Dr John Reid, a Melbourne neuroscientist, said on ABC radio yesterday, in a piece entitled ‘Apocalypse Now’, that population growth is a major environmental issue.
I agree.
He went on to suggest that,
“In the discussion of human impact on the biosphere, two separate but interactive issues are being conflated. These two issues are climate change, due to the emission of greenhouse gases, and the excessive demand for resources, due to overpopulation.”
So far, he’s making a little bit of sense.
But when it came to providing solutions to overpopulation, Dr Reid clearly had no regard for the rights of women in affluent societies.
He suggested that population growth might be controlled by putting,
“Something in the water, a virus that would be specific to the human reproductive system and would make a substantial proportion of the population infertile.
“Perhaps a virus that would knock out the genes that produce certain hormones necessary for conception.
“The world’s most affluent populations should be targeted first. According to the 2006 Living Planet Report, the six populations that have the biggest per capita ecological footprint live in the United Arab Emirates, the United States of America, Finland, Canada, Kuwait, and Australia.”
But hang on John Reid! Many women, in many affluent socieites, are choosing to have none, one or just two children.
Dr Reid stated,
“The urge to procreate and the innate belief that people have the inalienable right, if not the duty, to have children is too strong to be suppressed, just to save the planet.”
But many women like me, choose to only have one child for a variety of reasons, including quality of life, recognising that there are enough people on this planet already.
Perhaps John Reid is conflating “the urge to procreate” with the urge to have s-x.
Modern methods of contraception mean it is possible to have s-x without procreating!
You can read the complete and startling transcript here: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/ockhamsrazor/stories/2006/1807002.htm#transcript
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
“Population growth was not at the moment contributing to climate change, he said, because the fastest growth was seen in countries with the lowest emissions.
But it did contribute to strains on water resources, fish stocks, farmland, forests and wildlife”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6219922.stm
The most affluent countries might have the biggest ecological footprint, but they do not have unbridled population growth.
The big problems will be India, which is projected to grow to 1,500 million by mid century according to the population forecasts on the UN site, and population growth in a host of other countries. Against that level of increase, and assuming that India really can continue to lift the living standards of the entire population the total consumption of resources by India will dwarf that of Australia. The population of Java is expected to increase by 16-20 million in the next 15 years.
I do not at all agree with the proposition of “putting something in the water”
People have to make their own choices and there-in lies a problem in many countries. There is no doubt many/most women want fewer children -who wants to be pregnant 5-8 times? But you have the problem of supply and training of reliable birth control mechanisms, mixed messages about birth control, the problem of high infant and under 5 mortality, and the recognition by many people that the only hope they have of any kind of security if they are lucky enough to live to an old age is the presence of children who will care for them.
The one thing that many governments could do now is pressure the Vatican into accepting that the use of condoms is a valid family planning approach , with the added benefit that condom use does protect against HIV/Aids transmission.
Here in Nigeria there are literally thousands of local Catholic Church sponsored pieces of literature that tell people that only abstinence is effective against Aids, and that as sperm can easily swim through the sides of condoms, then obviously the HIV virus which is much smaller also passes through easily.
Since the arrival of Bush to the Whitehouse, we have seen a change in USAID messages about HIV/Aids transmission which has reduced the emphasis on condoms and increased the emphasis on abstinence as the only good and true course of action -in deference to the US religious right. In this country where a typical 40-50 year old Nigerian patient attending my wifes clinic, will be complaining that he cannot get it up more than 2-3 times per day, the idea that abstinence is possible seems incongruous.
The current DFID projection for population growth here in Nigeria is for the population to double in the next 35-40 years to 260 millon.
The guy is a lunatic, he needs to see a brain surgeon.
I mean, we know he is a qualified neuoscientist but may also probaby a crap gardener, wears long socks with his shorts and definitely entertains bizarre psycho-sexual notions about global stuff.
