Australian (ASX) Stock Market Forum

Attenborough: there's too much life on Earth

Jump to new
T

Trevor_S

Joined
18 October 2008
Posts
399
Reactions
0
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6087833.ece

The television presenter and naturalist said that the increase in population was having devastating effects on ecology, pollution and food production.

“There are three times as many people in the world as when I started making television programmes only a mere 56 years ago,” he said, after becoming a patron of the Optimum Population Trust (OPT) think-tank.

“It is frightening. We can’t go on as we have been. We are seeing the consequences in terms of ecology, atmospheric pollution and in terms of the space and food production.
Click to expand...

Good to see luminaries like Attenbrough starting to speak their mind on the true cause of the biggest ecological problem the world faces, over population.

It's a difficult debate to have because those who try and bring the issue to top of mind are often considered to be proponents of eugenics of some sort. Especially when we are at odds with nonsense, destructive Government policies like the Baby Bonus etc
 
Trevor_S said:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6087833.ece



Good to see luminaries like Attenbrough starting to speak their mind on the true cause of the biggest ecological problem the world faces, over population.

It's a difficult debate to have because those who try and bring the issue to top of mind are often considered to be proponents of eugenics of some sort. Especially when we are at odds with nonsense, destructive Government policies like the Baby Bonus etc
Click to expand...

Surely the solution of this is as simple as lack of aid? I do believe in something of a survival of the fittest, it's worked well for evolution; so why not allow nature to take its course on a global scale? Of course, I refer to cutting off any sort of aid to Africa. I'd say it was a safe bet that certain problems across certain countries, and continents; simply aren't ever going to end, so why prolong the suffering? Either that, or implement some sort of mass-sterilisation :p:
 
Nyden said:
Surely the solution of this is as simple as lack of aid? I do believe in something of a survival of the fittest, it's worked well for evolution; so why not allow nature to take its course on a global scale? Of course, I refer to cutting off any sort of aid to Africa. I'd say it was a safe bet that certain problems across certain countries, and continents; simply aren't ever going to end, so why prolong the suffering? Either that, or implement some sort of mass-sterilisation :p:
Click to expand...

NSSM 200, they already are
 
It occurred to me the other day that EVERYTHING we eat used to be alive in one form or another...

So that got me thinking... is there an 'Aggregate' amount of life on the planet? If so, by us increasing our numbers, the 'life' has to come from somewhere...
 
One child policy in China was good start.

More countries should adopt it for a while and see what happens in 100 or 200 years time.
 
Nyden said:
Surely the solution of this is as simple as lack of aid? I do believe in something of a survival of the fittest, it's worked well for evolution; so why not allow nature to take its course on a global scale?
Click to expand...

Sounds good. Will you be declining medical treatment when you get ill?

It's a bit like the definition of a recession - it's a recession if somebody else loses their job, it's a depression when you lose yours.

So the person being born in Africa has less right to live than you?
 
In short we need to colonise space. In the process we will learn how to use resources more efficiently as there are less available away from our own planet. This is the next step if we are to both continue our growth in population and advance our development as a species.

When we look at our advances in space technology in the 1960's and 70's in particular (a man mission to the moon was achieved in under 10 years from making the comittment) and compare it to the decades since, we can only look at the rate of advancement in disappointment.

Perhaps another cold war is required between two superpowers to get us going again.
 
Uncle Festivus said:
Sounds good. Will you be declining medical treatment when you get ill?

It's a bit like the definition of a recession - it's a recession if somebody else loses their job, it's a depression when you lose yours.

So the person being born in Africa has less right to live than you?
Click to expand...

They have every right to live. But, can they not live on their own? If not, the most important question is whether or not the world can afford to support these people until the ends of time?

I'm always perplexed as to why these older civilisations are so behind the rest of us, is it purely an unwillingness to change, a lack of sociological, or perhaps even intellectual growth, and evolution?

Resources are ever dwindling, and whilst certain countries engage in what seem to be endless wars - why the heck should our tax dollars be going over there, when we have so many problems of our own? Evolve, or die out; it really is as simple as that.
 
I agree with Nyden, wealthy countries keep supporting poor African countries to make themselves feel better and it's just not improving conditions over there enough. These poor nations need to learn to support themselves otherwise this will keep going unsolved. Despite terrible conditions over there, their population continues to grow, the Catholic Church isn't helping there by condemning the use of condoms.

And then we have the problem of refugees coming over here and not making any effort to fit in. Just last weekend some friends and I almost got stabbed by Sudanese guys for no reason. I know this doesn't apply to all refugees and Sudanese people but a lot of them don't have any respect for us and we let them walk all over us.
 
Nyden said:
They have every right to live. But, can they not live on their own?
Click to expand...

I think more to the point would be why do they create children they cannot support?
People do this in Australia (create children they cannot support) but we have a social security system that is generous and encouraging of such action.
 
I heard it was a race between China and the US to create a virus that would knock off a large portion of the population. Might be sooner then we think.
 
drsmith said:
This is the next step if we are to both continue our growth in population and advance our development as a species.
Click to expand...


That is assuming mind is greater than nature. A large percentage of this planets population has mental illness ranging from mild to severe.This has been perpetuted through time and will be into the future.

You see, it is natural laws that ensure one species does not dominate.We reduce birth rate, kill each other off or nature steps in with the baseball bat.
 
drsmith said:
In short we need to colonise space.
Click to expand...

Isn't the USA setting up a family space program? Wasn't it the Robinson's family group that was going first. You should see about getting on board Dr Smith.
 
There's nothing wrong with burning coal, flying, plastic, dams, logging etc per se. It's when it's done on a large scale that the environment suffers.

Cut one tree and nobody's going to care. Cut a few million tonnes of them every year and you end up with war in the forests. Believe it or not, woodchipping sounded like a good idea when it was introduced and as recently as the 1980's even environmentalists acknowledged that there was "wasted" timber rotting away so it might as well be used for something. Then it scaled up and moved into clearfelling everything in sight...

Same with whales and all the rest. Turn it into a major industry and pretty soon you're faced with some sort of disaster as natural limits are exceeded.

Only reason we've had trouble with water in this country is because, due to population and econoic growth, our consumption of water exceeded the ability of the infrastructure built 50 years ago to supply it. And, of course, fixing that by building more infrastructure puts on the "dam the lot" track. Constant growth ultimately consumes literally the whole lot no matter what the resource in question.

Ultimately, if there's an environmental problem then population is the cause. One person alone can't do a lot of damage but 6 billion sure can.
 
Knobby22 said:
Isn't the USA setting up a family space program? Wasn't it the Robinson's family group that was going first. You should see about getting on board Dr Smith.
Click to expand...
That was in 1999 and it only lasted 3 years.

I do hope there has been some serious advancements in robotics since then.
 
no govt is going to implement population control programs until its too late because growing your population is the easiest way to bump up your GDP growth statistics
 
Re: Aid to Africa

Dambisa Moyo is a Zambian-born economist who says aid is killing Africa.

In her new book, Dead Aid, she argues that official aid is easy money that fosters corruption and distorts economies, creating a culture of dependency and economic laziness.
Click to expand...

The full story is here: http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/content/2009/s2520029.htm

Not only intellectual, Dambisa is quite a looker, link to her pic is here: http://transracial.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/22q4-190.jpg?w=190&h=475
 
Top