Crude Impact – a brilliant documentary, shown on SBS last night.

It explained the ominous nature of peak oil, in conjunction with the human population explosion that has been facilitated by the exploitation of this enormous resource.

Climate change, resource wars, an actual decline in quality of life in many oil nations compared to the era before they exploited oil and compared to non-oil nations, and many other aspects were explored.

But most significantly, the sense that the near future is extremely ominous, was projected very powerfully. The need to develop alternative energy sources and to become much more frugal with energy usage was of course expressed.

But it was taken one big step further: the need for humanity to stop growing was expressed as the paramount necessity. The point was made that if we do manage to develop alternative energy sources but don’t address the continuous growth factor, we will just come up against another resource barrier in the near future. We MUST address continuous growth factors along with the consumption and technological factors.

This is the best effort at expressing the urgency of directing ourselves towards sustainability that I have encountered.

An absolute must-see for everyone.
(Unfortunately not due to be repeated on SBS for a year or more, and not readily available elsewhere)

Ludwig, I fear that as before, Mother Nature will balance the books. It might be in the form of massive earthquakes and tsumanis, droughts and famine, floods and famine, plagues, crop failures, but it will come. Look for example at the effects of the Black Death and the Spanish Flu had on rebalancing the population. Not to mention humanities contribution through wars.

This mindset will obviously not be popular, but may I point out that it has happened several times throughout history - lets not be so vain as to think that it wont happen again.

human population will be reduced, c gal, and famine, war,and disease will do it.

but while 'philosophical' about the coming cull, i still get angry about the blind stupidity of allowing the nation, and the human race, to be managed by politicians.

in the end, i have to accept that the average intelligence is not high enough, the average education too shallow, to allow racial survival. irritating, as we are close to good enough if the powerholders helped rather than hindered. of ourse, they got to be powerholders by being greedy, arrogant, and selfish

Ludwig,
the thing that grabbed my attention the most was how quickly the worlds population has increased since the industrial revolution. When oil production falls, how can we produce enough food without machinization?

We really should be reducing the worlds population now. Question HOW?

We should seriously look at our population as well.

We can generate electricity with coal, gas, wind and solar but how do we replace the motor vehicle?

Yep, big,big changes are heading our way.

DEMOS, the problem is that most people focus on their daily lives and struggles and dont consider a problem if it is not reasonably imminent and if it will not affect them. I've always said on these forums that country people are far more efficient users of say water, as they are aware of the consequences of overconsumption and they face imminent personal hurt (be it having to pay for a water delivery). As for the rest of us, well we've never been very good at learning the lessons of history, so I guess we will continue learning the hard way.

Banjo, I am not so concerned about loss of motor cars, although living a long way from my family and travelling for work will mean that I am personally greatly affected. My primary concern is the loss of rail and truck services and no fuel for farm machinery. It we cant produce the crops nor get them to market, we are going to be in a very dire state indeed. Importations wont be an option as there'll be no fuel to run ships (sailing ships might be fine but no good for fresh food). Personally I'll be ok with this one, as I have access to land on which to grow food and water to grow it with. But many will have a lot of trouble indeed. Funnily enough we will probably find our poor 3rd world neighbours will be in a better position than us, as they are mainly subsistence farmers with little or no technology. How things might change!!

Fuel for farm machinery is not a huge problem, with zero till fuel use is kept to a minimum and a broadacre farms fuel needs can be met by using approx 5% of the area for oilseed production like canola or mustard seed.
Canola at 40% oil will produce 800 litres/ha (2t/ha yield) which could be used direct(though has it's problems) or converted to bio-diesel. Farming uses around 40L/ha in production.The question is can we afford to divert more agricultural land to produce fuel for general transport, I think not.

50 years of boring people stupid with my opinions about over population and non sustainability and quoting Dr Paul Erlick ad nauseum, resulted in total scepticism. Now perhaps people are beinning to listen, but I think it might be a little late. I watched that TV programme too in utter despair over the myopic view most people have. I agree with Country Gal, nature will always have her way.

snake,
Look on the bright side. When oil is short and we are really concerned about world over population, you will be able to say "I told you so, 50 bloody years ago and you would not listen"

Not many have ben able to say that with honesty.

You had the foresight.

snake said "50 years of boring people stupid with my opinions about over population and non sustainability and quoting Dr Paul Erlick ad nauseum"....and he still hasn't learned.