He is a real worry, lets hope he practices what he preaches and limits the spread of his gene pool to zero thereby leaving the serious busines of breeding to better qualified individuals.
Actually Russell, like it or not but abstinence is an effective method of HIV control particularly in countries that cannot afford condoms or whose culture(s) is resistant to using them. Uganda for one.
Something we can all agree on! What a nutcase. Is it implicit in “certain hormones necessary for conception” that the virus should target women? Surely he’s just trying to shock listeners into action on points that don’t get enough attention in his view.
I’m optimistic that if we faced critical resource shortages people can find solutions. We don’t really need that much for a good life. The ancient Greek philosophers reckoned you just needed basic food & shelter, 2 bed sheets (wear 1, the other in the wash), good friends and an olive tree or something like that. The crunch would be if there was inadequate time to prepare; if it would exaggerate inequalities between the haves & the disadvantaged; and if so it would most likely deepen environmental degradation & conflict. But apparently societies rarely foresee the events that do lead to their demise.
any truth that US fundamentalist groups have funded family planning services in places like Sub-Sah Africa to steer people away from condoms? Apparently there’s a downfall in a good programme in India (high HIV infection rates) because the international standard condom is too manly for the national wearer.
rog, bloody hell, in whose book is abstinence and EFFECTIVE method to control HIV infections? Dig some support for that out of the development literature!
BTW, the growing spread of HIV, by weakening hte immune system, is making more people more susceptible to malaria and other diseases. But on the flipside, the effects on the immune system of medication to suppress the disease in HIV sufferers is causing otherwise stagnant cases of leprosy to emerge. Those poor people.
Rog,
I have never yet been to Uganda and have not looked at the situation in that country. However, the problem I see with the abstinence issue is that it assumes that the most vulnerable people…young women, actually have the power to say no.
In my experience that’s not true here. There are literally thousands of young women at all the towns in this country where major roads pass. They are there not as prostitutes but as road side sellers of peanuts, bananas, snacks and soft drinks. Life is tough and business is competitive. Many of these girls are very young 10-15 years old. They are not at school. They are expected to bring/send money home for the family. Often they sell themselves for very little in order to fulfil that familial obligation. That places them at enormous risk and it is no surprise that in addition to many unwanted pregnancies, they have a high infection rate of HIV, and so do their customers, the truck drivers and mobile police. The movement of these guys around the country and their sexual liaisons with these young women/girls is a major route by which the virus is spreading through this country. After they fall ill, the young women have nowhere to go but back to the village and they take the infection with them, and their lack of power there means they are often trading sex in the village for food and lodging, thereby further spreading the virus.
Even those young women who are able to afford the luxury of attending uni or even high school have no power when it comes to declining sexual relations with their lecturers -and this is widespread and often the only way to get a pass mark in an exam.
Uganda has a high incidence of rape which contributes to the spread of HIV
Maybe, but in Uganda the rate of HIV is declining.
yes theyve had a marked success but it’s important to consider the factors which might not translate well to the context of other countries with high HIV infection rates. People in Uganda are very proud of their community involvement. There was a lot of social involvement & leadership and govt health programmes too. They promoted faithful behaviours & condoms as well as abstinence & minimising stigma – a well rounded approach. Social pressures were important. They also threatened to apply the death sentence for HIV rapists of children.
It is not actually “abstinance” that prevents HIV, it is monogamy. And sadly, some find this a bigger ask than others.
And those who wake in fright at the future population projections for India and China should take a real good look at the gender balances in both countries.
There is already a very powerful population tool at work in both countries. It is called mysogeny. The reproductive capacity of any group or herd is defined by the number of breeding females. Surplus males are exactly that, surplus.
So the raw projections may look bad but the real picture is about half of what it seems.
And what can one say about Dr Strangelove?
“I’m afraid, by the time this consensus could be reached, we will have crossed the threshold of the event horizon.
We will be on an accelerating, irreversible downhill run to the Holocene Mass Extinction.”
