Humans increase as wild animals decrease

Another gap in writing, and I again have a huge backlog of articles. Writing just feels pointless at times as few want to acknowledge that human overpopulation is a major problem – certainly not those with influence.

A new and horrifying report was released in September that predicted the world’s population could climb to 11 billion by 2100 – rather than peak and decline as has previously been the accepted scenario. That is just over one-and-a-half as many people as today.

Another analysis was also released last month by the WWF stating that Earth had lost half of its wildlife in the past 40 years (as contrasted to domesticated animals, which are also in plague proportions). However the report only mentions human consumption as the culprit, not our growing numbers also.

Despite the implications – ultimately far more alarming than the terrorist scaremongering currently occupying governments – the extinction article barely recieved a mention in the mainstream press, as the letter below points out (Herald-Sun, 3/10):

Threat underplayed

I READ with great interest the snippet, “Wildlife plummet” (HS, Oct 1), stating that wildlife numbers have plunged by more than half in 40 years as the Earth’s human population has nearly doubled.

Given that humans are consuming natural resources that would require L5 Earths to sustain, I cannot comprehend why this was on page 21. This is an extremely serious threat to life as we know it. Granted, it doesn’t appear to be as immediate or sensational a threat as terrorism, but this has the potential to be a planetary disaster. Every day I am further convinced of the truth of the underlying message in Dan Brown’s novel, Inferno, in which the problem of overpopulation is the central theme.

– Geoff McKeon, Huntly

Given these two factors, the Earth of 2100 (when I will be dead, barring access to any life-extension technology of then) will be a far less biodiverse planet. The few wild animals left will live out restricted lives in nature reserves or zoos. Megacities of tens of millions will sprawl over the various continents like grey cancer cells. Big forests such as the Amazon or Siberian taiga will have all but vanished. Global warming will wreak havoc. Aside from the mega-wealthy, many humans will likely also have miserably restricted lives, seeking to escape from their bleak reality into the virtual world with whatever technologies have evolved then. In fact that is not too far off the Earth presented in the movie Avatar.

A recent book by Paul Hanley on the topic of eleven billion was featured on io9. He seems to be optimistic that humans will find ways to cope, but I find such optimism dangerous – it is a complacent feeling of “No worries, things will work out” rather than take measures now to prevent the population getting to such a huge number in the first place (prevention is preferable to the cure).

Well, we can look at 11 billion as too many people, or look at the population as huge potential to do things like reclaim deteriorated ecosystems. There are some 3 billion hectares of deteriorated ecosystems by some reckoning (see Rattan Lal) Restoring those lands, which would require a huge amount of work, would be like adding a new continent to the world. It would also ameliorate climate change by capturing huge amounts of carbon in plants and soil. But in rick areas where people have more than we need, we will have to look at shorter work weeks, more job sharing, lower income and consumption, but more time to do things like hang out with family and friends, be creative, garden, etc.

We may be able to restore the natural world, but I think there will be a net loss of biodiversity what ere we do. But ecological function can be prioritized, leading to better incomes for the rural poor. I talk about an outstanding large scale example of this on China’s Loess Plateau.

I don’t find the prospect of such loss of biodiversity at all acceptable – humans don’t own the Earth, but share it with other lifeforms. We as a species should not let things get to such a condition in the first place – this should be considered a moral imperative.

“It is not primarily the number of people that’s important in population policy, it’s what they are capable of, their level of education, and their health.”

– Wolfgang Lutz, director of the Vienna Institute of Demography

A quote from the first “11 billion” article which I strongly disagree with for reasons previously stated.

Collected letters

Some recent letters concerning population growth projections in Australia (see my previous entry):

Growing out of control

Australia’s rapid population growth has had some media attention again in the last couple of months. As reported in the Herald-Sun, 25/9, Melbourne is the fastest-growing capital city and the downside of this is all too apparent:

A boom town

MELBOURNE’S population is booming, with 1350 people moving in each week, a government report says.

Victoria is expected to boast 5.41 million people by 2031.

Migration is the main factor behind the increase, according to the Growth Areas Authority 2012-13 annual report, released this month.

