"I am not so sure about that! Given what is happening across the Arab world at present I suspect that many governments would privately welcome a means to peacefully curb political dissent and increase citizen contentment in the long term."

As opposed to egaging the services of their armed forced in mowing down their protesting or rioting citizens with heavy machine guns that is.

*Yabby, you're welcome to your view that we in the West may be entitled to the bounties of the earth but Africans are less valuable than animals. IMHO, every African is as valuable as you are.*

Loudmouth, I made no such claim. My claim is that other species
have a right to part of this planet too, not just humans. You
cannot value biodiversity, because without biodiversity, you
won't have a humanity. Its basic biology.

You seem to be implying that it is fine to keep wiping out other
species, to make way for ever more humans, because places like
Africa are seemingly "underpopulated" That is highly debatable,
seeing that the last of the bonobos, chimps and gorillas are landing
up in the human cooking pot. If those species don't stand a chance,
there is not much hope for others.

So my point is, that if in your rush to grab everything for humans,
your own dna of the futute is wiped out in the process, natural
justice will eventually have its day. So be it and there is
no good reason why I should care about it

I agree in principle with Mr Windy's idea. My own modest proposal on another thread was that we develop a nano-virus that arbitrarily (that is regardless of class or wealth) and painlessly terminates six in seven or so humans, like a lottery. Seems eminently fair and pragmatic to me, getting rid of the bodies would be the only real problem. Be great for peak hour traffic!

But as I've often observed, all we have to do is change the economic system. I was driving through country south-east QLD yesterday, pondering the vast reaches of cultivation, pasture etc. If Queensland just looked after its own it would never want again and could retire most of the land back to the bush. It's trade and foreign markets, "world systems", that cause all our environmental problems--including over-population--and the insatiable distilation of profit that drives it.
If it were somehow possible to put an exclusion zone around all the world's populous regions, size dependent, say, on the viability of the land and waterways; restricted to that region and those resources, respective populations would soon stabalise. Col and co would never approve, of course, because I'm talking about level playing fields and they'd probably end up begging on the streets--unless they were prepared to work for a living rather that using their "imaginations".
The last thing I want btw is "collectivism", that's what we already have. I've often mentioned "Inclusive democracy", but did anyone listen to this Ockham's Razor on "deliberative democracy"? Here's the transcript: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/ockhamsrazor/stories/2011/3233943.htm#transcript
Definitely a step in the right direction--but stop all exports and imports, including people via the airline industry, and it's problem solved.

But squeers why don't you just take the initiative, starting with a murder suicide of your own family.

Poirot,

Col is a man of style and substance. I really admire him for humouring us with his elegant prose and wonderful comic timing. You have to read the ...s, and Cols work flows with an electric verve, and his detractors are left with a big whooosh over their heads and wondering just what happened and bewildered how they have been so elegantly out manoeuvred.

He's a master man, I cant believe you cant appreciate his talents. He is the most entertaining poster on here. 'buttery ooze' though, now I know it may be just me, but I feel slightly aroused by that. Mmmm.

PS: Do you really think I'm a right winger? Haha. Like pelican keeps boring us with... left, right, pft. Although that's just because anything is right of pelican. I'm far more complex. Lefties always bite, so I give them more attention.

Yabby,

'Fact is that humans are smart enough to invent nice new things,
but not smart enough to live sustainably. So be it. Let natural
justice prevail.'

Man we agree on a lot. I was telling my mate the other day that all this AGW rubbish will work itself out, and that human is as human does and we have as much right to rape and pillage as a Lion has to hunt wilder-beast in the good times until he is very fat, and when the good times roll out, we can easily suffer like a scraggly puss at a watering hole too. Why all the agonising? It cant be becuase of the 'oh the humanity!' of squeers lot, when they HATE humans.

BTW: LEAP< I try, well, sometimes I do, but that translator never arrived and well, I'm thinking of turning to the dark side like yourself and expressing myself exclusively in song words rather than youtube clips.

*--but stop all exports and imports, including people via the airline industry, and it's problem solved.*

Ah, I can just see it, Squeers. Your wife and kids have a disease,
only a drug from America will cure them. You will let them all
croak it, for there will be no imports of course.

Ah, you're always good value, Houellebecq--even more entertaining than Col, in my book. Yabby is too, though a bit dry.

My modest proposal would be a far more humane than the ugly decimation that's likely to occur when collapse sets in. I'd much prefer a quick and painless death to the violence and starvation that besets any population once it's exhausted its food supply--history has witnessed many such events. And since we westerners are wholly dependent on supermarkets and infrastructure for our food, water, energy, sanitation etc. etc., we're no more that a few days from that kind of desperation in the event of such a collapse. Unlike places like Africa, we're not exactly hardened for such eventualities.
The attitude, "Let natural justice prevail" is thus far more heartless than my proposal.
It's easy to be so blasse when it's unlikely to be your generation that receives natural justice.