The taboo subject of.....Population Growth

zimzum42 · May 2007

Actually, let's have a workers' government, I fancy getting holf of my free govt. issue whippet and flat cap.....

[:D] www.addiscombe.org [8D] [8D] www.darhotwire.com [8D] [8D] www.muzikmedia.com [:D]
My Bikes My Commute

redcogs · May 2007

How on earth will the existing capitalist power structures disappear without being challenged Nick? i share your desire for an ultimate absence of government, and i hope for the day when all states will have 'whithered away' because there is no longer any basis for class repression.

But doesn't such an ideal inevitably rest on a degree of organisation? i find it hard to imagine a successful spontaneous anarchist uprising of the oppressed.

please look up to the stars.. ***

redcogs · May 2007

Last i noticed working class attire had moved on a little. What do you wear when you're brown nosing Murdoch zimmer?

please look up to the stars.. ***

zimzum42 · May 2007

Jeans and a t-shirt.

Unfortunately he's not passed by yet to congratulate me and welcome me round to his masion, I'm waiting patiently though.......

[:D] www.addiscombe.org [8D] [8D] www.darhotwire.com [8D] [8D] www.muzikmedia.com [:D]
My Bikes My Commute

Unknown · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by redcogs

...doesn't such an ideal inevitably rest on a degree of organisation? i find it hard to imagine a successful spontaneous anarchist uprising of the oppressed.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
I think you are being insufficiently radical, redcogs. The better world you hope for might one day come about; but the chances of that happening before the human race has reduced spaceship Earth to a desertified, poisoned wreck must surely be very close to zero.

Do you want to live in an anarcho-syndicalist commune in an underground bunker? On recycled human waste?

Because that's the best outcome I can see for your aspirations. Personally, I think it makes much more sense to purge the planet of the organism that is destroying its beauty and fecundity.

And "the existing capitalist power structures" will disappear along with every other human institution [:)] OK, so it's not a win for humans, but then nearly all humans are losing now, in your view and mine.

So you voted, and now you've got a government. I just hope YOU like it.

QuickDraw · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by peterbr

I don't rule out Catholacism changing in the future as this will only acknowledges the reality for many of it's followers. It also has a somewhat strange history of "official" changes to their belief system. Did you know for example that the idea of "immaculate conception" only became official belief in the 1860s? Presumably coming to that conclusion also undoes the principle of papal infallability as clearly previous popes were wrong on this...
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

Infallability isn't a constant thing. It's not like every time a Pope opens his mouth he believes he's right. It's only been used twice in history (IIRC) once for the the immaculate conception and once for the assumption. So there's certainly no reason Rome's stance on contraception won't change in the future and it certainly won't cause any sort of doctrinal crisis if it does.

redcogs · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">
I think you are being insufficiently radical, redcogs. The better world you hope for might one day come about; but the chances of that happening before the human race has reduced spaceship Earth to a desertified, poisoned wreck must surely be very close to zero.

Do you want to live in an anarcho-syndicalist commune in an underground bunker? On recycled human waste?

Because that's the best outcome I can see for your aspirations. Personally, I think it makes much more sense to purge the planet of the organism that is destroying its beauty and fecundity.

And "the existing capitalist power structures" will disappear along with every other human institution [:)] OK, so it's not a win for humans, but then nearly all humans are losing now, in your view and mine.

So you voted, and now you've got a government. I just hope YOU like it.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

This makes me feel helpless and brings a tear Nick. It is far too despairing.

The earth isn't more important than the creatures that inhabit it - but humanity does have to find a properly eco' aware and democratic solution to the problems associated with capitalist plunder, the sooner the better.

please look up to the stars.. ***

simoncp · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Gary Askwith

Here is a subject guaranteed to induce pessimism in anyone nieve enough to believe global meltdown can be averted[V]

<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

Not another reason for pessimism! What is it with these climate change types that makes them so miserable all the time? I'd change hobby if I were them. At least Al Gore looks happy enough while he preaches gloom and doom, but he's getting well paid for it and he dopes have 4 kids and a monster energy bill to support.