The growth is higher than any other capital city.

Melbourne has had the highest growth rate for the past 11 years, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

In 2011-12, after deaths and people leaving the state were accounted for, Melbourne’s population grew by 77,242.

Melbourne MP Kelvin Thomson is practically the only politician who is outspoken about population growth, and was reported to be launching an NGO concerned with the issue. He was also profiled in an The Age article. Comments from other politicians there, though, show how locked into the growth-is-good ideology they are.

As reported in The Age, a report released by the Productivity Commission last week projected Australia’s population to reach 42 million by 2060, with Melbourne and Sydney housing 7 million each. While modest by many countries’ standards, it is a lot for a relatively infertile and dry continent with a fragile environment that is still being degraded and damaged by human activity.

Another report for Victoria said that the state’s population is growing by 100,000 a year – most of whom end up in Melbourne, to its increasing detriment.

Unbelievably, the Working holiday visa scheme in Australia is to be expanded, despite there being a growing unemployment issue here. Many are from countries with high unemployment and are financially struggling. Australia is essentially being treated as a relief or escape valve for other countries’ problems – but it should not be our role to serve as this. It is another betrayal of citizens by the government here.

Melbourne most livable (again)

Melbourne was voted most livable for this year again for health care, education and infrastructure. Which bemused many, including me, as there is much to be improved in all these areas. It is certainly a better place to live than many other cities, but far from perfect.

I dislike this sort of publicity as this makes people more inclined to want to move here when the city and suburbs are already bursting at the seams and struggling to cope. Another article came out this week saying Melbourne was undergoing rapid population growth, which is dismayingly obvious to anyone who has lived here for a while – infrastructure is not coping with the influx.

Melbourne’s population is swelling by 2 per cent a year, adding more than 900,000 people since this century began – and putting it on track to be a city of 8 million people by 2050.

The Bureau of Statistics estimates that in mid-2012, the city’s population was about to hit 4.25 million, after six boom years in which it grew by almost half a million.

Recent bureau figures imply that Melbourne today is home to 4.35 million people – and 27 per cent bigger than the city it was at the start of 2000.

With a rapidly growing population squeezing into road and rail systems that are barely growing at all, this would intensify the strain on the city’s infrastructure, leading to increased congestion on the roads and overcrowding on trains.

The figures will probably seem miniscule compared with many major cities – Wikipedia has a list of these, where population for the highest is into the tens of millions. High density living is promoted as desirable because amenities are close together, but there is a tradeoff in loss of open space, stress from overcrowding, noise and other pollution, and limited access to nature. A properly-planned city might alleviate some of these negative factors, but few if any urban centers are; they tend to grow haphazardly over decades as more people are crammed in.

23 million and counting

Australia’s population officially reached 23 million on 23 April; a milestone that was generally reported positively. The population is small compared to many other countries (as is pointed out with tedious regularity), but Australia does not have a great amount of habitable land, so most of the population tends to live along the coastline, and much of that is clumped into the major cities.

Melbourne is, unfortunately, leading the nation’s population growth, and the negative effects of this are ever increasing: chronic traffic congestion (is it a coincidence that road rage is on the increase?), increased housing prices, inappropriate high-density developments in suburbs, pressure on health care, public transport and other services … the list goes on. Little if anything about this manic growth is for the better. From my perspective – I live in a suburb of Melbourne – quality of life is definitely deteriorating and the stress from this is continual. The State Government makes nebulous promises about improving infrastructure, but at the same time they cut funding.

Much of that infrastructure seems to only involve building more environmentally-destructive roads – an example being this brief report from my local newspaper (also online):

Plants face chop

ENDANGERED vegetation will be removed to make way for the new Dingley bypass, despite objections from green groups.

Greater Dandenong Council has given VicRoads the go-ahead to rip out a large old tree and vegetation, classified as “of very high conservation significance”, from the 0.19ha swampy woodland in the Westall Rd reserve.

Four environmental groups have slammed the unadvertised proposal. They say an overpass should be built to protect them.

Engineering services director Bruce Rendall said the proposal was not advertised because no third party would suffer.

