Population and the Planet

[Richard Tarleton]

Just so. There are effectively two ways to slow population growth: control either birth or death. ....
....I suppose there is a third option - redistribute land - but that really means "make the USA, Russia and other fertile but sparsely populated countries take in millions of immigrants. I suspect that's a 'no' as well.

So there you have it - state-imposed eugenics or lebensraum.

Someone described the UK as a country of 70 million designed for 30 million....

The effect of population increase in the UK, (our birth rate may be falling, but immigration isn't) is ever greater pressure on the countryside, and wildlife habitats. Tory ministers like Nick Boles point out that there's plenty of room, just build houses on the green bits, we're at the point where that means this, the gradual erosion of species or habitats. We've got to the point where our increasing demands on our environment means that we're increasingly left with options like the Thames airport, HS2 or the Severn barrage to serve our transport or energy needs, options which promise catastrophic impacts on the habitats and species concerned. Our existence in the UK is increasingly precarious - flooding, water resources, transport links, energy infrastructure, you name it.

And just a (more global) thought, it's fascinating to reflect on the cultural constructs we have thought up for ourselves in the last few thousand years which prevent us getting to grips with the issues, or which make matters worse. Religious dietary taboos, religious objections to birth control.....

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

the single most effective policy to save the world is to promote and deliver the education of women everywhere

[Pabmusic]

the single most effective policy to save the world is to promote and deliver the education of women everywhere

No. The education of everyone.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

No. The education of everyone.

there is no surer way to achieve that aim Pabmusic, than insisting on the education of women especially in the large araes of the globe where women are hardly educated at all

the benefits in population growth, economic development, and economic awareness of women's education are so great as to override any notions of gender equity - and male envy will ensure that men will catch up

it is the single most important and effective strategy available to save the planet and it confronts all our cultural taboos ....

[amateur51]

Just so. There are effectively two ways to slow population growth: control either birth or death. We might reverse all the things that have lead to our living longer (like medicines, for instance) but I doubt that would be popular. Neither would be a cull of populations that are very large. So it's birth control, then. And that almost inevitably means that it is the poorer states that will have to adjust most. It's taken 14 years for the Philippines to amend its constitution to allow for government-sponsored birth control for the poorest; it will be years before people are encouraged to use it widely.

I suppose there is a third option - redistribute land - but that really means "make the USA, Russia and other fertile but sparsely populated countries take in millions of immigrants. I suspect that's a 'no' as well.

So there you have it - state-imposed eugenics or lebensraum.

I'd lay good money on the Church's role being significant here.

[amateur51]

there is no surer way to achieve that aim Pabmusic, than insisting on the education of women especially in the large araes of the globe where women are hardly educated at all

the benefits in population growth, economic development, and economic awareness of women's education are so great as to override any notions of gender equity - and male envy will ensure that men will catch up

it is the single most important and effective strategy available to save the planet and it confronts all our cultural taboos ....

Demonstrated time & again Calum - who makes up the majority of micro-finance borrowers? Women! The micro-finance makes them independent.

[Pabmusic]

I'd lay good money on the Church's role being significant here.

Well, I've tried to avoid saying it ("That Pabmusic spouting more of his atheist bs"… where's Scotty when you need him?).

The last Pope (Ratzinger of the Hitlerjugend) infamously gave a speech that blamed the spread of African AIDS on the availability of condoms!

[teamsaint]

Someone described the UK as a country of 70 million designed for 30 million....

The effect of population increase in the UK, (our birth rate may be falling, but immigration isn't) is ever greater pressure on the countryside, and wildlife habitats. Tory ministers like Nick Boles point out that there's plenty of room, just build houses on the green bits, we're at the point where that means this, the gradual erosion of species or habitats. We've got to the point where our increasing demands on our environment means that we're increasingly left with options like the Thames airport, HS2 or the Severn barrage to serve our transport or energy needs, options which promise catastrophic impacts on the habitats and species concerned. Our existence in the UK is increasingly precarious - flooding, water resources, transport links, energy infrastructure, you name it.

And just a (more global) thought, it's fascinating to reflect on the cultural constructs we have thought up for ourselves in the last few thousand years which prevent us getting to grips with the issues, or which make matters worse. Religious dietary taboos, religious objections to birth control.....

Re the UK, I'm not sure they are the options we are left with, just the ones we are presented with .