This guy has got the plot of a B-grade sci-fi movie playing in his head, and he thinks it’s reality.
ABC radio is a treat, isn’t it? They have a (whacky) neuroscientist in to talk about population issues, and on 891 (Adelaide) the other afternoon, they had a psychologist expounding on the water restrictions.
Motty I nearly made a similar comment earlier on the gender imbalance but it’s still not pronounced enough to prevent increasing population growth. Even in poor countries humans don’t often reproduce to their maximum capacity, but it’s not out of the question that these peverse dynamics could produce such an outcome. Big families are a status symbol in some parts and may become so where brides are scarce. If brides start to attract a price then families on the upswing might want to make girls for income.
I used to think a shortage of women might eventually lead to more status and better rights for these women but many comment that instead it’s likely that brides are more like chattels with buying, trading, theft & loss of rights. Where are vociferous right-to-lifers when they’re most needed?
This discussion is very disturbing.
The title is, “How to Slow Population Growth?” The title assumes that a certain percentage, contingent or group of the human population should not exist.
The notion of “How to Slow” it assumes that someone, presumably not Gaia, but rather some human or group of humans, should make some decisions regarding how to contain a certain percentage, contingent or group of the human population which displays too much growth. Or perhaps, to be even-handed, *all* procreation.
Jennifer is smart enough to see the inherent danger in such notions, since they’d easily be perverted into excuses for genocide.
Recent population studies have proven that economic prosperity leads to a decline in the birth rate. Interestingly, that suggests that humans procreate intelligently–when infants are likely *not* to die, and furthermore, are likely to become a major future economic cost, humans reproduce intelligently.
So… the ultimate control on the growth of human populations is economic prosperity. Even better than making condoms available.
What pathyway to achieve economic prosperity in the world’s hellholes?
Pinxi,
The success or failure of many ancient societies/tribes was based on keeping wombs busy. A woman’s womb is a limited, and therefore precious, resource. The womb has been a valuable, tradable commodity since the inception of society, and a mainstay of “the booty” of warfare until (fairly) recently.
In times of social stability, women are in charge of their wombs, since they control a scarce and limited resource. And rape is punished.
In bad times, wombs were a precious commodity for growing soldiers and stolen accordingly.
Pinxi, women are precious and valuable under any circumstances and I challenge any man here to deny this.
The challenge still presents itself as to which pathway leads the desperately impoverished to economic prosperity, or my preferred way to look at it, decent quality of life. Are we doing enough to support and advance basic human rights or do we put our own excessive comforts 1st?
In todays news:
Our best women less likely to breed
Caroline Overington
December 12, 2006
SOME of Australia’s best and brightest women are the most reluctant to breed, with female academics far more likely to be single and childless than their male peers.
…”For women to be successful, they were less able to maintain a partnered relationship than men. The comments you get from women are, ‘I just couldn’t fit it all in.”‘
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20912099-2702,00.html
The following is something I wrote several years ago that bears on an important aspect of population that seems to be consistently misrepresented-
With few exceptions, economists, business people and politicians universally subscribe to the belief that never ending economic and population growth are desirable for prosperity. This belief bears no relation to what is actually happening in the real world.
The United Nations, Human Development Report, ranks 162 countries in terms of life expectancy, educational attainment and adjusted real income. The top ten are:
1. Norway 5-14*,
2. Australia 20-2.5,
3. Canada 31-3,
4. Sweden 9-20,
5. Belgium 10-337,
6. United States 288-30,
7. Iceland 0.3-2.6,
8. Netherlands 16-390,
9. Japan 127-321,
.10. Finland 5-15.
*The numbers following the country name are population in millions and population density per Km² ( from World Gazetteer).
The US ranks high in per capita income, second only to Luxembourg. But it is only 12th in educational enrolment and 24th in life expectancy.