It is similar to the Westerfield heritage woodlands being bulldozed through in 2010 (see 10/7/2010, 24/10/2010 entries) for the Frankston bypass. Native bushland continues to be razed for so-called “progress” and one feels so powerless and frustrated that it can’t be stopped. The Australian Aborigines lived here for 40,000 years or more, but in all that vast span of time they never did as much damage as did the arrival of European settlers in the last 200 years. The estimated population of Aborigines before settlement/invasion was around a million or so – something the fragile landscape here could cope with.

Some recent letters:

Collected letters

Some letters saved from the last two months.

Melbourne in 2050: unlivable

“Still liveable?”, The Age, 22/11. This in-depth article looks at the rapid growth of Melbourne – predicted at the current rate to reach 6.4 million in 2050 – and the failure of the State Government to keep up with the infrastructure required to support such numbers. New suburbs are being built on what was once farmland at great distances from the CBD, and the residents there have virtually nothing in the form of access to public transport. The current planning system favors developers at the expense of livability issues, and there is no move to change this. Of course, the basic problem is the relentless population growth the city has been inundated with – and neither State nor Federal Governments appear willing to tackle this issue by reducing the too-high immigration rate, and discouraging the high birth rate – too radical for our growth-based economy to contemplate. One academic quoted in the article does not believe population growth is a problem:

The state government’s 20-minute city proposal is “a complete pipedream”, says Carolyn Whitzman, associate professor in urban planning at Melbourne University. “Whether Melbourne has 4 million or 6 million people, we’re not travelling in a particularly equitable direction,” she says. “I don’t necessarily see population growth as a bad thing, it just has to be managed properly. Currently, we live in a socially divided and environmentally unsustainable city.”

Realistically, population growth is almost never “managed properly” – certainly not by Australian governments – and with most cutting funding such management is even more unlikely.

From a commenter in a related article:

Still more articles agonising about strategies for adapting Melbourne’s moribund infrastructure to cope with future population explosion, all predicated on the unspoken and unchallenged assumption that population growth is inevitable and sacred. None of the learned commentators and politicians dares mention the obvious solution – limiting population growth, which could be done with social pressure on parents to limit family sizes, and governments limiting immigration. Why the collective dread of mentioning this obvious fact?

– boxchester, Melbourne, November 22, 2012, 11:48AM

I feel like starting a Mattew Guy hate page on Facebook or something! The Planning Minister comes across as arrogant and condescending in his statements, such as this opinion piece: “The metropolis our forefathers built will continue to be vibrant and exciting”, H-S, 22/11, a relentlessly optimistic extolling of Melbourne’s continous expansion. (I would like to declare a fatwa on the word vibrant …) He is of the opinion that huge skyscrapers make a city “sophisticated” – “Mr Guy dismissed those who complain about over-development, saying: ‘If Melbourne is too successful, maybe they should move to Adelaide’.” (source) – presumably Adelaide is not yet wrecked as Melbourne? “Taller buildings, he said, were a symbol of a growing nation, a strong economy and can ‘define a city’.” (source) He wrote a rather patronizing opinion piece in today’s Herald-Sun: “The metropolis our forefathers built will continue to be vibrant and exciting” (behind a paywall, reproduced below):

If you’re thinking of moving to Melbourne …

Please don’t! That’s my reaction when I see threads on that topic on forums such as r/Melbourne, though I refrain from saying thus as I will inevitably get downvoted. I might sound churlish, but almost 1000 people a week are arriving, as reported in The Age and Herald-Sun today: “Growth pains on the city’s fringe” and “Booming in the ’burbs” – the latter reproduced below as it is not online:

THE booming outer suburbs have helped Melbourne post the biggest population gain of any capital city in the past decade. Almost 650,000 extra residents moved to Melbourne in the 10 years to June last year, pushing the total population up 18 per cent to a whopping 4.17 million. Census figures released yesterday show the top five areas for growth nationwide were all on Melbourne’s outskirts.

South Morang recorded the biggest increase, with the number of residents up 32,200. Point Cook, Caroline Springs and Tarneit in the west followed with growth figures of more than 20,000.

