colinsett/michael_in_adelaide

Come now posters, we've been over all this before, and your gloomy pronostications have been, as you will recall, comprehensively rebutted. Michael Kile has nothing new to say. I have been reading population doomsayers since the 1970s, and have seen references to the concern in the literature of the 1930s. Kile would have to show why we should pay attention to his gloomy warnings as opposed to all the others in past decades which have not come to pass.

As far as the oil business goes, you guys still don't realise that the energy business has been completely revolutionised in the past couple of years. Apart from Fracking (Google it..) there have been gigantic undersea oil finds off the coast of Brazil and elsewhere. Sorry, but all the peak oil stuff is dead and gone.

However, Malthus was not wrong. Scholastic thinking is that he was right up until 1800 or so, as far as anyone knows. Up until that time, innovation just pushed up the population limit for a time.. then innovation became more constant to the point where it has been constantly pushing up the upper limit.

For a more comprehensive, and authorative, view of the theory try Gregory Clark's A Farewell to Alms. I'm not pushing all his arguments. The genetic stuff would stick in a lot of people's throats, but the discussion on Malthus and (the somewhat seperate issue of) labor quality is most interesting.

The only people who continually bag Malthus are ugly or socially inept people, not getting any sex, who figure somehow in their little undeveloped minds that increasing "the NUMBERS" increases their CHANCES.

WRONG!

They'll never 'get it' because evolution only creates EXPONENTIAL growth in finer genetic specimens who abhor the anti-Malthus neanderthals even more than current elite populations.

Until anti-Malthusians are firmly put in their place but given help instead of remonstrations their 'side-effect' of GLOBAL UNSUSTAINABILITY will evolve into Global WAR. Then everyone loses.

So, we all have a vested interest in dealing harshly with Anti-Mathusians.

For starters they need to be taught the SECOND LAW of THERMODYNAMICS (2LT) that says all systems are in fatal decay unless supplied regularly with cheap to free energy. Of course with endless population growth energy is getting more expensive by the minute and Thermodynamic decay is frontpage news, hovering all about.

Second, they must be taught that there are no BASELOAD energy options other than COAL and OIL. Uranium, solar and its wind derivitives are all prohibited by the 2LT from being converted to baseload energy without supplying more energy, mines,manufactur, transport &maintainence, than is produced.

Third, their simpleton notion that laws will prevent our children and grandchildren from breeding at some arbitrary 9billion population overlooks the role of oestrogen and testosterone. These hormones brook no limits to reproduction other than WWIII. And that is where we are headed all too soon.

The time for reproductiovity LIMITS &LAWS is NOW! And all must share the burden & the many benefits too.

Say NO to KIds!

I must admit that I was looking forward to a new vector of analysis on this well worn subject. I haven't found it here.

I think the anti-populationists would do better is they jettisoned Malthus and his wonky maths. I just returned for Japan and the government is faced with both an ageing population problem and an under population (youth) dilemma. Most of western Europe is in the same boat.

More simpleton notions.

WWIII may be a blessing as all such weak minds will be annihilated.

So keep breeding you Malthusogynist.

KAEP,

I believe that a range of contraceptive techniques have been introduced since Malthus. Reproduction is not the only issue in population growth: if everybody lived to a good age, and the replacement rate was reduced to zero, the population would still rise, as it aged.

But you overlook two main factors:

(1) Every aspect of food production processes can be improved. On 'The Inventors' a couple of months back, two blokes were demonstrating some sort of water filtation system which enabled the use of brackish water - this, they said, would double Australia's arable land. And how much water is wasted through leakage throughout the system from river to tap ? 20 % ? So there's a 140 % increase in food production just there, let alone improving yields, drought-resistance and water-use of plants, improvements in tillage, soil enrichment, storage, reduction of evaporation over bodies of water such as dams.

And very little of Africa's potential productive capacity has yet been tapped.

(2) Educate women around the world and the birth-rate will fall: women will have their children later, and fewer of them. Population growth is already negative in Japan and most of Europe to the point where a large and sustained immigration policy will be needed to maintain those societies. China will face the same problem in a couple of decades. Yes, population decline as a problem :)

A cause is not served by over-statement, KAEP.

KAEP
Maybe you could make your own declaration of support for Malthus by declaring that you will not have offspring - and maybe go off and live in a cave without internet access? Only way to be sure you don't leave a consumption footprint.