Unknown · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by redcogs

This makes me feel helpless and brings a tear Nick. It is far too despairing.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">Despairing? I'm not despairing! [:)]

Of course, the fact that I have no descendants to worry about helps; on the other hand, there is a whole planet to worry about. One which will certainly be in a much worse state when I leave it than when I arrived, something for which I feel ashamed (and so should all my contemporaries).
<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">The earth isn't more important than the creatures that inhabit it...<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">Which creatures? Humans? If so, this is an assertion with which I beg to differ.

So you voted, and now you've got a government. I just hope YOU like it.

simoncp · May 2007

My friends include a number of people who preach about green issues. It's common these days. What surprises me is that they never, ever do anything to save the planet that involves any sacrifice that isn't very easy, such as sorting rubbish into different bins or reusing the odd carrier bag. And as far as their kids go, no energy consumption is too much for them, from a full time parental taxi service to frequent school trips abroad. I get the feeling that they think they are doing their bit by preaching to the rest of us, and its the rest of us who are supposed to get our kids to walk or cycle everywhere and our kids who need to make do with train journeys to Scarborough for a holiday while they and their special offspring go to Prague for the weekend because of the culture and educational value.

Gary Askwith · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by NickM

Anybody here read Gore Vidal's "Kalki"?
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
No but it looks interesting...

This Kirkpatrick Sale bloke looks right up your street Nick:[;)]
[url][/url]http://www.eff.org//Censorship/Terrorism_militias/sale_unabomber.analysis[url][/url]

Interestingly in 1995 Sale made a public bet that by the year 2020 there would be a convergence of three disasters: global currency collapse, significant warfare between rich and poor, and environmental disasters of some significant size. The bet was turned into a claim on the FX prediction market, where the probability has hovered around 25%.....

More interesting stuff just to upset alf:
[url][/url]http://www.countercurrents.org/us-sale230205.htm[url][/url]

Economic Growth; as dead as a Yangtze River dolphin....

Unknown · May 2007

There is no saving the planet. The planet has a long-term disease called homo sapiens. The only cure is to remove the infection.

I wonder what the term is for a person who has advanced from anarcho-primitivism to actively seeking the immanentisation of the eschaton?

simoncp · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by NickM

I wonder what the term is for a person who has advanced from anarcho-primitivism to actively seeking the immanentisation of the eschaton?
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

A hippy?

Unknown · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Gary Askwith

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by NickM
Anybody here read Gore Vidal's "Kalki"?<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">No but it looks interesting...<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">Take care not to read anything about it which gives away the ending, Gary - it's a corker!

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">This Kirkpatrick Sale bloke looks right up your street Nick:[;)]
[url][/url]http://www.eff.org//Censorship/Terrorism_militias/sale_unabomber.analysis[url][/url]<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">Cheers, I've printed it off* and will read it in the bogs this afternoon [8D]

*sorry about that, but expanding my consciousness while stuck here does have a small price in trees, petrochemicals and energy...

ankev1 · May 2007

"Remove" is a bit too strong. We've just got to let populations naturally drop as societies become more advance. The western world should be setting the agenda on this for the good and benefit of all.

Gary Askwith · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by NickM

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by redcogs

This makes me feel helpless and brings a tear Nick. It is far too despairing.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">Despairing? I'm not despairing! [:)]

Of course, the fact that I have no descendants to worry about helps; on the other hand, there is a whole planet to worry about. One which will certainly be in a much worse state when I leave it than when I arrived, something for which I feel ashamed (and so should all my contemporaries).
<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">The earth isn't more important than the creatures that inhabit it...<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">Which creatures? Humans? If so, this is an assertion with which I beg to differ.

<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
7 months ago I had no decendents- and never thought i ever would...now with a boy on the way (happy accident) i have to reconcile what i know with what i feel...its not easy... all i can do is give him a head start and hope he can cope with whatever comes along
The only positive thing is that it is very likley climate-wise anyway theres islands will probably be buffered from the worse effects
Even zooming 250 million years ahead;
[url][/url]http://www.scotese.com/future2.htm[url][/url]
We see Britain inside the arctic circle where perhaps our silicon-electronic descendants will shelter from the searing solar heat...whether thay will have consciousness enough to comprehend the enormity is another matter....[:0]

Economic Growth; as dead as a Yangtze River dolphin....