Demographer with id Consulting, Glenn Capuano, said affordable housing within 25km of Melbourne’s centre was helping lure residents from Sydney, where prices were much more expensive. An economic downturn in southeast Queensland was also behind the influx. It is expected to push Melbourne’s population to five million by 2025.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics figures showed inner-city development was further fuelling the population increase. The Docklands recorded the state’s fastest growth, with the area’s population almost 40 times higher than it was in 2001. Taylors Hill, Cairnlea, Point Cook and Tarneit were the next fastest.

Property Council of Australia (Victoria) executive director Jennifer Cunich said more infrastructure was needed for Melbourne to keep pace with its rapid growth. Ms Cunich said toll roads and government partnerships with the private sector were among ways to accelerate investment.

Rachel Mcminimee, who moved to Tarneit from the Dandenongs with husband John 10 years ago, said access to work and the city were big drawcards.

Melbourne’s population gains dwarfed increases in the state’s regional population, which rose about 6 per cent to 1.37 million.

Perth was the nation’s fastest growing capital, with the population up 26 percent, ahead of Brisbane. In NSW, 75 per cent of the state’s population growth was in Sydney. The city now has a population of 4.61 million.

Road traffic has become horrendous and infrastructure is simply not coping – and governments will never manage to catch-up with the unwanted growth. I have lived here all my life and can emphatically assert that quality of life is eroding rapidly and the crowding is extremely stressful and anger-inducing. We are not yet at the level of crowding of megacities of the world, but it seems that government and business wants to make Melbourne that way.

Collected letters

African apocalypse

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan showed recently that he realized overpopulation was a timebomb when saying that his country’s citizens should limit the number of children they have. Unfortunately, most of the religious leaders there castigated him on this issue, and having large families is an embedded part of the culture.

Two articles from April also looked at the social and environmental devastation that population growth is causing in Africa (as it is everywhere).

Across sub-Saharan Africa, alarmed governments have begun to act, often reversing longstanding policies that encouraged or accepted large families. Nigeria made contraceptives free last year, and officials are promoting smaller families as a key to economic salvation, holding up the financial gains in nations like Thailand as inspiration.

Nigeria, already the world’s sixth most populous nation with 167 million people, is a crucial test case, since its success or failure at bringing down birthrates will have outsize influence on the world’s population. If this large nation rich with oil cannot control its growth, what hope is there for the many smaller, poorer countries?

“Population is key,” said Peter Ogunjuyigbe, a demographer at Obafemi Awolowo University in the small central city of Ile-Ife. “If you don’t take care of population, schools can’t cope, hospitals can’t cope, there’s not enough housing – there’s nothing you can do to have economic development.”

– “Nigeria Tested by Rapid Rise in Population”, NYT 14/4

If Africa’s population increases according to the UN’s medium prediction, the continent will have about 3.6 billion people by the end of the century – raising its current share of global population from 12 per cent to about one-third. Nevertheless, its population could reach 5.2 billion or 2.4 billion by 2100, depending on whether fertility is 0.5 children above or below the UN’s medium estimate.

The population of the Sahel – those semi-arid countries bordering the Sahara – will double or more by 2050 at exactly the time that global warming is likely to have the harshest effects. As population growth and global warming coincide, the hunger and refugee problems in the Horn of Africa, and type of resource battles seen in Darfur or South Sudan, will multiply.

Worldwide, the UN predicts 15.8 billion humans by the end of the century if average family size remains around 2.6 children per woman, but 6.2 billion if it stabilises at 1.6 children. If fertility levels drop to the replacement level of 2.1, then there will be 10 billion people. (NS)

“How to defuse sub-Saharan Africa’s population bomb”, New Scientist 26/4

Wildlife there is already under serious threat; a lot of animal species are increasingly being corralled into wildlife parks that are surrounded by farmland, unable to traverse their ancient migratory routes. It is depressing to contemplate that the continent where humans first evolved – our ancient first homeland – may ultimately be turned into a wasteland by our species because we won’t or can’t restrict our numbers.

