The "Soylent Green" solution to overpopulation

Assuming we can somehow cope with and alleviate global warming, we are still left with the problem of overpopulation. And virtually no government in the world is dealing with it.

For those who never saw "Soylent Green" it's a movie about a world in which the shortage of food is due to the sheer number of people who inhabit this planet. And before the end of this century, we will be facing that problem head on.

China tried, and is trying, to deal with the problem by mandating how many children a family can have -- not a very attractive solution. But what's even more unattractive is the "solution" that was reached in the movie "Soylent Green."

!!!CAUTION: If you haven't seen the movie, are looking forward to seeing it, and don't want to know it's premise, stop reading right now.!!!

When there are too many people and not enough food, some tribes have resorted to cannibalism. The punchline to the movie "Soylent Green" is people are being recycled as food.

It's a problem we're not facing at this moment, but it will be a major issue before the end of the 21st century. And given the nature of politicians, how do you suppose they'll deal with it? I suggest we all find a way to lower human birth rates before we reach this point.

...if only we would use it efficiently.

Ever since I was a child I had the oddest feeling about cemeteries. People are born everyday, and people die everyday, but there is only so much land to bury them in. I always wondered what would happen when we ran out of space for the dead.

The real answer is simple; "Don't bury them."

Sadly, I see this in the not-too-distant future (you premise that is). We can't go on forever using 1000 calories of feed and grain and fuel to get 10 calories of beef on the supermarket shelf.

Change IS coming, only it might not be the kind of change we want.

we could combine cemeteries with golf courses. Both are useless wastes of dirt and real energy hogs, not counting the fertilizer runoff problems. But, rather than losing what little exercise opportunity rich and old people have, put the dead people there. Besides, it would add a whole new dimension to the game...make it more like bumper pool.

Yeah, I know. I used to like to play when I could afford the greens fees and didn't have other little mouths to feed.

I lived in a place called Colma, Ca.
Pop. 900 ( living) and everything else is cemeteries. 17 of them.
Very quiet area.
They rotated the major cemetery, put a golf course over it, next to that was a landfill.
Someone told me that every 20 years they swap things around.
interesting article with pic here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/09/us/09cemetery.html


The weirder part was this: there was a famous Pet Cemetery, had been there for eons, had pets of famous people.
Turns out the placed was leased, for 20 years, maybe longer, now the lease was up and owners of dead pets had been notified they needed to move the deceased animal or be resigned to the cemetery becoming part of a new golf course.
No one had told the pet owners the place was leased, not owned.

link: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/06/14/BAGODJDM9018.DTL

...more satisfying for my mortal remains than to turn into plants.

Unfortunately, religion and culture kinda make it difficult to set up "Memorial Compost Centers."

Maybe someday...

wistfully,
Bright

do you mean the human population, or are you including all of the other living things that inhabit the planet along with the human species?

It's called war and pestilence. But has never been on a global scale. Do you think that we have the capability or wherewithal to prevent it by population control? I don't.

Telling folks how many babies they can have ???!!

Truth is all of us can have two children and the population will go down. But you know how the Mormons and Catholics are schooled. Breed, baby, breed.

When women all over the world can decide how many children they wish to have and be able to control contraception, we will have a chance. Fundie religions of all sorts work very hard to prevent this.

:puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke:

Excuse the heck out of me, but let's be real. It ain't JUST the Mormons and Catholics. We know far more christian fundamentalists who not only pop out babies like clockwork, they also are actively working to get rid of Woe V. Wade permanently.

I live in the South, and I see FAR more white, upper middle class people churning them out fast as they can. Blaming a couple of religious groups for the problem we have now is ridiculous. Add to that school systems that are telling kids that condoms break 100% of the time - it's far worse than those *crazy catholics* causing the problem. ALL organized religions are the problem.

I should have been more inclusive on my post. Generally, all fundie religions want women to be nothing but wombs to celebrate the glory of the patriarchal name being carried on.

Let me add a few of my family members. Pentecostals. My niece is now the grandmother of EIGHT grandbabies, when she had only two children herself. I am now a great-great-great aunt. And I'm nowhere near retirement.

And let me qualify my experience with Catholics. My BFF is Catholic, the third of seven children. Her mom finally decided to go on birth control after SEVEN children. Now, there are 67 "immediate" family members. And grandma is nowhere near the Promised Land.

My BFF had three children and now has NINE grandchildren, and she is very far from being a great-grandmother.

In deference to Christians and their deep belief in Genesis, I do remember reading that "God said, 'Go forth and multiply.'"

"He" did not say, "Go forth and multiply until there are no more resources to support your prolific, horny asses."

goes into the facility to die, with his favorite orange lighting bathing the dome, classical -- LIGHT classical -- music playing, and films of his favorite time playing on the screen. The seventies. Horses running free in sunny fields, clean bubbly streams of water, blue skies, poufy white clouds. Paradise.

Charleston Heston comes running in and is stopped short by the sight of 'how it used to be'. And said "I had no idea - I never imagined" -- something like that.

When I look at the trees around me being mowed down by the acre and new housing developments going in, when local lakes are closed down due to toxins or bacteria, when I hear that half of the mammals on our planet may be on their way to extinction, I feel like I'm getting ever closer to how Edward G. Robinson felt. We're killing our beautiful home and it is in large part due to the overpopulation. Sigh. :cry:

We really should put "Soylent Green" into a time capsule that may be able to inform any future life forms that may inhabit this planet as to how we committed suicide.

world should be required to watch it at least once.

:yoiks:

Of course, I'll be going vegetarian.:rofl:

...that if you eat any Nerve tissue, including human brain, of another human being, you will lose your mind? There is something ingrained in our DNA that makes us completely insane if we eat another human being.
Just something to think about.
Duckie

No markers for my enemies to identify, the whereabouts known only to my tribe as they pass on the yearly migration.

I'm a purist. Well maybe a bit of a Romantic as well.