Optimum Population Trust

[frogwoman]

I had to deal with lots of letters from Optimum Population Trust types.

So I can say for sure they're real obsessives. Once one made the mistake of copying me in on a correspondence in which his fellow-obsessives congratulated each other on how clever their last letter to me had been. It was like a trolling gang - and I binned everything from them after that.

There is a strong whiff of the Galton Society and genteel British eugenics about them: the Attenborough spoof is spot-on. I looked around for an hour or so but did not manage to pin it down to anything stronger than a whiff.

Too tired to go into the dire history of eugenics...

you seem to get a lot of interesting letters. do you work for mi5 or something?

 

[laptop]

Good Lord no. Bunch of redbrick oiks. They hired that stoned fool Shayler, "for fuck's sake" as the civvies say!

 

[tim]

Very very funny post. Its like as if you can just make scientific problems go away by calling them political names.

The reindeer of St Mathews Island. It is an increadibly well understood issue in ecology, overshoot of a population. St Mathews Island is just a very clear example of that happening as their was no predation or other factors involved.

Your individual freedom will not feed you children. Resrouces extracted from the enviroment will do that. And if the numbers of people exceed those resources, the population will decline. Those resouces can be bluntly surmised as food and water, (altough water is food).

Reindeer are, however rather stupid, lacking in insight and unresourceful. Indeed, as the article points out they only got there because rather more resourceful homo sapien thought they might provide convenient low maintenance future food source. They came to a sticky end precisely because there was nobody around to manage the population.

I assume for you given your rather dramatic post that all this doom and gloom greeny nonesense is for you and many other little more than a grim religion substitute a rehash of the old "Repent ye sinners for the end is near" crap. The various hues of God-botherers have always got it wrong as did the Reverent Malthus, the Moses of your grim silly faith.

 

[david dissadent]

Reindeer are, however rather stupid, lacking in insight and unresourceful. Indeed, as the article points out they only got there because rather more resourceful homo sapien thought they might provide convenient low maintenance future food source. They came to a sticky end precisely because there was nobody around to manage the population.

I assume for you given your rather dramatic post that all this doom and gloom greeny nonesense is for you and many other little more than a grim religion substitute a rehash of the old "Repent ye sinners for the end is near" crap. The various hues of God-botherers have always got it wrong as did the Reverent Malthus, the Moses of your grim silly faith.

Argumentum ad hominem.

Do you have anything substantial to add, care to engage in a scientific argument

 

[tim]

Argumentum ad hominem.

Do you have anything substantial to add, care to engage in a scientific argument

Drawing a direct analogy between human and reindeer behaviour is scientific, is it?

 

[laptop]

Argumentum ad hominem.

Argumentum ad Rangiferium, surely?

 

[david dissadent]

Drawing a direct analogy between human and reindeer behaviour is scientific, is it?

Both are animals. When their is insuficient resources available the numbers are curtailed. This has happened repeatedly throughout recorded human history. I have pointed to a number of problems that are arising that will affect the capacity of current agricultural science to meet rising demand for food.

Do you not think that human beings are animals?

 

[tim]

Both are animals. When their is insuficient resources available the numbers are curtailed. This has happened repeatedly throughout recorded human history. I have pointed to a number of problems that are arising that will affect the capacity of current agricultural science to meet rising demand for food.

Do you not think that human beings are animals?

Yep, but we're a bit brighter than the average or even the exceptionally gifted reindeer. To be honest I think you'll find that most examples of non-human fauna and flora you come across in your daily life are rather thick. That does put them at a bit of a disadvantage compared with us. As a result we have a direct overt control over our environment then they do. That's your simplistic comparison is silly and unscientific.

 

[laptop]

I'm forming a rather clear picture of Tim.

Believes in economics. Not necessarily a Randian... Thinks the Invisible Hand can do what it damn well pleases.

Knows sod-all about thermodynamics, ecology or agronomy.

Here's the editor of New Scientist responding to the population lobby:

The population bomb has already gone off. If every woman now of fertile age has only two children on average, we're still headed for 9 billion people in 2050. The issues now are unemployment and hunger, not contraception, although many people still need easier access to the contraception they want. Reproductive rates are already declining fast: if this trend continues, population will fall after 2050. The only ways to slow it further would be an even more rapid fall in birth rates - which would need impossibly rapid cultural change - or a massive rise in mortality.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19926630.100-what-price-more-food.html

I've worked in detail on food supply issues. I agree with the Editor

 

[scifisam]

I'm on the sidelines on this. More people = more resources needed, that's clear. Even if we theorise getting more fossil fuels, or alternative energy, or using up land that isn't used now (you mean there's still viable land that hasn't been used by humans?), it would all be much, much, much, much, much easier if we kept our population stable. That is, enough younger people to support the increasing numbers of older people. Hard to argue with that surely?

OTOH, I really like big families. I think that having variety in family sizes adds to our social, mental and even physical adaptivity. Of course, the seemingly large numbers of people who are having no children or even just the one child could provide a balance.