1/7:

Birth control key

MATT Wade’s report (“Children near starvation in world’s largest refugee camp”, 17/7) on the tragedy in Africa’s Dadaab refugee camp is heart-breaking. The clue to the cause of the problem is also in Wade’s report: overpopulation. One of the refugees has nine children, another has six children below the age of eight. The drought has dramatically exacerbated an untenable situation.

The only solution to poverty in countries such as Somalia is birth control. Developed countries give hundreds of billions of dollars a year for the economic development of poor countries. Any progress they make is swallowed up by the increasing population and the end result is increasing poverty.

It is time for us to reassess our options.

– Bill Mathew, Parkville

As always, the trinity of health care, family planning and education for women is the only long-term way to break the poverty and famine cycle in developing countries. Aid should be given only if these will be implemented also, otherwise such humanitarian disasters will continue.

“The Other Arab Spring”, NYT, 7/4. This opinion piece by Thomas L. Friedman notes that the revolutions that have shaken the Middle East since 2011 can be attrituted to the high population growth in the region, especially a high and unemployable youth population.

All these tensions over land, water and food are telling us something: The Arab awakening was driven not only by political and economic stresses, but, less visibly, by environmental, population and climate stresses as well. If we focus only on the former and not the latter, we will never be able to help stabilize these societies. […]

If you ask “what are the real threats to our security today,” said Brown, “at the top of the list would be climate change, population growth, water shortages, rising food prices and the number of failing states in the world. As that list grows, how many failed states before we have a failing global civilization, and everything begins to unravel?”

Rats in a cage

“Police called to more than 100 disputes every day”, Herald-Sun, 29/5 (copy URL into Google search, click on link results to get around paywall). This was the headline for yesterday, the article saying that “Overcrowding is being blamed for rising neighbourhood violence”. Well, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to come to that conclusion!

The 000 [emergency] hotline sent police to almost 42,000 neighbourhood disputes in Melbourne and Geelong postcodes - a 12 per cent jump in a year. Violence and ugly verbal feuds between neighbours are as common as family disputes, the focus of a decade-long police campaign. Police have less power to intervene in neighbour disputes. Residents have told of incidents including vicious verbal abuse and terrifying attacks with knives, fireworks and slingshots, often after complaining about noisy parties or local hoons. Freedom of Information data obtained by the Herald Sun reveals the most crowded and fastest-growing suburbs are most affected. […]

Sgt Amanda Napier, of St Kilda police, said “paper thin walls” in overcrowded suburbs drove residents to the brink. “The incidents in St Kilda I think would be attributed to the fact that there are so many flats which have paper thin walls and any sort of noise can be heard,” she said. Dandenong police Sgt Paddy Hayes said alcohol often fuelled noisy parties and fights. He said it was an issue in growth areas such as Casey, where housing density meant residents were “living on top of each other”.

Some cultures, such as that of Japan, have adapted social behaviors that enable their populations to live high density without too much conflict (though I suspect frustration comes out in other ways). Australian culture, however, likes its space, and the crowding and urban density resulting from sustained population growth is driving many mad (myself included). I will link yet again to an article from a few years ago, “London’s a rat hole”:

His scathing assessment was being submitted to the main opposition Conservative Party’s policy group focusing on quality of life. “Putting 10 million aggressive hominids into close proximity and inviting them to engage in serial acts of competitive individualism … for jobs, schools or parking spaces, could not be considered a reasonable idea,” Bayley said. “You put rats in claustrophobic circumstances and they become homosexual, murderous and cannibalistic in no time at all. Instead humans find ingenious solutions, underground car parks, coffee shops, Chinese takeaways, one-man buses, cycle lanes, tall buildings.”

H-S letter in response, 30/5:

Overcrowding so bad for society

IT is to be expected that all this overcrowding and high-density housing being forced on us is causing social problems (“Battle in the burbs”, May 29).

All you need to do is go back to the famous study of the behaviour of rats when forced to live in overcrowded conditions. The more overcrowded, the more aggressive they became. We behave much the same as the rats.

We all need a bit of space around us to keep our sanity and balance. The more packed-in they make our city, the more the police will be called on. When will any government wake up?

– Mary Drost, convener, Planning Backlash Inc

Please go away

This is my reaction to yet another series of articles in today’s The Age that almost celebrate Melbourne’s extensive and excessive population growth.

“It’s my kind of town, say 666,000 new Melburnians”. That’s how many people have been added in the last decade. No wonder transport and infrastructure are near collapse. This growth has been deliberately encouraged by politicians and businessmen in the name of profit. Melbourne used to be a fairly pleasant place to live – at least, in comparison to many other cities – but this livability is being increasingly eroded. I am angry and fed up with the situation, but I am not in a position to move, and there is nowhere else to go in any case.

“Melbourne struggling as population booms to more than five million by 2025 and 6.5 million by 2050”, H-S, 25/3. A similar article from last week (the Google search page links get around the annoying recently-introduced paywall for now). Here are the alarming statistics:

A grim future

“Here’s a view of the world at 2050 – if you dare to look”, The Age, 21/3. This opinion piece presents a dismal view of the world midway through this century, with environmental devastation and extensive biodiversity loss due to human activity and overpopulation. It is not dissimilar to the hellish Earth presented in the Avatar movie. The Environmental Outlook to 2050 is available online, though annoyingly it is subscriber-0nly.

The report asks whether the planet’s resource base could support ever-increasing demands for energy, food, water and other natural resources, and at the same time absorb our waste streams.

The huge amounts of various waste products produced by 7 billion people does not get much attention in population arguments, but most of this waste is toxic and not recycled, so it ends up polluting the environment we depend upon – the land, air and oceans.

The purpose of reports such as this is to motivate rather than depress. The report’s implicit assumption is there are policies we could pursue to make population growth and rising living standards compatible with environmental sustainability.

We’re not yet at the point where the sources of official orthodoxy are ready concede there are limits to economic growth. But this report comes mighty close.

I very much doubt that the current rate of population growth can be sustained without even more damage to the environment – the outlooks are mutually incompatible. Implementing restrictions on such growth would be met with much resistance in the present day, but if things get really desperate as described in the article, I wonder if this opposition would change.

There is a tendency amongst many to mock and dismiss such opinions as alarmist, and assert that humans will find a technological fix (cramming us all into megacities seems to be a favored option). Indeed the very first reader’s comment below the article is breezily dismissive:

No i don’t worry about it because like most humans you are exaggerating. The worst thing never happens just like the best thing never happens … it will sort itself out. You will look back on this and feel somewhat foolish.

A saying I like is, “A pessimist is an informed optimist”. In other words, it is a realistic viewpoint.

A 22/3 letter in response:

The population threat

ROSS Gittins wrote about the release of various reports regarding climate change and the response to it based on these reports. These reports are designed to inspire people into action. Issues such as carbon emissions, economic growth, energy needs, alternative sources of energy, emerging or developing countries and so on. However, every time a report is mentioned or discussed in the media, the glaring omission is population growth.

Population growth is a hot topic that is difficult to discuss and even harder to deal with. Surely the time has come to raise this as a matter of urgency. While the world may be able to deal with increased growth, should it?

The world has enough problems with 7 billion people; what would it be like with 8, 9 or 10 billion people?

– David Love, North Balwyn

A future timebomb

“Sir Bob Geldof calls for women to have fewer children”, The National (UAE), 16/3. The musician and activist made these remarks during a visit to the United Arab Emirates, but the Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, rejected this suggestion:

“It’s not entirely clear to me that the way to succeed is to stop having children,” said Sheikh Nahyan, also at the forum. “They are the future.”

He said it would be better to focus on food production and consumption, as well as energy, water, pollution, deforestation, biodiversity, urbanisation and disease.

Sheikh Nahyan also quoted the UN as saying “we should not ask whether we are too many, but what can we do to make the world better”.

A foolish and short-sighted response. The Middle East generally has a large and growing population of young people, many of whom are impoverished, and even some of those educated have little in the way of job opportunities. This has been one unpublicized motivation behind the “Arab Spring” – venting anger and frustration at their situation.

