The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > The planet won't wait > Comments

The planet won't wait : Comments

By Peter Vintila, published 25/9/2009

It is time to put fixing the planet first, ahead of trade advantage and the old murderous politics of the national interest.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. All
The fundamental problem facing the planet is the increasing population. It is all very well reducing our per capita emissions, but while the population continues to increase exponentially we are fighting a losing battle. It took until A.D.1800 for the earth's population to reach 1 billion. At the present rate of increase we will have about 16 billion at the end of the century. You don't need to be a Rhodes Scholar to work out that whatever we do to curb per capita emmision, the earth will be in serious trouble long before then. Our politicians are all in the grip of a growth paradigm. Until we get out of it, nothing else we do can save the planet.

David
Posted by VK3AUU, Friday, 25 September 2009 10:58:49 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
I think the virulent anti-humanists need to at least do some simple fact checking.

Global population increase has been declining since the 1960s, and is expected to plateau at around 9 billion sometime in the next century.

You want to cut birth rates? Help poor people get richer and better educated. It's the best birth control there is.

No need for any green progroms.
Posted by Clownfish, Friday, 25 September 2009 11:16:57 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Now that you have identified the problem what do you propose be done about it.
Posted by Desmond, Friday, 25 September 2009 11:17:04 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Desmond, in spite of your good intentions, helping the poor people improve their lot isn't simple. Most of the money which is given to third world countries ends up in the hands of the wrong people so that it is largely wasted. These unfortunately seem to be the ones who have the most children so that the rate of population increase in these countries is only tempered by their higher death rate. This is not helped by the policies of the Catholic Church in Africa where it actively campaigns against the use of condoms. Although this policy helps the spread of AIDS and increases the death rate, it also does nothing for the increased birth rate.

Strange as it may seem to some, I am not an anti-humanist at all. I just take a more prsgmatic view of what will happen to the human race if we don't do something to stop the increase in our numbers. Past civilizations have disappeared because they ran out of the necessary resources to survive and we are heading in the same direction.

Politicians, economists and humanists who pursue the growth paradigm are our worst enemies.

David
Posted by VK3AUU, Friday, 25 September 2009 12:05:14 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
The Lord gave us Three Score and Ten but modern man and science chose to alter it by prolonging life
Once we reach 70 by the grace of God go thee it seems callous and to many it probably is but the line has to be drawn
This would help in people getting a little faith back into the world
If you are a baby and your mother is sick and can't get out of bed then you go wanting the greatest mother of all Mother Earth is sick it wont be long until she can't get out of bed so her children will go wanting
Thanks have a good life from Dave
Posted by dwg, Friday, 25 September 2009 1:04:11 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
The recent rise of the AGW skeptics has me worried that humanity is not intelligent enough as a species to mitigate any climate change until confronted with irrefutable evidence in the form of millions, maybe billions, dead and numerous catastrophic storms, floods, droughts and destruction by the rising seas. We cant cooperate to stop war, poverty, disease or exploitation so why does anyone think we could do it for climate change.

Cynical and depressing I know, but I feel quite realistic. Sadly.
Posted by mikk, Friday, 25 September 2009 6:58:35 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Yes mikk, a very pessimistic view of Earth's future indeed!

I have a more cynical view of the whole climate change thing. While I certainly agree our climates are changing around the world, I don't really believe that we humans are responsible.

Often, we have climate or weather statistics quoted which say, such and such an event or catastrophe hasn't happened for so many years, or is as bad as it was 50 years ago or whatever.

Well, it was as bad all those years ago too! Was there global warming and the current climate change problems when the weather was that bad the first time?

The Earth will have natural changes in climate as time goes on. We mere humans just have to manage as best we can, like we always have!
Posted by suzeonline, Friday, 25 September 2009 7:18:30 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
suzeonline is that just not cherry picking.

It is trends that matter, not comparing one event with another it is how many events over a period that I am concerned about.
Posted by PeterA, Saturday, 26 September 2009 6:59:20 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
"A tale,told by an idiot,full of sound and fury,signifying nothing"

Indeed - well chosen.Our own dear Kevin in the photo op with Slick Willy,one of the last 4 presidents responsible,with the oligarchy,for our present disaster.Poetry in G20 motion.

Nothing meaningful will come from this government or the loyal opposition.And,"While sheep may quietly graze",nothing will be done.

Our only hope is a crash and burn.Maybe,just maybe,that will wake the sheep.
Posted by Manorina, Saturday, 26 September 2009 7:56:01 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
"Our only hope is a crash and burn. Maybe, just maybe, that will wake the sheep."

Welcome to the New Fundamentalism. As religion withers away, the people who would have followed it turn to other authorities. A nice apocalyptic back-story, a few charismatic leaders, and Climate Change is all ready to take over the minds of the easily led. Just as the religious fundamentalists have been waiting a long time for their Rapture, so the green movement have been waiting a long time for their 'crash and burn'. How dare people just keep on buying things and being happy? Don't they know there's a catastrophe just around the corner? Oh, well, maybe the next corner... or the next.

