Group items tagged

The population crash. Across Europe, we are having fewer babies. In many places, such as the deserted town of Hoyerswerda in east Germany, the falling birth rate is already taking its toll. Not a cheerful piece.

Offers a series of pieces over the past 2 years to counter the "population control" argument

"Ken Webster - Head of Learning from The Ellen MacArthur Foundation (UK) introduces the concept of a circular economy. The end of the era of cheap fossil fuels and key materials, coupled with rising population and anxieties around water resources, food production and harmful wastes, demonstrates the need for rethinking our model of production and consumption, not merely patching it up. Let's re-think, re-design and build a positive future."

The Deep Ecology Platform 1. All life has value in itself, independent of its usefulness to humans. 2. Richness and diversity contribute to life's well-being and have value in themselves. 3. Humans have no right to reduce this richness and diversity except to satisfy vital needs in a responsible way. 4. The impact of humans in the world is excessive and rapidly getting worse. 5. Human lifestyles and population are key elements of this impact. 6. The diversity of life, including cultures, can flourish only with reduced human impact. 7. Basic ideological, political, economic and technological structures must therefore change. 8. Those who accept the forgoing points have an obligation to participate in implementing the necessary changes and to do so peacefully and democratically.

"In the scenario a healthy diet is provided for the population on only 29% of the land currently used for food production, supplemented by low-carbon imports. It provides a much higher degree of food security than at present." Summary from zerocarbonbritain2030 on landuse ans agriculture.

"Dennis Meadows - Economics and Limits to Growth: What's Sustainable?" Lecture to Population Institute Oct 9 2009 summarised by Gail the Actuary

"For more than two centuries, the idea that the world's ills are caused by poor people having too many babies has been remarkably successful at diverting attention from the complex social causes of poverty and injustice."

Immigrants to the developed world have frequently been blamed for unemployment, crime and other social ills. Attempts to reduce or block immigration have been justified as necessary measures to protect "our way of life" from alien influences.

Book review of " Bottleneck: Humanity's Impending Impasse", William Catton, Jr. dispenses with "the happy chapter" altogether and simply gives us the grim prognosis. Human society is now on an unstoppable trajectory for a significant die-off. Not cheerful stuff, but a viewpoint non-the-less.