The Finfacts Survey by William M. Mercer† is also revealing. This survey ranks overall quality of life for major cities around the world. It is based on an evaluation of 39 quality of life criteria for each city including political, social, economic, and environmental factors; personal safety and health; education; transport; and other public services. It is conducted to assist multinational companies in assessing international hardship allowances for their expatriate workers. Here are the top ten:
1. Zurich, Switzerland,
2. Vienna, Austria;
3. Vancouver Canada;
4. Sydney Australia;
5. Geneva Switzerland;
6. Frankfurt, Germany;
7. Auckland, New Zealand;
8. Copenhagen. Denmark;
9. Helsinki, Finland;
10. Bern, Switzerland.
The first U.S. city to enter the list is San Francisco at 18th place. †Mercer is one of the world’s largest human resource consultancies, with some 12,500 employees in 37 countries world-wide.
It is clear that neither economic prosperity nor quality of life depend upon population size or density. If anything, the correlation is negative and if one were to include psycho-spiritual parameters in the evaluation it would undoubtedly be highly so.
To think that someone could be regarded as a world expert in quality of life and have never heard of Mullumbimby [add country town of choice].
As a confirmed agrarian supremacist one can only reflect that ranking major cities by quality of life is a bit like ranking toilets in the Michelin Guide. Does anyone really need to know?
I thought Paul Ehrlich and his Population Bomb had sunk without trace. Think of the sigmoid curve.
Undoubtedly Bangalow would outrank Mullupbimby.
What’s wrong with Burren Junction?
Bangalow may outrank Mullupbimby but is left in the lurch against Mulldownbimby
“How to Slow Population Growth?”
Educate girls. Unicef is your best investment.
Pinxie, The gender imbalance is most pronounced in the higher income cohorts. And as rich men will always have an advantage in attracting a wife, this imbalance will be passed down the income scales where poor men will miss out. (As they already do)
What it is likely to do is seriously undermine the dowry system, and not before time.
And do you rank the motorway passing through the middle of Bangalow as a quality of life plus or minus?
Of course, all the “quality of life” measures come to a big zippo when compared to the impact on “wellbeing” of a stable, nurturing relationship. The irony is that a lot of corporate eunuchs will routinely risk those relationships, and even swap them, for the sake of promotions/transfers to cities ranked by these irrelevancies.
One can only wonder how many old men on their death beds look back, in contentment, on a sequence of tranfers to various centres of “quality of life”?
How many QoL measures you have looked at of late Motty? Time, space, capacity etc for relationship is intrinsic. In the European systems that get such a bashing on this blog, employees and employers generally make family responsibilities and pleasures a priority, even closing their businesses or delaying work deadlines, and few work emergencies or bosses undermine that (but international pressures are chipping away at it).
I doubt many people base their decisions to migrate to an urban centre for a promotion on official city rankings. They can use it to negotiate relocation packages though.
Extending yr point, I agree with you in a sense that some ambitious people and corporations regularly take academic theories and scientific concepts and try to reduce them to the latest faddish simple formula for success for people who are too busying chasing their own tails to think. BUT many companies are being forced to take heed and address, let’s call it ‘quality of life at work’ because they’re losing so many good people (dropouts, QoL downshifters) and there’s a lack of suitable or committed talent coming up the ranks for leading roles. You’re probably on top of all that with yr ex-city life recruitment contacts.
Judging by current news: having a mortgage is good for your sense of wellbeinug stories,
having a mining business near you is bad for your wellbeing
“MOUNT Isa city council and mining giant Xstrata were told last year that lead levels in the western Queensland town’s soil and waterways far exceeded the national contamination standards, but failed to act on the alarming findings.
…
“Dr Taylor said he told Xstrata, most recently in February, that its profitable zinc and copper mines continued to contaminate the Leichhardt River, which runs between the town and the mine and drains into Mount Isa’s drinking water supply, with heavy metals that “grossly exceeded” federal government sediment quality guidelines.
…But Dr Taylor said that despite the findings, neither Mt Isa Council nor Xstrata agreed to discuss the results with him.
“I have been trying to engage the council and mine to participate but I’ve basically been stonewalled,” Dr Taylor said. “They don’t want to talk about it and I have been banging my head up against the wall for five years.” .. . ..
“Xstrata metallurgical processing general manager Fred White said yesterday the company was not responsible for the raised lead levels in Mount Isa. He said an audit into the mine’s operations two months ago showed “the risks … were being managed”.
Mr White said the report’s findings were alarmist.”
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20919412-23289,00.html
Dear oh dear …
go to doctor – make appointment with surgeon – surgeon weilds large pair of shears – SNIP – No more Fruit of yer loins no matter how much it´s shaken about.. Take social responsbility yah bunch of woosies… and yes, it does make yer eyes water initially but it passes ..;op
Pinxi’s diversion from lead in the pencil to lead in soil may have lead him up the wrong fork in the road. What’s the first thing one looks at when searching for lead and zinc ore bodies? Unusually high soil metal concentrations. Find same, drill, confirm orebody (if lucky), build a mine, build a town, find people who are amazed that there are high metal levels in soil near ore body.
I’m sure the good Dr didn’t overlook that.
“the concentration of lead was found to be up to 84 times greater downstream from the mine than it was upstream. The concentration of copper was 117 times greater downstream.”
IF it was such a simple connection, why is Xstrata & the council dodging him?
“despite the findings, neither Mt Isa Council nor Xstrata agreed to discuss the results with him.
“I have been trying to engage the council and mine to participate but I’ve basically been stonewalled,” Dr Taylor said. “They don’t want to talk about it and I have been banging my head up against the wall for five years.”
Mount Isa Mayor Ron McCullough said that despite the findings and the number of children in the community with elevated blood-lead levels, no further investigation was necessary. “We have been down this path before and one of the reasons we didn’t show any interest was that we have been there, we know the river was remediated,” he said. ”
The topic of this discussion is, “How to Slow Population Growth?”
The answer is: prosperity. That’s it. Economic prosperity. Actually, prosperity can not only slow population growth, but reverse it.
See, http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200601/20/eng20060120_236944.html
“More than 30 per cent of east and west Germans born from 1960 to 1967 will remain childless. Among Germans with higher education, the childless rate is even higher at 38 per cent.”
‘”Each generation is being reduced by about a third,” said Norbert Walter, chief economist at Deutsche Bank.’
So–the ideal method of population control is not via “all-natural” starvation, such as advocated by Greenpeace, but by introducing prosperity. Which buys education.
I think the green movement should lead by example and cease all procreation. Who knows, in a few generations we might be able to completely eliminate the “drop kick” gene and return to honest discussion between reasonable men and women on matters of ecological fact.
It’s good to hear Schiller speak out again against US agric subsidies, dumping and the Washington consensus stranglehold (via the WTO, IMF & WB) on 3rd world development prospects.
Pinxi, what is the difference between downstream and upstream? Take your time and think about it. Water and sediment flow downstream. Water and sediment don’t flow upstream. I’m sure you will work it out.
Like the Dr wouldn’t. If it was such a simple explanation, why would Xstrata avoid the good Dr? WHy not simply disabuse him of his ignorance?
Pinks,
Of course I did not comment on “US agric subsidies, dumping and the Washington consensus stranglehold (via the WTO, IMF & WB) on 3rd world development prospects,” as you well know.
Let’s suppose I did, and let’s imagine further that it’s in the best interests of these bodies to squash African development.
That would take a lot of imagination. If you wish, you may confess to having an abundant imagination.
If you don’t want to confess, then just consider: the woes of Africa destabilize politics and economics globally, and it’s in the best interests of the US, the IMF and the WB to see Africa walking on its own legs, economically.
Today, much of Africa is doing what Europe was doing around the time (pre and post) of the Roman Empire; acquisition through warfare, pillage and rapine, with the diversion of all profits–which belonged to the State–diverted into the military, for more pillage and rapine.
There are limits to growing an economy through pillage and rapine. Eventually, someone has to create jobs, a stable currency, banking, and infrastructure such as roads and bridges.
Wealthy urbanites, such as we, take such things too easily for granted.
Africans are sitting on a continent which is abundant in wealth, and there is no reason I know why they should not enjoy the plenitude as we do.
In fact, Africa has more resources than Australia. Why does Africa languish? Much of this has to do with the “assistance” of greenpeacers.
Pinks, you need to pick your shots better.
Yr in denial Schiller, we’ve trodden this path before. You’ve previously had info put before you on the impacts of 1st world subsidies & trade barriers, eg number of smallscale cotton farmers impoverished by US subsidies, but you refuse to acknowledge this role so there’s little point revisiting it.
Your response (best interests… to squash African development) assumes that if US & 1st world policies have negative effects on 3rd world conditions that it’s intentional. It may be, may not be. It may be politically expedient in a short-term & selfish or nationalistic focus to maximise votes. Could be supported by Darwinian, racist & religious justification. Or it may be an unintended side effect of conservative economic policy bias; or insufficient understanding of 3rd world conditions by graduates of 1st world universities. It may be due to accidents of circumstance, historical pathways, and unthinking assumptions about stages of development (as you refer to) without realising the deep importance of utterly different set of social & economic conditions in which Europe developed.
But should we hold such a potential bias of intention at the forefront of our minds when we could simply start by asking what evidence is there of cause & effect? You are unwilling to consider this question so let’s dally up the garden path no longer. I’ll wrap it up by declaring that you dislike and want to blame all ills on the greenies and you’re loathe to consider any weaknesses or contributory factors in your own camp. Any further exchange is futile as you deny information that falls outside your opinion.
How to slow population growth eh? Just keep your consciousness in the consensus trance people and ignorance will get us there for sure. Easy to mock those that have the balls to make frank calls into how the future will unfold. The way I see it unfolding from the point of view of drastically declining global food inventories (75 million tonnes this year alone), we are well on the way to a ‘rationalisation’ of human concentration in the forseeable future. Food or lack of it will see to it.
As for greenies Pinxi, you couldn’t name a green group that has a model of sustainable agriculture to advocate. They have FAILED themselves and their followers in achieving any meaningful long lasting change. Hyperinflating food prices (And you ain’t seen nothing yet!) are now ratchetting up the pace at which the remaining forests of the world are cleared, in an attempt to feed 6.5 billion mouths and biofuel powered combustible engines.
oh Aaron nutty Aaron with the balls & the frank calls – the last we spoke you were recommending genocide, oops, drastic population reduction, werent you? yr the Malthusian supporter that Jennifer seeks: they’ll starve anyway so better starve a few now rather than more later. Unless there’s a buck for you to make with your schemes, that is.
What is your frank call Aaron? A passive observation that food supplies could run out is a fair cry from a ‘frank call’. The greenies you despise beat you to that prediction. Or are you the something in the water supply interventionist type?
Wrong guy! But I am the guy who you’ll need to know in the future Pinxi. You’re right about nutty – http://www.australianuts.com 😉 Never a nuttier bloke
Oh and on water, I am an interventionist. Use it where it falls. Makes so much more sense don’t you think?
by water supply intervention I meant along the lines of a recent post: put something in the water to make a population sterile. I think, last time we spoke, you were for drastic population culling .. compared it to culling sheep in a drought!?
but, you confuse me with a greenie, so if you can put aside yr initial judgements based on the fact that I question the common idealogy of this blog then you might find that we have far more in common than you realise
Hyperinflating food prices? On which planet?
This year – Wheat price up 64%. Corn up 80%. Potatoes up 78%. Soybeans up 25%. The pain in animal proteins is yet to come. Does your wife do the shopping Ian?