Its Paul Erlich...not Erlick.

Here are some great Erlich's

"the battle to feed all of humanity is over... In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now."

"India couldn't possibly feed two hundred million more people by 1980"

"By 1985 enough millions will have died to reduce the earth's population to some acceptable level, like 1.5 billion people."

"I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000."

"Before 1985, mankind will enter a genuine age of scarcity . . . in which the accessible supplies of many key minerals will be facing depletion." (1976)

By 1980 the United States would see its life expectancy drop to 42 because of pesticides, and by 1999 its population would drop to 22.6 million." (1969)

I don't think you should quote someone who was so masively wrong...

Snake, you are dead right and so was Erlich. Erlich's warning is more urgent now than ever. Keep quoting him till something changes. I did a couple of years of enonomics as part of an engineering degree course 45 years ago. There were warnings from progressive economists then that economic growth was a false god. Unfortunately today politicians still equate growth with progress because growth allows then to deliver on the promises they have to make to get into office. Growth will kill us all. It's a sick system. Alzo when you look at the size of the problem your criticism of Erlich looks trivial. Erlich put numbers on everything to wake us up. His timescale was wrong but what is a timescale error of 50 years or so in the future of our grandkids and their grandkids? If you were warned to get off the road as a red truck was about to run you down would you just sit there arguing whether it was red or brown? This is no time for nit picking things are serious!

I just love the way analysis and logic goes out of the window when fear and loathing make an appearance.

>>Erlich put numbers on everything to wake us up. His timescale was wrong<<

Is this an admission that Erlich was nothing more than a scaremonger?

It reminds me of the doomsday cult sitting on top of the mountain. When the world doesn't end at the predicted hour on the predicted day, they simply pack up and go home, telling each other "Oh well, see you next year then"

The logic is the same. According to the evidence it was supposed to happen. It didn't happen. But the evidence "must" still be right, so... "Oh well, see you next year then"

It may well be that this planet is dying as a result of human habitation. Unfortunately, simply knowing about something doesn't mean you can change it.

It may equally be true that we have another few thousand years ahead of us. But that doesn't give us license to continue doing stuff we know is harmful.

The intelligent approach to this is not to fill the world with documentaries about how bad it might be. This is pure self-indulgence, creating entertainment from a serious topic.

We should by now be mature enough to accept that alternative sources of energy need to be exploited, and quickly. This means getting stuck into unpopular stuff like nuclear energy, as well as putting money into R&D to find the next big thing.

Instead, all we can do is run around in circles yelping "the sky is falling, the sky is falling"

And watching trendy documentaries with an uncritical - nay, gleeful - eye.

I would hope that most people who saw the documentary "Crude impact" got more out of it than Pericles. Hopefully those with a penchant for "analysis and logic" would have realised that the central message was that the "peak oil" crisis is only one of many more crises yet to come. The central problem is that there is a limit to growth-even though we can't put a number or timescale on it. Peak oil is only one aspect of the general malaise. This planet is itself a finite resource and the sooner we face this fundamental problem and achieve stability the higher the end result sustainable living standard for all. The lesson from this documentary is not that we are doomed. The lesson is that the cause of our problem must be faced. The problem is that we believe that we can forever continue to grow our industries, our mines, our harvest of nature, our farm-lands, our polution, our population etc etc because science will somehow save us. The documentary is not preaching doom. It is preaching equilibrium, sustainability, recycling, preserving what is left of nature. It is educating and it is preaching hope. It is preaching that long-term survivability depends on both the developed world and the undeveloped world. The developed world must call a halt to further "development" and the undeveloped world must not follow our bad example.

If people like Pericles don't agree with the basic proposition that unconstrained economic development leads to disaster then they should argue their "no impediments to growth" case with "analysis and logic" not simply avoid the point with constant repetition of the juvenile Henny Penny line.

Funnily enough, I actually recently spoke with Paul Ehrlich when was out in Oz last year. Great guy, although I don't think I agree with him on a few things. Be that as it may, he actually admitted he was wrong, knows why and told us so. The thing is, he never factors in technological or political changes and is not a great economical modeller either. He said why he has never done so is because you just can't, many times you just can't see which changes will be made or can be made, which is quite a reasonable approach. This is why his resource predictions have been totally off the mark as well as anything to do with agriculture. Anybody who has actually worked in agriculture for a fair while will probably have noticed a great change in the politics and technology, but not all aspects, some never change- which is Ehrlich's point. Things need to change and he made predictions on what would happen if nothing did. But they did, they always do, and that doesn't do anything for your credibility, but it's just supposed to make you think a bit more about the issues.

That being said, anybody who still thinks that those old predictions are valid are delusional. But anybody who thinks that nothing is wrong is also. There is good reason for hope alright, straight from the mouth of Ehrlich : "It's not that we can't do better (with resources), it's just that we haven't yet. I have just tried to get people to do better."
The peak oil phenomenon will be a great driver of alternative technologies and many people won't notice a huge difference, or at least it won't be Mad Max time, which is what so many are getting hysterical over.

Ludwig,
indeed a great show for SBS and OZ TV . I threw a video in and recorded probably 3/4's of it .
When I can round the kids up I may have to blackmail them into having a look .
Every young person should have a good hard, analytical look at it .

And would the important and revealing CRUDE IMPACT be part of John Howard'd proposed "new modern history" curriculum for Australian schools? - highly unlikely .

Well written Bugsy and Pericles...finally some commonsense enters the debate. I concur with your comments. I was beginning to think these forums were a refuge for doom merchants and hysterical head bobbers.

lets put it in really simple terms: we let population increase until everyone is living in a concrete box 3m x 3m x 2m. we stack the boxes as high as the concrete allows. population continues to increase. our masters say: simple,really: put 2 people in each box. later on, we can put 3- we'll call it the gillette solution.

or we can stabilize now when the planet still looks like a slightly shabby version of the original. your choice is...?

Demos said "lets put it in really simple terms"....thats where Erlich went wrong.

I'm all for population stabilsation...just wary about how. How would suggest doing it Demos? I would certainly abhor any form of government control aka China's one child policy. And we are not really talking about Australia's propulation as it is in natural decline anyway.

Demos said "lets put it in really simple terms"....thats where Erlich went wrong.

I'm all for population stabilsation...just wary about how. How would suggest doing it Demos? I would certainly abhor any form of government control aka China's one child policy. And we are not really talking about Australia's population as it is in natural decline anyway.

alzo: would you accept pop control if it were backed by referendum? if yes, then we need democracy. if no, then you're not really in favor. why not, by the way?

capitalist societies 'externalize' the cost of labor when possible, which seems to make it undesirable for the workforce to replenish itself. so, yes, population would fall if not supplemented by immigration. but there is immigration, the government loves 'growth' as it covers some failures in planning. and it rewards the business and union supporters of election campaigns with cheap labor and new recruits in the low paid or industrial jobs that are still union dominated.

the pm announced that the murray-darling irrigators were going out of business recently. i bet he would rather have publicly eaten worms out of a toilet bowl. if that didn't convince you oz is nudging it's human carrying capacity, the event that does will probably be fatal.

it's not that there's not enough water, oil, fish, trees, etc. - that's just the reflection of the problem: too many people.

Demos , I agree with you -too many people for our resources .
We haven't followed Noah's example .
We continue to kick species off the Ark .Eventually if we keep it up ,the good Lord will bring us back to earth with a thud -literally .

DEMOS, as we discovered when we were asked whether we wanted a republic or not, the result turned on the method, not the principle.

More Australians were actually in favour of the vague and woolly idea that we should be a republic than were against it. However, the devil is, as always, in the detail. If not the monarchy, what then? How about a dictatorship? No? well, how about a directly elected head of state? No? How about... etc etc.

It is the same with "population control".

It is easy to ask "would you prefer to live in Australia as she is now, or in a 'concrete box 3m x 3m x 2m?'" and get the answer you want.

It is far more difficult to say, ok, you voted for polulation control, would you prefer a) to buy a ticket if you want to have a child, b) participate in a lottery if you want to have a child, c) involuntarily euthenase one member of your family for each child you have etc. etc.

Because that is the reality. Of course we don't want to live in a concrete box, but neither do we want to kill off granny just to make way for little Justin.

If you have an intelligent option that will solve the "how", then you might find more people interested in the "what".

Pericles -: " Niether do we want to kill off granny to pay for little justin"

What say we kill off all the preists around the world who wont allow birth control instead.

George bush recently shut down a womens clinic that provided birth control in an underdeveloped country (I forget which), because of his religious beliefs and the idea that the pill may cause instant abortion because he found out about the hormones in the morning after pill.

How many leaders from all the countries in the united nations are in favour of setting up family planning clinics all over the world and are busy organising it. Are they too busy taking billions in aid
and using it for other things because its against their religious and male beliefs.

Overpopulation will always result in pressures like poverty and famine that lead to wars. Also mass immigration as people flee these overpopulated hell holes looking for a better life in less populated countries. This in turn has lead to millions and millions of deaths from ethnic cleansing as ethnic tensions arise between the newcomers and the resident tribes both seeking control of the available resources.

There is also the driving to extinction of some of the wonderful animals on the earth as mankind demands further and further territory and resources. I did not see the programme crude impact but I wish I had as I have always felt that overpopulation is the driving force behind most of the worlds problems. War, famine, global warming, animal extinctions and yet there seems to be little done in a practical nature by the united nations to deal with it.

Yet they say they want peace on earth.

This seems to be a common theme here sharkfin:

>>I have always felt that overpopulation is the driving force behind most of the worlds problems. War, famine, global warming, animal extinctions and yet there seems to be little done in a practical nature by the united nations to deal with it<<

Sadly, the only reason that you are able to think this way is because you are so unbelievably privileged, in an economic sense, to have been brought up in a rich country.

In the eyes of the African farmer scratching a $1 a day living out of a dirt patch, there is no discernible difference between you and Bill Gates.

"Population" in the farmer's mind is all about the basic need to produce more hands to help scratch in the dirt. Unless and until that basic need is replaced by a viable economic alternative, "population control" can only mean the rich exerting their will over the poor.

It is after all no accident that as a generalization, the richer the populace, the lower the birth rate.

And moaning about overpopulation is simply a luxury that the rich indulge in when they are upset by the price of petrol, or the lack of rain.

Perecles is partly right when he says that overpopulation is the cause of the current world pain in many areas. However this too is simplistic as most observations by we mortals are. A far more serious part of the problem of dwindling resources is that we in the developed countries are greedy and short-sighted. We take more than our fair share of the worlds resources and we recognise no limit.

The "African farmer" together with his large family takes very little. He is only a threat to the world when he tries to mimic the "freedom loving, progressive, democratic, affluent ( and suicidal) citizens of the developed countries. The world's resources are already under strain now when only a quarter of the people alive are hooked on the "growth" drug. The damage is being done by the affluent not the poor. America, with about one 1/20th of the world's population believes that it is OK to consume about 1/4 of the world's resources. We in Australia probably have an even worse footprint. We are the guilty ones not the Africans.

The culpability for this problem must be gauged on a per capita basis unless you believe an Australian is more important and worth more than say an African. Our lifestyle perhaps takes some 30 times more from this planet than does that of the "African farmer". Our politicians worship growth. We are the ones fiddle the numbers so that it is not economic to recycle. The "African farmer" will recycle everything and exerts little demand on the planet's diminishing resources. Our value system has no respect for the limited nature of the planets resources and it has no respect for a fair go for other people. I suspect that the increase of the world's population ( although a serious problem in its own right ) is only about 1/10th of the resource depletion problem that is represented by the greed and economic growth in the industrialised world. This is a moral issue. If we need "trendy" documentaries to get the message through, so be it.

>>Perecles is partly right when he says that overpopulation is the cause of the current world pain in many areas<<

Actually, it was sharkfin who said this, not me. I observe that some of the most densely populated areas on the planet are also the richest - Hong Kong springs to mind, the UK, even Switzerland.

In my view, population has very little to do, per se, with either prosperity or poverty.

For example, Zimbabwe has abundant mineral reserves of gold, nickel, asbestos, coal, copper, chrome, iron ore, silver, and tin, and only 10 million people to share the wealth. Yet the average citizen is dirt poor, and starving.

But for sheer head-in-the-sand arrogance, goforit, you deserve a prize for this little gem:

>>The "African farmer" together with his large family takes very little. He is only a threat to the world when he tries to mimic the "freedom loving, progressive, democratic, affluent ( and suicidal) citizens of the developed countries.<<

Let me understand this. You are saying that the African farmer is a threat to the world, if he wants to have a better life? He should continue in his abject dollar-a-day grind, simply so that you can continue to live your life of affluence?

If he does otherwise, he becomes a threat?

That has to be the most selfish attitude yet presented on this forum.

>>This is a moral issue<<

I'll say.

The world has managed very well so far to improve the lot of its inhabitants. From the doomsday position of the fifties and sixties, where we were going to exhaust the world's resources before the year 2000, we have not only improved on average the condition of everyone on the planet, but have added a billion or so more along the way.

Despite this, you want us to penalize those who want to better themselves, because in doing so they become a threat to the rest of us?

That is the most incredibly self-centred, selfish, uncharitable, greedy, egotistic, illiberal, mean and self-indulgent attitude imaginable.

(My thanks to Roget for helping out with that last sentence)

"If you have an intelligent option that will solve the "how", then you might find more people interested in the "what"."

Quite simple. Start by offering every man and woman on the planet the
option of affordable and available family planning!

“I'm all for population stabilsation...just wary about how.”

Alzo, I would suggest that it is just simply impossible to deal with this issue globally, but that we can easily be deal with it in Australia.

“And we are not really talking about Australia's population as it is in natural decline anyway.”

Australia’s population is certainly not in decline, nor anywhere near it. Neither would it be with net zero immigration. This is an extraordinary furphy deliberately promulgated by the likes of Costello. With very easy completely non-Draconian steps, we could steer Australia’s population towards a stable level. But it is not even really being talked about at a significant level. Of course it should be being discussed with as much fervour as the issues of climate change and water!
.
“Despite this, you want us to penalize those who want to better themselves, because in doing so they become a threat to the rest of us? That is the most incredibly self-centred… attitude imaginable.”

That’s an awfully twisted interpretation Pericles. Obviously it is true that if the third world was to ‘better’ itself in the same sort of way as the first world have, it would lead to impossible basic resource-supply issues and massive strife. There is no mean-spirited attitude in simply stating this. Rather than seeing it that way, you should appreciate the enormous paradox involved.

I agree with you Ludwig ,
Pericles appears to be assuming the worst of human motives for bringing up population growth limitations .
Women if given power and education will by choice limit their family size .
I notice today [ABC RADIO NATIONAL] that Mexico is about to vote on abortions in the first trimester in pregnancy with the vote approximately 50/50 and this a country that is overwhelming Catholic .
We in the rich west should share our wealth if necessary by increased taxation as we encourage free comphrehensive public education , democracy and the preservation of the natural environment all round the world.
Concentration of wealth with individuals or companies in any country
is no longer acceptable .

Many thanks Pericles for your's and Roget's character reference. However I think we are really on the same wavelength. I may not have explained myself clearly enough.

Contrary to your interpretation of my remarks I do not begrudge the right of "African farmers" to aspire to the lifestyle of the first world. What I am saying is that I don't think many people realise that it is just not possible to raise the living standard of the third world while we are so selfish. To maintain our lifestyle we have ( like the Americans ) used a disproportionate amount of the world's resources and that has two effects. Firstly the rate at which we are doing so is causing the depletion referred to in "Crude Impact" and secondly it precludes the third world from raiding the pantry as we have done.

According to recent CO2, energy use etc figures we in Australia use some 30 times more of the world's resources on a per capita basis that the third world. This is a very hard position to justify "morally". We are condemning the third world to poverty because we got in first.

However what I am saying is that our wasteful commitment to a "throw-away" lifestyle so hungry for precious resources is far more significant as a drain on resources than simple population growth in itself.

We have a prime minister that in order to win elections is happy tell us that he won't do anything that would cost jobs, hurt our economy and affect our living standard. I suspect that leaders of all the other first world countries run their democratic governments with the same "me first" priorities. We in the first world worship the "economy" and that doesn't have to consider the "have-nots" of this world.

Unles we learn to recycle, protect nature, only take our fair share, live sustainably and not run down resources we are in for a long hot summer and so too are our grandchildren. Unless we allow others to also prosper we can expect to have an unfriendly world.

The wealthy Western nations are not the only ones responsible for earth climate change. The cutting down of the trees in the Amazon by the native people is a huge threat to the earths climate. The amazing number of cars in Mexico and some other densley populated cities in poorer countries is also pouring huge pollution into the atmosphere. On the funny side what about the larger proportion of methane gas from bigger populations. Sorry couldnt resist that one.

Pericles -: I agree with you that in some cases it is also about the inability or the corruption of leaders who cant or dont know how to run the economies of countries to provide wealth on a wide basis for the poor people in those countries.

If as you say Zimbabwe has all those mineral resources then why arent they being utilized by the people. Is it lack of know how or is it that Global companies have taken control?

You say that population control can only mean the rich exerting their will over the poor and you mention Bill Gates. By the rich then,I take it you mean the West. Now if Africa has all this wealth why arent the African people taking advantage of it? Is it the job of the West to be responsible for the failures of every country and peoples all over the world.

If the Africans were wealthy and the West were dirt farmers because they had failed to mine and use their mineral wealth or other rich resources would that then be the fault of the Africans because they had suceeded and should they then have to play nurse maid to the West and every other failed country in the world. This is what you seem to expect of the West

It seems to me as though the world (including the West) has come to look on the West as some kind of world Emporer, who must take responsibility for every country and every person in the world. When did all this become our reponsibility? Are these people so incapable of running their own affairs. When did we become God of the world?

Also Pericles-:

People in these countries wouldnt be forced to use family planning clinics the clinics would just be there if they choose to use them. It would be a choice. The clinics could also provide medical assistance other than family planning to women and children to protect their health from illnesses and diseases.

Sharkfin, You ask "when did we become God of the world". The answer to that question as far as Africa is concernde has to be about the time of the start of the European colonisation of Africa. The Europeans divided up the continent into countries as each took what they wanted from the defenceless primitive indigenous peoples. Today the boundaries of the countries are the legacy of the now departed colonial powers. The Africans had nothing to do with it. European business enterprises took the resources of Africa back to Europe to make much wealth and prosperity for their own countries. The history of colonialism is one of huge powerful companies supported by home governments robbing primitive peoples for hundreds of years.

If you really want to understand the problem African peoples have in taking responsibility for their own development and dealing with the "world emporer" then you should look at the web site www.remembersarowiwa.com/ which outlines one such still running unequal struggle. Some of us remember the terrible death of activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and the desperate fight he fought for the rights of the Ogoni people of the Niger Delta. We remember how the Shell Oil Company exploited the Ogoni people. Big business had no trouble "negotiating" with the post colonial military authorities in Nigeria to take the Ogoni epople's oil oil and leave the Ogoni people with nothing but polution and destruction. The exploitation of Africa by the developed West has been going on for some hundreds of years.

What has happened in Africa is symptomatic of the problem over the years of the rich countries taking resources from the poor. The Africans have got virtually nothing out of all the wealth that has been stolen and is still being exported to the developed world. The big take has been so heavy that now we see what "Crud Impact" tells us - the resources are now getting very scarce. You can't blame the Africans or any of the other primitive peoples who have been mercilessly exploited. they have been the victims of history.

Goforit, you clearly suffer from Western guilt.

If you check history and even now, you will notice that
tribalism and dominant tribes has been going on in Africa
for eons.

Even today, the Bantu treat pygmies as subhumans and
question if they are really human. In Central Africa
not so long ago, a few of them were even found to have been
chopped up for meat by one African leader.

In the Congo, some pygmies are treated as virtual slaves
by the Bantu.

If you study the history of Africa, you'll find that
the Khoi and San people dominated. They were largely
wiped out, as the Bantu spread South.

So the Bantu are as guilty of colonialism as the West
is. Dominant tribes dominating lesser tribes, is just
part of human history. So you can forget the Western
guilt trip and sleep a bit better now :)

Anyone studying African history can see the impact of 400 years of colonialism on the natural resources of third world countries.

Unlike Yabby, I don't think tribal warefare is or ever has been relevant to resource depletion. The 100,000 year period of the San, the 2,000 year term of the Khoi or for that matter the 1,700 year influence of the Bantu as savage as their inter tribal impacts were did not rob Africa of anything.

The Europeans found that they could used the natural resources of Africa much more profitably than the primitive local. The resources plundered from Africa and other places allowed Europe to grow and raise its living standards. I think that history is relevant to today's problem.

The rush to grad Africa's goodies was so great that war betwee European states was a real possibility. The famous Berlin conference between competing colonial powers in 1884 became known as the "scramble". There were no Africans at the conferece which just happened to divide up the natural resources of Africa equitably between countries that would otherwise have had to go to war to decide who got what. There would not be anyone alive that did not recognise the impact of colonialism as wholesale plundering of the resources of the third world.

The hundreds of colonies were eventually rationalised into the present day 60 or so states. The borders drawn up by the Europeans had no ethnic, cultural or historical basis. The only basis was the perpetuation of resource access for the previous colonial masters. By capital investment and global market arrangements the resources of third world countries still feed the ever expanding economies of the first world.

What hope have the impoverished third world countries of ever being able to ration dwindling resources to serve their future generations when even the traditional expanding industrial economies are soon to be eclipsed by the soon to be even hungrier industrial economies of India and China wil be in for the grab.

If you suffer at all from any first world guilt then all I can say is not over yet.

Goforit, I remind you that the Khoi, San and pygmies lost virtually
everything, includng their lives and land, as they were wiped out
and replaced by the Bantu!

Africa still today is full of resources, many unexploited. Others
are being exploited, like oil in Nigeria, Sudan, Angola etc, but
only a few benefit, as Africans cheat other Africans of their
wealth. No point blaming Europeans for that.

What Europeans did get wrong, was what the missionaries did. They
brought them vaccines and better healthcare, but forgot the bit
about family planning. The result was a population explosion and
much poverty, so thats something that I as a European am not very
proud of. But then, I can't take the responsibility for religious
nuts I guess.

Africa is free to do as it pleases, change boundaries, whatever,
that is their decision. But what you'll find is the same problem
as in the Middle East. People are still largely tribal in their
thinking, that stops progress in alot of ways.

Given your analysis of exploitation, perhaps you should feel sorry
for Australians being exploited by the Chinese and Japanese etc.
Given that the price paid per tonne of iron ore is miniscule,
we get no better deal then those Africans which you feel sorry for :)

No first world guilt here sorry. If I feel sorry for anyone,
its the pygmies, who are still held as virtual slaves in some
areas, by the Bantu of course. African colonialism at its best!

Yabby, I share your concern for the pygmies and other oppressed peoples. However that issue has nothing to do with depletion of natural resources in any country. I accept that both tribal conflicts and resource disputes can lead to war - but we are not talking about the causes of war or the effect of war on the depletion of resources. We are talking about the significance of the depletion of finite resources and what causes it. I suggest it is very significant and there are two main causes. Population growth is one cause but the more important cause is the everincreasing demand for raw materials to satisfy the demands for improved lifestyles.
For 400 years most of the raw materials needed to support Europe's advanced lifestyle have come from outside Europe. America's current living standard is also based on access to overseas resources. With about 1/20th of the world's population its economy needs about 1/3rd of the world's resources. Expansionist industrial economies are always hungry for vital raw materials. The danders always from countries that have the commercial and military might to back up their demands. I am not so concerned about the long-term unfairness of this situation as about the short-term consequences of the shortages. I cannot see any future stability without universal commitment to sustainable economies in equilibrium with the world we live in.

Instead of the best economies being judged as those with fastest growth rates we should judgee economies by their prospects of achieving stability. If China and India both both continue to expand both their populations and living standards at their present rates we are all for it.

Goforit, now you are addressing a different issue altogether.

Fact is we've gone from 1.5 billion to 6.5 billion in a hundred
years, heading for 10 billion and nobody says boo about it. Next
thing all those 10 billion want to live in luxury, well in that
case the wheels will fall off the cart of sustainability.

Resources are priced, based on what people, ie the market,
is prepared to pay for them. We Australians virtually give alot
of them away, far too cheaply, IMHO. As demand rises, so will
prices. Higher prices will lead to more careful use of them.
Have petrol go to 3-4$ a litre and watch how people adjust their
lives with smaller cars, fewer wasted trips etc. While its
cheap, they will continue with their V8s and 6s etc.

The reason that growth is pushed by policitians, is the simple
fact that if you look around, everybody wants to be rich. Note
how many buy lottery tickets every week!

Personally thats not my scene, but thats just me. I am not
about to tell others how to live their lives, or what their
values should be. Fact is however, that if we as a global
humanity don't live sustainably, in the end, dear old mother
nature will sort it all out for us. If you read an economic
theory, called the Tragedy of the Commons, its hard to dispute
that this will eventually happen.