Thread: Population Growth - The real challenges facing mankind

Forget Global Warming, we're over it and the science has been completely torn apart by experts such as Ian Plimer and Bob Carter. Of course, for being black sheep - they are fully criticised by the proponents of the political agenda of "Dangerous Man-Made Global Warming"

It's a good thing we have some sensible and rational people in the mix for the sake of our species. Here is the real issue and everyone knows it, they just have too much invested in "Global Warming" to get their feet out of their mouths and admit they were wrong. By the same token, there is far to much at stake not to recognise the errors of the Global Warming agenda and move on with the real issues;


Dear all at the Ministry of Climate Change,

1. Good work, whatever you all do to reduce consumption will benefit the population.
2. We live on a globe and we now have more than 6.5bn people on the planet.
3. When I was a kid, mid 70s, there were a bit over 2bn.
4. Emerging economies are benefiting from improving health services and increasing average age of their populations, along with increasing wealth which is being used to fund uncreasing consumption.
5. This is resulting in a exponential increase in consumption of non-renewable resources, increasing wealth and increasing actual population numbers, it doesn't take a climate scientist to work this problem out, more like a decent mathematician. This is where you would be best to start to look seriously at the real problems associated with population change.
6. Australia has a relatively stable population and it is the countries emerging who will consume the last of the planet's non-renewable resources
7. The old term "Sustainable Growth" is and was always an oxymoron and a false security is created by it's adaptation.
8.I would strongly recommend that finding ways to manage rampant global population growth will better deliver strategies for conservation of non-renewable resources.
9. Australia should be leading and not following, we currently look like the boy with the trumpet following the court jester along as he chants and rants to the amusement of many.
10. The real issue is definitely not climate change!!!! However, treating the symptoms of population growth are similar to treating the symptoms of so called and clearly un-substantiated, man made climate change. This is a dangerous diversion of our efforts and focus.
11. In other words, a good job is being done by departments like yours, its just that you are very misguided as to the real problems we face and therefore run a high risk of missing the point.
12. Most thinking people know that, like the EEC, this new vale of political agenda called "climate change" is all about socialist experimentation and this is one way of helping the species deal with rampant population growth.
13. I believe that your department should be called "Department of Population Change", this would be a more accurate and less misleading description and also reflect the agenda required to better target the real problems facing our species.
14. The type of broader issues which need to be managed include:
Developing standards which minimise waste around goods and services, for example, designing for minimum useful age instead of designing for redundancy
- Why shouldn't an electric kettle last 100 years instead of 1 year?
- Why shouldn't a motor car last 100 years plus and have upgradability to new technologies instead of being superseded by technology advancements almost as soon as it is put onto the market?
- Supporting all nations toward better population management and reducing population growth
-Supporting nations toward sustainability in terms of their own sustenance while at the same time assisting them toward their own aspirations of improved wealth, health and well being.
- Championing the UN Global Compact instead of taking a small selective view of climate change which is obviously not going to be resolved by man-kind unless we can influence the effect of the sun, moon and planets on our own.
- Investing in real and renewable technologies, not just energy.
Realise, admit and embrace the fact that we need non-renewable energy to arrive at a more sustainable position, over the next hundred years or more. In other words, plan for a population on the planet of more than 9bn and how to limit that impact.
- How that level of population will impact sustainability if we only focus on climate change as opposed to population sustainability as a whole will allow a better treatment of root causes than the narrow field of view you guys are dealing with at present

We don't have the time to stuff around with things like this diversion called climate change when this is just not going to address the real issues facing us. 10 or 20 years down the track, we will learn a harsh lesson from our current naivety.

If we continue on this current distraction of climate change path, we will not be ready for the 9bn people who will be competing for non-renewable resources on our finite planet.

People like yourselves need to broaden your horizons and missions in order to identify and address the real issues associated with population change. Leadership is needed and real leadership means admitting the mistakes made over the climate change based agenda.

Please consider your current sisyphean efforts and re-focus all that positive and highly intelligent energy on dealing with the real issues of population growth. A strategic re-think, as opposed to crucifying those who dare to speak up against the climate change agenda, is the sort of leadership needed and may in fact make the sort of changes we really need in order to better sustain our species.

Leave the Climate Change debate in the last decade and lets get on with finding solutions for the inevitable impact 9 billion people will have on our species and our environment.

Originally Posted by savage.gfry@gmail.com

We don't have the time to stuff around with things like this diversion called climate change when this is just not going to address the real issues facing us. 10 or 20 years down the track, we will learn a harsh lesson from our current naivety.

