"Edgar" wrote in message
...

Agree entirely about overpopulation.

Now we get to the real point. The pressure on earth resources is caused by
population growth, and the demand by existing populations to improve their
standards of living. This demand raises prices, and raised prices stimulate
production (or harvesting) to use ever more expensive techniques.

Those techniques initially are not necessarily efficient in the long term -
Joe's original point - killing the Goose that laid that golden egg. Sadly,
there's always a lag between solving today's problem (fishermen losing their
jobs, struggling to gather more to keep themselves in business) and the
long term answer; which is to cull the fisherman much more sharply for a
decade or two by denying them areas of the ocean. And when the first long
term answer is implemented, immediate shortages raise prices, strongly
rewarding more intense fishing (illegal, as well as legal). So a second long
term problem evolves - how to deter the rule breakers.

It's not dissimilar to the economics of cocaine production, silly though
that analogy may seem. The demand is such that it pays handsomely to break
the law and import the stuff, and every new barrier to import raises the
price, stimulating more ingenious efforts to break the law.

So, how do we reduce demand for earth resources? Cull the populations? Have
universal 'one baby' policies? Deny improved standards of living? Increase
cigarette consumption? Encourage premature death through obesity?
Alcoholicism? Perhaps the system is self limiting . . . .

--
JimB
Google 'jimb sail' or go www.jimbaerselman.f2s.com
Compares Cruise areas of Europe