Unknown · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by simoncp

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by NickM

I wonder what the term is for a person who has advanced from anarcho-primitivism to actively seeking the immanentisation of the eschaton?<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">A hippy?
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">Dull thud as dart sticks into wall two feet to the left of the board

redcogs · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by simoncp

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by NickM

I wonder what the term is for a person who has advanced from anarcho-primitivism to actively seeking the immanentisation of the eschaton?
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

A hippy?
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">[:D][:D][:D][:D]

laughed out loud [:D][:D][:D][:D]

please look up to the stars.. ***

Gary Askwith · May 2007

This small but incisive piece demonstrates the blinkered unity of the right and the left wing in their world-as- nothing-but-an-exploitable-utility [xx(]

There are simply too many people. You've seen the pictures. Crowded streets in Calcutta, impoverished babies with huge hungry eyes and bloated bellies in Mexico, refugee camps in Africa, masses of Chinese crammed into filthy cities. The earth can't support these numbers. Something's got to give. And you've heard the arguments. The US (or the UK, or any other rich country for that matter) needs to close its borders to immigration from poor countries. Having finally reduced our own birthrate sufficiently to more or less stabilise our population, the last thing we need is a bunch of poor (brown) people moving in to crowd us out. (We know, also, that once they're here they'll breed faster than we do, and soon enough will outnumber us.) I often respond to this argument by saying I'm all for closing the US border to Mexico (and every other border, for that matter, all the way down to closing bio-regional borders), so long as we close it not only to people but to resources as well. No bananas from Mexico. No coffee. No oil. No tomatoes in January. Why do you think people leave their families in Mexico (or any other impoverished nation) to go to work in the US? Not because they hate their husbands or wives yet have not reached the point in their therapy where they feel comfortable expressing (much less acting on) that hatred. Nor is it generally because they're bored with Cancun, Acapulco and their other traditional vacation spots and have decided to take a tour of the bean fields of California's San Joachin Valley instead. They go to the US because their resources have been stolen, and their community is unravelling. Of course, this migration, too, is part of the unravelling. People migrate because the land they have lived on for generations can no longer support them. Think on that as you eat your next organic green bean. To want, on the other hand, to close borders to people but leave them open to the theft of their resources ('importation' is the preferred term in polite society), is to show that your alleged concern over population is nothing but a cover for continuing the same old exploitation. 'I don't want you, but I do want the coffee grown on land that used to be yours.' Even those who don't specifically want to close borders, but merely want to talk about population while conveniently forgetting to discuss resource consumption are, too, pushing us ever closer to the abyss. For the real bottom line of overshooting carrying capacity is resource consumption. It wouldn't matter if there were 100 billion deer on a tiny island if they didn't consume and trample and defecate on everything. Numbers by themselves are meaningless. It's the damage that counts. Too many stupid white men Another way to talk about this is to contrast the language: 'overpopulation', 'zero population growth'. How different would be our discourse if we spoke instead of 'over-consumption' and 'zero consumption growth'? Such a shift in discourse won't happen, of course, because zero consumption growth would destroy the economy. Look at it another way. The US constitutes less than 5 per cent of the world's population, yet it uses more than a quarter of the world's resources and produces 25 per cent of global pollution and waste. If you compare the average US citizen to the average citizen of India, you find that the American uses 50 times more steel, 56 times more energy, 170 times more synthetic rubber, 250 times more motor fuel and 300 times more plastic. Yet our images of overpopulation generally consist not of those who do the most damage, the primary perpetrators (there couldn't be too many middle-class Americans, could there?), but of their primary (human) victims. At least partially in response to the obvious arrogance and absurdity of those who want the poor to stop having babies but don't mind the rich having four-wheel-drive cars (and nuclear weapons), there are those who claim - equally absurdly, and equally arrogantly - that all talk of carrying capacity is racist and classist. To even use the phrase 'carrying capacity' in front of these people is to invite hisses, catcalls and the derogatory epithet 'neo-Malthusian'. I suppose the argument is that because some of those who want to protect our exploitative way of living use carrying capacity as a means of social control against the poor (as an American Indian activist friend said to me, 'the only problem I have with population control is that you and I both know who is going to do the controlling'), then the notion of carrying capacity itself must be racist and classist. This is similar to suggesting that because Hitler used self-defence as justification for attacking Poland using force to defend yourself can never be justified. The misuse of an argument does not invalidate the argument itself. Worse, the argument that the very concept of carrying capacity is a fabrication designed for social control, as opposed to a simple statement of limits, serves those in power as effectively as does ignoring or de-emphasising resource consumption when speaking of overshooting carrying capacity. Why? Because it goes along with the refusal to acknowledge physical limits (and limits to exploitation) that characterises our culture. What would it take, I've heard peace and social justice activists ask, to bring the poor of the world to the material standard of living of the rich? Well, another 30 planets, for one thing. It's a dangerous and stupid question. Within our culture wealth is measured by one's ability to consume and destroy. This means that attempts to industrialise the poor will further harm the planet. Because industrial production requires the exploitation of resources, the wealth of one group is always based on the impoverishment of another's landbase, meaning that on a finite planet the creation of one person's (material) wealth always comes at the cost of many other's poverty. That's why the question is stupid. And the question is dangerous because it serves as propaganda to keep both activists and the poor playing a game that doesn't serve them well, and which they can never win.


