World overpopulation

I have not yet listened to crun's link.
I noticed that it takes an hour, and my time tends to operate in pieces so to speak, but hopefully I will get to it soon.

meat

people

There is research going on at an Australian university which aims to show that older should eat more red than the rest of the population.

So watch it gj.

There are lots and lots of articles you can Google that will explain this- for instance the link between fossil fuel, deforestation, pollution and climate change/methane production and red meat. But here is a short copy and paste:

a significant amount of fossil fuels are used to produce each and every burger and animal product humans consume.

In fact, one calorie of animal protein requires about 10 times the input of fossil fuel energy than one calorie of plant protein. This input can be higher depending on the type of meat produced. For example, it is estimated that grain-fed beef requires 35 fossil fuel calories for every one calorie produced. That’s some heavy stuff.

If we lived a simpler life, without so many cars and planes, using local food, especially vegetarian/cereal and little meat- without so many mod cons with use so much energy- etc... China for instance went from a mainly rural country to a huge industrial power very quickly. Many countries that had a simple life of eating locally caught fish and locally grown or found fruit and veg- have turned in one generation to one consuming fast food, lots of sugar and red meat too.

The world is over populated particularl because of the increasing desire for energy guzzling and polluting cars, planes and luxury foods worst being red meat- especially as most of the animal, the offal and lower cuts, are wasted.

Could you explain that statement please, granjura? I don't see the logic in it.

no I havent yet Eloethan- been cleaning, clearing, washing, ironing and decorating. One lot of visitors gone yesterday, others arriving on Wednesday- lots to do. But will do - sounds very interesting.

dj I did my Degree from 79 to 82.

The world is over populated particularl because of the increasing desire for energy guzzling and polluting cars, planes and luxury foods worst being red meat- especially as most of the animal, the offal and lower cuts, are wasted.

I'm afraid I got the answers wrong to all the questions but I bet I'm not the only one. I had no idea the average number of children per family in Bangladesh was 2.2. I assumed it was much higher.

Thank you for that really interesting link crun. I'm about half way through and am going out shortly but will watch the rest tomorrow. Did you watch the video granjura? It puts the lid on a lot of preconceived ideas about fertility rates in the developing world.

Found out; just two, like Obama. They do as they say, which is refreshing.

That's what we were taught in the seventies, granjura, but you were not allowed to say so from then on. Choice has been the buzzword since then. Of course that only applies to the wealthy, not the ones whose children are likely to die from malnutrition or disease.
How many children does Attenborough have?

It is just as daft to generalise about 'the Muslims' as it is about 'the Christians' - really. They come in all shapes and sizes, and it is the local culture and customs of their region which dominates, not Islam per say. There are still many Christian groups that encourage a very high birth rate, for instance. When I was a child here, Catholics were in the minority (about 10 %) and were encouraged to have huge families to try and balance numbers (11+ children being the norm).

When I did my teaching Degree as a mature student, with Environmental Studies as one of the subjects (+French and German)- our main lecturer insisted that population growth is THE only determining factor re all the other environmental issues, ressources, global warming, etc, etc. We all tried to argue with him, but now 40+ years later, i realise he was probably right. In the Obama interview, David Attenborough also confirms that this has a huge influence on global warming and pollution - and Obama says that the education of women is paramount in limiting birth rate.

Yes a very interesting talk. Must admit I was wrong about several things (eg Muslims in some countries are trying to limit their families.)
Africa still seems to be behind the rest of the world but catching up.

That was really interesting, crun, and really puts things into perspective.

Have a shufty here

I don't think the world is over populated. It's more likely that the wealth and resources of the world are in the hands of the few leaving the majority to struggle and/or die.

For goodness sake Eloethan, of course not I think it's a horrible racist article too, could hardly believe it when I read it. I saw it on a discussion of immigration on another forum and thought it was very provocative.
But if this thinking took hold ethnic cleansing would be the result.
I doubt that many of the facts are correct.
Do you think the world is overpopulated? If so, what would you do about it? I have no idea, just glad I won't be around long enough to see the consequences.
And water shortage is likely to be more of a problem than lack of food.

TriciaF I think the article is sickening and racist:

"AFRICA is giving nothing to anyone outside Africa — apart from AIDS and new disease."

(Where does this man think the world gets the vast proportion of its precious minerals from? And does the ordinary African benefit from the back breaking, dirty and dangerous job of retrieving these minerals?)

"The wide-eyed boy-child we saved, 20 years or so ago, is now a low IQ, AK 47-bearing moron, siring children whenever the whim takes him, and blaming the world because he is uneducated, poor and left behind. There is no doubt a good argument why we should prolong this predatory and dysfunctional economic, social and sexual system but I do not know what it is."

"But, please, please, you self-righteously wrathful, spare me mention of our own Irish Famine, with this or that lazy analogy. There is no comparison. Within 20 years of the Famine, the Irish population was down by 30%. Over the equivalent period, thanks to Western food, the Mercedes 10-wheel truck and the Lockheed Hercules planes, Ethiopia’s population has more than doubled."

(The Irish population was down by 30% after the Irish Famine presumably because hundreds of thousands of people had died or, those that were able, had emigrated. It seems the writer thinks such an outcome would be an acceptable solution for the "Africa problem".)

What exactly do you mean by "any action based on this view would be regarded as ethnic cleansing?" What action would you propose - forced sterilisation of Africans or the withdrawal of food aid?

Most of those people are migrating through fear of violence and war. No one wants to take them.....reminds me of how no one wanted to take the Jews before WWII. We are very selfish in the developed world.

People are migrating, and no country on earth seems to want to take them.

Over-population is not the cause of a migration problem and lots of people from many different countries migrate to many other different countries all the time. Presumably, the issue to which you are referring is that no country in Europe wants to take in destitute Africans and no country on the Pacific rim wants to take in their South-east Asian counterparts.

OK Eleothan, here's the article I was quoted which is very relevant to this topic. I was shocked too when I read it:
africaunauthorised.com/?p=1311
I thought it followed logically that any action based on this view would be regarded as ethnic cleansing.
But if the facts in the article are correct it's a frightening scenario.

"I think Christianity has lasted longer than paganism."

Quote from jingl. For her to read tomorrow.

TriciaF I don't think your statement that "Muslims don't practise birth control" is correct. Some Muslims may choose not to but, from what I have read, contraception is not proscribed within the Islamic religion.

Despite your protestations that the statements re famine and population control did not reflect your views but were merely a summary of something you had read, what about your final sentence:

So it's difficult to "do something about it" without being accused of ethnic cleansing.

I don't know if Riverwalk still thinks your post was outrageous, but I certainly do.

and so to bed