This concern of mine is not one that in the long term effects me, I won’t be around that long; however, I feel that I must record my concerns, hence this blog.
I have recently been listening to the 7.30 Report on channel two which had a series of programmes relating to the population growth in Australia, and tonight I listened to Treasurer Swann talking about the problems we face regarding aging population and global warming. I also have been listening to people like climate sceptic Monkton and others such as Senator Joyce, Senator Fielding, and others such as economists and industrialists and have been impressed by the fact that none of them appear to have been able to address the real problem. The only one that made any sense was Dick Smith, and Lindsey Tanner poo-hood him as being naïve.
Firstly I would observe that no one seems to have appreciated that this wonderful planet could well be able to support life for another two or three billion years providing we don’t suffer an astronomical catastrophe. The leadership that is charged with the responsibility of guiding us through the present global warming and population problems seems to be unable to visualize anything beyond three terms of parliament. Consequently, they only plan for a maximum of 50 years population growth and then extrapolate that this will cause economic growth from which we will all benefit. They haven’t yet appreciated that long term planning with regard to life survival should be measured in thousands of years, if not billions…Nor do they seem to appreciate that continuous growth is just not sustainable, even over relatively short periods of 100 years, the planet must run out of its finite supply of resources and space.
I will first talk about the problem of global warming.
When talking about global warming we still seem to talk about our ability to afford to address this problem as if our economic state is of any real importance to this issue! Global warming is a consequence of our not abiding by the requirements of the real force that controls the universe i.e. science. The universe evolves and operates within set parameters set out by physics and chemistry and if we break these laws then we suffer the consequences. We are polluting our environment and if we do not effectively address this problem we will all possibly suffer extinction. Therefore, it is imperative that we keep the problem as the objective and possibly use economists and the like as they should be used, i.e. to advise the best way to obtain the required solution and minimize the effects on the population of the world. This is a problem which we have to solve, even it means that we have to make drastic changes to our present life styles..
Listening to the global warming sceptics and opposition politicians reminds me of when I was much younger the similar argument was about asbestos and smoking. Then we had these sceptics and bogus scientists making statements that asbestos and smoking were safe and it wasn’t necessary to shut down the mines and factories or stop smoking. These charlatans managed to keep the mines working for years and the miners kept their jobs, likewise, the smokers still kept boasting that they would smoke if the chose and there was proof or evidence of smoking related cancer. The charlatans walked away rich, the companies paid out massive compensation and the workers and users are still dying, often in great agony!
The consequences of ignoring global warming will be far worse than those resulting from asbestos mining and smoking!!
Regarding population growth, this is a really interesting and difficult problem to solve. Firstly we, like all other forms of life on the planet, are programmed to reproduce. Over the millions of years of our evolution, we had arrived at a position where we reproduce at a rate that matches the expected death rate from natural predators and disease and as a result the total environment stayed in balance and all was in harmony. However, our evolution has taken us to a situation where we have almost nullified all the natural methods that existed to control our growth.
It is still necessary to reproduce for the species to survive; however, it is now possible to over reproduce and threaten our very existence, therefore, it is essential that we devise a means by which it is possible to keep the population within sustainable limits. Today I heard both Dick Smith and Lindsey Tanner state that the world population is expected to plateau out at 9 billion. How can they make this statement without having set maximum population target and having put in place a means by which the population can be forced to not exceed this limit.
Again we are confronting the ultimate power controlling the universe and if we don’t control the population to a level in harmony with the environment we will breed ourselves out of existence. This is a really hard social problem because we will somehow have to determine who will be allowed to breed and who will have to be celibate. The problem will be further complicated by the fact that we will have to make a choice but ensure that we don’t destroy the diversity of population or make racial or national based selections.
Another problem with population control is that we no longer have the reason for breeding we inherited through our genes. Our politicians and industrialists would have us believe that the reason for our existence is to work in factories and create growth and money for someone else. Something like an ant community? However, I would prefer to think that we could have a very good future where we live in harmony with the ecology and yet by education learn to enjoy the sciences and arts and other wonders that exist in this world.
This is a problem in that we will not be able to call on our self made gods for a solution, in fact we will have to make sure that we ignore the religious indoctrinations we have been subjected to over the millennia, we certainly can’t afford to breed at a rate of 8-10 children per family, if we do we will very shortly, (less than 100 years), reach above 60 billion and this will most certainly stretch the limit of the available resources!
The language of science is mathematics and since the problem we face is a consequence of science, we must surely be able to come up with a model that would enable us to work out almost exactly the population the world can support comfortably and even a way to obtain the necessary birth regulation system.
Remember, we are looking for a solution effective over a couple of billion years not 50 or 100 years