Breaking news: Major gaffe from Gordon

[UndercoverElephant]

Population, a scapegoat.

Of course problems for the planet caused by people are likely to be made worse by more people. No brainer, but that doesn't get us very far. My contention is that what the people do is an order of magnitude greater in importance than how many there are.

Then you are simply ignoring the real problem. I think you have to accept that humans are going to continue to behave like humans. That is...all of them will want to continue to improve their standards of living, by which they mean the amount/cost/availability of material goods and the ability to get from A to B for less money, or quicker, or in greater comfort, etc... You are not going to be able to convince many people that they would actually be happier living a simpler, post-industrial "back to the land" sort of life, no matter how much the romantics here might like the idea.

Scapegoat? Well the population problem is often raised by old people, (past it) men (we don't have babies) and people who are happy to have less than 2.1 children.

I am 42, I have no children and THIS is the primary reason why. I am NOT a hypocrite and this is no scapegoat.

The population problem can then safely be blamed on someone else, young people, women, people who like lots of kids, foreigners, poor people who worry they need children to look after them, poor people who worry that their children are likely to die. The population problem is easy to pin on others.

The population problem is being caused by human beings doing what human beings naturally do. It is NOBODY's "fault".

Making the population problem number one avoids having to look at one's own ecological footprint, how much carbon we burn, meat we eat, resources we consume.

Sorry Biff, but this is just total rubbish. Pointing out that population is the #1 problem does not lead to the conclusion that one's own level of consumption does not matter. It does, however, place a heavy ethical burden on persons who deliberately have more than two children, and rightly so.

Let's campaign about poverty, child health, women's education, and most of all, our own behaviour regarding resource consumption. The population problem will melt away if we are successful on these issues.

I think you are living in a dreamworld, Biff. I can repeat what I have already said: on the upslope of resource consumption these ideals are (just about) achievable, although our historical record on tackling them has been patchy at best, but on the downslope, as the average global living standard inevitably and inexorably falls, they become an impossible dream. The political reality changes as it finally dawns on people that the future they have been sold by the politicians was a pack of lies and that they'd better start listening to the scientists instead. The political reality changes because the message from the scientific community is BLEAK. In the words of James Lovelock "the bigger picture is terrifying."

This is the bottom line: the general public will not accept radical environmental/sustainability policies until they become sufficiently scared about what is happening that they fear for their own futures and that of their children. The political response to this situation cannot and will not be the one of global social justice to which you are ideologically committed. On the contrary, it will be the response of the non-left environmentalists, as currently typified by your political nemesis: the BNP. Do not believe for one moment that the BNP interest in peak oil and other environmental issues is a cover for racism; their political position is more complex than that. The BNP are genuinely interested in creating a UK which is self-sufficient and internally sustainable. Indeed they are probably more genuinely committed to that goal than any other political party, including the greens, because the greens, like yourself, have a far more universal commitment to social justice. In other words, the greens are suffering from a greater "conflict of ideals" than the BNP does.

[UndercoverElephant]

Why are people worried about immigration? Perhaps it is because England is the most heavily-populated country in Europe and nobody except the BNP is willing to talk seriously about it.

actually all 3 main parties are now proposing some pretty serious immigration controls. UKIP and BNP go further of course, each in their own way. The 3 main parties are not proposing to leave the EU, so under current free movement rules can't stop EU immigration, but the EU migrants come and go with the available work anyway.

in my view, immigration is far down the list of things to worry about.

Like amnesty for illegal immigrants, yeah real tough!

Actually, I think the libdem policy on this is similar to the idea that drugs should be legalised in order to redirect money from organised crime to the treasury. A one-off amnesty combined with far stricter entry requirements and a zero-tolerance attitude to future offenders might work, IMO. The amnesty on its own is no use.

[UndercoverElephant]

Yeah, reality is peak oil and global warming but while there's a glimmer of hope of a solution we may as well keep fighting for a better world.

Your glimmer of hope for a solution is wiping out my own, Biff. No solution ever got found by pretending the problem doesn't exist or failing to acknowledge what the problem really is.

