Chirac warns of 'African flood'

Jim Ley wrote:

On 15 Jul 2006 00:59:51 -0700, "Hooverphonic"
wrote:

if the population is going up there will only be less to go round

Rubbish, whilst there is not an infinite amount of resources, there is
certainly more than enough for much larger population than the earth
has now.

Who's talking rubbish here? You claim to understand that nothing's
infinite, yet you won't draw a consumption boundary. I think most
growth-pushers do believe resources are infinite. They ignore the
constant depletion of water, arable land, biomass and fossil fuels.
Anything that can't be exactly measured is deemed infinite by lack of
data. Nothing on Earth is getting more plentiful except crowds and
"intellectual capital." The latter is too ethereal to address physical
limits.

Long term support for a bigger population than today's overstressed 6.5
billion is unlikely. How many more people will you allow to suffer?
Several billion live in misery already (Africa being one portion of
that). Read the news and get off the Catholic high chair.

At the very least we'd have to secure renewable energy on a scale
matching that of oil. Hydrogen is just an energy carrier, not a
solution to scarcity. A clean (mobile) energy source to replace oil is
a tricky proposition. Petroleum has enabled most of today's population
bloat. Many biologists conclude that 2 billion may be the maximum
sustainable level after oil peaks and crashes. See
http://tinyurl.com/hbhf9

Then, there's the question of how much nature you want to keep razing
to accommodate more people. Thousands of acres are urbanized each day,
including farmland we'll need for food and biofuels. Champions of
perpetual growth show little concern for that tragedy. They are driven
by the old vices of greed, ego and misguided religion.

R. Lander

On 15 Jul 2006 14:16:52 -0700, "R. Lander"
wrote:

Jim Ley wrote:

On 15 Jul 2006 00:59:51 -0700, "Hooverphonic"
wrote:

if the population is going up there will only be less to go round

Rubbish, whilst there is not an infinite amount of resources, there is
certainly more than enough for much larger population than the earth
has now.

Who's talking rubbish here? You claim to understand that nothing's
infinite, yet you won't draw a consumption boundary.

Population control isn't a consumption boundary, given how all the
heavy consumers of world resources are in countries with little or
negative population growth without immigration.

How many more people will you allow to suffer?

forced sterilisation, or forced abortions, or what??? is not a way to
eliminate suffering If you're not suggesting such things to "limit
population growth", exactly what are you suggesting?

Several billion live in misery already.

Yep, because of disgusting policies of rich *******s, including the
Catholic church, but not because of their policies towards birth
control, but because of their lack of focus on trade.

Read the news and get off the Catholic high chair.

Erm? I think you're somewhat confused, the catholic church is one of
the most anachronistic religions in the world today, as an
organisation is causes tremendous harm the world over, including by
discouraging access to birth control. However, that's completely
different to the problems of 3rd world poverty - it's probably more
relevant to rich world compative poverty than 3rd world poverty.

At the very least we'd have to secure renewable energy on a scale
matching that of oil.

Which there are lots of choices.

A clean (mobile) energy source to replace oil is
a tricky proposition.

No it's not, it's a simple one - your problem was leaving out the word
cheap, but even with the word cheap, there are plenty of solutions -
the blue algae biomass fuel solutions would be great choices for the
desert reasons of the world.

Many biologists conclude that 2 billion may be the maximum
sustainable level after oil peaks and crashes.

And in the 60's many believed 4 billion based on food, turned out to
be complete bunkum just like wherever that url might've taken me.

Champions of
perpetual growth show little concern for that tragedy.

WTF is a champion of perpetual growth? could you show me some? I've
never heard of such a beast - I've heard how removing poverty reduces
population growth down to 0 (most of the rich countries of the world
grow today only because of immigration)

Jim.

B Vaughan writes:

Except that Africa as a whole (aside from certain cities) is not very
densely populated.

Large parts of Africa cannot support dense populations.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Jim Ley writes:

Because it it's not the cause of poverty, it's a by product of the
poverty which leads to high mortality rates. You need to fight the
causes.

I don't understand. High mortality rates were not under discussion.
The discussion concerned controlling birth rates. And population
explosions very definitely lead to poverty.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Jim Ley writes:

No it's not, you're confusing things, releiving poverty causes a
reduction in birth rates - the population ages, that's simply a result
of improved life expectancy, it's not the other way around, no country
ever got rich by killing all its children.

Nobody has suggested killing anyone.

Relieving poverty does not cause a reduction in birth rate. Education
does, however.

That's an interesting conclusion, and one that seems likely,
especially as it was forecast in the 60's and 70's to be true by now,
but it far from happened, indeed we are still having to limit food
production.

Be patient; it's inevitable. Right now many populations live on a
very jagged edge: a little bit too much drought, and they start dying.
That's because there are too many of them.

Reducing poverty is a much more important aim.

How do you propose going about reducing poverty?

Are you opposed to abortion, by the way?

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Jim Ley writes:

No it won't, that's simply not true

It has been true since time immemorial, and it will remain true
forever.

So you do believe in controlling the individuals ability to have
children for a "greater good" ?

Yes.

If you had to pick a political ideology that had similar
beliefs, which would you choose?

I'm not aware of any ideology that believes what I believe.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

JohnT writes:

Why "obviously"?

Because you must continue to reproduce to some extent, so that you
don't have "holes" in the demographics.

Obviously you can still prohibit specific individuals from
reproducing.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Jim Ley writes:

in practical terms, much more than we need.

Give me the numbers.

I answered those...

I'm still waiting for numbers.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

On Sun, 16 Jul 2006 00:14:25 +0200, Mxsmanic
wrote:

Jim Ley writes:

Because it it's not the cause of poverty, it's a by product of the
poverty which leads to high mortality rates. You need to fight the
causes.

I don't understand. High mortality rates were not under discussion.
The discussion concerned controlling birth rates.

They're inextricably linked.

And population explosions very definitely lead to poverty.

I wouldn't even agree to that - there have certainly been population
explosions which didn't lead to poverty (UK in the 19th century, the
USA throughout it's history pretty much) but of course the continent
of africa is not going through a population explosion.

Jim.

On Sun, 16 Jul 2006 00:16:41 +0200, Mxsmanic
wrote:

Relieving poverty does not cause a reduction in birth rate. Education
does, however.

All evidence suggests that they're linked.

Be patient; it's inevitable. Right now many populations live on a
very jagged edge: a little bit too much drought, and they start dying.
That's because there are too many of them.

No, that's because they're kept too poor to be able to manage their
resources sensibly.

Reducing poverty is a much more important aim.

How do you propose going about reducing poverty?

I've talked about that, removing tarifs, increasing freedom of
movement of both people but particularly trade, stop subsidising rich
farmers - which would help reduce your cost of living in france too,
improving your wealth too.

Are you opposed to abortion, by the way?

Absolutely not!

Jim.