Bursting at the seams
Author:Derrick Jensen

Economic Growth; as dead as a Yangtze River dolphin....

redcogs · May 2007

Excellent news about your forthcoming offspring Gaz. i was unaware of it until i read your earlier post. Congrats to you and your partner. Another powerful reason for seeking some urgent transformations.

:-)

please look up to the stars.. ***

Unknown · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by redcogs

Excellent news about your forthcoming offspring Gaz. i was unaware of it until i read your earlier post. Congrats to you and your partner.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">I can only echo this sentiment - even if this thread seems hardly the place to do so* [:I] - and wish you both a trouble-free voyage into parenthood.

*Mind, it was you that started it, Gary [:)]

PS Good old Derrick!

Gary Askwith · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by NickM

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by redcogs

Excellent news about your forthcoming offspring Gaz. i was unaware of it until i read your earlier post. Congrats to you and your partner.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">I can only echo this sentiment - even if this thread seems hardly the place to do so* [:I] - and wish you both a trouble-free voyage into parenthood.

*Mind, it was you that started it, Gary [:)]

PS Good old Derrick!

<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

Ta Redders and Nick
twas the greatest shock of our lives(The missus was told she was infertile 20yrs ago and I've been banging away[:I] for years without a care in the world)
Done little to change my pessimism... sharpened and retuned the focus yes but denial is just so 20th century

Rest assured the lad will be educated and socialized in the theogonic process for coping with the metastatic apocalypse to come [;)]

Economic Growth; as dead as a Yangtze River dolphin....

Gary Askwith · May 2007

Just about the only 'mainstream' environmental compaigner taking population growth seriously is Jonathon Porritt (almost makes up for his 'sustainable development' confusions)

Heres a quote...its sensible stuff:

The lifetime CO2 emissions of a UK citizen amount to 750 tonnes (the equivalent - apparently -of 620 return flights between London and New York), so the extra 10 million by which our population will rise between now and 2074 will, over their lifetimes, emit around 7« billion tonnes of CO2.

I can't recall any environmental or climate change organization ever suggesting that "births averted" is probably the most single most substantial and cost-effective intervention that governments could be using. Just to give another example, the Chinese government calculates that since the introduction of the One Child Family Policy in the early 80s, at least 400 million births have been averted.

Each Chinese citizen today emits an average of 3.5 tonnes of CO2 every year. Multiply the one (400 million) by the other (3.5 tonnes per annum), and you get a figure of 1.4 billion tonnes of CO2 per annum. By a million miles, that's the biggest single CO2 abatement achievement since Kyoto came into force - a fact that George Bush conveniently forgets when he whinges on about Kyoto being useless because China doesn't have the same target as the United States.

