Migrant watch (merged topic)

[Little John]

You are living in the same dreamland as your father CLV. Albeit with at least the apparent capacity to understand and rationally debate with alternative views.

You understand what is coming to the world, right? War famine pestilence and disease is what's coming. We CANNOT SAVE THE WORLD clv. The best we can hope for, indeed what we are morally compelled to do, is to ensure, as far as it is possible, that we get our own house in order and then, where possible, ally ourselves with and give support to like-minded nations.

[clv101]

You are living in the same dreamland as your father CLV. Albeit with at least the apparent capacity to understand and rationally debate with alternative views.

You understand what is coming to the world, right? War famine pestilence and disease is what's coming. We CANNOT SAVE THE WORLD clv. The best we can hope for, indeed what we are morally compelled to do, is to ensure, as far as it is possible, that we get our own house in order and then, where possible, ally ourselves with and give support to like-minded nations.

I don't think I'm living in a dreamland, I fully recognise we can't 'save the world' and that collapse (accepting definitions vary widely) is inevitable.

My post was about what one means by 'full' and the point that carrying capacity doesn't make much sense without acknowledging trade.

[biffvernon]

Netherlands and Belgium have significantly higher population densities (higher than UK is projected to go in coming decades), France and Spain significantly lower. The EU as a whole significantly lower, less than half the UK's population density.

I would argue and talk of 'carrying capacity' has to go hand in hand with trade. Without trade all towns and cities are well beyond their carrying capacities and have been for centuries.

Exactly so. Lincolnshire has a population well below it's carrying capacity and so is a net exporter of both food and energy. London has to import to survive. It's all about where one chooses to draw system boundaries. I don't regard the boundary of England or the UK as particularly special.

So yes, let us remain in the EU and also remain on planet Earth. The planet's boundary is the only one that really matters and woe betide us if we exceed its carrying capacity. Mind you, even planet Earth is not a closed system since its surface receives an average of about 340W/m^2.

[woodburner]

Earth's carrying capacity was exceeded decades ago, and the only reason it is at the current level is because of fossil fuel inputs. Take those away and there will be mass starvation.

[clv101]

Earth's carrying capacity was exceeded decades ago, and the only reason it is at the current level is because of fossil fuel inputs. Take those away and there will be mass starvation.

That's clearly not technically true. Sure, take fossil fuels away from the current system and it collapses with mass-die off - yet we know small scale, mixed, organic faming can produce higher yields than conventional. Also we know we currently produce much more food than we need, with much directly wasted or used inefficiently so the new system wouldn't need to produce as much if managed more efficiently.

Now, I don't for a moment think it's politically or culturally possible to transition smoothly from fossil fuel industrial civilisation to a small scale agrarian civilisation but it is technically possible.

[biffvernon]

Or we could, technically, transition to a global society in which much of the food was grown hydroponically in greenhouses. That 340W/m^2 of sunshine gives us more energy than we could possibly need for feeding a vastly greater population.

It would, of course, be horrid, but that doesn't make it impossible.

The likely reality will be some kind of mixed economy in which some folk have their organic horticulture, others concentrate on high tech agrochemical systems, and many people in the wrong place at the wrong time just die because the rich and greedy folk insist on pulling up their drawbridges and not caring or sharing.

The number who die depends on the decisions we take.

[Little John]

Earth's carrying capacity was exceeded decades ago, and the only reason it is at the current level is because of fossil fuel inputs. Take those away and there will be mass starvation.

That's clearly not technically true. Sure, take fossil fuels away from the current system and it collapses with mass-die off - yet we know small scale, mixed, organic faming can produce higher yields than conventional. Also we know we currently produce much more food than we need, with much directly wasted or used inefficiently so the new system wouldn't need to produce as much if managed more efficiently.

Now, I don't for a moment think it's politically or culturally possible to transition smoothly from fossil fuel industrial civilisation to a small scale agrarian civilisation but it is technically possible.

No, you do NOT know the kind of small scale production you mention could be scaled up to a global level equivalent to Fossil fuel powered production. Furthermore, there is very good circumstantial evidence to believe it is impossible for the simple reason that this has not been shown to have been done over history prior to this point.

