Attenborough: there's too much life on Earth

Ageo said:

Most tribes are actually considered the best conservationists since the land is how they survive so they have the utmost respect for it. Look at the abo tribes here and that will help explain.

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this is incorrect, aboriginal tribes (from any part of the world) aren't mystically endowed with captain planet eco-powers of conservational awesomeness just because they're "native". it is the nature of our species to move into an area, pillage it while growing the population to unsustainable levels, then dying back to more manageable numbers.

the australian aborigines when they first arrived were responsible for the extinction of the megafauna which once roamed the continent and irrevocably changed the landscape by burning everything down around them. the maori, the easter islanders, the american indians, you name it, they've pillaged it and have only come to this "magical balance" with nature over time because 1) excessive breeding exhausted available natural resources and 2) they lacked the technology to manipulate nature.

today western society can manipulate nature to a certain extent, with almost limitless possibilities given time and research, but like any system it has its tolerances and threshholds. tech advances may push the threshholds further apart but they are still there and when they are reached we have systemic collapse. like we saw with the market.

for australia, the first thing we need to do is move away from the "growth economics" model and the whole "we must continue to grow" competitive mentality everyone is stuck on, and examine sustainability. we should also severely curtail immigration (bringing in 150,000+ a year and stuffing them into our already straining cities is retarded), get rid of handouts to people we don't want breeding (like the poor) and make it easy for the middle classes to support larger families and educate them properly so we can get some useful generations of people ticking over for a change. ditching the baby bonus and instituting maternity / paternity leave is a good start because only people who are working need leave.

we're also going to need to beef up our northern border defences because unchecked population growth throughout africa and south east asia, coupled with global warming causing massive displacements of people, will mean tens of millions of people could be displaced and start looking around for a large, uninhabited land mass a short boatride away. like northwest australia.

disarray said:

this is incorrect, aboriginal tribes (from any part of the world) aren't mystically endowed with captain planet eco-powers of conservational awesomeness just because they're "native". it is the nature of our species to move into an area, pillage it while growing the population to unsustainable levels, then dying back to more manageable numbers.

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Even the tribes would fight amongst themselves over land. Still happening nowadays, will happen in the future.

100000 boats heading toward Australia when their own land can no longer support them.

Lol at your sig Wysiwig, that mispelling annoys the hell out of you too huh?

disarray said:

this is incorrect, aboriginal tribes (from any part of the world) aren't mystically endowed with captain planet eco-powers of conservational awesomeness just because they're "native". it is the nature of our species to move into an area, pillage it while growing the population to unsustainable levels, then dying back to more manageable numbers.

the australian aborigines when they first arrived were responsible for the extinction of the megafauna which once roamed the continent and irrevocably changed the landscape by burning everything down around them. the maori, the easter islanders, the american indians, you name it, they've pillaged it and have only come to this "magical balance" with nature over time because 1) excessive breeding exhausted available natural resources and 2) they lacked the technology to manipulate nature.

today western society can manipulate nature to a certain extent, with almost limitless possibilities given time and research, but like any system it has its tolerances and threshholds. tech advances may push the threshholds further apart but they are still there and when they are reached we have systemic collapse. like we saw with the market.

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My fear is that our current civilisation well suffer a major setback at some point because as a species we are not adapting fast enough to provide the necessary resources to sustain our growth. This is what we need to come to terms with to have a meaningful influence over our own evolution and any chance of overcoming the natural cycles of plague/mass extinction.

Even if in 200 years we have managed the technological advances to sustain half a billion people on Mars and 50 million on the moon that's less than 10% of our current population.

In short we need to colonise space.

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Even when that becomes possible, we're breeding faster than we could send people into space. Numbers I recall seeing in the '90s put China's birth rate at about 54,000 a day!

Lol at your sig Wysiwig, that mispelling annoys the hell out of you too huh?

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But just to be pedantic, it should be 'the opposite of'.

It always gets to me (but doesn't surprise me) that whenever population control is mentioned at least one person pipes up with

So are the eugenics proponents offering to set an example and lead the way?

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or something similar. No one (other than the sick bastards out there) is suggesting that innocent people be rounded up and killed just to keep the population within reasonable limits.

What is being proposed is education, contraception, empowerment of women, etc but governments are ignoring the problem because they're seduced by the concept of growth; a concept that is kept at the forefront of their thinking by big business lobbyists and conservative think-tanks like the IPA. Empowerment of women is kept in check by religious lobbyists such as Roman Catholics, Evangelical Christians and Muslims, amongst others, or just plain old misogyny.

Have any of you noticed how anything classed as morally good seems to exacerbate the problem of overpopulation? For example, we keep premature babies alive at enormous cost but many of them die anyway (maybe nature was disposing of an unviable foetus); we help infertile couples to have kids; same sex couples to have kids (and no, I'm not anti-gay); send huge amounts of aid to starving, tsunami/cyclone/earthquake affected third world countries, most of which doesn't get to the people who need it, etc, etc. Anything classed as morally bad (eg, not doing the aforementioned things) would help alleviate the problem.

bassmanpete said:

Have any of you noticed how anything classed as morally good seems to exacerbate the problem of overpopulation? For example, we keep premature babies alive at enormous cost but many of them die anyway (maybe nature was disposing of an unviable foetus); we help infertile couples to have kids; same sex couples to have kids (and no, I'm not anti-gay); send huge amounts of aid to starving, tsunami/cyclone/earthquake affected third world countries, most of which doesn't get to the people who need it, etc, etc. Anything classed as morally bad (eg, not doing the aforementioned things) would help alleviate the problem.

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You're right, of course, but the societal leap required to actually adopt such a view is unlikely to happen as long as the current political and religious forces remain.
The bit you didn't mention is the amount of money spent on keeping old people alive - e.g. cardiac surgery in their 80's.

Julia said:

You're right, of course, but the societal leap required to actually adopt such a view is unlikely to happen as long as the current political and religious forces remain.
The bit you didn't mention is the amount of money spent on keeping old people alive - e.g. cardiac surgery in their 80's.

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This approach though devalues human life and is hence a very slippery slope.

drsmith said:

This approach though devalues human life and is hence a very slippery slope.

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Agreed. This line of thinking reduces people to functions of economic utility.

ie. "Will this person cost more to keep alive than to allow (or force) to die? Or, will they be able to add sufficient value in the future to justify the cost of keeping them alive now?"

But it's hard to accept that any properly functioning person could genuinely believe that humans are nothing more than economic utilities and that economies are anything more than arbitrary constructs that obtain for the benefit of a society.

drsmith said:

This approach though devalues human life and is hence a very slippery slope.

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How are we going to fund the hugely increased numbers of aged people, given the reduced tax base from fewer (proportionately) people working, especially as healthcare continues to become more sophisticated and therefore more expensive.

I've seen a number of cases where e.g. cardiac surgery at advanced age has actually reduced the patient's quality of life, given their lack of capacity to recover easily from such major trauma to compromised health. Some never come out of hospital, absorbing in the process resources which could alternatively be used on people with all their lives ahead of them.

Sure it's a touchy subject, but perhaps one we will eventually have to come to terms with. A reasonable solution would be to legalise voluntary euthanasia so those old people who no longer want to live may have a peaceful exit. And before anyone accuses me of wanting to get rid of old people, I'd be keen to enrol myself for a quiet exit at, say, about 80.

If it's voluntary then that's fine but if for example access to medical treatment is compolsurly denied after a given age (say 80), what's to stop the debate subsequently shifting to a younger age. The problem with applying a fixed limit (such as age) to a quality of life service (such as healthcare) is it's convenience relative to other options.

bassmanpete said:

Even when that becomes possible, we're breeding faster than we could send people into space. Numbers I recall seeing in the '90s put China's birth rate at about 54,000 a day!

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Space offers the challenge of accessing additional energy and physical resources to fund our future growth. A second challenge is the efficient use of energy and resources needed to be self sufficient in space. The technological advances would no doubt help us to be more efficient energy and resource users on our own planet.

Old Mate said:

Lol at your sig Wysiwig, that mispelling annoys the hell out of you too huh?

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And duly corrected on my grammar.

bassmanpete said:

What is being proposed is education, contraception, empowerment of women, etc but governments are ignoring the problem because they're seduced by the concept of growth; a concept that is kept at the forefront of their thinking by big business lobbyists and conservative think-tanks like the IPA. Empowerment of women is kept in check by religious lobbyists such as Roman Catholics, Evangelical Christians and Muslims, amongst others, or just plain old misogyny.

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Exactly, these are concepts that need to be implemented now by Governments

MS+Tradesim said:

Agreed. This line of thinking reduces people to functions of economic utility.

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I agree, I also think it's too big an ask when some simple concepts like rethinking public policy would start to have an immediate, local effect.

Julia said:

Sure it's a touchy subject, but perhaps one we will eventually have to come to terms with. A reasonable solution would be to legalise voluntary euthanasia so those old people who no longer want to live may have a peaceful exit. And before anyone accuses me of wanting to get rid of old people, I'd be keen to enrol myself for a quiet exit at, say, about 80.

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I also agree with Julia, it is a huge issue that Government address with population in crease as the solution. The massive pension and health budget liabilities will be enormous and explains why the Government is addressing the issue by encouraging people to have more kids, so they have a larger future tax base.. but that's ultimately futile and is dooming the planet...because more and more kids are needed to service those "kids" when they get to an infirm age, a policy ultimately leading to exponential population growth to work over a longer period of time.

This one is a much more difficult and a way more sensitive nut to crack then simple policy decisions by Government to halt the spiralling population growth.

The first step might be legalise and legitimising euthanasia ? so people that want to can end their life. I know when my Dad was dying from cancer he wanted to end it more quickly. I would have been happy to let him if it was all legal, he had argued for years for legalising euthanasia and had to die a wasted, rotting caricature of a once strong man, how is that "living" ? When I get to the stage where I am in bed ridden 100% of the time, jaw agape, drooling out the side of my mouth, I might like that option available to me rather then be "maintained".

One of the best ways to reduce the birth rate is to educate the women. Children are then born later in life and family size is reduced.

You can see the effectiveness;
Temporally: look at the sizes of your parents families and your grandparents families.
Locationally: look at the size of the average Australian or European family compared that of any African nation.
Socially: within Australia families with professional parents are smaller than those of the more disadvantages socio-economic groups e.g. Bogans e.t.c.

The bit you didn't mention is the amount of money spent on keeping old people alive - e.g. cardiac surgery in their 80's.

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Hi Julia, you're right of course, there are so many things that could have been mentioned but I just wanted to keep it short and to the point. I'm currently 64 and doing my best to live to a ripe (and healthy) old age - good diet, exercise, don't smoke, etc. Plus good longevity genes; my father got to 91 and my mother to 89. However, my other half and I have an agreement that if either of us is seriously incapacitated, eg in a vegetative state, we'll do our best to terminate the other and to hell with the religious bastards who want to stick their noses in to other peoples lives.

derty said

look at the sizes of your parents families and your grandparents families.

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Quite often back then families had a dozen or more children but in many cases less than half of them survived to the age of two. There's no need now, in First World countries at least, to have so many kids as modern health care is so good that the vast majority survive to adulthood - when they then get themselves p****d and kill themselves in a car smash

A further follow up interview

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6121737.ece

He is the first to admit the problem is a thorny one. “Indeed; indeed it is,” he says, “but we can make sure women have the choice as to whether they have children. If you spread literacy, education, a decent standard of living, the population increase drops. That’s why the notion, the ability, to restrict population growth should be around. I don’t believe women want to have 12 children where eight of them die, as they did in this country 150 years ago. Now they have a choice, and that is the reason we have an almost static population here – if you discount immigration.” But isn’t it a bit too late for all this, now that the global population is nearly 7 billion and rising fast? “Oh yes, yes,” he says.

Besides, what’s the ideal figure for human life on Earth? Attenborough is a little soft-focus on details. “I don’t know how you’d calculate . . . optimum-ness, but certainly, the mere fact of what we’re doing to the natural world makes it perfectly clear we’re way past it. Half the world’s starving.”'

Closing our borders? “We have to keep our borders open: it’s a worldwide problem,” he says. “You want a free movement of people round the world because that’s the only way you’re going to stop wars. Because if you put walls around yourself, you tend to think you’re the only people who are important, and that people on the other side of the wall are the enemy. And you only realise they aren’t the enemy if you travel among them.”

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I have to agree, much to the chagrin of the close border set amongst us

From post #56

Closing our borders? “We have to keep our borders open: it’s a worldwide problem,” he says. “You want a free movement of people round the world because that’s the only way you’re going to stop wars. Because if you put walls around yourself, you tend to think you’re the only people who are important, and that people on the other side of the wall are the enemy. And you only realise they aren’t the enemy if you travel among them.

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I don’t see too much problem with that, but if you have some religious group that is bent on converting everybody to their belief and multiply like rabbits, we all might have a problem, of course unless we are part of that group already.

David Attenborough said:

Closing our borders? “We have to keep our borders open: it’s a worldwide problem,” he says. “You want a free movement of people round the world because that’s the only way you’re going to stop wars. Because if you put walls around yourself, you tend to think you’re the only people who are important, and that people on the other side of the wall are the enemy. And you only realise they aren’t the enemy if you travel among them.”

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well that's his opinion, but he is nieve in the extreme to think that just by allowing people the freedom to roam wherever they want (one way ticket to the first world please) that will end war and conflict.

conflict arises over access to resources, cultural differences, competing philosophies, tribal loyalties, family feuds and myriad other reasons. with respect to the good sir (and i have a great deal of respect for his contribution to humanity), he's deluded if he thinks simply opening our borders to anyone who wants to come will bring peace to the world.

we are already seeing the affects of "free movement of people" in europe with riots, massive spikes in the crime rate, and racial tension which is already coming to the boil. i prefer to keep my walls in place thanks, and sir david can go live amongst the areas of ethnic diversity he seems so keen on fostering, like the "sensitive areas" of sweden or germany or france or england where i'm sure he and his family could revel in the warmth and generosity of his fellow human beings.

Trevor_S said:

Closing our borders? “We have to keep our borders open: it’s a worldwide problem,” he says. “You want a free movement of people round the world because that’s the only way you’re going to stop wars. Because if you put walls around yourself, you tend to think you’re the only people who are important, and that people on the other side of the wall are the enemy. And you only realise they aren’t the enemy if you travel among them.”

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Happy said:

I don’t see too much problem with that, but if you have some religious group that is bent on converting everybody to their belief and multiply like rabbits, we all might have a problem, of course unless we are part of that group already.

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Not to mention drugs (Mexico v USA) in that group.

I wonder if Trev would be the first to take 4 to 6 refugees into his home to clothe, feed and help get jobs?

Nature has always had an uncanny way of readdressing the balance, we have had a few scares with SARS, bird flu and AID,s is every present.

Hope it never happens but a disease will most likely wipe a good portion of us out at some point, maybe many years or decades, even hundreds of years away but just look at what the plague did a few century's ago, IMO at some point we will face a similar if not worse highly contagious and deadly disease.