Asylum seekers - what should be done?

[Yorick]

Moridin, Mauritania has been experimenting with Salt water crops as well as fighting the expansion of the Sahara. It's a great idea. What get's me is when we look at Australia, by far one of the least exploited lands (which is good) but whose most fertile forested areas are along the eastern coast - which now has cities. We historicaly have felt no problem in building cities and destroying forests, yet now when the possiblility or evening the forest/desert ratio back towards forests or grasslands people have a problem.

The witchety grub is not under exinction. Desert dwelling animals are very small in number (I did not mean size). By contrast the Eastern Quokka is, probably totally extinct if not close.

Also, city dwellers have always freaked out their environment. London was a rat infested, plague ridden mess. The answer is not human reduction, but human/environment harmony. The poor have always supported the rich, country to country and within a society. What makes Fjlotsdale et al assume that lesser numbers will make any difference when the same mistakes are being made that city cultures have always made?

The other side of the coin is that it is the poorer nations that capitalism rests on that have the largest population growth problems. Brazil, India. Wealth has generally brought smaller family sizes, less infant mortality and higher life expectancy.

The thing is, I look at Singapore. It has a tiny amount of land, but uses it very wisely. "If you can't live on it, work on it or drive on it, you can bet it looks good." So the saying goes. I come over to America and there are huge, huge tracts of land left unused and ugly. Same in Australia. Cities don't need to take up the room that they do. Remove the car and create the polis and you have greater amounts of people in smaller areas, reliance on mass transit (cheaper, cleaner, cost effective) and walking (fitter humans). More areas of land left for food and restoration to original habitat. (I can't wait for us to run out of oil, and have to rely on solar and wind energy.) With a greater even distribution of wealth, there is less need for a large family to "work the farm" or "take care of the aged".

However this is a substancial mental shift for most western cultures, bred on isolated suburban living seperated from necessities and societies by the car. One cannot live in some areas without one. The shift towards this is more possible than enforced population reduction which removes from humans one of the most completing, circular parts of live. Having a child.

It is the ultimate act of creation. The child becomes a parent. Families are mini societies. We have seen the breakdown of the extended family and the role of grandparents involved in the rearing of children. The industrial revolution removed fathers from the home and child rearing, and has led to the breakdown of the nuclear family. Now we are talking no families at all. Perhaps one child for who? The rich? Remove an eternal source of joy from the poor? The oppressed?

To my knowledge no one has presented a viable humanitarian plan for population reduction. Plenty have put forward plans for greater resource management. I believe the over-population "problem" to be the line in the sand. The line we must draw between staring reality in the face, realising our collective greed and learning to live in harmony with the environment instead of plundering it; and the other side blaming others - mysterious numbers that will take years and a harsh government to regulate so that we don't have to change anything in our own lives. We can stay in the comfort zone safe in the knowledge that short of a bomb, ebola virus or comet, human number reduction won't occur in our lifetime, so we may as well live as we ever have.

[Fljotsdale]

Originally posted by Yorick: Fjlotsdale, you are wrong and I can prove it. With a vastly smaller population on the planet, there were still haves and have nots. Rome circa 1AD.

Sigh. Yorick, there have ALWAYS been haves and have-nots. Even among cave-men. Why? Various factors: intellignece, physical fitness, injury; selfishness, greed, kindness, compassion. Nothing new.
What IS new is the scale of the problem - BECAUSE WE HAVE TOO DAMN MUCH POPULATION!!
What's wrong with acknowledging that, Yorick? Is it a religious thing with you?Look. Your own god said 'fill the earth'. OK. What do you do with a container when it is full? YOU STOP PUTTING MORE IN!!
And do you fill a cup of water RIGHT TO THE TOP so that it is slopping out everywhere? NO! You fill it COMFORTABLY full, not BRIM FULL.
Our planet is not yet overpopulated. We CAN feed everyone - we just DON'T. But if we go ON filling the 'cup' we will reach a time when we can't. Who wants to live in an overcrowded, underfed and desperate world with all the resouces used up, just because we don't want to do anything to curb population growth?
Shutting your eyes to something won't make it go away. I've tried it, lol!

------------------

[Fljotsdale]

Yorick, you know quite well that I agree with all of your above post to Moridin.
What I don’t understand is your failure to see the need for population control. As for effective ways to curb population – what is wrong with sex education and the condom? Not overly expensive, unharmful, and pretty effective!

The major problem to be overcome is the attitude of some bodies (usually religious). It is seen as preferable for a family to try to raise children they can’t afford to feed and do not want, condemning such children, their siblings and their parents to relentless poverty.
The alternative – allowing the parents a CHOICE – is seen as inherently bad. Yet parents who have choice, and who limit their family size, are better off. The children are better fed, the mother’s health is better and they have less mouths to feed with their limited income, thus producing happier, healthier families. Ultimately, that leads to a happier, healthier, SMALLER, and more environmentally balanced HUMAN FAMILY.


------------------

[Fljotsdale]

Originally posted by Memnoch: Guys, do you want to move this (new) discussion to a new thread? I have no problem at all with it staying here, but you might not get as many people visiting this thread and so you might miss out on other perspectives. Just a thought.

Seems like a good idea to me, Memnoch! If everyone else is willing, count me in!


------------------