Category: Population

We’re living longer but even that is worrying us

admin /24 July, 2009

From the UK Guardian via Sydney Morning Herald

This week the US Census Bureau announced that, within 10
years and for the first time in history, old people will outnumber
children under five across the globe. It was careful not to be too
judgmental about this – there being so little we can do about it anyway
– and concentrated not on consequent problems but on the “challenges to
policymakers”.

And yet whenever this demographic shift
comes up, it is presented in terms of a crisis on one hand and a burden
on the other. Pensions are always in turmoil and dependency ratios,
particularly in developed economies, are always dangerously skewed.
Various newspapers talked about the bureau having “sounded the alarm”
about the “burden on carers and social services” and “intense pressures
on individuals and families”. These are the terms of any discussion
about an ageing population – that it represents a calamity.

Demographers at odds over population drivers.

admin /22 July, 2009

Demographers at odds over population drivers By Bronwyn Herbert for PM Posted 2 hours 46 minutes ago Updated 2 hours 42 minutes ago Mark McCrindle says the statistics show a big boom in births. (AAP Image: Alan Porritt, file photo) Audio: Australia’s population to reach 22 million late 2009 (PM) Social demographer Mark McCrindle Continue Reading →

Record number of arrivals swells population.

admin /19 July, 2009

This is the reason for the proposed “Sustainable Population Working Group”. These figures must be reduced, or there will be no sustainability, (NSW,GREENS.) Neville Gillmore. Record number of arrivals swells population July 19, 2009 Figures suggest we’re experiencing the biggest boom since the 1950s, writes Kelsey Munro. A COMBINATION of high immigration rates Continue Reading →

Are there limits to population growth in Australia?

admin /4 June, 2009

To many people, the vast continent of Australia seems underpopulated with its current population of seventeen million people. But this image is misleading: much of the continent is inhospitable to humans, and the amount of agricultural land and available water is small compared with the total land area. Moreover, according to the population issues committee of the National Population Council (NPC), “there is a serious mismatch between distributions of available water supply and the population, water supply is subject to high levels of seasonal and year to year variability, the land is severely degraded, the soils thin and vulnerable to depletion” (1992, p. 41). Additionally, many species in Australia have become extinct or are threatened by the expansion of human activities in their habitats.

Effects of overpopulation

admin /29 May, 2009

[edit] Effects of overpopulation

Some problems associated with or exacerbated by human overpopulation:

Inadequate fresh water^[119] for drinking water use as well as sewage treatment and effluent discharge. Some countries, like Saudi Arabia, use energy-expensive desalination to solve the problem of water shortages.^[140]^[141]
Depletion of natural resources, especially fossil fuels^[142]
Increased levels of air pollution, water pollution, soil contamination and noise pollution. Once a country has industrialized and become wealthy, a combination of government regulation and technological innovation causes pollution to decline substantially, even as the population continues to grow.^[143]
Deforestation and loss of ecosystems^[144] that sustain global atmospheric oxygen and carbon dioxide balance; about eight million hectares of forest are lost each year.^[145]

PAUL EHRLICH AND THE POPULATION BOMB

admin /29 May, 2009

PAUL EHRLICH AND THE POPULATION BOMB, PBS video produced by Canadian biologist Dr. David Suzuki

The idea that we can just keep growing forever on a finite planet is totally imbecilic…. Simon, a professor of junkmail marketing, and his kind, think technology will solve everything…. We can use up the Earth then we can just jump into spaceships and fly somewhere else…. Technology does nothing to solve problems of biodiversity or living space or arable cropland…. Fresh water and arable cropland are finite nonrenewable resources…. We are already far beyond what we can support sustainably…. The provincial view you get from someone living in some wealthy American East Coast city is wildly different from reality. Most of the world is tropical, hungry and poor. Visit the developing world and southern hemisphere and you get a very different view of reality.

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