Unfortunately our best chance of a catastrophe is if these unthinking disciples capture the government and destroy our rights to suit their evidence-free panic. That may wake the wolves -- in fact it already has. But nothing will wake these sheep.
Posted by Jon J, Saturday, 26 September 2009 9:13:15 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
*You want to cut birth rates? Help poor people get richer and better educated. It's the best birth control there is.*

Yup, because they can finally afford to buy their own family planning
and are no longer dependant on charity to obtain supplies.

The alternate is to give them a hand and provide it, it speeds things
up. It won't happen, the Catholic Church will see to that.

We are still adding 80 million a year to the population and whilst
we are doing that, all talk of riding your bicycle to stop
climate change, is frankly nonsense. If the planet was not overcrowded
people could choose to move elsewhere.

Let nature sort it out the hard way, sad but true. It will be messy,
but so be it.
Posted by Yabby, Saturday, 26 September 2009 10:31:48 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
The most destructive religion in our culture is free market capitalism. I find it extraordinary that denialists look for a conspiracy in the climate debate, invoke fear of fascism and a new religion, when in fact, we have been the victims of a different kind of fundamentalism for decades. Buy, consume, the individual good is the greatest good, grow infinitely in a finite world, government is bad and markets are good - these are the dogmas you defend and they are indefensible. Your increasingly strident claims of eco-fascism, sound like the desperate calls of a dying beast trying to protect a world that should never have been made.
Posted by next, Sunday, 27 September 2009 10:39:09 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
clownfish, population is not declining. Birth rates are but we are still on an upward trajectory. 9 billion people is wishful thinking...why not 20, 30 billion - after all we live in the age of lunacy where the finite isn't, where resources are endless, replacements always possible and technology will save us. 6 billion or 9 billion - it is far too many people with an ever increasing level of consumption.
Posted by next, Sunday, 27 September 2009 2:03:45 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
All the people who believe in AGW or Climate Change whatever. All YOU have to do is disconnect water, gas and electricity to your own dwelling. Oh yes and stop buying prepared foods and start growing all your own food. Problem well and truly solved because none of you will make it!
The best thing we can do for the poor is to show them that subsistence farming is the ultimate poverty its just not possible. As for our wasted aid then just appoint administrators to any bank found to be holding the funds stolen by dictators and their servants. The bank is broken up and all the funds (Including the stolen ones) sent to the country whose funds they were holding. Of course this may hurt many of our politicians who have benefited but it would be worth trying lol.
Posted by JBowyer, Sunday, 27 September 2009 2:33:24 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Rudd, Wong and Turnbull are vehemently opposed to adopting stringent environmental policies which are ahead of the pack because they cannot bring our captains of industry on-board.

But this short-sightedness means that Australia will be deprived of a critical competitive edge in the environmental industries of the future.

If in doubt, just look at Denmark, which, because of tough environmental regulations adopted over the past decade, has become a world leader in the development of wind energy. Germany has similarly become a leader in solar energy with gross feed in tarrifs changing the landscape over the years. We are still waiting to see effective national policies implemented.

Denmark's global leadership is why Copenhagen will host the climate change summit. At the opposite end of the spectrum, is Australia's pathetic 5% carbon reduction target with in-built bonuses to gross polluters and a fanticiful gas storage scheme to trap high pressure gas for millions of years under the Earth's crust without any leakage causing a disaster for future generations.

Australia's position deserves to be rejected as too little benefit with much too much risk and at far too much cost. Australia and the world has been dudded with Wong's 'best we can do' contribution' to this unfolding crisis.
Posted by Quick response, Monday, 28 September 2009 8:36:44 AM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
next, I did not say that population is declining, I said that population *increase* is declining. A fact I note you then acknowledged.

Why not 20 or 30 billion? Well, the Holy Writ, the IPCC certainly disagrees. That's where the 9 billion figure comes from.

There are too many people in the world? Well, off you go and do your bit: I believe Phillip Nitschke has some helpful advice in that department.

Or is the typical Green elitism that expects other - usually poorer - people to make all the sacrifices?
Posted by Clownfish, Monday, 28 September 2009 12:40:15 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Clownfish talks blithely about a population of 9 billion, even though there is appalling poverty among the 6.7 billion we have already. According to this UN report, many countries where this future population growth is expected are already running short of fresh water, and demand is expected to increase with population. No more water = no more food.

http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=44779&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html

If a people are hurt because they have been beating their heads against a brick wall, whose fault is it? As the article said, the planet doesn't do political compromise. In Clownfish's view, of course, the guilty parties, who ought to off themselves, are the people who called attention to the problem.