Like China, Middle Eastern countries are facing a “perfect storm” of rising populations and dwindling resources, and are scouring the world to alleviate this, mainly by buying up farmland in countries such as Australia and Africa, something which understandably meets with resentment from many citizens there. Something has to give.

But Geldof called on the UAE to accept the harsh reality now and avoid disastrous consequences later.

“They either find a cultural way to make this acceptable or they’re going to have an anthropogenic critical event,” he said.

Global consumption is also expected to increase by 1,600 per cent in the next 90 years.

“I think the tipping point has been reached,” Geldof said. “There can’t be more people on the Earth than we can feed.”

They can’t say that they haven’t been warned.

Speaking of celebrities, “Cherryl Barassi on hoons, suicide pills and ratbags in sport”, H-S, 3/3. The wife of a well-known former Australian footballer had a few incisive things to say, including opinions on population growth. In the print article this was also included in a sidebar:

“Overpopulation and rabid consumerism are destroying our one and only beautiful little planet. Even the one-percenters who run the show can’t be happy in this climate of greed and denial. We are the ka-ching dynasty.

“How about we cancel public funding of the IVF program, and any other breeding incentives, and make it easier to adopt around the world?

“I’m tired of hearing about rights, the right to have 12 children, 12 cars and 12 televisions in one household. I’d like to hear more about responsibility.”

Collected articles

I have a backlog of various articles from the last 4 months that I meant to comment on, so much linkage follows!

Collected letters

From the Herald-Sun, 2/11:

SEVEN billion people now three billion when I was a boy – scary statistic not to be applauded.

– Jocko, Frankston

SEVEN billion people and the leaders at CHOGM talk about anything but the gross overpopulation of our planet. Who will be the first leader to state a plain birth-control policy in an attempt to reduce world poverty. Birth control and cessation of IVF will be a start.

– Tim Stafford, Mt Eliza

3/11:

YOU hit the nail on the head, Tim (Text Talk, November 2). It seems no pollie wants to take on the real world problem: too many people.

– Andrew, Maribyrnong

Battery hens in suburban pens

THE push from planners and developers to increase the density of our residential arrangements results in reduced area of gardens, reduced light through windows, reduced tree canopy and increased traffic. What is in this transformation for us? The question should be asked – just as the battery hen would surely like to ask – what is in it for her if her small cage size is further reduced? The push to cram us in is all about accommodating people who do not live here at the expense of those who do.

– Jill Quirk, East Malvern

Lifestyle lost in a mega-Melbourne

WE don’t want Melbourne’s population to be eight million. We don’t want to turn it into Manhattan. We like a house and garden and we like space. The idea of cramming eight million in here comes from the Committee for Melbourne, speaking for Big Business who wants more profit from selling more to more people, not caring if our lifestyle is wrecked because we are overcrowded and are short of infrastructure. It is time for governments to take action by slowing migration to a manageable level.

– Mary Drost, Camberwell

“Population growth sees myths reborn”, The Age, 1/11. Opinion piece by Paul Ehrlich.

The day of 7 billion

Today is that inauspicious day. Though it is a rough estimate at best (Cosmic Log: “7 billion people? How do they know?”) – I would think there are thousands more not counted for various reasons.

“Our number’s up, and that could be a procreation-led disaster”, The Age. Opinion piece saying that there needs to be marketing campaigns to persuade women to have fewer children. (Best comment: “Paradoxically our species is advanced enough to foretell our own demise, yet stupid enough to do nothing to prevent it.”)

Time magazine has a special section, The World at 7 Billion, devoted to population issues.

The graph below, from an article at ABC news, shows how the population has increased alarmingly since 1850 when the Industrial Revolution was underway, and jumped even more since 1950, with shorter periods of time between each extra billion. Worldometers has a page of data about population growth.

• 1804: 1 billion
• 1927: 2 billion
• 1960: 3 billion
• 1975: 4 billion
• 1987: 5 billion
• 1999: 6 billion
• 2011: 7 billion
• 2027: 8 billion (estimated)

The month of 7 billion

Sometime this month the population reaches an estimated 7 billion, the most people the Earth has ever had – and it continues to increase, at great detriment to the environment we all depend upon. I cannot feel optimistic about the future – i.e. that humans will manage to radically change their attitude and society. Things will likely continue on the same self-destructive path until the environment is devastated, and the world will look like the nightmarish hellholes depicted in Avatar and Terra Nova. I would like to be proven wrong, but given intractable human nature, I think I will be disappointed. (A post at the Dark Mountain blog echoes what I am feeling: despair.)