There is a strong whiff of the Galton Society and genteel British eugenics about them: the Attenborough spoof is spot-on. I looked around for an hour or so but did not manage to pin it down to anything stronger than a whiff.

BBC says Attenborough is a patron of OPT.

They could have got it wrong, of course - it wouldn't be unknown.

 

[tim]

I'm forming a rather clear picture of Tim.

Believes in economics. Not necessarily a Randian... Thinks the Invisible Hand can do what it damn well pleases.

Knows sod-all about thermodynamics, ecology or agronomy.

Here's the editor of New Scientist responding to the population lobby:



I've worked in detail on food supply issues. I agree with the Editor

A clear picture eh, your clearly a super visionary of the Malthusian faith. As to the "invisible hand" surely more semi-religious sillyness, albeit, eighteenth century rather than nineteenth century

 

[gentlegreen]

Correct UK population 1/4 of what it is now.
Seems like just my sort of club.

And if it's good enough for David, it's good enough for me.

 

[tim]

Correct UK population 1/4 of what it is now.
Seems like just my sort of club.

And if it's good enough for David, it's good enough for me.

So, what is the commonsensist, environmentally friendly way of disposing of the excess 45 million people?

 

[frogwoman]

So, what is the commonsensist, environmentally friendly way of disposing of the excess 45 million people?

not only is it environmentally friendly, unlike gas chambers, burning or meat grinders, it's also helping to increase the population of an endangered species and end the exploitation of nature by man

 

[frogwoman]

What could be wrong with that?

 

[tim]

not only is it environmentally friendly, unlike gas chambers, burning or meat grinders, it's also helping to increase the population of an endangered species and end the exploitation of nature by man

Wouldn't all those human beans give rise to rather too many methane rich lion farts.

 

[Wolveryeti]

Long live the 'fascists', I say.

Better to curb freedoms now than end up with bedlam in thirty years time when climate shocks mean there isn't enough food or water to go round.

 

[IC3D]

The Met might be considering this already for future demonstrations

 

[gentlegreen]

So, what is the commonsensist, environmentally friendly way of disposing of the excess 45 million people?

Just stop paying people for breeding.

Tax relief for people like me who haven't.

 

[tim]

Just stop paying people for breeding.

Tax relief for people like me who haven't.

Ah, so they can enhance their carbon footprint by jetting of round the world
and generally enjoying themselves, or would you just ban them from spending their dosh on anything . Meanwhile those kids that have been born, particukarly to working class parents willl be brought up in poverty and then be forced to spend their working life not only scrabbling to bring their own kids up but be forced to pay pensions for.

Do you think that working class children deserve to be bought up in poverty? That's the consequence of cutting social help from poor families.

 

[durruti02]

I'm on the sidelines on this. More people = more resources needed, that's clear. Even if we theorise getting more fossil fuels, or alternative energy, or using up land that isn't used now (you mean there's still viable land that hasn't been used by humans?), it would all be much, much, much, much, much easier if we kept our population stable. That is, enough younger people to support the increasing numbers of older people. Hard to argue with that surely?

i think there are serious issues with population .. population unless we all want to go back to stone age as a close relationship with consumption .. clearly the capitalist west consumes far more than is sustainable .. we are involved in wars directly in Iraq and Afghanistan and many other countries indirectly for Oil, the wars in the Congo are directly related to our use of mobiles and er computers while globally strip mining is devatstating vast areas of the planet. And forest destruction for wood pulp and grazing continues apace.

sustainable civilisations do not have population growth as this planet does .. anyone who knows about ecology knows of the rabbit and the fox syndrome .. asthe population of rabbits expands so does the fox .. till one day the population of the foxes hits a level where they wipe out the rabbits .. and the fox population then plummets

it is scarey looking at human population graphs as they display the boom and bust of all know creatures .. yet we of course are better ( are we?) .. we know what we are doing uniquely of all the animals yet we are doing minimal

the OPT raise a seripous issue but they appear to have no understanding of what is causing the crisis or of a solution

 

[durruti02]

OTOH, I really like big families. I think that having variety in family sizes adds to our social, mental and even physical adaptivity. Of course, the seemingly large numbers of people who are having no children or even just the one child could provide a balance.

yes i accept that .. but who says big families should be nuclear? this is yet another arguement in favour of communal living

 

[david dissadent]

A clear picture eh, your clearly a super visionary of the Malthusian faith. As to the "invisible hand" surely more semi-religious sillyness, albeit, eighteenth century rather than nineteenth century

Anytime you wish to trouble us with some science please do so, your ad homs are less than enlightening.

Malthusian catastrophes are not 'faith' but regularly documented population crashes in ecological science. They have also affected humans throughout their history. 3 examples that spring to mind rather immediately are the Polynesian populations of Pitcairn and Henderson islands, Kangaroo Island in South Australia and the Norse Greenland colonies. All three are isolated human populations that, like the reindeer died out due to over consumption of resources or ecological changes. The latter had metal working tool, literacy and advanced tool kits, but they died out when far more ‘primitive’ Neolithic tooled peoples survived in the same environment.

