Populate and Perish?

[Tiger74]

If you look at many of the problems the world is facing today, many have a common underlying common factor that so far only one country is addressing:

1) Climate Change - World climate being changed by a growing and more industrialized society

2) Oil - World running out of oil as rising affluence and population is resulting in exponential rises in fuel consumption

3) Fossil Fuels - Growing population increasing demand for power

4) Water - Global population growth threatening to outstrip access to cheap and clean water

5) Food - Global food shortages anticipated as food production fails to keep pace with population growth

6) Livable Cities - Cities becoming more gridlocked and congested as population rises beyond infrastructure capacities

Now we talk about a whole bunch of individual ways to address these issues, but why is the issue of populaton not being examined? Population growth continues to occur, and no matter how many plastic bags we stop using, or how much we stop watering the garden, if population continues to grow at current rates we will see these issues become worse regardless of what we do.

I have no idea of the solution. China's One Child policy has worked, but its administration has been brutal by our standards. Are we going to have to accept forced birth limits at some stage? I honestly don't know, it goes against everything a free society believes in, but we only have so much food and water.

Science will assist with some of this, with desal, GMO crops, and renewable energy possibly easing some of the pressures. Will these only delay the tipping point, or are they enough to solve the problem?

Oh, and by the way, the "Europe - The Final Countdown" solution to the problem is not acceptable, as I doubt we can live on Venus :hihi And if you don't get that pop reference, I am getting too old

 

[Liverpool]

Now we talk about a whole bunch of individual ways to address these issues, but why is the issue of populaton not being examined? Population growth continues to occur, and no matter how many plastic bags we stop using, or how much we stop watering the garden, if population continues to grow at current rates we will see these issues become worse regardless of what we do.
I have no idea of the solution. China's One Child policy has worked, but its administration has been brutal by our standards. Are we going to have to accept forced birth limits at some stage? I honestly don't know, it goes against everything a free society believes in, but we only have so much food and water.

Tiger74,

I complained about the immigration levels in this country due to the problem we seem to have with water (and the lead-on affect about food) and I got booed off stage by the usual posters..... :hihi
You talk about the population....yet we continue to bring in thousands of more immigrants each year.

People say that bringing in immigrants helps them go from a third-world country to Australia, a first-world country......but who is going to save us when we become a third-world country ourselves?

Charity starts at home....

 

[Tiger74]

This isn't about home. If we hold our numbers and the world population booms to 10 billion, you think this will mean we have more oil, resources, and food, and less global warming?

Even if we horde, this will just make us an attractive target to take over to aid "better resource distribution".

This is a global issue, and it needs a global solution. NIMBY tactics won't solve this one.

 

[TigerForce]

Australia is as big as the US and we still can't find ways to live in the Northwest WA and Central Australia (between NT & SA).

Is the land too dry?

 

[Tiger74]

Central is too dry, and its also the cost of logistics and utilities supply. Most importantly though, few people want to live where its 45C in the shade.

 

[1eyedtiger]

Central Australia lies below sea level. What if it were flooded?

 

[Tiger74]

Central Australia lies below sea level. What if it were flooded?

With what? You have to get the water there, which costs money, and you have to take it from somewhere, which will cost the place it came from.

 

[TigerForce]

It's a shame we don't have the Midwest mountains as in the US.

 

[Tiger74]

It's a shame we don't have the Midwest mountains as in the US.

Someone actually had the theory of building a mountain range along the WA coast out of garbage back in the 80's. Even WA Inc. weren't in favour of that one :hihi

 

[1eyedtiger]

With what? You have to get the water there, which costs money, and you have to take it from somewhere, which will cost the place it came from.

You dig a channel from the South Australian coast. Let the ocean do the rest.

Think it's too hard? Not enough will power these days. Just imagine if the Snowy Mountains Scheme was proposed today.

It would never get done.

 

[Tiger74]

You dig a channel from the South Australian coast. Let the ocean do the rest.

Think it's too hard? Not enough will power these days. Just imagine if the Snowy Mountains Scheme was proposed today.

It would never get done.

Your channel is sea water though, and this causes two problems. Firstly the channel is likely to seep into the Great Artisan Basin, making it saltier than it already is. Secondly, if you have desal to convert the salt water into fresh, where are you going to dump the salt?

Another issue is irrigation. The irrigation system needed to handle this would be very demanding and complex. Russians killed the Ural Sea by over stretching its irrigation supply, and that project is a fraction of the scale of central Australia. Also our soils are less fertile than those of Europe, which makes it harder to develop crops.

Its not impossible, but it is incredibly expensive and extremely risky.

 

[TigerForce]

After 220 years of age we still have the Northern Territory instead of a state (generally) called Northern Australia.

 

[Tiger74]

After 220 years of age we still have the Northern Territory instead of a state (generally) called Northern Australia.