If you really want my dreams it's for the day when all humankind is equally wealthy and there is no exploitation.

This is the secular/communist version of what christians call "the kingdom of God". The only difference is that they are waiting for Jesus to fire the starting pistol and you aren't.

[caspian]

Scapegoat? Well the population problem is often raised by old people, (past it) men (we don't have babies) and people who are happy to have less than 2.1 children. The population problem can then safely be blamed on someone else

I'm not blaming it on anyone Biff, but by your argument any kind of selfish behaviour is fine as long as it falls within your sphere of acceptable activity. I don't have children, which by your argument means I'm in the wrong for blaming "the other", whereas if I did have children, that would make me a massive hypocrite. Can't win really can I?

Making the population problem number one avoids having to look at one's own ecological footprint, how much carbon we burn, meat we eat, resources we consume.

Nonsense. That's a false dichotomy. It's perfectly possible to worry about population and one's own resource use.

Let's campaign about poverty, child health, women's education, and most of all, our own behaviour regarding resource consumption. The population problem will melt away if we are successful on these issues.

Yes, let's do that, but also let's not pretend it'll solve the population problem. Have you watched/listened to Al Bartlett's talk on exponential growth?

[Keepz]

If you really want my dreams it's for the day when all humankind is equally wealthy and there is no exploitation.

That's internally inconsistent, for there would have to be exploitation for everybody to be equally wealthy - exploitation of those who are prepared to work hard and to create wealth, by those who aren't.

Everybody to have an equal opportunity to get wealthy, and the freedom then to decide what to do with that wealth, now you are talking - but the outcome of that state of affairs would emphatically not be that everybody is equally wealthy.

[Andy Hunt]

For everyone to be equally wealthy, everyone would have to share the same idea of what wealth actually is.

What a cryingly dull world that would be, not to mention one where the slightest of inequalities could set off Armageddon.

Personally I'm very happy for the Queen to live in Buck House, as long as I have enough to eat, my health, friends and family, music, a bit of fun and some nice countryside to go walking in. I don't want the Queen's wealth to be redistributed to me. I am wealthy enough as it is.

If you are talking equalisation of wealth, you're either talking about the lowest common denominator or the highest common factor. People will always aspire to more, in their myriad different ways. For me it might be more leisure time, for the Queen it might be a happier family life.

[Keepz]

For everyone to be equally wealthy, everyone would have to share the same idea of what wealth actually is.

Yup. That's precisely why the American constitutional right is to the pursuit of happiness, not to the pursuit (and certainly not the ownership) of wealth.

It's perhaps paradoxical, but it is precisely the fact that not everybody values things the same that creates wealth, for it's that which encourages us to trade with one another. Thus, a thirsty farmer with a large dairy herd would place a different value on a pint of milk than would a brewer with a hungry baby, and a brewer with a hungry baby would place a different value on a pint of beer than would the thirsty farmer. With a trade they are both better off than they were before and so wealth has been created even though the amount of beer and milk they own between them is no greater

[biffvernon]

I don't take a narrow view of 'wealth'. It could, for example, include social capital. Of course it's an unattainable ideal but it provides a direction of travel, like walking towards the end of the rainbow. The alternative is to pursue an ideal of unequal wealth. I don't find that so attractive.

Pragmatically, the philosophy informs decisions. Support for raising the minimum wage, raise tax thresholds, increase taxes on the very rich, limit the bonus culture, buy fairtrade products, examine the food chain and act to enhance the grower's income rather than Tesco's directors', bank with the Co-op rather than RBS, buy electricity from Ecotricity not EOn, charge a modest price for you own labour.

Having human equality as a goal makes day to day ethical decision making possible.

The people who shout about the population all too often have no solution. We have the people we have. The policies I have suggested are the most effective in addressing the problem. The demographic transition to replacement level fertility is best achieved through women's health, wealth and education. Making the occasional fertile couple feel giulty achieves very little.

[jonny2mad]

Well I dont have any children but I dont see why the hell I wouldnt get 20 of them because me not having children will just mean more room for the somalis etc the white guilt people decide to bring into this country.


