Robert Holland
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Voting Day in the UK
https://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9a68560a-f345-11e4-a979-00144feab7de.html#axzz3ZQktuNhM
(Image or https://www.ft.com/home/uk for those who don’t subscribe)
Same story outside my polling station: a blue badge conservative leafeting right on the door step. Checked with the Electoral Commission: they’re not allowed inside the station but its up to the discretion of the polling station officer whether its okay to loiter outside like that. Crazy.
SS style intimidation and desperation.I imagine we all lost our ability to live within nature with the discovery of how to exploit fossil fuels en mass. When party ends (catabolic collapse springs to mind) I imagine we’ll have to revert to that kicking and screaming.
Be great if permaculture could be used to undo a lot of the damage society as reeked on the planet.
Been starting to try and wrap around permaculture. I think there is a fair amount of hot air surrounding the yield per acre (I wish the higher figures are true). Seems to me that you still need a lot of space to support a family (something we don’t have in the UK suburbs). But maybe I’ve not taken the lessons to heart yet. The knowledge base (without resorting to diplomas, training etc) seems rather fragmented (chose the Earth Care Manual as my starting point) with a lot of different schools of thought within the topic. For instance whether to: till, compost, prune and weed (which I find surprising).Sorry for the triple posting but another point I would like ask is whether prosperity results in population decline. Given the fact that my home country the UK has not. See: https://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/pop-estimate/population-estimates-for-uk–england-and-wales–scotland-and-northern-ireland/2013/sty-population-changes.html
Population has grown over the last 50 years even if you take out immigration. Is the UK an outlier? We behind the curve compared to the rest of Europe, US and China? People may be having fewer children but will the population decline? Does the argument always hold?Dr D, “Because if they just stop using irrational European methods and started using their own, Africa would be so much superior to Europe that Italians would be swimming the other way”
Completely agree. Would that happen if we stopped interfering in their country and made reforms domestically to help facilitate that change?Re: Dr Diablo
With regard to whether the UK is under carrying capacity could you please elaborate? If during WWII (after turfing every possible backyard to food production) we were still dependent on food imports with a significantly smaller population how does that argument still stand (I’d be interested to hear). Perhaps more food can be produced in greater quantities elsewhere but that transport infrastructure is dependent on cheap energy and uses highly energy and resource intensive technologies. Furthermore let’s no forget the carbon footprint associated with carting food across the world that will only worsen the climate issue. Could you still import on a sufficient scale and produce little or no carbon? I’d imagine you’d have to forgo such large trade dependencies for the climates sake. In such an event can we still feed ourselves in the UK?
How did the UK become happy enough to have less children: consume far more than our population’s share of the world’s resources that produces waste (in greenhouse gases and environmental destruction elsewhere). Is this a sustainable model to adopt everywhere to replicate population decline? If a better distribution was applied would a global population decline occur?
“Not only that, but you don’t have to openly promote despair and mass murder on the internet.” (And killing off 4 billion people as mentioned earlier)
Apologies if I gave that impression. I wholeheartedly agree with:
“STOP shooting, bombing, strafing, droning, poisoning, and drowning them”That would go a long way to solving the problem. Also to clarify I was proposing further reforms rather than killing people that would naturally decrease the population over time.
What I’m concerned with was how we as a Western society go about “… help them–help all of us–become prosperous”.
Aid is sent around the world by plane (and other global outreach programmes), possibly one of the most environmentally damaging forms of transport, to alleviate disasters (not all) such technology is causing in the first place. A snake eating its own tail. I think that humans are hard wired to feel empathy for those in plight around us (which is great). On the other hand we’re unable to feel that same emotive empathy for future generations. This results in helping those in immediate need without addressing the long term consequences (and the root of the problem). Perhaps cheap energy has allowed us to overly exert that empathic desire, which we wouldn’t historically able to do.
Given the above, perhaps we should take a step back and consider focusing our resources and energy inwards rather than abroad (at most of them at any rate). I’m not saying we ignore weather disasters, genocide and equally terrible events but rather than being reactionary – as that would just fan the flames of future of potential mass extinction – we should look at how we can stop contributing to such problems within our own borders. I’m in agreement with John Day that we should “be the change”. Then help those further afield if it can be done without causing future problems.Also to clear up my usage of the terms: immigrants and refugees. Refugees: people displaced from their home due to some disaster or conflict (possibly indirectly of our own making). Immigrants: people who come into a country and work (possibly to live there permanently).
The reason I was using the terms rather loosely was because I think in the context of the article (and progressive party policy in the UK) the solution proposed was to take refugees as immigrants into the EU. Correctly, the problem is of our making but is it right to increase the number of people participating in the EU carbon intensive lifestyle?This immigrant/refugee debate is a hot topic in the UK with election day approaching. The common opposing sides seem to roughly be: more controls due to strain on national services or undercutting wages in the labour market; and its a human life so we have the moral obligation to save it.
Honestly I find it difficult to agree with any. In particular with the narrative: you must save a human life regardless of the cost otherwise you are a despicable person. All these arguments seem to have holes in when you frame this debate in the context of over population and finite resources. As I’ll try and reason, this results in any choice being horrific considered by today’s social norms.
The world is overpopulated and above its carrying capacity. The UK has been in this state even during WWII (dependent on US food imports to feed ourselves). What does this mean? We have about 5-6 billion too many people on this planet and the excess amount of food produced (and other resources) are mined from the planet. This reduces the size of any future human population of the planet, which inevitably means you’re killing people further down the road. So by choosing to save a life today you are choosing to kill someone tomorrow and perhaps even a larger number (due to the effects on the climate of the combined lifestyle of humans currently on this planet).
So in summary spending money to save a life is the wrong way to go about it. Nations should actively encourage population decline, be CO2 negative (if that’s possible), improve resource effeicency, change their money system (bring back the rule of law for all) and reduce waste. Then when a nation’s population is below its carrying capacity then allow immigration or divert its excess resources to helping those in need.
I know that in the context of this article it is easy to say that Western society is living the high life at the expense of the rest. But are the valid concerns, to some extent, of parties like UKIP (admittedly unwittingly so due to the population issue I’ve outlined) being tossed away in an almost zealous fashion by apparently more progressive parties or social commentators (for instance the Green Party and Patrick Boyle) resulting in an even greater human tragedy? When the latter parties are equally guilty of ignoring the limits to growth.
What is less empathic: saving a life now at the expense of more in the future or ignoring that life for the sake of healing the planet?
Or maybe we can simultaneously: save the planet, all humans future and present (someone please convince that is possible, I can’t see it)?
This is a multi facet problem with uncomfortable solutions and consequences. Can it be framed as such without stigmatisation?