There are plenty of housing , transport and energy options. I strongly suspect that the options we are give, are very friendly to big engineering, (HS2, for example), when lower level less capital intensive answers might be much more productive.I'm not suggesting that there is necessarily anything inherently wrong in big engineering projects,of course.

[aeolium]

Did anyone here see this BBC2 programme (broadcast in November 2013):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03h8r1j

It was fascinating and argued that the population of the Earth is going to level off and drop within the next few decades.

Yes, I did, Jonathan. It was certainly thought-provoking and I seem to recall how the presenter mentioned the frequency with which such doom-laden prophecies about over-population had been made earlier in the C20 about population "tipping-points" that were far lower than our current population. The professor showed how all such prophecies came to nothing as technological developments improved agricultural production and as family sizes tended to drop with increasing prosperity (a trend that is still the case).

That's not to say that education about birth control (and the end to religious and customary prohibition of birth control) would not be beneficial, but it won't address the greatest threat to the survival of humanity on the planet which imv is excessive consumption and especially polluting consumption. That is largely a problem of the developed world where in many cases populations are falling or static. That is something that governments ought to be able to legislate about (as opposed to, say, state eugenics) and to a certain extent have been, even though inadequately up to now.

So there you have it - state-imposed eugenics or lebensraum.

There is a third possibility, the one beyond human control, of population reduction through pandemic (e.g. bird flu, ebola) or natural disaster resulting from climate change.

[Richard Tarleton]

Yes but no but, ams and aka...the Scientific American article mentions the Pakistan/Afghanistan situation re women, but doesn't say how it is to be overcome other than by a veiled hint about aid and propping up these regimes....Hard to see how the brutal, paternalistic and, yes, religious, stranglehold on those countries is to be overcome. Where women have relative freedom of movement, fine.

[Pabmusic]

…There is a third possibility, the one beyond human control, of population reduction through pandemic (e.g. bird flu, ebola) or natural disaster resulting from climate change.

Oh yes. Darwin gave an example of an over-abundance of elephants, making the point that before Earth was engulfed in elephant flesh, starvation and disease (or something else) would intervene.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Yes but no but, ams and aka...the Scientific American article mentions the Pakistan/Afghanistan situation re women, but doesn't say how it is to be overcome other than by a veiled hint about aid and propping up these regimes....Hard to see how the brutal, paternalistic and, yes, religious, stranglehold on those countries is to be overcome. Where women have relative freedom of movement, fine.

well not to mentionn great chunks of Africa, Arabia, as well as Asia and Americas ...

it won't be done with drones 'n bombs

educating women gets to the heart of every big issue on the planet .... love to see what Bill & Melissa could get done if they put their minds and $$$$ to it ...

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Easy, perhaps, but only partially right, I think. Cut "defence" speding? Undoubtedly! REALLY invest in renewables? Of course. But then doing the first means that considerable sums of money become available for more socially acceptable spending, some of which could well be on the second - but successful investment in renewables in sufficient quantities means that consumption can remain unchanged or even increase without the downsides of such issues as carbon footprints, environmental air pollution, environmental noise pollution and the rest.

A reduction in meat consumption is not, I suspect, as effective a solution as you appear to believe it to be; yes, it could have benefits but also disadvantages, one of which would be the need to grow crops in immense quantities which could be equally damaging environmentally. Harvesting the world's resources sensibly is vital; cutting consumption merely for the sake of so doing seems to me to be rather akin to dispensing with all musical instruments that could be seen as allowing and encouraging ever more indulgent expression (in other words, get rid of the latest 8-octave-+ monster grand pianos and go back to the Érards and Playels of the mid-19th century) - it would in all probability be no more than a sop to the consciences of those who effected such cuts rather than a measure designed to benefit and capable of advantaging future generations. Those poorest of whom you speak are unable to consume enough and their survival depends upon their being able to consume more, not less. A small reduction in meat consumption can bring with it health benefits; cutting it out completely could bring the very opposite.

Feeding livestock ten times as much protein as they yield makes no sense at all.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Someone described the UK as a country of 70 million designed for 30 million....
.

[aeolium]

Someone described the UK as a country of 70 million designed for 30 million....

Apart from the fact that the population is 64 million, and the country was not designed at all (unless the speaker was a believer in intelligent design), it's not far off

But even if you accepted the purely arbitrary figure of 30 million, what do you do about the other 34 million? And if you admit the declining birth rate then without immigration you are faced with a steadily aging population (as is the case in Japan, where there are full controls on immigration). Perhaps Japan's situation bodes well for wildlife there in the future, but possibly not for its human population.