I agree very much with this basic point, but I must warn you that you will not get a lot of sympathy on this forum if you question climate change too strongly. This will quickly become a climate change thread instead of a population thread, which would be unfortunate because population itself is a worthy topic for discussion.

If we continue on this current distraction of climate change path, we will not be ready for the 9bn people who will be competing for non-renewable resources on our finite planet.

Indeed. If the population reaches 9b, all that efficiency won't matter, because we'll still be cranking out the same amount of CO2 per year as we were when we started. That's if, optimistically, a 33% reduction in carbon emissions per unit of electricity were realized. IE. we increase efficiency so each unit causes 66% to be emitted of what it used to, then start generating 50% more electricity...... it comes out the same anyway.

Leave the Climate Change debate in the last decade and lets get on with finding solutions for the inevitable impact 9 billion people will have on our species and our environment.

An alternative would be to integrate the two discussions. Population should be the main focus, and CO2 emission just a sub-focus, since the one inevitably leads to the other anyway.

This Carbon Tax crap is extremely confusing. So, according to Greg Combet "a fillet of fish will cost 3 cents more than before". I find this a very confusing statement when there is no such thing as 3 cents and so it must be at least 5 cents more? Now, is that at the wholesale level when it is coming of the boat or after the first lot of transportation adds it's share of carbon tax to the original value from the boat? Then, when the fish ends up at our local fish retailer, through the various distribution networks and is value added due to the pressure on wages as a result of the carbon tax, will it still be just three cents extra?

Face facts here. The Carbon Tax is just a new wholesale sales tax which will be compounded by the GST so we have more taxes on taxes. It has nothing to do with saving the environment and that political vehicle is purely a matter of riding a wave of trendy sentimentalism that is now on the way out. Labour are on the nose on this big time, no pun intended.

By the way, will goods from China and other emerging economies cost more because the ships' fuel they use to bring the goods to our market will cost more under the new tax? I think not. How is this a fair and equitable tax and not just exporting more of our jobs? :x

We will see our industries close to be more and more exported to lower cost economies AND those economies are lower cost in part because they do not impose the strict environmental and health and safety constraints we do in our culture. So, in effect, the carbon tax being imposed on Australian industries will result in them being exported, where possible, and in those recipient cultures, the result will be in fact more pollution than under our standards.

Originally Posted by kojax

An alternative would be to integrate the two discussions. Population should be the main focus, and CO2 emission just a sub-focus, since the one inevitably leads to the other anyway.

I disagree. I also think it's just an excuse used by many Americans for their extremly wasteful ways. An entire family of Africans produce only a small fraction of the Co2 emmited by an average Americans.

Our means of energy production to support modernity combined with wasteful culture are far more dangerous than just population. Of course as you already suggested they combine if 3rd world peoples take the same 20th century paths towards industrialization.

Originally Posted by Lynx_Fox

Originally Posted by kojax

An alternative would be to integrate the two discussions. Population should be the main focus, and CO2 emission just a sub-focus, since the one inevitably leads to the other anyway.

I disagree. I also think it's just an excuse used by many Americans for their extremly wasteful ways. An entire family of Africans produce only a small fraction of the Co2 emmited by an average Americans.

There is that. Probably population would make little difference to CO2 production in the long run because we'll only stop burning fossil fuels when we run out. But, pollution isn't the only issue.

My primary concern is just wasteful agriculture. That's the most tangible result that's going to affect people's lives the most directly. When our soil erodes to the point where we end up having to go to 1/3 of the people of the world and say "sorry, but we don't have any food for you." they're not just going to roll over and die willingly. It's going to involve some kind of WW3/Armageddon scenario, but if the population were already at 66% of the "we can't feed you" limit, maybe there wouldn't have to be a war.

Wasteful agriculture would be very unlikely in an environment where real estate didn't have a very high market value. If you have lots of extra land that isn't worth a lot of money, then you can run your farm off the low hanging fruit. There's no drive to maximize yields. If you want a bigger harvest you just plow more terrain. You wouldn't dump a bunch of designer chemicals into it. That would actually require more labor per unit of food. The only reason it's practical now is because the farmer has to take into account just how much money he/she is losing by not renting or selling their land to someone else (the "opportunity cost" would be the specific economic term, I think). But, why does real estate have a high value? Shouldn't we prefer to live in a world where it has a low value?


Anyway, you can't blame "wasteful Americans" for high land values. It has nothing to do with our rate of consumption, nothing at all. The reason land values are high is because there are so many people who want to own homes.