Mind you, everybody else ignores that too, including the vast majority of environmentalists. So, is this the very first time where George Bush and the whole of the environment movement are of exactly the same mind?

Please take time to read this report, it is probably the most concise and readable summary of the whole population growth taboo scenario [^] ( no, I discovered this today)

[url][/url]http://www.optimumpopulation.org/opt.sub.briefing.climate.population.May07.pdf[url][/url]

Economic Growth; as dead as a Yangtze River dolphin....

ankev1 · May 2007

Gary,

I think you're right in identifying overpopulation as the key issue but I don't think there's a justification to be so pessimistic about things. We have seen how rapidly birth rates have fallen in the western world in just a century. I reckon the rest of the world will follow suit in the next 100 years. As somebody has pointed out, it is essentially a matter of empowering women. Most women seem to want to have a kid or two but not be baby factories. The chief threat to this idea is from those religions which resist that. A combination of education, birth control linked to aid and putting religions under pressure should go a long way to sorting things out.

Unknown · May 2007

ankev, your argument is weakened by being based on the assumption that there will be another 100 years of human hegemony.

It appears quite likely that the cockroaches will have inherited the Earth by then...

peterbr · May 2007

Thanks Gary. Porritt alway came across quite badly when interviewed or on question time but this makes complete sense and needs to be entereed into every debate over CO2.

<hr noshade size="1">
Elephants - where were they when we were fighting the nazis? Eh? Eh?

Unknown · May 2007

"The most effective personal climate change strategy is limiting the number of children one has."

None, zilch, nada, rien. And I cycle to work [^]

I anticipate canonisation any day now [8D]

Not that there'll be anybody around to pray to me before long [V]

Gary Askwith · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by ankev1

Gary,

I think you're right in identifying overpopulation as the key issue but I don't think there's a justification to be so pessimistic about things. We have seen how rapidly birth rates have fallen in the western world in just a century. I reckon the rest of the world will follow suit in the next 100 years. As somebody has pointed out, it is essentially a matter of empowering women. Most women seem to want to have a kid or two but not be baby factories. The chief threat to this idea is from those religions which resist that. A combination of education, birth control linked to aid and putting religions under pressure should go a long way to sorting things out.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

Well Ankev I wish you are right, in fact I'd be deliriously happy if I had read anything in the last few years to counter my pessimism..anything at all
It's a lot to do with 'essential' economic growth and the so called 'demographic time bomb' the idea, er fallacy that somehow civic society will somehow implode or that a declining population will create runaway negative economic problems has always struck me as slightly fantastical.... france and Australia seem to believe it since they bribe women to produce a third child
This idea-that the larger social fabric would collapse without incessant economic growth-naturalises something which is not natural but rather cultural .imagine a rabbit society that demanded ever increasing numbers to keep their fields productive and peaceful.whats going to happen.?!

Economics is not my strong field but from what I have read and understand the western economies are built on a debt-ridden house of cards-esp America.the pre-contition of education, aid and birth control to the underdeveloped world is western stability, what happens when the house of cards collapses, which I have read could be closer than we think?
Maybe Peterbr can enlighten us on this....

Economic Growth; as dead as a Yangtze River dolphin....

ankev1 · May 2007

If the house of cards collapses humanity will do what it has always done: improvise, adapt and overcome.

What we really need is the political will to positively greet and then manage the reduction in the size of population.

andyoxon · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by ankev1

If the house of cards collapses humanity will do what it has always done: improvise, adapt and overcome.

What we really need is the political will to positively greet and then manage the reduction in the size of population.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

"it is essentially a matter of empowering women."... and the powerlessness of women, has to be strongly linked in with poverty, despite much of Africa, for instance, being patriarchal as well. Will poverty disappear in 100yrs...?

...and what's making the headlines here at the moment..? Legal battles over œ48 million divorce awards...

Andy

--- Beware of 'all things being equal' - because very often they are not. ---

The taboo subject of.....Population Growth

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