Migrant watch (merged topic)

[biffvernon]

Will worsening climate conditions drive the poorest from their homes? That's not clear, at least in Malawi

http://news.trust.org/item/20160609151714-s9y0a/

[UndercoverElephant]

Will worsening climate conditions drive the poorest from their homes? That's not clear, at least in Malawi

http://news.trust.org/item/20160609151714-s9y0a/

Poorly researched article, written by somebody with a poor understanding of early human history. Should have stuck to writing about Malawi.

"Was the human migration out of Africa driven by climate change?" is a question that sort of makes sense, until you think about how long that migration took and what life must have been like for humans 60,000 years ago. At which point it becomes a silly question, because it frames the question with modern migrations in mind. Modern humans can migrate thousands of miles in one lifetime. Some species of animals also do this, but humans 60,000 years ago did not. We know this because of the incredibly slow rate at which humans spread around the globe, and the same thing happened during the neolithic revolution, when it took agriculture several thousand years to get from Syria to Sweden, moving at an average rate of about 200 metres a year.

The populaiton bottleneck circa 70,000 years ago is believed by many scientists to have been caused by the eruption of the supervolcano at Toba - which is indeed a form of climate change. When the effects of that eruption passed, the human populaiton would have bounced back and eventually it would have experienced population pressure. But the groups that migrated out of Africa weren't just any old group. They first appeared on the coast of southern Africa and were apparently coastal specialists. Being coastal specialists on the south coast of Africa, as their populations slowly grew there was only two directions to go - up the east and west coasts of Africa. Which is exactly what they did, until they eventually, many generations later, arrived in southern Europe and south-west Asia, and from there they spread out across the rest of the world, displacing Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalis.

What does this have to with modern migrations? Very little.

[AutomaticEarth]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07 ... bute-comp/

[kenneal - lagger]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07 ... bute-comp/

Ungrateful so and so!!

No not really. Just stupid officials thinking that a home is all people want. Refugees want work and they will undercut anyone to get it and they will live in squalor because it's better than what they have come from in war torn areas. The indigenous poor of this country are right to be worried about their jobs and rent and mortgage payments!

These pro mass migrationists just don't get it. I was rather pompously told that we have plenty of agricultural land to build houses on. It's just the Planners who are the problem. I've replied that people have to eat, FFS! And global warming and sea level rise will ensure that the slight world food surplus at the moment isn't going to last and that the importation of food in the future won't be an option. I am amazed at how short sighted supposedly intelligent people can be!

[clv101]

I was rather pompously told that we have plenty of agricultural land to build houses on. It's just the Planners who are the problem. I've replied that people have to eat, FFS! And global warming and sea level rise will ensure that the slight world food surplus at the moment isn't going to last and that the importation of food in the future won't be an option.

A lot of our agricultural land is currently not very productive at all. Allowing housing, with allocated land, can dramatically increase the food production per unit area than it currently is.

Did you see this thread: http://www.powerswitch.org.uk/forum/vie ... hp?t=26153

[kenneal - lagger]

I'm aware of Lammas, Chris, and I'm trying to do a similar thing myself. But we are facing the relocation of millions of our own people who live near the coast over the next hundred years. There is no reason that Hanson's prediction of a seven metre sea level rise by the end of the century should not be any less correct than all he has said before about global warming, which was correct.

We will lose the south coast from Southampton to Brighton and the Fens down to Cambridge at that rate. Our cliffs would erode as well as the beaches get washed away. Places like Bournemouth and its surroundings, built on soft earthen cliffs, would disappear rapidly once the beaches go. These things start to happen long before the seven metre rise is achieved. A cliff at Bournemouth collapsed recently taking a funicular railway with it and that wasn't even to do with sea level rise, only a bit of extra rainfall.

World wide there would be salination of agricultural lands in river deltas long before they are washed away. The Mekong Delta, one of the world's major rice growing areas would go as would Bangladesh. Increased storm intensity and higher tidal surges are already making their presence felt and will only get worse as the world warms. India is already putting up a wall to keep the Bangladeshis out!

What you are proposing for your own development and for Lammas would require a major realignment of the education system in this country to get large numbers of people to adopt that way of life; we can't even get enough people to work the land now with the help of machines! The problem is that it will be essential that people learn to live this way because it's the only way that we will be able to feed ourselves in the future. The Lammas way of life is not an option for the future, it is the future.

