No civilization can possibly survive to an interstellar spacefaring phase unless it limits its numbers. Any society with a marked population explosion will be forced to devote all its energies and technological skills to feeding and caring for the population on its home planet. This is a very powerful conclusion and is in no way based on the idiosyncrasies of a particular civilization. On any planet, no matter what its biology or social system, an exponential increase in population will swallow every resource. Conversely, any civilization that engages in serious interstellar exploration and colonization must have exercised zero population growth or something very close to it for many generations.
Carl Sagan in Cosmos
Submitted by Catalin Popescu
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Related quotes
Everybody is Getting Out of Town
Population getting out of town,
Population wearing running shoes,
Population wondering which road to choose,
Everybody's getting out of town.
They all want to leave; they would if they could,
But right now the road ain't no good,
If you ain't crying, you might as well laugh,
While you're trying to get out of town.
Power plant, glowing in the dark,
Nobody sure what set off the spark,
They say the island is sinking fast,
Everybody's getting out of town.
Population looking for a sign,
Whose fault is it, living on the fault line,
Better do better if there IS a next time,
But for now, just get out of town.
Population looking for something to eat,
Population looking for what was the street,
If you leaving, all you got is your feet,
Good luck getting out of town.
poem by Richard Jarboe
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Why World Future Looks Grim
Why world future looks so grim
Why having good life could be just a dream
There are sign that end of world is near
We like it or not the doomsday soon or later will be here
As world increases in population
It consumes all the earth natural resources and creates such a disaster pollution
As People living longer and longer
Financial burden will make it impossible to provide them healthcare any longer
So there will be hard decision to make who will die or stay alive
Of course if you have enough money you could survive
Population increase will way surpass our agriculture land
At the time more population will increase food demand
Technology such as computer eventually will create massive layoff
Since computer more and more takes a jobs away from human and let them go off
Human greed and so much desire for materials will bring this world to end
Controlling human greed, world population, clean air, caring for eachother that’s the solution my friend
poem by Sam Arjomandi
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The prevalence of suicide, without doubt, is a test of height in civilization; it means that the population is winding up its nervous and intellectual system to the utmost point of tension and that sometimes it snaps.
quote by Henry Ellis
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A finite world can support only a finite population; therefore, population growth must eventually equal zero.
quote by Garrett Hardin
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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We need to continue to decrease the growth rate of the global population; the planet can't support many more people.
quote by Nina Fedoroff
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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When 25 percent of the population believe the President should be impeached and 51 percent of the population believe in UFOs, you may or may not need a new President, but you definitely need a new population.
quote by Harry Reasoner
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Our population is headed for a stable plateau, which means an aging population.
quote by Emanuel Celler
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The point of our demographics is that we're not having as many children and the population is stagnant, if not declining. So without immigration, we're not going to have the population.
quote by Susan Oliver
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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None of us know all the potentialities that slumber in the spirit of the population, or all the ways in which that population can surprise us when there is the right interplay of events.
quote by Vaclav Havel
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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In Washington State, the immigrant population has grown by 42 percent in the five years between 2000 and 2005 - which is an increase from 8 percent to 10.6 percent of the overall population - and the jobless rate in the state has hit a 6 year low.
quote by Dave Reichert
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I fail to understand how you can justify a poll tax on the entire population, yet exclude a significant proportion of that population from programmes that this tax is paying for.
quote by Jonathan Dimbleby
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I have just joined the Board of the Population Institute because I am convinced that early stabilization of the world's population is important for the attainment of this objective.
quote by Walter Kohn
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The divergence of songs in the new population away from those in the progenitor population would only be prevented if these processes were balanced by repeated immigration and subsequent breeding: song flow.
quote by Peter R. Grant
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Far Too Many
Far too many with too little it has always been that way
And far too many have to struggle just to live from day to day
And far too many children never reach the adult stage
And people still dying of hunger in this enlightened age.
