My mum works for an off shoot of the NSW department of primary industry. She complains to me how boring the work is saying that the state government has cut down research spending so much that they now dont even have a single penny to continue old experiments or start any new research into soils and agricultural production. She spends most of her time now looking on the internet and taking calls from people wanting advice to do with soil and land degradation.

There were once 9 people working there now it is 4. Its the same story through out the state with every 2 years a new round of redundancies and the state labour government hoping they can buy off more of a our scientist into retirement

I would suggest that a greater challenge to the world is to reduce the present population by the year 2100. With an almost exponetial rise in the population will inevitably come an even greater rise in the demand for resources of energy as standards of living are also rising, particularly in India and China. The insane drive by the worlds economists for growth is just madness and must inevitably lead to the greatest depression that the world has ever seen. The supply of food will be but one of the many challenges that we face.

I can only agree with VK3AUU. The only underdeveloped countries that have made any progress in the last 50 years are those who took steps to limit their populations, with China the outstanding example. If we don't do it, there are four horsemen (War, Famine, Pestilence and Death) who will do it for us. It would appear that the need to control population is the great taboo subject of this century.

It is surprising that Julian Cribb does not mention population as any part of the solution to world hunger. It wouldn't hurt energy, water, land, pollution, ecosystems, etc., either. Perhaps it is the great unmentionable.

Any chance of getting the link to the reference about the 110% more food needed in 2050 from the United Nations Environment Program. I can't find it on the UNEP website. I agree with the assessment but it would be nice to see how they got there. I am assuming some combination of increasing population and increasing demand for meat, (100 calories of meat takes 400 to 1000 calories of grain). Sadly though, billions still won't be eating at first world standards.

ericc - I have been in touch with Julian Cribb. Here is the link to that report and what he has to say. I will add it into the article in a moment.
"It’s in the Global Environment Outlook at: http://www.unep.org/Geo/geo1/index.htm. What has changed since this report came out is the speed at which the Chinese and Indian economies have grown and increased their demand for fish, meat and other protein."
Susan Prior - editor

The article is accurate, but falls short in not venturing analytically into population, education and democracy. Universally, people have more children when their survival is threatened (ie where there is no economic safety net). If you know you will starve when you are too old to work, have at least ten children so that there will be at least two boys surviving to look after you in retirement. In all countries with social security, population growth is in reverse. Why do these third world countries not establish safety nets? The answer is: the UN's World Trade Organisation and World Bank, the latter of which is financed by the privately owned International Monetary Fund; controls all governments through a series of treaties and agreements (ie GATS, GATT, FTAs). These international banks, wealthy elites and foreign megacorporations control election campaign funding, most efficiently in the two-party system, whereby the main parties have tweedledum and tweedledee status and mildly differing policies translate into identical action. Thus, we can see that population control is really a matter of policies which ensure all gain a fair share of national resources; the very thing the above elites do not want. Obviously, the only solution is to transfer power to the people; democracy. Abe Lincoln put it best when he said "Democracy; government of the people, by the people, for the people". In modern terms this is the elected representative conveying the documented informed consensus of each electorate to parliament. The oxymoronic "representational democracy" of Bush, Blair, Howard and Rudd, really means electing someone else to do your thinking for you. Next elections, if you want a new paragigm, vote for an independent candidate who will truly represent you. For more on this, contact tonyryan28@gmail.com for a more detailed paper.

Tony, that argument breaks down because it has one fundamental fault. To get people where they have few children means that their standard of living has to get to approximately where we in the most developed countries are at. By the time the world gets to that stage we would have an overwhelming population and the world would have already run out of resources.I would suggest that a greater challenge to the world is to reduce the present population by the year 2100. With an almost exponetial rise in the population will inevitably come an even greater rise in the demand for resources of energy as standards of living are also rising, particularly in India and China. The insane drive by the worlds economists for growth is just madness and must inevitably lead to the greatest depression that the world has ever seen. The supply of food will be but one of the many challenges that we face.

What we really need is the medical researchers to stop finding all theses cures for diseases and get the mortallity rate back up to where it would have been if the rule of the survival of the fittest had been left tp apply. As it is, we have passed the peak in the genetic development of the human race and are now already starting on a decline.

Ah, that’s the spirit VK3AUU !! more death and disease as the key to improving human welfare – deep green insanity in a nutshell.

Population growth is slowing worldwide as medical technology and life expectancy improve. Life expectancy is growing in part because for the past 300 years the world has risen to the challenge of raising food production faster than population. Yes, there are challenges ahead in maintaining that progress, but we can meet them if we don’t give in to luddism (e.g. anti-GM hysteria) anti-globalisation reactionaries that want to stop poor people richer for their own good, and neo-Malthusians who see population a the root of all evil despite a few millennia of evidence to the contrary.

This article should appear somewhere it would get a much, much wider audience.

VK3AUU & Rhiann,

"The insane drive by the worlds economists for growth is just madness and must inevitably lead to the greatest depression that the world has ever seen. The supply of food will be but one of the many challenges that we face" is something we really can't avoid, clever as we are.

At the same time we've yet to find the technology to overcome the sheer scale of challenges needed to maintain the progress we're accustomed to. In which case we'll need to redefine progress. For what it's worth, given the precis of the article "a few millennia of evidence to the contrary" won't mean Jack Schitt. This is totally new ground. I think Maltheus would've been struck for words.

There is no food shortage. Hundreds of thousands of metric tons of food go waste each year. We currently over produce all foodstuffs. And investments in food manufacturing and processing has given all foodstuffs greater shelf life. Not only do we over produce we have developed arbitrary end dates for processed foods that must be wasted in order to make shelf space available to the next production cycle. Our system is not so much supply and demand but, rather employment regulation through continuous supply regardless of demand.

That people in the world go with out food is not due to the lack of food. It's due to lack of government with in those areas. Including Australia.

aqvarivs, while there is currently no shortage of food in the world, that situation will not last. Last year saw the first time in decades when world wheat carryover stocks were down virtually to zero - that is demand had overtaken supply.

There has not been a global food shortage over the last 50 years because innovation in agricultural research has kept pace with increasing demand. In most Western countries, crop yields per acre of land have doubled. The same is true of cereals across much of Asia (but not of other crops). The challange we now face is that wealth is rising in countries like China and India. With rising wealth is a demand for more meat and non-rice grains. As these are the two most populous cultures on the planet, increased demand will seriously impact food supply. Increased urbaization, by depriving use of good fertile land and water is also a threat.

There are three choices for the future:

1) Reduce the population so that the increased demand for food can be met off existing agricultural land;

2) Speed up innovation in agriculture so we can keep pace with demand; or

3) Do some of both.

J.Cribb responds: I'm glad the issue of population has been raised by several contributors. There wasn't room to discuss it in the original piece. However, in the absence of a totalitarian world govt, my assumption is that the only truly effective instrument we will have to check population is prosperity. People stop having kids when they become affluent. It is my personal view we must reduce global population to 2-3 billion by 2100, but the only voluntary way to do this is to end poverty and give people reasonable prosperity, so lowering birth rates. Hence I assume there will be a mid-century peak when demand for all resources, including food land and water - will be huge and far above the earth's sustainable limits.
There are many things we can do including recycle nutrients, grow water-efficient crops, end food wastage and replace racehorse properties with real farms. And ignore silly politicians who keep urging us to 'have more babies'. No doubt these will occur to govts as food supplies in various regions give out.

Julian, if world population now is about 6.5 billion and (with rapid growth in recent decades) further average life expectancy of those currently alive is 43 years, then 3.25 billion of the current population will still be alive in 2050. How on earth can you seek a population of 2-3 billion in 2100 without mass murder, forced sterilisation etc?

Personally, I'm pro-people rather than seeking their extinction.

Rhian

You shouldn't be so critical of Malthus. Some of his ideas are part of modern economic philosophy, like the idea that people will work harder with starvation at the door, and the idea that a growing population creates more job competition, thus lowering wages and increasing the prosperity of businesses.

The present government could arguably be adherents to the latter Malthusian idea with its use of 457 visas and high immigration.

Fester

You're right, Malthus had some good ideas and has been rather misrepresented by both opponents and supporters in the modern era. Above all, he was motivated by compassion for the poor and disappointment at what he saw as the inability of rising agricultural productivity and output to produce sustained improvements in living conditions. In this, history has proved him wrong.

I was actually attacking neo-Malthusians – modern-day appropriators of his ideas who differ from Malthus in:
a) tending to disapprove of sustained improvements in living conditions as a legitimate socio-economic objective, and
b) perceiving rising population as a cause of persistent poverty (Malthus saw it as a consequence of rising output which rendered productivity gains ineffective in raising living standards, which is a little different).

There are several varieties of neo-Malthusians. Some appear to be misanthropists who advocate the elimination of large swathes of humanity in the name of some perceived higher good (such as VK3AUU).

Others perceive population as the root of almost every environmental, social and economic ill faced by mankind, and some appear to take perverse pleasure in anticipating widespread human misery.

My attitude is similar to Faustino’s I’m pro people. So, in his way, was poor old Malthus.

All these posts verify the ancient trueism that people believe what they want to believe and disregard all evidence.

Rhian.

Thanks for claryifying that. I also have a soft spot for Ned Ludd; quite a good bloke in my opinion, and moved to act by his personal experience of the industrial revolution. I certainly share your distaste of the philosophy of goosesteppers like VK3AUU. And I hold strong hopes for technology further improving the human lot, not as a means of genocide to give a few survivors a cosy life.

I do, however, believe that population growth, like the lives and thoughts of Malthus and Ludd, is often unfairly portrayed. It is not beyond human control, like the weather and tides. And its regulation does not imply genocide or racism, but can be a humanitarian measure on an equal footing with other measures for improving the human lot. It is a shame to see it discarded unfairly, when so few measures are available.

Agronomist,
Canada and the United States, two of the largest wheat growers with a "usual" 2 crop growing season have in the last twenty years been encouraged by wheat dumping and price management practices to diversify. Lentils, soy, rape seed, canola, and other specialty grains like quinoa and kamut are now being grown by farmers who once were exclusively wheat producers.
Others have gone into bio-fuel crop production or specializing in organic cereals.

That changes the market presumption of carry over or crop banking. Few farmers are cultivating today for the silo. They're growing for the demand and watching the market closely to ensure that they are not left holding or having to silo. That's work that never gets paid for and dumping to have empty silos for the coming harvest lowers future pricing.

Australia produces about 3 per cent of the world's wheat but has 15 per cent of global wheat trade.

Quinoa was classified as a "supercrop" by the United Nations because of its high protein content (12-18%).

All numbers I could find for world wheat production and export have declined during the last 10 years. While over all grain crop diversity per country has increased.

Here is Prof Albert Bartlett's famous lecture on the problem.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2376190597731898896

When my daughter saw and understood this, she joined The Greens (no bull).

It would seem that humans think in a linear fashion, while the world around us operates in an exponential way. This basic disconnect is the cause of our blind spot - even amongst the Captains of Industry.

Highly recommended - will need an hour of your undivided attention.

Someone send a copy to John Howard - please!

aqvarivs,

I am not sure what you mean by "2 growing seasons" in Canada. Canada effectively has one as the ground is under snow all winter. The growing season is from April when the ground thaws to October when it freezes again.

I agree the situation with grains is influenced by markets, but changes in cropping patterns are influenced as much by local issues than they are by world markets. USDA data (see:
http://www.fas.usda.gov/grain/circular/2006/05-06/Wheat%2005-06.pdf ) shows that wheat production has not declined over the last decade. World wheat production in 2004/2005 was the highest ever and 2005/2006 was the second highest. Production was down in 2006/2007 due to lower production in the EU, and to a lesser extent in Australia, then the US. US production has been steady or declining for some time, but recent pressure for biofuels has seen greater pressure on wheat area. The Canadian crop has been generally increasing for the last 4 years. The biggest issue at present has been the dramatic increase in imports of wheat by India.

World quinoa area in 2005 according to FAO was 69,000 hectares for 58,000 tonnes. It is probably having limited impact on wheat production. The big pressure in both Europe and North America will be maize.

From an old WA cockie.

It looks like it is left to the US and the EU to greatly increase food production.

It is the above who heavily subsidise their agriculture thus able to grow and dump their cheap protected wheat, stealing markets from less developed countries, which must include Australia, even though Costello's Super Super Fund, is said to be bursting at the seams.

While nations in South America are forced to join the drug trade, the only thing keeping Australian farmers going, is the generosity of the banks, somewhat helped by bank security built up by the exorbitant price of farmlands.

Indeed, apart from a recent small rise, Australian wheat prices have hardly risen since globalisation began. Thought it might rise with the so-called beneficial bi-lateral trade agreement with the US. Instead they've stolen most of our Iraq wheat trade. With friends like that, maybe it's better to deal with enemies.

Also you may be sure the old buyers like Dreyfus and Bunge still get their cut, which was why they were discarded and replaced by the agrarian social single desk in the 1930s.

Reckon we could do with a few more like Barnaby Joyce, yet could wonder whether in the long run he could still be trusted. Oh to have a Country Party Bushman like Black Jack McKewen looking after the cockies again.

The lesson is, if you want the farmers to produce more, sack all the mafia types running modern free-markets, especially those in the New York WTO who still let the American farmers be heavily protected.

Tony Ryan
1) I question the argument - the poor have high numbers of children to support themselves in their old age -perhaps true of feudal England -but not today.

A better gauge of number of children is the freedom & value of the individual.

In societies where humans primary role is seen to be serving God, society or the family -you get more children .In those where the overriding current is the individuals self-actualisation/ & enjoyment -you get fewer children.

Third world refugees moving to first world countries -and receiving all the trimmings of social welfare - do not, even after many years, lose their tendency to have a large numbers of children- they change only when they start to chase the individualistic materialistic western dream.

And, most of the Arab countries-experiencing rapid pop growth - do have welfare support & modern medical systems. What is more influential however is that they have strong ruling value systems which inculcates that the individuals role & enjoyment is secondary to the role they have to serve God or the community or the family …”more children for God“ “Go forth & multiply” “God will provide“.

The best way to control pop growth in such countries is not wealth equalization Or any number of handouts -but a change in their core values

2) “the only solution is to transfer power to the people; democracy”
( while acknowledging you were targeting at George Bush & Co)
Universal suffrage without an open & critical media & education system (which is lacking in most second & third world countries) is worse than useless. If the electors are feed a constant stream of all-others-are-infidels OR the-rest-of-the-world-owes-us then, the only solutions you will get are final solutions.

To Rhian:
“Population growth is slowing worldwide as medical technology and life expectancy improve”
When you look at AVERAGE world growth you can say population growth is slowing. But when you take a closer look at the figures you see while much of western of Europe & Japan is in zero to negative pop growth -many of the Third world ( the existing or potentially worst basket cases) are increasing at 2%+.
Precisely those countries who can least sustain high pop are going at it hell-for-leather….

Over a billion people starve to death every year, needlessly! With the level of technology today one large state in the US can easily feed the worlds starving. And why doesn't that take place? Because farmers are paid subsidies not to grow wheat in order to keep the price artificially high or to undermine competitors in other nations - each against all. In bumper harvests the excess may be thrown into the sea. Economic relations dominate over human relations - once again needlessly. Moreover, economic relations distort reality enormously and make millions of people ill.

Every year the UN release no end of detailed analysis and figures about the worlds starving. To cover up the role they themselves play as the "thieves kitchen" where the loot is divied up there by the
colonial plunderers. Have you ever heard a word issued by the UN about which governments are behind the plundering of very poor countries? Of course if any of the worlds poor rise up against their squalid conditions in go the UN "peacekeepers" to restore law and order. Or as they say in the corridoors of power "aim low to keep the bastards down."

Rhian and the rest of the Malthus-was-wrong crowd should take a look at Rwanda. The population tripled in the 1950-1990 period, giving it the densest population in Africa, with a 3% annual population growth rate. (Rural) population densities reached as high as 1000 people per km^2 in some parts of the country and 422 on average (not counting lakes, parks, and forest reserves) at the time of the genocide. About 50% of the land is arable, and land holdings per household averaged 0.6 hectares, when the UN Food and Agriculture Organization says 0.75 hectares is the minimum for essential nutritional needs and 0.9 hectares for economic sustainability. (See Pan African News report 4/11/00 (on Web) on 2000 Land Policy seminar in Kigali).

Michael Renner in a 2000 article for the Naval War College Review (53(4), but also on Web) claimed that the land scarcity was so bad that by the time of the genocide half of all farming was on hillsides with slopes greater than 10% and that erosion led to a steep decline in grain production from the 1980s. James Gasana, Rwanda's Minister for Agriculture (1990-1992), in an article in the Sept./Oct. 2000 World Watch magazine, presents a table showing the correlation between calories per person in the various districts of his country and people killed in massacres. While overpopulation was not the only factor involved, it is perverse to deny it was an important one.

When I was a little shaver and my peers tried to bully me we had a saying "Sticks and stones will break my bones, and names will never hurt me".

That still applies today and the calling of names does little to strengthen the arguments of those who would still try to bully me. Those who feel that technology is the solution to the world's food problem need to see how much of the US and EU grain production is being diverted from producing food to producing alcohol and biofuels. It is starting to happen here with the commissioning of the NFL biodiesel plant in Darwin and CSR is producing alcohol from sugar cane.

That is where technology is taking agricultural production as the world seeks to shrug off its dependence on Middle Eastern oil. As others have observed, the world has only limited resources, unfortunately, man seems to have a limitless urge to procreate and this will be his ultimate undoing.

Malthus was just a bit ahead of his time.

Because the Americans and Israelis, compared to the size of the Middle East, really now only hold bridge-heads, might it be better if as has already been suggested by some radical scientists:

The Americans should get out for their own good and take the Israelis with them - there still being plenty of room in the true Promised Land, America.

Horus, birth rates are higher in developing than developed countries, but are declining in both developed and developing countries.

Johncee1945 – you say “over a billion people starve to death every year.” Get real! The planet’s population is less than 6.5 billion. You’re right that “Every year the UN release no end of detailed analysis and figures about the worlds starving”. I suggest you read some of it.

Divergence – look at the earlier posts. Malthus didn’t say population growth causes poverty, he said agricultural productivity improvements promote population growth that absorb the extra output leaving per capita living standards unchanged. Show me evidence that Rwanda’s population growth was CAUSED by rising agricultural productivity and I might accept your argument that events there prove Malthus right (though I'd still need convincing it wasn't primarily a sectarian/ethnic dispute).

VK3AUU – I called you a neo-Malthusian and a misanthropist. Many modern-day anti-population advocates are happy to wear the label “neo-Malthusian” (similarly neo-conservatives don't mind being called neo-conservatives, although their opponents often use the term in a derogatory way). The label seems to fit you - you do say you believe “Malthus was just ahead of his time.” I’ll admit that calling you a misanthropist was not intended to be complimentary, but it doesn’t seem to me unreasonable given your argument that “medical researchers should stop finding all theses cures for diseases and get the mortallity rate back up."

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Agronomist,

I said,"a "usual" 2 crop growing season." Referencing the hardy winter wheat crop and the spring soft wheat crop.

Here is a link to the International wheat production statistics for the period 1996 tom 2002. One can see an obvious fluctuation in crop production year by year.
As example: China goes from 110.6 metric tons to 89
United States 62 to 44
Canada 29.8 to 15.7
Australia 23.7 to 18.5

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_wheat_production_statistics

For all my reasons from my earlier post and your contribution I believe it's safe to say that overall wheat will probably not get to be much greater in production to meet the demands of "world hunger". Countries that do grow wheat will grow enough to sustain local Boards/Commissions while exploiting the demands for oilseeds and bio-fuels. Maize being one such crop with diverse ends. Food, feed, and fuel.

Cheers

Julian Cribb: "In the absence of a totalitarian world govt, my assumption is that the only truly effective instrument we will have to check population is prosperity."
It is time to get upfront and recogninse that totalitarianism is the greatest cause of population expansion.
That was recognised in 1994 at Cairo. There, empowerment of women was agreed upon as being necessary to advance their well-being: at least give them the opportunity to limit the size of their families. That necessity has not been realised due, more than anything else, to the totalitarian attitudes of the Vatican and of the American administration's fundamentalist Christian supporters. Both have fought tooth and nail to prevent implementation of the issues agreed upon in Cairo. As a result, since then another billion needy people are sharing the fast-diminishing resources of this planet. Its environmental resources are being mined (not sustainably farmed) to cater for more than six and a half billion people. Two billion are less than the age of fifteen.

For some hundred thousand years, our ancestors' birth-to-death rates were closely matched. Then, ten thousand years ago, agriculture tipped the balance slightly in favour of births. Nature stepped in to level that up somewhat by diseases such as smallpox (which needed population aggregations in excess of 20,000) and other diseases - mostly acquired from animal proximity.
Two centuries back the balance again tipped in favour of births, due to the advent of fossil fuel abundance for both energy and fertiliser, and of death minimisation due to more hygenic living. By 1950, human numbers had increased in that interval from almost one, to two billion; in spite of nature's best efforts with Influenza etc..
In the past half century we really got into top gear with death minimisation: births to deaths is way out of kilter. No animal population, human or otherwise, can continue to expand the way we currently do.
If we are to behave as the "big-brained mammal" should, we will cease acceptance of the totalitarian actions of the Vatican and Bush Administrations.

"People stop having kids when they become affluent."

Caritas, perhaps you have it exactly arse about there.

If we look at the 80 million per year that are increasing,
its usually in countries where religion interferes with
Government and women are denied family planning resources.
A huge number of those women, given the choice, would
not have so many children.

When you have institutions like the Vatican, doing what
they can to stop women using condoms, the pill, having
the snip etc, at the same time having huge influence
on Govts in third world countries, no wonder the
population keeps increasing.

In fact there are plenty of institutions linked to the
Vatican, actively encouraging women in places like
the Philipines, to have even more kids, despite the
overcrowding. Perhaps they just want more little Catholics,
in their fight with the muslims.

I don't think I have found a site in which so much unjustified ego and plain ignorance, is slapped up against rigid low scale academia and rampant ideological belief. The above posts are a parade of cerebral deficiency; not that any of the inhabitants will ever know this, due to their very evident lack of thirst for challenge and common incapacity to comprehend humanity. MSN has a good site titled respect party, if any equally disappointed readers are still searching. I'm off, dreadful dead dudes.

This is wonderful. No mention of population in the article, but so many people jumping in and saying just how important the population factor is.

Plerdsus writes;

“It would appear that the need to control population is the great taboo subject of this century.”

Yes indeed. But maybe, just maybe, that taboo is being broken down…..at last.

That was unfair of me; Bushbred and Rhian seem to do their homework and clearly have both feet on the floor. But to the rest of you, if the names Rockefeller, Rothschild, Soros and Brzezinski mean little to you in the context of the population crisis, along with the IMF/BIS, then you are a long way from beginning the gradual journey rise on the globalisation learning curve.

Tony, the rest of us have done some thinking too, not just those
that happen to agree with you. Perhaps its you who should
address the problem of the huge influence of religion,
in places like Africa and other third world countries.

It used to be a problem in the West, but luckily we told
the religious to get lost, to a large degree.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/panorama/3147672.stm

The above link leads you to a BBC Panorama transcript, of
a few of the things happening in the third world. You ignore
them are your peril.

Given that Catholic police squads were going around burning
condoms in Rwanda, before the large genocide, you would
be foolish to understimate this factor as a problem for
third world women.

Yes, all others equally contemptuous of a common mans view, shuffle off to Tony Ryan's internet site for pseudo-intellectual snits. What a dill. First he has nothing but disrespect for OLO and it's posters then he comes back to recruit a couple of what one can only assume are in his opinion, near thinkers. I hope you fellows feel complimented. I can only repeat. What a dill.

Bushbred,

Good idea and all the MUslims from the middle east can all leave Europe,Australia and America and go back to to the Middle East and that would free up even more land to bring the Jews to the West.

I thought the Jews originated more from the middle east going back to biblical times than they did from the West anyway.

Sigh; I guess its up to the West AGAIN, to solve the problems of the world, especially the prolems of overpopulation bought on in these religious fundamentalist countries where the people will not stand up to the priests and build family planning and health clinics for their women and then selfishly want to overrun everyone elses countries becuase they are running out of space.

colinsett

You may want to add the fundamentalist muslim clerics, as well as George Bush and the Vatican to your list of those fighting the rights of women to have access to family planning.

Don't forget the clerics like priests of any religion live off the funds they get to run muslim schools and mosques from their congregations.

Shiek Hilali derives his wages from the funds poured into Muslim schools by his supporters.
No wonder he wants to control womens fertiliy.

At last!! The "Dead Elephant in the lounge room" discussion on population is getting an airing. Why is this not "Top of the Bill"? Why are we still talking about band aid issues like more food production and saving the starving millions when blind Freddy can see that we will just get more of the same.

We need action on pulling the teeth of the "Men in Dresses with Pointy or Rag Hats" control freaks and the patriarchal control mechanisms in these stultifying religions where belief in God has been replaced by "I will will tell you what God wants you to do"!

When are we going to give women control over fertility, education and a life expectancy.

Our poor environment can no longer support us and we are losing "choice" in what we and all people can do. We do NOT have to go and shoot everyone like some morons espose, just set in motion the gentle wheels of change and give out free contraception to ALL women and men TO USE IF THEY WISH.

Choice and education is what it is all about.

Rhian,

Perhaps you should read Gasana's article about his own country where he was Minister for Agriculture before dismissing overpopulation. Grain production in Rwanda rose from an average of around 200 thousand metric tonnes in the 1960s to a peak of about 375 thousand in the 1980s. It then fell sharply over the 1990s back to about 175 thousand metric tonnes right before the genocide. Production was this low at times in the early 1960s, but there were less than half as many people. See the graph at

http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/grain_production_in_rwanda

Of course, not being a mindreader, I can't prove that the population increased because there was more food, but it seems extremely likely. Children have economic value in pre-industrial societies, both in terms of child labour and support in old age (touched on by Tony Ryan). However, a point is eventually reached when scarcity of land or other vital resources means that not even child slave labour can raise production enough to pay for itself and population growth stops (by various means, often brutal). ZPG is actually the natural state of mankind. See Virginia Abernethy's book 'Population Politics' for references on this.

Population growth will also stop if you make people rich. Developed countries need a high quality work force, so cannot allow parents to profit from child labour or keep their adult children under their thumbs. Most people can satisfy their love of children with small families. Global population is just too large to make everyone rich, though.

Guy V,
"When are we going to give women control over fertility, education and a life expectancy."

What? Men are at the root of world population levels?

Speaking of moronic Ideas. Why should I give a woman control over my genetic contribution to human reproduction. Have you so totally caved to neo-feminist misandry that you no longer feel capable of a personal sexual decision. Are you so disconnected from your sex that you see it and yourself, men, as the enemy of the female sex.

How about this. Every man and woman, as a cognitive, sentient being takes full and complete responsibility for their actions.

Or does that leave you with out an excuse and some one to blame for the personal mismanagement of your life decisions?

aqvarivs

Please re-read the last sentance of my comments. This is all about informed choice. Patriarchal control, to which you apear to adhere, is where the real problem lies.

You are correct, we should be responsible for our actions, but we all know that good old hormones skew the balance somewhat in our society and where you have men subscribing to the ideal that "The more children I have the bigger man I am", the problem will exaserbate itself.

We also know that where we have educated people we do not have a population problem unless it is driven by a Government where a rampant "growth at any cost" economic model is held up as the ideal.

Australia is idealy placed to reduce it's population to take the strain off our overloaded environment while maintaining our quality of life and prosperity and to set an example for others. Why we constantly want more people is beyond understanding. We know the growth economic model works but we also know it only works with unlimited free natural resources which we no longer have.

aqvarivs

Instead of sourcing my info from books and faculty reports, I listened to real people; actively from 1971 onwards. And wherever possible, in their languages. These were not stupid people. They understood their positions perfectly and were extremely articulate. This is why mine, and the views of other community development people who learned how to listen and measure; are critically at variance with the theorists and ideologists. I reiterate, population problems are a product of poverty; and this is a poverty which is created deliberately by the IMF/World bank; by imperialist US and EU governments; and by megacorporations; all supported by the entirely unaccountable and undemocratic United Nations. Both John Howard and Kevin Rudd support this triangulation of global power. The pertinent question which you need to answer is: what are you doing about it; big mouth.

Once upon a time,

there were a group of very intelligent chicks, who started a democracy and invented plasma TVs and SUVs and thought they were the best barnyard in chookendom.
Then one day, while they were enjoying life, they became overpopulated with 10 billion of them (10^10) demanding 10^100 joules of Energy each to run their appliances. But they ran out of oil seed and the barnyard which could only supply 10^20 joules was now running down to 10^17 and falling.

Well, the water got dirty, the air became dusty and they choked on their own mess. Then a big hurricane came and an acorn fell and hit the head of one of them. With that event, and others like that, they soon became convinced that that their neighbour was to blame so they started killing each other.