Other good examples of population crashes are the Easter Islands where the over consumption of a vital renewable resource (wood and birds) left the islands with a huge problem of overshoot. The population is thought to have crashed from c.15 000 to c.2000 in around 100 years (the numbers and timelines are not firm).
The period in European history following the Great Famine (1315-1317).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_of_1315-1317
The population of Europe had been sustain at very high levels by the gentle climate of the Medieval warm period but the population had reached its maximum. All it took was two bad harvests and it set of a chain of events that seen Europe’s population plummet to dramatically lower levels.
The collapse of the Mayan civilisation in Southern Central America is often strongly linked to drought and water mismanagement leading to a collapse of the complex society and a subsequent population collapse.

The list of population crashes from changes in climate or environmental degradation is long and well documented.

Understanding that it is possible is the first necessary to opening a dialogue on mitigation against these potential threats.

 

[smokedout]

Understanding that it is possible is the first necessary to opening a dialogue on mitigation against these potential threats.

of course its possible, but predicting how, when and where it will happen is guesswork - all the examples you give are of localised crashes, whereas the OPT are talking about global population

and if a population crash happens then over-population will not be a problem anymore will it

the OPT argue the population of the UK be reduced to 17 million, whilst they suggest this could be done with woolly commitments from people saying they wont have more than 2 kids, this is clearly unrealistic and far more sinister agendas may lie beneath the surface or arise if this lobby becomes more powerful

it seems that they (and some of posters on this thread) seek a managed population crash, largely based on the wests desire to keep burning carbon like its going out of fashion

the implications of how this will be achieved are terrifying

is it really worth saving the world from global warming, food shortages, water shortages (insert favourite bogeymen here) if that world has resorted to fascism to keep the few in a life of luxury

 

[gentlegreen]

I can fully understand the incentive to raise multiple children in places with no provision for the elderly and high infant mortality, but raising children has become almost fetishised in the West, with infertile women going to absurd lengths to conceive - in a world with millions of orphans.

With the state this planet's in, I would have difficulty telling the neccessary lies to children about the future.

I have only recently forgiven my parents for raising four of us - and hence depriving us of resources and having to live with my dad's thinly-veiled resentment.

 

[durruti02]

Why do people bang on about sustainability ? We have vast reserves of food, we pay people NOT to grow crops and there are huge swathes of land just laying empty.

This planet is absolutely awash with all sorts of good things which could sustain a global population of multiple times what we have already.

Yes I think we need to come up with alternatives to burning fossil fuels but primarily for political reasons as there is absolutely loads of it still in the ground and will be for centuries to come.

This country has enough coal reserves alone to keep us going for 500 years.

simply not true .. yes we have set aside .. yes we have vast resources still BUT 1) we are spending billions fighting each other for control of those resources 2) there are clearly NOT enough space and resources for everyone to live the life of the north american middle class 3) we are making extinct thousends of species .. ecologists desognate the era we are in as one of "species mass extinction" and it is getting worse as the rainforests are destroyed perhaps with global consequences

 

[tbaldwin]

I dont really think the world is overpopulated. There are some places that are overpopulated and migration makes this worse,but others underpopulated.If you look at Ireland before the famine the population was 5 m compared to the uks population of 8 million.
Parts of the British Isles are overpopulated but others like Ireland and the highlands definetely aernt. And its the same across the world.
What is needed is a more even spread of wealth and people across the globe.

 

[Wolveryeti]

is it really worth saving the world from global warming, food shortages, water shortages (insert favourite bogeymen here) if that world has resorted to fascism to keep the few in a life of luxury

The consequences of having no food and water would be far more damaging to liberty than telling people they can't have kids and removing government incentives for doing so. To me it spells the breakdown of society.

Allowing unrestricted population growth ties the hands of governments with regard to policy. This can already be seen in China. How can you follow a policy of sustainable development where you need to maintain 8% growth every year just to keep unemployment stable?

I'm not sure what 'luxury' has to do with it either. The drive to limit the ecological damage humanity is causing should incorporate wide ranging cutbacks on consumption as well as curbs on population growth.

 

[smokedout]

The consequences of having no food and water would be far more damaging to liberty than telling people they can't have kids and removing government incentives for doing so. To me it spells the breakdown of society.

what government incentive is there for people to have children

 

[tim]

Long live the 'fascists', I say.

Better to curb freedoms now than end up with bedlam in thirty years time when climate shocks mean there isn't enough food or water to go round.

Roll on the police state then. What exactly do you suggest the benign green dictators should take: forced sterilisation of the poor as favoured by Indira Gandi; forcing women who've gone over the child limit to have aborttions at any stage of the pregnancy as in China at the moment; euthanasing the disabled socially delinquent and racially inferior as happened in Germany in the 1930's?