National Geographic online has a special section on the topic.

In unwelcome news, Australia’s population has reached 22.5 million, just over half that due to excessive immigration, the rest to high birth rates.

There was a report on A Current Affair a family with 15 children; I didn’t watch it on TV but have been unable to view the video due to some technical issue (not viewable on any of my browsers), so I don’t know if they are all biological or if some are adopted. If they are all biological the family is irresponsible in the extreme. Unfortunately Government child support encourages such extravagance.

There is a large families section in a parenting forum on The Age. The concept that educating and empowering women will result in smaller families seems to have bypassed the women there. A few of the posts seem defensive – well, they bring it on themselves by their excessive breeding! The women have no excuse but selfishness. They obviously don’t care for the environment – no matter how frugally they might live, every extra child born negates that. [Looking at some of the posts in that forum, is pregnancy and giving birth addictive for some women, bizarre as that concept may seem?]

Future nightmare

A brief but alarming article hidden in the depths of the 19/8 Herald-Sun:

People tipped to top 10bn

The world population will reach seven billion later this year, with increases in the number of people in Africa offsetting a drop in the birth rate elsewhere, according to a new French study.

Looking much further ahead, the National Institute for Demographic Studies predicts a continuing rise in the overall population figures until the total stabilises somewhere between nine and 10 billion worldwide by the end of the century.

The growth in the global population has been soaring since the 19^th century.

“It has increased seven fold over the last 200 years, topping seven billion in 2011, and is expected to reach nine or 10 billion by the end of the 21^st century,” the report said.

Seven countries now account for half the world’s population. China tops the list with more than 1.33 billion people, with another 1.17 billion in India. The other five countries, in order, are the United States, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan and Nigeria.

Things are bad enough now with 7 billion!

Letters in response to a 16/8 H-S article, where some lobby group (Committee for Melbourne) had the gall to suggest anti-development protest groups were responsible for unaffordable housing:

Power to the protesters

The Committee for Melbourne, with its campaign to squash more and more people into our city (“Priced out of home”, August 15), should be renamed the Committee Against Melbourne.

The UK, approximately the same size as Victoria, has 10 times our population, but more than 85 per cent of them live outside London.

We have four million people (70 per cent of our population) in our capital city, and the de velopment industry wants to squeeze in another four million, when it should be developing provincial cities.

More power to the protesters who fight to preserve our suburban gardens.

– Chris Curtis, Hurstbridge

How to make suburbs worse

So the Committee for Melbourne is bothered about subdivisions being blocked in “nice areas”.

Does it not occur to committee chief executive Andrew MacLeod that if all current residents in a particular suburb cashed in their backyards to developers, the suburb would no longer be “nice?”

The “liveability” of Melbourne is being jeopardised by the same thing that threatens reliability and quality of our food, water and energy – over population.

– Chris Hooley, Viewbank

Ugly inappropriate developments continue unabated in my suburb, and it is despairing to see. An opinion piece at CanDoBetter.net expresses the same sentiments over developments devouring what open land around Melbourne remains like a horde of locusts.

Paving over Victoria

The continuing development and destruction of Victoria’s green spaces leaves me (and many others) in a frustrated rage. The current Government continues this policy, wanting to put up for development the Green Wedges around Melbourne – corridors established over 3 decades ago to provide some environmental breathing space. Unfortunately the deliberate encouraging of population growth (approximately 90 000 people a year) has these areas under threat. The Planning Minister, Matthew Guy, is proving as developer-friendly as his predecessor, Justin Madden, was. Some recent articles from The Age:

• “Review threatens to destroy ‘Melbourne’s lungs’ ”, 30/7
• “Open spaces to shrink as Melbourne grows”, 8/8 – public parks are also under threat.

Some letters: