marty wrote:The planet has finite resources and the rate of population growth as it is cannot be sustained. I've been living in London for 11 years and have noticed in that time a sharp rise in the number of people. The roads are still busy at 11pm at night and are sometimes even more congested on a Sunday than a week day. :
Given the slow - sometimes negative rate of "native" population increase (even before the rapid exodus of sensible people) what proportion of the increase you see is the responsibility of people who have arrived in the past 10 years (plus their spouses and offspring and sundry relatives?
Merci, merci and mercy!marty wrote:I'd probably start by bombing France :
Although of course it has its problems - it is over 5 times the area of the UK please note:
- it has about the same number of locally registered vehicles as the UK (though there has been an invasion of Lithuanian and other lorries).
- many smaller (as well as the big) rivers in our area produce hydroelectric electricity on a scale not seen in the UK
- France uses tidal energy - the Rance barrage for example **
- it is littered with wind turbines on a scale not seen in the UK
- like it or not it has plenty of nuclear power.
- most trains are electric, not diesel
- wood (carbon neutral) is commonly used for heating in my area - it is coppiced which means that the tree itself continues to grow.
- there is a drive towards solar and all sorts of other natural forms of heating including heat pumps which reduce power needs typically by 80%
- the insulation available is far better than we see here, costs about thew same as here (after the UK's " EDF" discount) and 40% of approved insulation costs c an be set off against income tax.
- trees are being planted at a great net rate; oak and beech are commonist though we have a lot of chestnut, walnut and cherry. (I have just one conifer!)
Before Nukeing them (I'm in the UK!!!!!) get Britain halfway to their standard.
** You will have seen that Britain has "just" developed a sausage like device which gets power from the waves - it was developed in the early 1970's (I've got the cuttings somewhere) and shelved as unnecessary by the government. At that time it was considered that enough energy to power the entire British Isles in the year 2000 could be obtained by such devices in an area limited to the Western Approaches (ie Scottish west coast)
Sure; you go and tell the Chinese / Indian / Indonesian / Phillipino / African poor that they must have no children, that they are not allowed water or food or medicine or electricity ............ They have to be pursuaded by the arguments and they certainly are not going to listen to our orders. Throwing money at them only results in them using extra resources and producing even more greenhouse gasses - if it doesn't go into the bank accounts of their leadersmarty wrote:We MUST start thinking about how to curb the planet's population now. If every person on the planet lived a 'westernised lifestyle' i.e. had a car, running hot water, central heating, mobile phone etc the earth simply would not cope. It is therefore not in the interests of the planet or those with a higher standard of living to lift people out of third world poverty - if no one on the earth was poor all resources would run dry within a couple of years. We must stop over-burdening the earth.
I suspect we will end up with some huge war wiping out half the population - who was it put too many rats in a confined space? Alternatively we will have human "myxamatosis".