Quite the reverse, in fact. Farming, of any kind, as soon as a population gets above a certain size in relation to its environment has, more or less without exception, led to collapse and die off on regional scale. And it does not matter one jot if this was for technical reasons or for reasons of an inherent lack of capacity to organize said civilizations. The result has always been the same.

Yet, somehow, miraculously, you consider that this time, when we have no where else left to migrate out from the mess we leave behind; this time it's different.

Right

[woodburner]

It isn't as simple as just thinking of the power input and what might be "technically" possible. So it isn't "clearly not true".

It's more than NPK. There are the minerals and micro-nutrients and many vitamins which are needed to build food which can then build healthy people. What I see in the previous two posts by clv101 and biff indicates at best a disregard for the complex inter-relationships of many processes which make up the basis for healthy living.

It's not acceptable to propose a human population figure which results in the wholesale extinction of many other species, which is what is happening.

clv101 implies it's technically not true that the Earth didn't exceed it's carrying capacity decades ago, and then goes on to talk about the transition from the current situation to a "small scale agrarian civilisation", indicating an acceptance that the current population is not sustainable.

What is so admirable about having a huge human population? It is currently wrecking the planet's systems, and however much you may wish people would behave in a more thoughtful way, that is not going to happen. When large groups get together they do things which are reckless, hoping the blame will fall off their shoulders and land on someone else.

You could liken it to people sitting in a small boat in the middle of an ocean and one decides to drill a hole in the bottom arguing that it is only on his side of the boat, so the others believe it until it's too late.

I've suggested elsewhere reading "Deserts on the March". This describes the effects most agriculture has had on the world, most of it damaging, and it's still happening even though the book was published in 1949. Humans have learnt very little on the whole.

[woodburner]

Yet, somehow, miraculously, you consider that this time, when we have no where else left to migrate out from the mess we leave behind; this time it's different.

Right

A useful reminder to all the eternal optimists who think that some magic force will save us from our thoughtless actions. Should go into the Oxford book of Quotations or whatever the equivalent is.

[clv101]

Lets just be clear about one thing - I fully believe our current predicament is unsustainable and that there will be a collapse this century - likely reducing population by a few bn with significantly lower quality of life for the remainder. That's a given in my book.

My contribution to this thread is that it doesn't have to be like that for technical/physical reasons. It'll be like that for political/cultural reasons. It's an academic difference, don't get too hung up on it.

[woodburner]

It will be like that for technical/physical reasons as the planet can't take the abuse of the current level of the population. If you offer this false hope to people they will cling to it (especially the idiot politicians) and in trying to realise it will cause even more damage, as they are doing with for example GM and the associated overheads.

[UndercoverElephant]

The picture with its caption, "Britain isn't full..." illustrates the wrong-headedness of those who say we should stop immigration because Britain is full.

This statement is either horrendously ignorant or a deliberate lie. I don't know which, and don't really care. If you think 70 million humans is not overpopulated for the UK, knowing full well the importance of fossil fuels to sustaining that level of population, and regardless of the damage it is causing to what is left of the wild world then you have no right to call yourself an "environmentalist."

Deep green? Deep environmentalism? You have no idea what these words even mean.

[UndercoverElephant]

Issue 1: overpopulation, overall population density in a particular area with respect to its carrying capacity. By this measure, the UK is overpopulated by a factor of about 2 (we need to reduce the UK population by 50% to be anywhere near sustainability).

I think is an important point. If by 'full' one means exceeding carrying capacity then the UK is way, way over full and has been for many decades. Whether immigration is hundreds or tens of thousands in either direction is largely irrelevant. But why talk of population density and carrying capacity in terms of the UK and not smaller or larger units?

Because we have less or no control over what happens in the larger units. Whether we like it or not, we live in a world where the primary unit of self-governance is the nation state. Smaller units are ultimately controlled by state governments and larger units require the consent of state governments.

I would argue and talk of 'carrying capacity' has to go hand in hand with trade. Without trade all towns and cities are well beyond their carrying capacities and have been for centuries.

Yes, trade is important. But not so important that it over-rides national sovereignty.

In fact I would go so far as to say the fact the UK is well beyond its indigenous carrying capacity is a strong argument to remain within the EU, so we have easy access to all that sparsely populated agricultural land in France and Spain!

But the whole of Europe is also beyond its carrying capacity.

[Little John]

Lets just be clear about one thing - I fully believe our current predicament is unsustainable and that there will be a collapse this century - likely reducing population by a few bn with significantly lower quality of life for the remainder. That's a given in my book.

My contribution to this thread is that it doesn't have to be like that for technical/physical reasons. It'll be like that for political/cultural reasons. It's an academic difference, don't get too hung up on it.

So, if you truly do believe that, globally, collapse is completely inevitable and that, by implication, the best any individual nation can hope to achieve is to at least attempt to aim for internal sustainability, why the hell are you not advocating, as matter of urgency, a virtual halt to inward migration to this country? Indeed, why are you positing arguments that either directly or by implication advocate the opposite?

Do you have some kind of death wish for yourself, your family and your nation? Or are you just too morally cowardly to accept the inevitable logic, having acknowledged that we have exceeded our nation's carrying capacity, that we must start (however belatedly and however difficult it may be to ethically implement) to address this issue with significant population control measures, not least of which is massive cuts, if not a virtual halt except under the most stringent of criteria, to inward migration?

[UndercoverElephant]

Lets just be clear about one thing - I fully believe our current predicament is unsustainable and that there will be a collapse this century - likely reducing population by a few bn with significantly lower quality of life for the remainder. That's a given in my book.

My contribution to this thread is that it doesn't have to be like that for technical/physical reasons. It'll be like that for political/cultural reasons. It's an academic difference, don't get too hung up on it.

It really is just an academic difference. There is no point in wasting time thinking about things that are physically possible, but simply aren't going to happen. These include, for example, the entire human race becoming vegetarian or all the nations of the world choosing to collaborate for the greater interest of all humans and all life, rather than attempting to act in the best interest of their own human population (or a subset of that population).

As soon as you accept that collapse of the existing economic/political system, followed by collapse of the food production system and a significant die-off of humans is an inevitability then certain other things logically follow. Only one person on this forum is still refusing to accept this, and that one person is poisoning this forum because of it. Everybody else wants to move on and have a rational, realistic debate about what we should be doing now, both practically and ethically, given that collapse and die-off is coming, but one person continually distorts and disrupts those discussions even though he must also know that collapse is coming if he is honest about it.

We've been through this before. Biff's problem is one of a failure to face up to internal contradictions in his own belief system - he has a set of ethical beliefs that are disconnected from what he knows about scientific and political reality, and instead of resolving that internal conflict he just posts about his disconnected ethics. But this is the one place on the internet where he cannot and must not be allowed to get away with this. On this forum we must deal with the realities of collapse, and anybody who doesn't accept that can expect to be corrected. And if they persist in peddling fantasies - fantasies that involve implied accusations that everybody else is being unethical - then they should not be surprised when the response is vitriolic and personal.

Here's the truth:

Once you accept that collapse is unavoidable then the ethical situation changes. If a die-off of humans is unavoidable then there ceases to be any ethical imperative to stop it from happening. On the contrary, the ethical imperative is to try to save as much of what is worth saving as possible - and that includes both biodiversity and the best of human culture. It also, even more controversially, may include the best of the human gene pool.

The views expressed by Biff Vernon represent a cancer within the environmental movement. The longer this goes on - the further we get into the collapse stage - the more dangerous his views get.

The discussion that is taking place on this board reflects a battle that is going to take place - that is already taking place - both within the environmental movement and within wider society. And it is a battle that the Biff Vernon's of this world are going to lose. It is just a real shame that this forum has to be be continually poisoned by his pig-headed refusal to accept this reality. It serves no purpose but to keep his ego inflated with the false notion that he is ethically superior to the rest of us. It's not about saving the lives of migrants. It is about saving Biff Vernon's image of himself as a morally superior being, at the expense of the rest of this community being able to move on to the important discussions that must follow acceptance of the grim reality of what is coming.

In other words, not only is Biff Vernon's behaviour on this forum (his refusal to allow the inevitability of the coming collapse to inform his stated views about immigration) not the ethically superior position he like to think it is, but it is actively harmful. It is harming this community, it makes this forum an unpleasant place to post on, deterring new members that we badly need, and ultimately people like him are also harming the prospects for both the environmental movement and our society in general. He deserves every bit of the abuse he gets, and it will continue to get worse until he finally either accepts reality or shuts the f*ck up.