The real BIG ISSUE

meditraitor

Debates about future energy supply have started to appear on an almost daily basis in the media and even here on Boards its getting some traffic, but is this the real BIG ISSUE with regard to a sustainable future.

Let me put this to you

I dont think so, I feel that another factor is being ignored or swept under the carpet because it is far too emotive for the media to engage in.

The real issue is Population Increase. At the moment earths population is increasing at the rate of 76 million people per year, The current Population of the earth stands at 6.5 Billion which is twice the population of the 1960s.
This is important as the "human footprint" is the sole contributer to Climate Change, destruction of biodiversity, deforestation, water pollution, soil erosion etc etc etc.
All the negative influences associated obviously increase incrimentaly with population growth.
Now there are ways each indivdual can reduce his/her Human Footprint but it is becoming clear now that it cannot be reduced to zero which is the desired level, the only way to reduce it it zero is the lack of the individual.
Harsh but true
The real issue for a sustainable future is how do we stabalise the human population?

lostexpectation

meditraitor wrote:

The real issue for a sustainable future is how do we stabalise the human population?

its true but I think if we began and continued to live more enviromentally sustainable life and (econimic ) growth, growth, growth weren't the constant aim then our population would not increase so fast.

meditraitor

lostexpectation wrote:

its true but I think if we began and continued to live more enviromentally sustainable life and (econimic ) growth, growth, growth weren't the constant aim then our population would not increase so fast.

This would require the current model of economics to be completely changed to incorperate ecological functions, but because the west being the wealthy and therefore more protective of their accounts systems, are already running a massive ecological deficit with the rest of the planet they would be the most opposed to such an idea, it has great merits but as in all the utopian ideas(communism etc) of the last few centuries it probably will not work because of a natural greed and ignorance of many of it most powerfull people(sorry for the negativity).
Only when population increase begins to bite them will a solution be investigated, and being cynical(just today, not much sleep) I have a feeling a much more authoritarian stand will be taken in the future similar to the chineese 1 child policy.

lostexpectation

meditraitor wrote:

This would require the current model of economics to be completely changed to incorperate ecological functions, but because the west being the wealthy and therefore more protective of their accounts systems, are already running a massive ecological deficit with the rest of the planet they would be the most opposed to such an idea, it has great merits but as in all the utopian ideas(communism etc) of the last few centuries it probably will not work because of a natural greed and ignorance of many of it most powerfull people(sorry for the negativity).
Only when population increase begins to bite them will a solution be investigated, and being cynical(just today, not much sleep) I have a feeling a much more authoritarian stand will be taken in the future similar to the chineese 1 child policy.

your saying you don't think uptopian ideas like communism will work out (although i never saw communism as uptopian, particularily the ones you and i are thinking of) so you think a more authoritarian stand will be taken ? to me communism is authoritarian and the one child policy came out of that Chinese authoritarian communism, so we're back to sustainable ecologoical ideas as the only solution.

meditraitor

lostexpectation wrote:

your saying you don't think uptopian ideas like communism will work out (although i never saw communism as uptopian) so you think a more authoritarian stand will be taken ? to me communism is authoritarian and the one child policy came out of that Chinese authoritarian communism, so wre back to sustianable ecologoical ideas as the only solution.

Sorry dude, I should have been clearer, when I say communism I mean the basic ideals Karl Marx put forward not the basic word Communism popularly used today to describe the Post Russian Revolution and chineese abhoration of these ideals(thats were the human ignorance and greed comes in).
Communism refers to a conjectured future classless, stateless social organization based upon common ownership of the means of production, and can be classified as a branch of the broader socialist movement.
I believe that ecological economics could have a major influence to play in achieving sustainable living but it has to be taken up by the rich west as an ideal which givin their record on such thing seems a very slim hope.
The use of the Chineese model as an example was to show that many nations find the easier path(Authoritarian v Education) more paletable than the wise path and therefore it could come into play before we have a common ecological policy throughout the major economic contries.

Mike_C

As the availability of cheap oil / energy increased over the last 150 yrs or so the world population increased. Now that we appear to have reached peak oil and we begin our desent from cheap bountiful energy, global economies will be unable to sustain the current " human footprint". Oil wars and poverty will quickly reduce world population as the availability of cheap energy declines.

Samos

meditraitor wrote:

The real issue is Population Increase. ... The real issue for a sustainable future is how do we stabalise the human population?

I was about to touch on this subject in the Nuclear Energy debate. Unforunately energy, population, economics, climate change, poitics and culture are all inextricably linked, which makes solutions to these problems notoriously difficult and complex.

I think that if we are to make one step to amelioating these crises then it is the use of contraception. At the moment there are too many of us, many of whom are taking too much. We cannot have both for much longer. So reducing population seems much more manageable than hoping people will choose simpler, less resource-intensive means of living. This can also be a successful method in terms of greed, for condoms greatly reduce perosnal risk of disease.

dalk

Historically, people will have as many children as they think they can rear and/or want to have. Out Hunter/gatherer ancestors seemed to have had a child maybe every 4 or 5 years. With agriculture, it became possible to give birth every year.

The point i'm trying to make is that the majority of people would probably only start using contraceptives when they have reached, or to better control, the amount of children that they want to have/think they can cope with. This, by the way, is not an argument against contraception, only that i wonder if it would necessarily curb population growth that much. (As mentioned, more condom use would curb sti's though).

Its also worth mentioning that the overall world birth rate has been steadily declining since the middle of the last century (most dramatically in Western countries). As far as i know there is nothing to suggest that this trend wont continue.

meditraitor wrote:

but is this the real BIG ISSUE with regard to a sustainable future?

The huge population of people is not going to go anywhere in the foreseeable future. So i see the BIG ISSUE as how the world copes with population. From this problem i see water as possibly being the defining limit on sustainable development, brought on by population pressures.

The real issue for a sustainable future is how do we stabalise the human population?

Beats me. But then a similar question has been around since Malthus, except now its not necessarily a question of "overpopulation will be kept in check by famine/disease", but of "overpopulation is destroying the environment/the planet etc".

The latter question comes from a privileged point of view. In Europe the population appears to be in decline. We have a food surplus. We have surplus water supplies. We have education. We've never had it so good. Unlike the majority of the worlds population, we are not involved in a day to day struggle to really make ends meet. Worrying about future climate change/loss of biodiversity/etc is a luxury of sorts (though it will affect us all).

(We may bemoan the destruction of rain-forest, until you realise that a large portion of that forest is being cleared by desperately poor 'squatters' trying to eek out a living for they and their families... Can i blame them? Would i do the same if i was unfortunate enough to be in their shoes? So in a 'one or the other situation', which is more important. Human life? Or a local ecosystem?)

Also a question about over-population (which is confined to the 'developing' countries) being a problem begs the question of who is more destructive overall? The 'developed' countries smaller population but much much higher per capita consumption of the worlds resources? Or the 'developing' countries higher population and mostly subsistence living?

Gurgle

dalk wrote:

Historically, people will have as many children as they think they can rear and/or want to have.

Partially a hangover from the days when you relied on your children to feed clothe and house you when you got old. The more you had the more the burden was spread. Family sizes in Ireland have been dropping steadily for decades.

Still applies in third world countries of couse.
Add to that the unavailability of contraception.