A fair way of dealing with greenhouse gas allocations and other problems of ability of the environment to absorb wastes would be to give each country the same share of emissions as the share of global population that that country could support at a reference standard of living. The country could then make its own decisions about the balance between numbers and quality of life. This would still mean that we would need to make some very serious cuts before we were in a position to lecture others. A prime minister who is a population booster in thrall to the corporate elite is hardly likely to lead the way.
Posted by Divergence, Tuesday, 29 September 2009 12:41:14 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Divergence, I do not talk *blithely* of 9 billion, I merely point out that shrieking "15 billion! 20 billion!" is just hysterical nonsense.

Appalling poverty? Yes, of coures there is poverty, but there is far less of it than there used to be. The plain fact that the neo-Malthusian devotees of the gloomy Baby-Boomer Jeremiahs like Ehrlich and Brown just can't bring themselves to acknowledge is that, even though the world's population has increased, a greater percentage of that population are living a longer, healthier lives than ever before.

This is the great achievement of people like Norman Borlaug; people who didn't just sit back, wagging their fingers at poor people, but actually did something about it.

"There were some that shook their heads and thought this was too much of a good thing ... ‘It will have to be paid for,’ they said. ‘It isn’t natural, and trouble will come of it!'"

~ J. R. R. Tolkien, "The Lord Of The Rings"
Posted by Clownfish, Tuesday, 29 September 2009 4:07:27 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Clownfish,

This is from Norman Borlaug's Nobel Prize acceptance speech in 1970:

"It is true that the tide of the battle against hunger has changed for the better during the past three years. But tides have a way of flowing and then ebbing again. We may be at high tide now, but ebb tide could soon set in if we become complacent and relax our efforts. For we are dealing with two opposing forces, the scientific power of food production and the biologic power of human reproduction. Man has made amazing progress recently in his potential mastery of these two contending powers. Science, invention, and technology have given him materials and methods for increasing his food supplies substantially and sometimes spectacularly, as I hope to prove tomorrow in my first address as a newly decorated and dedicated Nobel Laureate. Man also has acquired the means to reduce the rate of human reproduction effectively and humanely. He is using his powers for increasing the rate and amount of food production. But he is not yet using adequately his potential for decreasing the rate of human reproduction. The result is that the rate of population increase exceeds the rate of increase in food production in some areas.

There can be no permanent progress in the battle against hunger until the agencies that fight for increased food production and those that fight for population control unite in a common effort. Fighting alone, they may win temporary skirmishes, but united they can win a decisive and lasting victory to provide food and other amenities of a progressive civilization for the benefit of all mankind."

It is worth remembering that world grain production per person peaked in 1984. You may not be concerned about how grain prices have been rising for a number of years, but the World Bank is.

http://econ.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTDEC/0,,contentMDK:21665883~pagePK:64165401~piPK:64165026~theSitePK:469372,00.html
Posted by Divergence, Wednesday, 30 September 2009 9:52:27 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Clownfish,
Projections on population growth are projections nothing more, nothing less. Population growth projections in the past have in every case been notoriously wrong - sometimes understating and sometimes overstating the future growth. Whatever the projections may be though is really academic What is not academic is:- 1) Government policies and peoples behaviors can have a significant effect on future growth regardless of projections and 2) there are limits to growth even if those limits cannot definitely be ascertained.

Perhaps you need to work on your mastery of facts more diligently and temper your vitriolic condemnation against those with a different view to provide more creditable arguments to support your ideologies.
Posted by kulu, Sunday, 18 October 2009 9:21:32 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Kulu, you are wasting your time. It is never going to happen.

Have a good day.

David
Posted by VK3AUU, Monday, 19 October 2009 7:24:36 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
If VK3AUU and people who think like him have had children, why? If they haven't then they just cut off electricity, water and gas to their homes and grow their own food. Whingers will then die out!
I love how Western yuppies think they have any right to lecture Africans or any other people to reduce what they are entitled to. Close off utilities grow your own food and be childless and then talk to me lol. Of course I will have to tell you this "end of the world comming" talk has been around forever and yes they have all said THIS TIME it is serious.Yeah sure, people who have difficulty dressing themselves are not going to be listened to by anyone including me.
Posted by JBowyer, Monday, 19 October 2009 7:55:53 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
JBowyer,

Who said anything about lecturing the Africans? We can do our best to empower them and educate them (particularly the women) and to provide them with health care and fertility advice and wherewithal. That should help but as VK3AUU notes it is easier said than done.

What we very much should do though is to educate the "growth at all costs" politicians in this country and those who support their policies on issues like the sheer stupidity of encouraging more kids through rubbish like the baby bonus. Now that IS an uphill task - probably a more difficult one even than addressing the issues in Africa.

As Herbert Stein said; "If something cannot go on forever it will stop." I agree. One way or another the worlds population will stop growing because simply put the planet is just not going to grow to accommodate them even if you think it will.
Posted by kulu, Tuesday, 20 October 2009 10:04:22 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy