*and steer it onto that thread where I destroyed Diamond's claims about "Rwandan overpopulation", *

Err in your little mind perhaps Mil-Observer, but that is about
all.

Once those LaRouche cult members get going, its hard to shut them
up lol, but of course Mil Observer refuses to come clean on that
one.

In LaRouche's world, there is no space for "mere beasts", just
ever more humans with ever more crazy ideas.

A bit of info about Rwanda, in case Mil=Observer missed it.

http://www.du.edu/korbel/hrhw/volumes/2002/2-1/magnarella2-1.pdf

.

Clownfish,

Thank you for your response to my post.

Indeed the world population growth rate has slowed since the 60s and is predicted to stabilize at around 9 billion by 2050.. But merely because it is predicted does not make it a given and steps can and should be taken to slow the rate of growth down as much as possible as the Earth will not sustain the current population let alone 9 billion with any reasonable degree of comfort for very long.

The green revolution did give rise to greatly increased food production and hence the ability of the planet to feed the burgeoning population. However Borlaug’s improved varieties have not been the only factor contributing to the revolution. Cheap fossil fuel derived and facilitated fertilizers and mechanical farming methods, irrigation schemes such as our own, near defunct Murray/Darling effort and land clearing on a grand scale (the sort that Australia undertook in the 60s) of increasingly marginal land were important too. Agricultural productivity increases (if they are still occurring) are slowing and are likely to be reversed as water shortages, land degradation and urban encroachment take their toll not to mention the melting of the Himalayan glaciers that feed the into the Ganges Delta. In short we cannot simply expect the future to be a replica of the past.

If the IPCC expects the developing world’s income to equal that of the developed world it is crazy. China tells its own story as you will see if you watch the video link below – a talk by Lester Brown: -

Discussion on China starts 5” into the video.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4449532225517541673
Australia’s birth rate is below replacement but still exceeds the death rate so population will continue to rise.

You say. “What I am most certainly *against* is a group with a cultic…obsession…”
SPA is not such a group being neither misanthropic nor racist but it recognizes the need to find a course of action to adopt in the interests of the well being of ALL of mankind who have to co-exist in a resource limited environment.

On R&B: A lip-service of peace, and a “peace” of corpses and ashes, no less...and from an “animal lover”! How touching! Must have donated generously to those heavily funded orangutan reserves too. Such bestial sentiments – typically in the now degenerate west – often result in beasts getting more care and resources than children in developing countries. To those who love humanity and civilization more: stay on guard against those who would put an animal's life above your child's welfare.

Yes. “Specism” [sic]. I wear that badge with human pride and clear sense of progressive purpose.

fester: “You have made your point that people concerned with population are moral degenerates”.

No, I made no such explicit point on this thread. I did make points about the fascist tendencies and sentiments clear from the depopulationist and genocidalist rantings here and in related cross-threads. I also made the points about those same people's gross hypocrisy, their elitist fear and loathing of poor people, and their warped, dishonest, and dangerously misleading (even genocidal) views on history and causality.

Fester: “...the massive immigration over the past decade or so seems to have left governments with huge infrastructure debts, incurred by providing for the extra people”.

Since when? How did it “seem” so? The question is not “which country are you in”, but more “what planet/drugs are you on?”

If it's “infrastructure debts” we're talking, try investigating the phenomena of “privatization” and “PPPs”. But that'll be an even bigger challenge now, because you'll have trouble finding a time to stop counting: the bail-out heists just keep going, and they've thrown “infrastructure” into that mix of taxpayer funding of financiers too.

Oh dear, Lester Brown again.

Frankly, if Lester Brown told me it was going to be sunny, I'd break out the umbrella.

Lester Brown always makes me think of Kerry Packer's blunt assessment of Fred Hilmer (and, Lord, how it pains me to quote Packer): "The most educated f*ckwit I've ever met."

Yes, fossil fuels have helped feed the world; and we're not going to be running out any time soon - foolish hand-wringing panics by Brown or Ehrlich notwithstanding. "We've been running out of oil since I was a boy," as Notestein observed.

Besides, do you really think we're not going to develop alternatives? Did the Stone Age ended because they ran out of stones?

The alarmism over melting glaciers, for instance, is a furphy. Of course glaciers are melting: they've been advancing and retreating periodically during the entire Holocene, and most of them peaked during the Little Ice Age ending last century, so there's no surprise that they're currently in retreat.

Besides, just because the glaciers are melting, doesn't mean that the precipitation that feeds them in the first place is necessarily getting less. Indeed, doesn't geological history indicate that Greenhouse periods are always wetter than Icehouse? What it does mean is that rivers that are fed by glaciers will show different patterns of flood and retreat.

Perhaps I do you a disservice by lumping you in with other anti-population and "sustainability" nits on this forum, who spout such nonsensical jargon as "specism", liken humanity to a cancerous organism, and declare that the planet would be better off without us. You may not be racist, but there is no doubt that groups like SPA have been a boon of respectability to the "F- off we're full" wingnuts.

But what really concerns me is the well-meaning zeal of "reformers", who invariably lose patience with the messy reality of humanity and, if given power enough, sooner or later decide that a few eggs must be broken, so that their gloriously imagined omelette may come to fruition.

We've seen the miserable results of that far too often, this last century.

Clownfish, you make an interesting point about the Himalayan glaciers. The present problem is not soo much the amount of water that is available, although that might also be debated. The main problem for countries in that region is the Chinese who have diverted a large percentage of the water into their country and it just isn't available for the others. This has resulted in Thailand going from being a large exporter of rice to being forced into a position of needing to import.

Another problem caused by the Chinese dams is the effect it is having on the breeding of fish in the rivers systems. Because of the comparatively constant flow of the rivers, the fish which need turbid waters caused by periodic flooding, are failing to spawn and large numbers of people who rely on fish for their daily food are being starved. The reduction in the deposition of silt in the river estuaries is also causing a dimunition of fertility.

David

VK3AUU,
Your comment about the Chinese dams is already happening in Australia .

The Gippsland Lakes are a disaster as fresh water use for power stations and farming has ruined them . The Weekly Times had an disturbing update article about their state recently.

Those that would divert inland or dam the little remaining Coastal water in Australia belong to the 19th and 20th Centuries - their Education on the Environment [if any] a disgrace .

We have the Victorian Government now getting ready to pump scarce water from the Murray System over the Great Dividing Range to Melbourne, to flush their toilets and water their gardens, and determined to prevent every bit of water from storms from being "wasted" by going to Port Phillip Bay - also a vital fish nursery. Gross Stupidity .

The answer is to cut the Population Growth .

The Salt and Freshwater fishermen all over Australia should be outside their Parliaments protesting their MP'S ignorance of the natural world as the business world rubs it's hands together for the Planned population increase in Australia.