Well the big CEO-Roosters(CRs) saw this and said "wait a minute if they're gonna die anyways, we can make a profit here. I say I say we can sell em to Chanticleer Farm for a nice fat Milton Friedman profit and the conveyor-buzz-saw is so quick they won't feel a thing".

So all the intelligent chickens were killed except a few breeders whose children were put in pre-school to learn ABC. The Roosters? Well they lived happily for a while till they too began to kill each other. But after waiting for the chooks to overpopulate again they cracked another windfall .... errrr .... acornfall ... and resumed their wickedness. Alas after some time the Roosters became sick at soul and took the cowards way out.

And the moral of the story?

Yes, Yes?

And the moral of the story?

Kaep your chickens close but keep your Roosters even closer & on a tight leash!

But alas, the story never ended there. The latest round of chickens took heed of that advice given them. So they got together, made democracy stronger, clipped the CEORoosters wings to keep them close. They could do this because they were a majority and they started to realise the CRs had to do as they were told. The chickens then forced the CRs to make profits in space with a mass transfer homologue of the Internet called SWW-MPAL (Space Wide Web- Maglev, Packet switched, scramjet Assist, incremental Launched unmanned space initiative). With this technology they spread out into inner solar system space where all the chickens bred to their hearts content for as long as the Sun shines bright and without any more than the usual minor conflicts that chickens must have.

But hark! In the middle of the Solar System the Sun's low entropy raised the IQ of chickens to such heights that they found how to mass produce atom-by-atom perfect fabrics by the card full. , They soon formed these into Meissner shields for cloaking their advanced space craft. They were able to warp space, travel to other solar systems and embark upon and infinite adventure whilst still breeding, co$k-a-doodle-do all the while.

Tony Ryan,

No doubt first world elites are contributing to the perpetuation of poverty in some places (and its alleviation in others), but you need to explain how people were able to stabilise populations before the industrial revolution, when almost everyone was poor and there were no first world elites. As can be gleaned from any text on differential equations, constant growth in population or anything else follows the exponential growth formula, P(t) = P(0)exp(rt) where t is the time from some arbitrary starting point when the population was P(0) and r is the fractional (percentage) growth rate. Assuming 1% population growth (less than global or Australian growth rates and a lot less than in many third world countries) for 10,000 years, starting with 2 people, then at the end of the 10,000 years you would have 5.4 x 10^43 people. Assuming an average of 60 kg each, they would all just fit into a sphere with a radius of 92 billion km, more than 10 times the distance from Pluto to the sun.

Clearly (most) people are smart enough not to breed themselves into disaster. Pensions (at least for people without sons) would probably help, and China is going to implement them, according to recent news reports. All the same, such things can be organised from the bottom up. Much social welfare was traditionally organised at the parish level in England, at least since the 16th century. Why do you assume that the world's poor are not smart enough to make the old people a community rather than an individual family responsibility?

"I reiterate, population problems are a product of poverty;"

You have it exactly arse about Tony Ryan!

In those countries with population explosions, often only
a small % have access to contraception, abortion is banned
etc. Yet many of these women express the desire to have
less children. So why not give them the choice?

You'll find that the WHO have done heaps to try and give
women these choices, only to be fought all the way
by the Vatican and boyo are they good at lobbying,
right the way into many Govts.

In wealthier countries, women have the choice of purchasing
their contraceptive needs, paying for abortions etc, even
if illegal. A large % of women in the third world don't have
that choice and that is where the problem lies. Catholic
hospitals will freely give their kids a vaccination, but
no snip, no condoms, no birth control pills either.

You try having sex with no family planning for 30 years and see how
many kids you land up with. Duh.

Guy V, Your still blaming men for world population.
"Patriarchal control, to which you apear to adhere, is where the real problem lies."
Woman has always had dominion over her womb. To lay this at the door of men is simplistic and one sided. You forgot to figure in centuries old abortion and birth control techniques that woman has practiced, yes that's correct centuries of it long before the pill, into your claim of male womb ownership. I could go on but sufficient to the point. Population is a human issue not an issue of sex or irresponsibility or hormones. The reasons and reasoning is diverse as there are cultural identities and values.

Tony Ryan, I don't care who you claim holds your nutter opinions. It means nothing to me. World population has nothing to do with poverty. To say look at third worlders they're the cause of unfettered world population growth is knee-jerk racism at best. To say it is a factual and leading cause of Earths human density is absolute nonsense and list up there with the best of the tinfoil conspiracies. See a Doctor. They have all kinds of medicines today that extend life expectancy. I'm sure they can find something for your head.
Australia Pop. 20.5 Million
Cambodia Pop. 15 Million
El Salvador Pop. 7 million
Guatemala Pop. 12.8 million
Niger pop. 13.9 million
Nigeria Pop. 133.5 million
Rwanda Pop. 9 million
Sudan Pop. 36.9 million
United States Pop. 300.0 million

aqvarivs

Ah. Now I see the problem. You can't read. Go get Mummy, there's a dear.

Divergence

Fair question. If you had ever lived in a third world country and you suggested that old people (someone's beloved Granny) should be regarded as some outside entity (your community), they would look at you in horror. This is family, extended family, the prime value in any traditional or tribal community (which is, by the way, what tribal means). I have listened to Indonesian, Malay, Chinese, and even Aboriginal, people say that the reason they look down on white Australians is we do not value family; that we throw them in homes for the elderly. Even though they acknowledge the evident value in an age pension, many are suspicious of the damage this might have on the extended family. We have to respect their values. But I had not even alluded to this aspect, so I am not sure why you raised it.

Another thing they dispise is the kind of mindless ideological ranting offered by Yabby. Goodies and baddies through a political lens. Just for the record, in my humble opinion, third world people I have known were much more politically mature and savvy than the vast majority of Australians. Most certainly, they better understand the nature of power. Even their uni students have a grasp of politics in advance of most Australian political scientists I have met, which admitedly has not been many.

"Another thing they dispise is the kind of mindless ideological ranting offered by Yabby. Goodies and baddies through a political lens."

Hehe Tony Ryan, which is exactly what YOU are doing :)

But of course, lets not let the evidence get in the way of
a good story and the evidence is overwhelming. These societies
were not made poor by anyone. They were and usually still are
agrarian societies, living off the land. What the West got
badly wrong, was to send in a heap of religious missionaries,
who took with them vaccines and other modern medicines. Next
we sent more boatloads of food and more food. All very well,
as long as you address the family planning side. Without
it, you have exactly what we have today, even more hungry
people, 80 million a year added, in some of the poorest
countries.

So what evidence would you like? That many women in
the third world don't have access to family planning? That
they would like it? That the Catholic Church tries to deny
it, in the name of religious ideology?

When it comes to mindless ranting, without evidence, the
ball is fully in your court, Tony Ryan.

Sharkfin, the Jews were never really kicked out of Israel previously, it is just that their intellect or intelligence encouraged them to mix more with the former barbarian Westerners whose natural intelligence was pepped up interestingly through a thesis written by St Thomas Aquinas which advocated that for the Christian Church to adapt itself to earthly progress, faith in Christ and God needed to be tempered by reason.

Now the Jews already had a historic interest in the benefits of Socratic Reasoning. To turn back to late BC years when the Great Library of Alexandria was in its heyday, it is said that by far the majority of the students attending the library were Jews.

Now the main reason that the library was built according to historians, was to pass on the wonderful scientific findings of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Alexander himself was also a pupil of Aristotle during what we all now know was the Golden Age of Greece, the Great Library of Alexandria passing on the message.

From the above we can see that the Jews, many we now call Israelies, are well into modern thought as well as scientific reasoning.

They also fit in well with modern capitalism which has its roots in Jewish philosophy.

Also it is no surprise to social scientists that Jews and ex-Israelis have merged so well into US politics, mostly among Republicans but also with the Democrats.

But besides giving praise, however, there is the problem that both Jews and Israelis have proven to follow big power, as they have previously with British conservatism as they also now do with the US.

In the Middle East, unfortunately, now a comparatively small Jewish nation, has with its intellect and big power backing caused an extremely serious problem - especially as the Israelis now possess the most sophisticated modern armoury, with the Palestinian Arabs next door having to resort to suicide bombing because there armoury is almost nil.

Many trained social scientists might ask - why did the world watch and let this happen?

It isn't so much that agrarian societies are poor or uneducated in themselves. There are many successful agrarian only societies. It is more to do with the extent to which tribalism affects trade. Whether that trade be across tribal boundaries or country borders. Much of the intra-African poverty can be seen in the light of tribal hatreds and violent associations that transcends borders. This environment inhibits trade and any accumulation of wealth. Keeps the standard of living down and stops others from investing in those societies. Because to become anything requires commitment and time, and money, few once away from these societies return to contribute to them. So they then lack teachers or doctors, or tradesmen, employment and the list of deficiencies can become quite long. Suffice to say. That society sees no benefit from it's behavior but, tribal histories and customs however detrimental to a successful society are kept and passed along to the next generation. A history of self-fulfilling prophecies.

Yes Tony I read your Rothschild conspiracy rant. Should I give it any attention or consider it academic to this discussion. No. Emphatically NO. And you want to be a leader in society? Good grief.

aqv etc

I have never aspired to leadership; nor will I ever. As I said, I support democracy; but no inconsistency here is apparent to you; obviously. I have, however spent much of my life within tribal communities and understand what they mean. I spoke their languages and learned to think in these. You, very clearly have not, and cannot. Every thing you say comes from books written by unilingual analysts. I recognise the flavour well. Not that it matters particularly; I am just disappointed at the lack of on-the-ground experience evident in this site. Everyone is a dogmatic theorist and ideologue. It is for this reason I am signing off and heading for Mathaba, where the real people grow.