[LINK] Growth … was Re: This makes me angry.

[Frank O'Connor]

No, not heretical, Rick

I was simply making a point that natural population growth was nowhere near what had been stated in a previous missive.

Arguments abound about whether Australia is already overpopulated (Flannery et alia), whether it could sustain a population of 50 million (Smith et alia) or whether it could adopt the unrestricted 19th Century American approach of 'give us your poor, your huddled masses ... etc' to take advantage of the economies of scale generated by a larger population (the super optimists).

The problem of continuous growth in a closed system is something I've commented on before ... but could be overcome temporarily by better and more efficient manufacturing, technology and agriculture, sustainably using/farming resources we don't do so well with at the moment (the sea, sustainably harvesting feral and native species, irrigation of more desert land ... probably contributing to more salt table problems, etc etc) but the fact remains that because of its lack of geological activity over the last 4 billion years Australia is probably the least fertile of all the continents with less arable soil cover than any other place on Earth, and there's not a heap of leeway there.

The other problem is that our economic system is currently built on the premise of continuous growth, and when that fails we get recessions. Cyclical recessions are no bad thing, simply part of the capitalist cycle ... but recessions that degenerate into depressions and the like can cause misery and deprivation like   you wouldn't believe. 

Unless someone can propose a working alternative to the economic system we currently work under, growth will continue to be seen as desirable and the cycles of 'irrational exuberance' and recessions will continue. However, the duration between the cycles seems to be dropping rather alarmingly over the last 50 years ... we now seem to have a less than 10 year boom-bust rhythm.

That said, we're not unusual as a species in that we naturally seek to procreate without limit and dominate our environs ... much like out-of-control locust plagues, lemming migrations or a bacterial infection taking over a body ... and nature has a way of dealing with those infestations. Our instincts will probably kill us in the end ... as each generation wanting a better life for its progeny wreaks its own havoc on the finite environment. Perhaps antibiotic resistance and the lessening effectiveness of conventional medicine against infections, new diseases and plagues and the like will cut down our numbers before we do anything really irrevocable to the environment. But we are a cunning and ingenious lot, (and peak oil looks like being a non-issue if the coming gas boom is anything to go by) so perhaps we will survive to crap in our own environment one time too many ... and go the way of the dinosaurs.

The thing is that we are starting to hit the wall with many environmental problems, localised environments and species are dying off at an alarming rate, and they form part of the ecosystem which sustains us. So, should we let the current situation continue, and proceed toward a Soylent Green type world, or should we decide standard of life is far more important than quantity of life? And make no mistake ... going either way involves some horrific trade-offs that we probably don't or can't appreciate the extent of yet. 

I don't know ... I'm not paid, authorised, capable enough, equipped for, or inclined to make those decisions. I'll probably have shuffled off this mortal coil (to the hearty cheers of a number of people in the wings) long before the point of no return is reached.

But it would be a tragedy if our tenure on this planet lasted only 50,000 years, and we were consigned to paleontological history long before we managed to do anything of particular note. With an obituary of "Here lies Man. Discovered fire and the wheel, and then it all went to crap." Hey, a 50,000 year fossil record is so minuscule it would probably not even be noticed by any species that subsequently evolved into intelligent beings.

Maybe that's the lot of supposedly intelligent beings ... to always over-reach ourselves. Maybe that's the reason behind the Fermi Paradox. Who knows?

Insomnia induced maudlin philosophy ... fueled by an excellent brandy. I've got to stop doing this.   :)

							Regards,
---
On 03/04/2012, at 1:45 AM, Rick Welykochy wrote:

> Frank O'Connor wrote:
> 
>> 2.3 children for family is way above the national average. (We are actually in negative growth territory with the children thingie, and have been for years ... thank God for those migrants and foreigners you so seem to dislike.)
> 
> Migrants aside, Frank, is it heretical to consider maintaining a static
> population size? Continuous growth is unsustainable in the long run.
> 
> cheers
> rickw
> 
> 
> -- 
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