[clv101]

Indeed. My main point is that the argument not to build houses on agricultural land because of food production is misplaced.

Building, with the right conditions, on the right agricultural land can significantly increase food production, not reduce it. There is now policy for this in Wales (just last week the first such development in a National Park was approved). England's planning system is currently lagging far behind.

[Catweazle]

The Lammas way of life is not an option for the future, it is the future.

Well, it's part of it.

I think there is room for a bit more conventional technology in Lammas.

[vtsnowedin]

Indeed. My main point is that the argument not to build houses on agricultural land because of food production is misplaced.

Building, with the right conditions, on the right agricultural land can significantly increase food production, not reduce it. There is now policy for this in Wales (just last week the first such development in a National Park was approved). England's planning system is currently lagging far behind.

This is totally dependent on the local topography. Where I live it is stupid to build a house in a flat corn field when you can move it less then a hundred yards to beyond the edge of the flat Ag land and have a house that lets you walk in level at the front door and walk out level from the basement at the back of the house due to the slope of the land.
On the other hand move to any of the prime agricultural areas of the world and the land is so flat that finding a eight foot difference in grade requires a drive of twenty miles or more.
Suburbs should not be allowed to encroach on prime AG land but a farmer needs a house and out buildings near the center of the land his family farms.

[woodburner]

Indeed. My main point is that the argument not to build houses on agricultural land because of food production is misplaced.

Building, with the right conditions, on the right agricultural land can significantly increase food production, not reduce it. There is now policy for this in Wales (just last week the first such development in a National Park was approved). England's planning system is currently lagging far behind.

More food production by building on agricultural land is a fallacy. It can be done only by using fossil fuel inputs.

It is about time the problem of population is addressed. Until that happens all ideas about building to accomodate a larger population is doomed to fail since the population will expand to consume the resources.

People have to stop this attitude that land is there to be exploited, this is a BAU attitude and you of all people should know BAU will not be possible.

[clv101]

Indeed. My main point is that the argument not to build houses on agricultural land because of food production is misplaced.

Building, with the right conditions, on the right agricultural land can significantly increase food production, not reduce it. There is now policy for this in Wales (just last week the first such development in a National Park was approved). England's planning system is currently lagging far behind.

More food production by building on agricultural land is a fallacy.

...

People have to stop this attitude that land is there to be exploited, this is a BAU attitude and you of all people should know BAU will not be possible.

This just isn't true. There are many opportunities in the UK where building on agricultural land both increases agricultural production and biodiversity and lowers fossil fuel use. The point is that much agricultural land is currently in such a poor state that it is neither good for food production or the ecosystem. The status quo can be improved on in every way.

[woodburner]

I agree that much agricultural land is in a poor state today, but that is because of the dreadful money-before-everything approach. Building on the land in todays climate will result in the land being unavailable for much except chemical wielding "gardeners". The food growing system needs to be changed to less intensive methods, but with the current population that is unlikely to happen. The mixed farming methods used up to the 1960s still only existed because of government subsidies, and to go back before that the 1930s showed how bad things could be for growers. A little before that 30% of the land was used for bio-fuels. How so? It was the land used to grow the fuel for horses.

There is another problem with the expectations of bio-diversity. That is the land has been so degraded it will take decades to get it back into a good state. Much of what used to grow will not grow again on the degraded land without a lot of attention because the plants of the time needed a whole host of associated organisms to give the right growing conditions.

The current wheat (triticum) production rates is in the order of 4 tonnes/acre. The wheat needs fertilisers to achive this + chemicals to kill off the "diversity". To go back to the older wheat (emmer and others) the yeilds will be far less, so saying that building on agricultural land will increase production overall is a misleading statement.

The above is a bitty and incomplete version of the situation, but what is certain is that there is a lot about growing plants that we do not understand the details. If you build on the land in this country, you will have to use the land in other countries to an even greater extent to provide enough food.

The population is the problem.

[Catweazle]

In Pembokeshire there is loads of underused land - too steep for modern tractor-based farming - that could produce plenty of food for motivated people. One day we'll have to use it.

[woodburner]

The only possible use is for pasture, if you break the surface vegetation, the soil will wash away just as it does everywhere else humans have exploited the land. It may be part of the grand natural scheme that such a thing happens, but it has consequences.

[UndercoverElephant]

There are, of course, many places where steep hillsides with relatively poor soils have been successfully cultivated. The solution to the problem of the soil washing away is to build terraces.