Once again, Ludwig, you fall dramatically short on the practicability test.

>>The most effective means is to reallocate a large portion of this aid into family planning, reducing the fertility rate and implementing support systems for those who might be adversely affected by a considerably lower birthrate.<<

True. But reallocating the money will create the same level of starvation as withholding it, will it not? And your "aid" programme would be plagued by newsreel footage of starving people, begging the pilots to bring them rice, instead of condoms. A definite lose-lose situation, I would have thought...

But the truly Pollyanna part is this:

>>Government intervention is essential. But again, it has to be seen to be the right thing by the majority of people or else they risk getting kicked out at the next election…unless the opposition is also committed to the same sort of policy.<<

And "the majority" wants what, in terms of international aid? My assessment of the hoi polloi is that the majority would vote in a government that eliminate foreign aid altogether, and reallocate the savings to tax breaks for themselves.

There goes your "save the world with condoms" fix.

Errrr, hang on a minute. You also said:

>>Crikey, what’s the alternative to government intervention? Just a blind pandering to whatever the majority want<<

Isn't that exactly your definition of the sort of intervention we want? The kind that "has to be seen to be the right thing by the majority of people"?

That's a clear case of simultaneous consumption and retention of baked confectionery, if you ask me.

And I'm very sorry, you cannot possibly assert this as fact:

>>And there is no doubt that if population growth had been considerably lower over the past two or three decades, the average quality of life around the planet would have increased considerably more than it has<<

Yeah, right. If my auntie had balls she'd be my uncle.

So, a smaller population could have achieved all the gains and efficiencies that a larger one has achieved. How on earth can you guarantee that? It's just pure speculation.

Pericles, can't you see that it is crueler to send them just enough
food to get them to the next insufficient harvest ?

Divergence
Sorry, my apologies, I meant to refer to this quote by Saltpetre
“Humans a 'pestilence' on the face of the planet? It appears to be getting that way, and a 'more of the same' approach to housing and feeding the masses is just not going to cut the mustard.”

No scientists don’t have to be “deluded”, they only have to share a mistaken assumption.

The mistaken assumption shared by them and you and the author, and all the statists in this thread is that if only “we” could get enough power, we could issue directives (“policy”) which would make the economy and ecology sustainable.

This belief has no scientific or rational basis whatsoever; and I can prove it, and I say you can’t disprove it.

For starters, “we” obviously doesn’t mean everyone in the world, because the purpose of policy is to stop them doing what they want to do, otherwise the discussion would not be about policy, but voluntary actions.

However even if you personally were vested with total power over all natural resources on earth, you still wouldn’t be able, by issuing commands, to achieve economic or ecological sustainability IF that is defined to include the value of human life.

(That’s a big IF. Squeers has shown that if you scratch a green leftist, you uncover a dream of genocide – which no-one in this thread but me even remarked, let alone condemned. Why not?)

But assuming that the definition of a successful outcome does not countenance CAUSING human death, there is NO WAY that the state can do what you are assuming it can, for three main reasons.

Firstly it doesn’t have the disinterestedness. It’s not a collection of angels. They will divert the massive wealth they control to their own benefit, durr.

Secondly, the state doesn’t and can never know how to combine the factors of production in a complex civilisation in order to satisfy the most urgent wants of dispersed billions of people. And even if it could know, it couldn’t calculate economically how to do it. I’m pretty sure you don’t understand ...

that last point – statists never do - which involves a total demolition of the interventionists’ assumptions.

Thirdly, it doesn’t have the capacity. The part of human freedom that is not controlled by the Grand Plan of the Great Know-it-Alls will keep mucking up the plan; unless each person has an armed guard to watch over him 24/7 – the totalitarians’ dilemma.

This means that the state, far from being a selfless superman, will be faced with all the same problems as originally AND will be positively more wasteful of natural resources to achieve a given result. Thus its interventions will necessarily, not possibly, make the world less sustainable and be self-defeating EVEN IN ITS OWN TERMS.

And if it is not to achieve the same given result as is now being achieved by capitalism, it will be because it has defined a successful outcome to include causing human deaths – lots of them, just like Squeers just did, and many environmentalists openly talk about.

If complete vesting of total control over all means of production in the state is not able to achieve your purpose, then vesting of less control obviously won’t cut it. Wooly thinking and garble words like “social democracy” will not answer this point.

Now unless you can prove that the state does have the disinterestedness, the knowledge, the ability to calculate economically, and the capacity, don’t bother replying. It just means you, and the author, and Ludwig, and Squeers, and the green movement, have lost the argument, have nothing rational to reply, and are merely assuming a benevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent state that does not exist – a concept that truly owes more to religion than science.

For example, take the native vegetation acts; exactly the kind of “integrating” of agriculture with sustainability approved by the weasel-words of the author. These laws have massively shut down – oops “worked better with” (by stopping) the production of food in Australia. Now many people in the world are going hungry. Okay, so how do the “scientists” reconcile these two things without countenancing policy causing human deaths?

*These laws have massively shut down – oops “worked better with” (by stopping) the production of food in Australia. Now many people in the world are going hungry*

Jardine, nobody is going hungry because Australia is not producing
more food. People are going hungry because they cannot afford to
buy it. Children are going hungry, because parents have far more
children then they can ever hope to feed and our religion denies
many of them the opportunity to do something about it.

Now if you think that capitalism will produce enough food to feed
every child that anyone ever produces, accidentaly or on purpose,
then you clearly don't understand capitalism or the laws of nature.

Pretending that you have a band aid to cover the problem and make
it go away, is deeply flawed thinking, IMHO.

So if I have twelve children, will you feed them all for me?

Jardine, continuing my reply to your post of Tuesday-19-June-2012-10:24:16-AM:

<< How did you and Divergence get to be so fully confident that you know what values everyone else in the world should have in preference to their own? >>

I’m not questioning peoples’ values or trying to change them. Most people, given the opportunity to have fewer kids and help steer their societies towards a better future would jump at the chance.

It’s not about changing values to any great extent, it’s about helping people get what they want in the longer term, by a person’s old age and when their children are in their prime, for example… and doing it within their cultural and religious framework.

<< What if you are wrong? >>

If I am wrong, nothing is lost. People won’t have worse lives because of efforts to reduce the fertility rate. I’m not talking about imposing a one-child policy or anything like that. But if I’m right about the impending disaster that will be caused largely by overpopulation, then we’ll be regretting that we didn’t act to reduce population growth and engender stable populations when we had the chance.

<< You keep talking about “we” and “us” >>

Yes. And….what’s wrong with that? I think the context is pretty clear whenever I am using these terms. It’s not too hard to figure out just what I am referring to. But if ever it is, then please just seek clarification.

<< Yes indeed >>

Ah, good to see we have agreement about something!!

<< …what’s your take on the refugee intake? >>

Within a net zero immigration program we should increase our refugee intake to about double the current level. But they should ALL be drawn from our offshore refugee programs and not from onshore asylum seeking which should be decisively shut down.

<< What, apart from blind faith, is your reason for thinking that government can aid in attaining sustainability… >>

How can it be done without strong governance? It can’t. Reducing immigration and all manner of other steps need a government to implement them.