons of rice, corn, wheat, beans, peas, soy protein, whey, lactose, poultry, pork, beef, etc all over the world each year. Sometimes I would see THOUSANDS of containers (meaning, semi-truck trailers) full of foodstuffs waiting at the destination ports for weeks & months before local regulations FINALLY cleared them for delivery. Sometimes the consignee would be unreliable and not claim their cargo, so thousands of tons of food would just be left to rot. Here in this country we PAY our farmers to spoil their crops so that the price floor can be maintained. We also waste our corn for a very inefficiently-produced and NON-eco-friendly fuel (Ethanol.)

No, we don't have a food SUPPLY problem. Our problems is with people and institutions who stand in between the producers and the consumers.

Before I had kids I worried about the world I'd bring them into. Then I realized I have no control.. AND there are so many wonderful people and aspects of our world. I know where you are coming from, and it sometimes crosses my mind, then I try to refocus on the positives... and there are so many!!!

It worries me. And the solution is so simple, yet apparently people are unable to grasp it. Rather than procreating like rabbits in the hopes of producing the brilliant child who will be able to do math - we could all just STOP AT ONE CHILD (or better yet not have any).

Wow - the earth will take care of it? God has a plan? Like a plan for the holocaust, Rwanda, AIDS - that sort of plan? I thought (s)he gave us free will - so if we want to destroy our planet we are free to. Or maybe take the responsibility to deal with climate change and the problems we have caused.

I saw a great bumper sticker in Asheville last month 'Seven billion miracles are enough'

It does seem that those who are worried that Americans are not having enough children to replace ourselves oppose the obvious solution to that issue - let all who wish to come to our land of opportunity, work hard and take the test become American citizens. There are more than enough people in the rest of the world who wish to come and live the American dream.

Yes and no. It deeply worries me, but I am having three kids. Why? Cause so many of my smart friends aren't having any. I have 4 close friends that are all brilliant that never met the right guy. Now, in their mid 40s, their time is up.

So, I am having 3. If I was younger, I'd have 5, one for me, and one for each of them. Replacing oneself isn't creating a problem, it's preventative, if you ask me.

This has been a deep concern of mine since I was in high school in the 60's. Early signs of population strain had already become evident, on both the environment and on society.

There's an allegorical illustration: If you place a frog in hot water, it will hop out immediately to save itself. But if you place a frog in cool water, and gradually heat it up, the frog won't notice it's in trouble until it's too late, and it gets cooked.

I am concerned that this is the case with humans and our population, and I've been around long enough to see how drastic and widespread the changes are here on the West Coast. We are so much more crowded than we once were; much less open space; air and water becoming dirty and unhealthful; natural resources being used faster than can be sustained; traffic problems of almost Biblical proportions; running out of safe places to store household waste, industrial waste, toxic waste, radioactive waste; whole nations are under strain from poverty, disease and famine, resulting in local uprisings and wars and ethnic cleansings.

Now. Already. And our current bumper crop of babies haven't even grown up to desire housing, food, transportation and entertainment of their own, here or around the world.

I stopped with one child. My child has stopped with one child of her own. I can really understand wanting to have more children, because I have sometimes wished for that, and so has my daughter. But from our perspective, we'd likely have hastened whatever crises will finally force humans to get their reproductive rates under sensible control.

My opinions only, but I have lived by principles of sustainable living. One or two children, simple life, eliminate waste, recycle. Smile, hope and pray.

Since most people now don't have as large of families as they did in the last few generations , there are soon going to be more people dying than there are born. I don't really worry about it.

I worry more about the reports that the reproductive average necessary for enough young people to be alive in help professions caring for the elderly is not being reached. Europe is WAY low on their birth rates, and last I checked, the US is also perilously close to being below the 2.5 kids per family necessary to sustain a society. Unless I'm wrong.

If population is actually exploding out of control, then it's a problem too big for me to personally worry about. Just like if we get hit by a meteor and knocked out of orbit into an ice age or something. I mean, all you can really do is curb the amount of kids YOU personally have. You cant' stop the population in general. Again, I've heard people aren't having enough kids. I'm your same age, and perhaps naively not worried for my kids in regards to the population. The environment? Yes, I'm worried about that. We need to get more eco conscious, PRONTO, no matter how many people there are.

added**** Of all my closest friends my age: Most have no kids. A few have only one kid. It takes more than 2 kids per couple for a population to survive due to loss of life statistics.

Umm...our current generations are growing up starving, sick, and surrounded by trash. We are in the minority. The rest of the world starves and suffers.

I only worry about what I can control. I have one child and that's it. I did my bit, my part that I can control. The other parts, I just hope for the best.

Absolutely. I don't worry about food for everyone aside from the distribution problem but I do worry about all the pollution and sanitation issues that result from a growing population. I wonder what we're getting our kids into and it's a main reason I only had two children. My husband and I are replacing ourselves but not adding to the population. If we wanted more children, we could adopt.

Right now I worry about the job availability. So many people, and not enough jobs, or not enough jobs 'hiring'. And I hear it's suppose to get worse. I don't know how much worse it can get...My husband lost his job back in January and has had several interviews, but no bites. I've looked too and no bites. It's scary. So that's what I worry about. I worry about my kids's future and if they are going to be ok.

Things have a way of working out.......people thought the baby boomers were all going to be desperate and homeless......they arent.

People are living longer, and technology has improved so less people are dying to make room.