Is still love the fact one of the main reasons they rejected Statehood was access to fireworks :hihi

 

[1eyedtiger]

Your channel is sea water though, and this causes two problems. Firstly the channel is likely to seep into the Great Artisan Basin, making it saltier than it already is. Secondly, if you have desal to convert the salt water into fresh, where are you going to dump the salt?

Another issue is irrigation. The irrigation system needed to handle this would be very demanding and complex. Russians killed the Ural Sea by over stretching its irrigation supply, and that project is a fraction of the scale of central Australia. Also our soils are less fertile than those of Europe, which makes it harder to develop crops.

Its not impossible, but it is incredibly expensive and extremely risky.

Weather patterns in Australia generally move from west to east. Having an inland ocean might mean that water is picked up as the system moves across and dumps it over us on the eastern side of the continent.

The answer to your other problems is the fact that the earth is simply over populated. Sounds harsh but eventually nature will take care of that whether we like it or not.

 

[Tiger74]

The answer to your other problems is the fact that the earth is simply over populated. Sounds harsh but eventually nature will take care of that whether we like it or not.

At what cost though? Historically nature took care of overpopulation through disease. When populations reached a point where poor sanitation effected water supply and people created uncontrolled waste, diseases such as cholera and plague would do their nasty work (about a third of Europe died from the plague in the middle ages). Now better sanitation means we don't fear these issues as much, but a global flu pandemic could have a similar effect.

If that does, you had better pray you are not alive. Lets just assume only 1 billion people die, less than 20% and much less than the black death. One billion dead will destroy whole regions. The growing dead cannot be buried quickly enough, creating a sanitation risk, and another disease outbreak. Civil support structures would also break down, as key economic elements vanish (if everyone at work is dead, sick, or at home scared, who can run the factory or farm?). Governments would react with travel and trade bans. Populous would react with violence against refugees and the suspected ill. The global economy we live in would most likely enter a depression, and given the intergration in our economies it may be one we take decades to overcome.

Mother Nature tends to show little mercy when she remedies something, so waiting for her to fix this problem may not be our best option.

 

[Freezer]

At what cost though? Historically nature took care of overpopulation through disease. When populations reached a point where poor sanitation effected water supply and people created uncontrolled waste, diseases such as cholera and plague would do their nasty work (about a third of Europe died from the plague in the middle ages). Now better sanitation means we don't fear these issues as much, but a global flu pandemic could have a similar effect.

If that does, you had better pray you are not alive. Lets just assume only 1 billion people die, less than 20% and much less than the black death. One billion dead will destroy whole regions. The growing dead cannot be buried quickly enough, creating a sanitation risk, and another disease outbreak. Civil support structures would also break down, as key economic elements vanish (if everyone at work is dead, sick, or at home scared, who can run the factory or farm?). Governments would react with travel and trade bans. Populous would react with violence against refugees and the suspected ill. The global economy we live in would most likely enter a depression, and given the intergration in our economies it may be one we take decades to overcome.

Mother Nature tends to show little mercy when she remedies something, so waiting for her to fix this problem may not be our best option.

You have a nice weekend too, T74. :hihi

 

[1eyedtiger]

I didn't want to really go into the nitty gritty of it all, but since you mention it:

Mother nature has way of dealing with problems. If you want to see the results of global warming, have a quick look at our nearest neighbor to the sun, Venus. A classic example of what may very well happen here.

Nature does not discriminate and does not count the "cost". What do mean by "cost" anyway? Life or dollars?

http://www.nineplanets.org/venus.html

 

[Tiger74]

I didn't want to really go into the nitty gritty of it all, but since you mention it:

Mother nature has way of dealing with problems. If you want to see the results of global warming, have a quick look at our nearest neighbor to the sun, Venus. A classic example of what may very well happen here.

Nature does not discriminate and does not count the "cost". What do mean by "cost" anyway? Life or dollars?

http://www.nineplanets.org/venus.html

Life, culture, and potentially our civilization as we know it. This is why I hope we take this issue seriously at some stage soon, or else you get the Venus option as you pointed out.

 

[1eyedtiger]

Don't get me wrong here T74, I agree with your concerns about the world today but what do you do? I believe that the answers exist but that there isn't enough money in it to make it worthwhile. In other words, the corporate world has put money ahead of human life. Unfortunately, it will take a global revolution to rectify this. The cost will be enormous and probably billions will die (possibly including myself and other Australians), but so be it.

The day will come to wipe the slate clean.

 

[Tiger74]

There are options. China has imposed One Child policy, yet some countries such as ours have Baby Bonus's. Rather than trying to bolster birth rates in declining states, maybe we should look at redistribution and incentives for limiting multiple kids in booming countries in the sub-continent and parts of Asia and parts of Africa.