Evacuate 13 million?

“Japan Weighed Evacuating Tokyo in Nuclear Crisis”, NYT/The Age, 27/2. This article describes the Japanese government’s then-secret plans to evacuate Tokyo after the earthquake and tsunami if the damaged Fukushima Daiichi reactor plant went into meltdown:

Mr. Kan and other officials began discussing a worst-case outcome if workers at the Fukushima Daiichi plant were evacuated. This would have allowed the plant to spiral out of control, releasing even larger amounts of radioactive material into the atmosphere that would in turn force the evacuation of other nearby nuclear plants, causing further meltdowns. The report quotes the chief cabinet secretary at the time, Yukio Edano, as having warned that such a “demonic chain reaction” of plant meltdowns could result in the evacuation of Tokyo, 150 miles to the south.

Not described in the article is how the government would undertake the immense task of evacuating a huge city of 13 million (though looking at the Wikipedia page, the greater Tokyo region is an astounding 35 million). Japan is pressed for space on its islands as it is (despite gloomy alarmist reports about a declining birth rate). Perhaps other countries might take some of the evacuees, assuming they wanted to go, but nearby China is overcrowded already, and places such as Australia are mostly desert and the infrastructure in the cities are not coping with the current population. So disasters like these demonstrate that a large and growing population rapidly becomes a liability in such times.

The year of 7 billion

2011 marks a dismal milestone, in that the estimated population of humans will reach 7 billion, a near-unimaginable number for which the Earth’s environment is suffering. World population estimates at Wikipedia shows the huge growth in the 20th century: in 1900 there was an estimated 1.6 billion; only 101 years later that has increased nearly seven times (despite various wars and revolutions killing millions). Despite claims population growth has slowed or is in decline, the projection is still 8 billion in 2025 and 9 billion in 2050 – given current rates, those numbers will probably be reached sooner.

“Asia tells its young: love is in the air”, The Age, 15/1. Despite various Asian countries having huge populations, their governments are getting in a lather about falling fertility rates and so are trying to reverse this through various policies. Well, when you educate and empower women, that’s what is supposed to happen!

In the category of “I shouldn’t say anything, but I can’t resist” is a response to this blog entry, “Oh, restricting IVF will save us from overpopulation, pestilence, war and famine?”. (I used to enjoy his blog, but not so much anymore.) I thought the one who originally emailed him had some valid points, but he equates access to IVF as a “human right”; that Medicare funding for it is as valid as doing the same for, say, a hip replacement operation. I think this comparison is spurious at best (as I have said in previous IVF-tagged posts).

“Burke rejects population goal”, The Age, 17/12/2010. Predictably, the Federal Government is avoiding setting a population target.

“Cities getting less liveable”, The Age, 20/12/2010. Population growth has increased house prices, strained services and is generally making life miserable for citizens. But the Government won’t address this.

“China faces up to growth cost”, The Age, 30/12/2010. China’s rapid population and economic growth are destroying its environment. Something’s got to give.

“Urban sprawl aided Aussie torrent: experts”, The West, 14/1 (also here). Deliberate encouragement of population growth and the accompanying urban sprawl helped make the disasterous Queensland floods even worse than they otherwise might have been. I believe that I can safely predict that governments will do nothing to remedy this, and the next floods will be even worse.

Bushfire holocaust

One week ago on Saturday 7, Melbourne saw its highest temperature since records began 150 years ago: 46.4°C. There were warnings in the previous days that Victoria was facing its “Worst fire threat in history”. That was no exaggeration! Bushfires raged across the state (some deliberately lit, which obviously did not help). There was initially no mention of deaths, so it seemed the fires would be like previous seasons: some properties lost, a lot of forest burnt.

The next day, though, reports of deaths began filtering through: first 14, then it kept climbing over the next few days. The current toll stands at 181, though this is expected to increase as razed towns are searched for bodies. The bushfire deaths exceed “Ash Wednesday” (16 February 1983, 75 killed) and “Black Friday” (13 January 1939, 71 killed) combined, with thousands more left homeless (around 7000 to date). Thousands of native and domestic animals have also been killed.

People are looking for something to blame. Climate change scientists earlier warned that fires would become more intense and destructive; this fire is some evidence of that. There are many letters in the newspapers blaming the Greens political party and environmentalists (presumably for opposing burnoffs), but if such people had their way, all the forests would be felled! (There’s no bushfires in deserts…) An Onymous Lefty has a few sarcastic entries on the reactionaries. Housing has impeded on bushland as population has increased, so more damage and fatalities are inevitable. If people choose to live in fire-prone areas, there is risk. And, no, you can’t chop down all the trees to make a region safe (as much as some people would want to) – the trees have as much a right to exist. The habitat of animals is destroyed when trees are felled.

Some (hopefully permanent) links on the 2009 bushfires:

• ABC News: Bushfire Emergency
• Herald-Sun: “Victoria in flames”
• MetaFilter: Victoria’s Bushfires
• Wikipedia: 2009 Victorian bushfires

“Solution for the world’s water woes”, BBC News, 10/2. Yet another article on solutions to the world’s fresh water shortages, but does not mention reducing population growth as a fundamental solution! People can only restrict their water use to a certain degree; one still needs to drink, use the toilet and bathe! If population keeps increasing, this negates any water conservation efforts. A few commentators (including me) have pointed this out to the writer.

Daniel Tammet is a savant with Asperger’s Syndrome who has gained a measure of fame because he can recite pi to a huge amount and learn languages quickly (my more dour observation is that he’s certainly got a talent for self-promotion). But he instantly lost any respect I might have had for him, as he is an overpopulation denier, as demonstrated in this blog entry from 2006; he does not believe that the U.K. is overpopulated. He uses the spurious argument that if the population was distributed evenly across the land, then everyone would have an acre or so to themselves. This ignores the reality that there are mountains, lakes and wilderness areas where people couldn’t live. The U.K.-based Optimum Population site has a page on The UK’s population problem. 60 million people crammed onto a relatively small island is overpopulation by anyone’s standard.