Santalum

Clearly we do not want a repeat of hitler's efforts but that is what will ultimately happen if people like you do not do something to short circuit this before it gets to this unpalletable stage. The recent Rwandan genocide is a glimpse of what is likely to come to pass on a wide scale if you are not prepared to act. I am refering to prevention of births by possibly coerced means such as china's one child policy AND not to 'culling' of humans. I could argue that you are just as unwilling to listen to our side and are intent on continuing on your human rights band wagon until it all turns to $hit and human rights no longer exist any where on the planet. Well at least we agree on something! I agree that all this is part of the equation. But it all means nothing and will acheive nothing in the long term if fertility is not substantially reduced and quickly. I would like to see your evidence that any of the above acheives anything in the long term as long as impoverished populations continue to climb.

I am not suggesting it will be easy or that morally troubling decisions will not have to be made. For some countries, including some developed ones possibly, reproductive regulation as in China may be necessary if all other measures fail. Certainly the focus will have to come off development in the third world and placed on provision of free contraception. That will require global defial of the Catholic Church particularly in those developing countries where it has a strong influence. Western governments will have to start saying something about fertility rates in developing countries regardless of the fact that they will cop some considerable flack for a time. They will also have to set a global example by puting welfare polcies in place that are not seen to encurage higher fertility in their own countries, to generally set immigration intakes to zero net population growth and to discourage profligate consumption.......regardless of big business interests. Food aid, band aid and countless other efforts by various western identities and governments have utterly failed to eliminate famine and human suffering in Africa. At best they acheive temporary and small scale reduction of suffering until the next drought or next war causes yet another famine. As with so many other aspects of human thinking, yours is very short term on this jesskill. You see a problem and immediately throw money and resources at it in the belief that you will solve the problem permanently, when in fact you must undertake the much harder task of fixing the underlying structural problems if you are likely to have any real long term success. When western countries were undergoing development and increasing their agricultural output and food supplies they DID undergo population expansion. For example, how many large waves of immigrants flooded out of Britain to establish colonies around the globe and the resulting British empire? Fortunately the global population was further away from global ecological capacity back then which allowed education standards and cultural attitudes around reproduction to change, particularly with woman wanting careers rather than endless babies. We no longer have the luxury of allowing this process to occur in modern developing countries. The population expansion that will occur will almost certainly break the global ecological bank and drag the entire human race and western civilisation into the mire. Regardless of whether it is fair or equitable, reduction of third world fertility and populations will have to come before development to western levels.

Food limitation reduces the infant survival rate so it is undeniable that it puts downward pressure on population growth. And again my evidence is our collective experience with the green revolution - increase the food supply and the population sky rockets as with mice and rabbits. So once again supplying more food alone does not solve poverty in the long run and in fact increases human suffering by increasing the number of mouths to feed so that everyone must get less each. Food limitation reduces the infant survival rate so it is undeniable that it puts downward pressure on population growth. And again my evidence is our collective experience with the green revolution - increase the food supply and the population sky rockets as with mice and rabbits. So once again supplying more food alone does not solve poverty in the long run and in fact increases human suffering by increasing the number of mouths to feed so that everyone must get less each.

Whether the extra food comes from increased agricultural output or from re-distribution of existing food production is IRRELEVANT. Providing more food will relax the downward pressure on population sizes thus allowing those populations to expand at a faster rate. That will require people like you to find yet more extra food a few decades down the track. It is a zero sum game you are playing. Providing ever more food is alone an insufficient response to the problem of poverty.

May be I have seen some of his posts in various places and happen to believe he has a point. Never the less you are evading the question. Increasing food production through the green revolution failed to solve world poverty 20-30 years ago. What evidence do you present to indicate that increasing food production yet again will solve world poverty any more than last time? What evidecne do you present to indicate that it will not make the poverty more wide spread, by allowing the number of mouths to feed expand further, again as it did last time it was tried?

We will have to agree to disagree. I think democracy is becoming increasingly problematic..........not that there is a better governmental system on the horizon. Winston Churchill said the following things of democracy: "Demeocracy is the worst form of government, except all those that have been tried before." "The best argument against democracy is a 5 minute conversation with the average voter." I will also add that multiculturalism also adds other layers to the problems with democracy by increasing the discordance within societies. It also brings benefits however. If you could combine democracy with a stable and low population then I believe that we would be as close to govermental perfection as we are likely to get.

In my opinion there is an optimal population size where democracy works well and is or can be highly responsive to problems. However I believe that most or all countries have exceeded this optimal population size and now democracy is a hinderance to what clearly needs to be done. There is no room for governments to 'breath'. No matter what they do it upsets some segment of the population and hence governments tend to do little or nothing in response.

In my opinion large population size plays a role in governmental dysfunction. With anything activity in life, the more people there are the harder it is to come to any decision in a reasonable time and the more likely those decisions will not be optimal for the particular scenario. Governments are become more interested in appeasing the widely disparate and fickle masses than they are with taking the best decision.

No!

Not necessarily if you take into consideration the amount of energy embodied in the silcon, aluminium, copper and glass etc that is required to manufacture the panels. Along with the energy required to install and maintain them and the fact that they have a 25 year life span after which they will have to be replaced. Mother nature always finds the most energy efficient means of doing things at all levels and hmans have a long way to go before they can genuinely out do her. Leaves may not generate any where near as much energy as an equivalent area of solar cells, but leaves can be produced and replaced at very low energy expenditure. Without fossil fuel energy we would have little hope of manufacturing and implementing solar panels on any significant scale.

What does that mean exactly? Are you saying that because it can't exist as a crystalline salt ammonium hydroxide (as an ionic compound) therefore does not exist at all? I have my doubts that many of your fellow chemists would agree with such a conclusion.

I reckon westerners like you, living your nice sheltered little life, I more concerned about third world rights to reproduce than they are themselves. They are more concerned about getting enough food to eat each day than they are with their right to have 10 children. Many thrird world woman would not doubt prefer to spend less of their life times pregnant and have less children to provide for, by what ever means. Oh dear Jesskill, you do like flogging a dead horse don't you! We have been through this with Norman Borlaug's green revolution. Why don't you learn from history? That was supposed to eliminate third world hunger but all it succeeded in doing was causing the global population to tripple to 6 billion. Poverty is more widespread than it was before the green revolution. There is no reason not to believe that further increases in agricultural productivity will not simply further exascerbate the problem. You mean like rich smug westerners like you telling them they need to run their agriculture, governments and economies the superior western way to increase their food supply and maximise their consumption and economy more broadly. As opposed to something more sensible and acheivable like working to reduce the number of mouths to feed and minimising the number of people entering poverty in future years!

Are you sure you don't have your own set of blinkers when it comes to the 'population crowd'? No one is literally blaming the third world for their excessive fertility. They are merely pointing out that our mounting environmental and energy problems cannot be solved unless third world fertility is seriously addressed rather than in the half hearted manor to date. If anything the west have a major share in the blame for excessive third world fertility by doing little or nothing to make them understand that it is a global problem and a barrier to lifting their people out of poverty. Apart from setting a bad consumption example both at home and exploiting their large population as growth markets for our over priced products. What if you are wrong in that the earth will not sustain the expected 9-10 billion humans for any length of time and that a population crash ensues with untold human suffering? Will you take personal responsibility for your part in such a scenario occuring?

Jesskill do you see and end to population growth ever? Or is your position that technology is infinite and will ALWAYS come to the rescue of humanity no matter how large our numbers become and no matter how fast we collectively consume things on this planet?

Well I suspect you would be feeling rather lonely out on that limb Moontama.