The majority of the wealth still owned by the privileged few
And that money speaks all languages still happen to be true
In a so called egalitarian society don't tell me all is fair
When so many workers are underpaid and so many on welfare.
With the increase in the human population comes the increase in poverty
And that for a few to grow wealthy many must grow poor doesn't seem just right to me
You make the horse work harder when you threaten him with the rod
And to keep the poor living in fear the wealthy invented god
A huge increase in poverty as the population grow
And that far too many have too little does this have to be so?
And far too many on low wages and far too many unemployed
And too many far too many in wars and famines have died.
poem by Francis Duggan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Over-population
Over-population, Over-population
The masses engage in mass copulation
The gases of the masses spell out pollution
Let us condemn the nations!
Volcanoes spontaneously erupt
While the world is fundamentally corrupt
In the oceans, oil is spilled
And vast amount of sea life is killed
Every hour there is an earthquake
And numerous Lives’s are at stake
Global warming is storming Gods’ own creation
Whilst we give our politicians standing ovations
For speeches that they make on television
Let us condemn the nations!
For we all have a part to play
Oratory speeches we have heard before
Oratory speeches offer no man a cure
Men and women always want more and more
Long is the suffering future generations must all endure
Over-population, Over-population
Let us embark on a global mission
Embrace the one child policy as a future vision
Let us take steps in the right directions
Copyright 2010 - Sylvia Chidi
poem by Sylvia Chidi
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Delaware Estuary has sustained a human population for thousands of years, but by the end of the 19th Century, increased population and industrialization had transformed much of the upper Estuary watershed.
quote by Jim Gerlach
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Discover
I used to stand alone
A civilization of just me
The only inhabitant
My mind
A culture of solitude
A lone figure
Crowded by the population
A culture of pretenders
A civilization of imitators
But the sky is never faithful
To the Sun
Mingling and twirling with clouds
So it came to pass
Under that blue sky
With white puffs of hope
That I met you
In halls
That no longer stand
A testament to time
A time of change
But if they stood today
Would we still discover
That some magic still does exist
In the dank corners
Where you hid
A lone figure
Much like myself
Would we come to find
That people much like us
Still come together
In those halls
That no longer stand
Where we discovered
Each other
Seemingly a millennia
Of love
Ago
poem by Alejandro Torres
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The aging and declining population will have far-reaching impacts. Declining fertility rates will possibly increase immigration. The structure of family and society will inevitably change.
quote by Toshihiko Fukui
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Ambitious Outsider
Bolt-lock your doors
alarm your cars
and still we move in closer
every day
Top of the list
is your smiling kids
but we'll be smiling too
so that's OK
oh, and by the way
thank you, because you're
giving, giving, giving
and we're receiving -
No, no, we're taking
keeping the population down
Your taxes paid, but
police waylaid
and we knows
when the school bus
comes and goes
We're on your street, but
you don't see us
or, if you do
you smile and say Hello
BUT DON'T UNDERESTIMATE US
when you are
giving, giving, giving
and we're receiving -
No, no, we're taking
we're just keeping
the population down
Giving, giving, giving
well, it's your own fault
for reproducing
We're just keeping
the population down
song performed by by Morrissey
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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High Civilization
Cryin' in the streets
They run for their lives
How can you lead them to heaven
They don't realize
Children of the night
How far can we fall
That which we say is forever
Ain't no time at all
Father and the son
Not too young to be old
Reach out for each other when
The world goes cold
Feel so good to be home
Are you ready for
(CHORUS)
My high civilization
Are you ready for
My high civilization
Are you ready for
My high civilization
Civilization
Everything for us to see
The ultimate society
Keeper of the sword
You fight for your rights
How can you live for the hour
When there's no yesterday
Dyin' in the streets
Your number your name
All that which keeps us together
Is bringing us the pain
Thunder of the guns
Comes the criminal mind
Working for the power of
The evil eye
We are never alone
Uncivilized
(CHORUS)
New York
song performed by by Bee Gees from High Civilization
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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