Our problem will be this we are fluffy silly optimistic and unserious, if we could divide this country to the un-fluffy realists and you jolly fluffy people at least some of us would survive as it is the whole damn ships likely to sink

[RenewableCandy]

The demographic transition to replacement level fertility is best achieved through women's health, wealth and education.

+1.

General stabiity also helps. Interestingly, religious fundamentalism isn't always an obstacle (Iran, down from 6+ to 2.1 etc).

[biffvernon]

And Italy, home of Roman Catholicism, has one of the lower birth rates. Here's the list from teh CIA factbook: https://www.cia.gov/library/publication ... rank=16#mf

There really are a lot of countries that now have a sub-replacement level birth rate.

[caspian]

The people who shout about the population all too often have no solution.

That's not true - in fact your point about education and wealth is exactly what the Optimum Population Trust have been recommending. The trouble is that it's too little, too late. Unfortunately there is no palatable solution to the problem. Even China's socially repressive One Child policy hasn't got their population down to sensible levels.

Ultimately, nature will deal with the problem, but since nature is pitiless it will happen in the most cruel way possible. By denying the problem you will ensure that the number of people suffering this fate will be maximised.

Biff, you seem to have cognitive dissonance over this issue, because increasing wealth and population will have calamitous effects on the climate. When people get wealthier they consume more and use more fuel. Don't you see that this conflicts with your concerns about climate change and peak oil? In any case, as economies start collapsing there'll be less monetary wealth to go around, so we'll all be poorer.

[Keepz]

Support for raising the minimum wage, raise tax thresholds, increase taxes on the very rich, limit the bonus culture, buy fairtrade products, examine the food chain and act to enhance the grower's income rather than Tesco's directors', bank with the Co-op rather than RBS, buy electricity from Ecotricity not EOn, charge a modest price for you own labour.

Having human equality as a goal makes day to day ethical decision making possible.

Equality of outcome, as opposed to equality of opportunity, is a goal of communism and it works very well in a society where every individual is ready, willing and able to do their best and put the result of their work to the common good (as opposed to, for their own and their family's enrichment). The old Israeli kibbutz system is as far as I know the only example of it actually working in practice.

But as soon as an individual starts to think that actually he ought to be rewarded more than his neighbour if his work is more productive than hers, or if another starts to think that since she's going to get the same reward as her neighbour even if she doesn't work as hard as he does, she might as well idle about - in other words, as soon as you bring the diversity of ordinary human beings into it - it will go wrong and you'll have to resort to coercion.

You seem to be assuming that it is inherently wrong if A has twice as much wealth as B. But is it, if A through harder work and/or greater talent has produced twice as much output? What if she's produced three times as much?

[goslow]

Yes, its very rare that this type of communist arrangement actually lasts. Its quite common for communes to fall apart because some folk are slackers and take advantage of those that are more bothered to work hard.

I suppose the kibbutzes had more chance because as pioneer communities they were often up against it and really had to band together. A strong common cause.

Religous communities also work roughly on this basis but everyone will supposedly have their motivation from a religious perspective to make it work.

[biffvernon]

So caspian, I said

The people who shout about the population all too often have no solution.

and you said

That's not true ... Unfortunately there is no palatable solution to the problem....
Biff, you seem to have cognitive dissonance over this issue, because increasing wealth and population will have calamitous effects on the climate. When people get wealthier they consume more and use more fuel. Don't you see that this conflicts with your concerns about climate change and peak oil? In any case, as economies start collapsing there'll be less monetary wealth to go around, so we'll all be poorer.

So what I said, is true - there is no solution! Whose got the cognitive dissonance?

I'm not saying that everyone should get wealthier. Peak oil makes that an impossibility! But let's not despair completely, shrug our shoulders with a whatever and wait for the Olduvai style die-off. If we divert what diminishing resources we have left in the direction of women's education and child healthcare the demographic transition will happen in those countries remaining with a high birthrate. The world population will stabilize at about 9billion by mid century and it is physically possible to feed that many people without much oil.

Not easy but since the alternative is die-off we may as well make the effort.