environment
Can the impact of rampant population growth be overcome by individual ecological lifestyle choice?
This article was originally published on Tim Murray's web-site, sinkinglifeboat.blogspot.com with the title
THE LIMITS OF SUSTAINABLE LIVING: CBC Darling Pitches Gore's Bromides.
“It seems to me we gotta solve it individually…” from the 1968 hit song by the Young Rascals
Somebody hand me a barf bag. Quick. I was in the supermarket yesterday and came upon one of those innumerable escapist books on how we can ignore the big picture and the root cause of the coming apocalypse by retreating into private solutions. It was a book by cheery CBC talk show personality Gill Deacon called “Green for Life”, a compendium of some 200 “eco-ideas” (ego-ideas?) on how to pack school lunches, plan picnics, birthday parties and weddings, decorate and do what Sir Richard Branson called, in his endorsement, “the simple things in your everyday lives that will positively impact our future.” It is Deacon’s hope that just living sustainably in this fashion will become normal. Branson’s “normal” of course is burning up the stratosphere with jet trails all over the globe and investing in biofuels that entail the destruction of rainforests in Brazil, Indonesia and Malaysia. But those are just one or two simple things.
Deacon established her credentials for lecturing me about sustainable living by giving birth to three sons, who collectively will emit 69 metric tonnes of GHG this year. She must be a bona fide environmentalist, however, because she was a director of the World Wildlife Fund of Canada in 2002 and demonstrates her love of wildlife by living in Toronto. You are familiar with the WWF. They suction money from dupes who think you can defend wildlife from population and economic growth by creating sanctuaries for it, while refusing to take positions on population growth and immigration in whatever country they operate. In their defence though, they at least divert donor money away from Nature Conservancy, who make similar fraudulent claims.
The WWF deserves notoriety for providing ammunition to pro-immigrationists by producing eco-footprinting data that purports to show Canada as capable of accommodating more people than it should. The 2000 Living Planet Report, for example, identified Canada as having a carrying capacity of 38 million, an estimate that Optimum Population Trust UK declared took no account of the unsustainability of Canadian agriculture due to serious soil erosion.
It is rather telling that Deacon would devote a section of her “Eco-ideas” to selecting the environmentally correct kind of lubricant to, as she puts it, “grease the wheels of your lovemaking machine.” Yet it is apparently acceptable to conceive three sons in Toronto, or six for that matter, so long as you don’t fuck up the planet with petroleum jelly. I suppose inflicting a large brood on the world is a matter of “personal choice” but tossing a plastic container in the landfill is not.
One Green eco-idea Gill left out, I notice, was for consumers to send a letter to Ottawa or launch a petition against an immigration policy that makes all of her 200 “little things” a joke. Deacon might also send an eco-idea to her employer, the CBC, to drop their euphoric coverage of Canadian foreign aid missions, like Harper’s trip to Haiti, so that Canadians busy with their “Green” lifestyle might learn that their tax money is encouraging people in Haiti, Afghanistan and Africa to have four and five children each and ravage local environments for survival.
But one must not be too harsh with Gill Deacon of course. Cutting down her hypocrisy is like cutting off the head of a many headed hydra. There is a plague of these Green lifestyle books on the market. There is Adria Vasil’s “Ecoholic:Your Guide to the Most Environmentally Friendly Information, Products and Services in Canada.”. Kim McKay’s “True Green: 100 Everyday Ways You Can Contribute to a Healthier Planet”. Greg Horn’s “Living Green: A Practical Guide to Simple Sustainability.” Elizabeth Rogers’ “The Green Book: The Everyday Guide to Saving the Planet One Step at a Time”. And Ellen Sandbeck’s “Organic Housekeeping”, to name but a few.
The impetus for this myopic preoccupation with our personal lives can be traced to the famous entreaty by Al Gore in his documentary “The Inconvenient Truth”. There he states, absurdly, that “each of us is a cause of global warming, but each one of us can make choices to change that with the things we buy, with the electricity we use, the cars we drive. We can make choices to bring our individual carbon emissions to zero. The solutions are in our hands. We just have to have the determination to make them happen.” Gore does not appreciate that green consumers can never reduce their consumption to zero, and that an increase in the number of even green consumers is going to increase total consumption. The solution does not lie in the hands of individual consumers, but in the collective hands of citizens to effect political change.
The limits of green lifestyle habits can be illustrated clearly by a study conducted by Optimum Population Trust UK that found that one new citizen either born or admitted as an immigrant to Britain, wiped out 80 lifetimes of responsible recycling. Put differently, a lifetime of responsible recycling would only make up for one and one-quarter per cent of the damage done by a new citizen. Even if all of domestic waste was recycled, only 10% of the waste contributed by an additional citizen would be counter-acted.
It must be remembered that it is consumption that generates waste. While reducing our profligate per capita consumption is laudable and necessary, one must be aware that it is the number of “per capitas” which is relevant. Thus reducing our per capita C02 emissions from 23 metric tonnes to something reasonably obtainable will prove to have little effect if population growth is permitted to continue at 1.08% per annum.
Similarly our lifetime per capita consumption of 3.7 million pounds of minerals, metals and fuels, if reduced, will still be problematic if more people consume them even at a lesser rate. And turning off the lights for one hour, as we recently did in solidarity with other conservers globally, is a futile gesture if we allow population and economic growth to continue. Case in point. British Columbia Hydro encouraged customers with the thought that if they did that every night it would save enough energy to power an additional four thousand homes for an entire year. But as analyst Rick Shea of Salmon Arm, BC observed, “ British Columbians would apparently have to turn off their lights for about 6 hours each day in order to accommodate the provincial population growth in just one year. After four years of this, we will apparently have to leave our lights off permanently, 24 hours a day, to accommodate that growth.”
In summary then, the movement toward “sustainable living”, as represented by books like Gill Deacon’s “Green for Life”, is largely an exercise in ineffectual do-goodism and feel-goodism. If “every little bit counts”, it counts for little. If “it all adds up”, it doesn’t add up to much buried in a demographic avalanche. The call to “reduce, re-cycle and conserve” in the face of runaway population growth can only be likened to a cheerful cleaning lady tidying up a cabin in the Titanic as the ship is listing, making sure everything in the room is bio-degradable. She could never be relied upon to tell you the truth about the ship’s prospects, or yours, but she was hired by Captain CBC for her pleasant disposition and you will find her trivial advice entertaining.
Tim Murray
Quadra Island, BC
April 4/08
Should we destroy our environment for housing affordability?
The Queensland Government’s so-called "affordable housing strategy," signed in July with no community consultation, establishes an Urban Land Development Authority with sweeping powers, including the power to amalgamate land, to acquire land in its own right, and to on-sell their land with development rights to particular private developers.
The justification provided for such sweeping powers being given to the new authority is to speed up approvals. It has long been a complaint of industry that the approval process for development is slow and therefore costly resulting in higher prices to home buyers. The enabling legislation pushed through Parliament, again without any consultation and with unseemly haste, of course strips away some current protections.
Under the new legislation, the Minister can declare areas of land for urban development or as major development areas. In these areas, the Act removes the community’s right to appeal approvals, overrides provisions in local government planning schemes that protect steep slopes, floodplains and waterways and removes restrictions in state legislation designed to protect endangered vegetation and waterways from destruction. It also removes the requirements for assessment with regard to contaminated land, heritage places and many other values.
With these policies, "ecological sustainability" has been abandoned in favour of "growth at any cost" development. Premier Beattie, once seen as a bit of a champion of environmental protection and community participation in the planning process, has, after removing the hard-won environmental gains of his nine years as Premier with this legislation, now handed over the reins to an eager new Premier Anna Bligh.
In response to media earlier this year calling for a population cap, Ms Bligh said that we need more growth "in order to create demand to maintain the jobs of people currently employed in construction." At the same time, the state government also claims that we need more skilled migrants to build the infrastructure needed to cope with the demands caused by Queensland’s population growth (also, no doubt, more taxpayers to pay for these major infrastructure projects). In other words, we have no choice but to grow our population in order to deal with problems caused by past population growth!
Housing affordability is an issue for all of the community and there are many ways to make housing more affordable, not the least of which is to lower the demand. The declaration of land as urban without any regard for the views of existing residents, the costs of infrastructure, the provision of open space or the local constraints to development is a betrayal of everything the Beattie government said that it represented. Now it seems they believe they have no choice but to continue to grow the population. It appears the Queensland government has fallen for the growth lobby’s arguments hook, line and sinker.
By Sheila Davis a member of Sustainable Population Australia
OVERPOPULATION AUSTRALIA 2008 - Surprising admissions in McDonald & Withers latest beat-up for mass worker immigration
The World is under attack! by Tim Murray, Canadian activist
Which is the most idiotic Green Party in the world?
- 1. Consumption is almost everything. Population is almost nothing.
- Overpopulation is a global problem, so lets not try to stabilize our own.
- Renewable technologies and greener lifestyles will save the day .
- We are committed to sustainability---and growth---at the same time.
- Growth can be rendered ecologically benign if channeled, managed or deflected.
- We share the consensus for the need for economic growth, therefore we favour liberal immigration. There is always a chronic labour shortage isn't there and oh, don't undocumented migrants make such a contribution to our society?
- Since we favour liberal immigration that is non-discriminatory, then we favour an aggressive multicultural strategy for the integration of migrants. We reject the concept of a national culture.
- We place far greater emphasis on climate change than biodiversity collapse even though more species will be lost sooner to human overpopulation than to global warming, which is not as imminent or as catastrophic as the loss of biodiversity services.
- We will only acknowledge overpopulation as a problem in developing countries. Migration of people to high consumption societies is to be countered only be lowering the per capita consumption rates of those societies.
- Closed borders, immigration controls, or as we call the Bush fence, the "Wall of Shame" send out unfriendly signals to emigrant-countries whose cooperation we need to solve global environmental problems like AGW.
- Relieve the wealthy of progressive income tax and capital gains tax and introduce Green Taxes. Punish those at the bottom of the income scale for not having the money to buy hybrid cars and retro-fitted houses.
Why George Monbiot is wrong to downplay population question
The original title of this article was "Monbiot's flawed linear thinking could lead many astray"
Monbiot's statement below reveals a dangerous use of arithmetic and linear thinking.
In other words, if we accept the UN's projection, the global population will grow by roughly 50% and then stop. This means it will become 50% harder to stop runaway climate change, 50% harder to feed the world, 50% harder to prevent the overuse of resources.
It is certainly tempting to throw these concepts around because we all have a tendency to think linearly (the exception being that perhaps most people now at least realize that human population growth is exponential). Unfortunately, nature rarely works in such linear ways and there are thousands of examples of non-linear responses, threshold effects, and synergistic processes that undermine simple 1:1 relationships. So, increasing population by 50% will not necessarily result in a 50% more effort required to combat climate change (or whatever). It may mean that it takes 4 times the effort or who knows, that we cross a threshold where no amount of effort will result in a desired response.
Similarly, the recent use of the simple model that total consumption ("economy") is the product of population and the per capita consumption assumes that the two variables (per capita consumption and number of people) are independent and work in isolation. What we need to do is qualify this relationship by the phrase "all things being equal". So, for example, if population doubles and per capita consumption is cut in half, then total consumption remains unchanged all things being equal. Of course, all things are rarely equal and non-linear effects kick in, expected or unexpected. I doubt whether this relationship will ever really hold in this simple fashion.
This relationship also assumes steady state operating conditions and ignores indivisible baseline per capita consumption such as per capita use of oxygen, water etc. and upfront resource use needed to reduce human per capita consumption.
For example, in a de Jong world, (Frank de Jong is Ontario Green Party leader) we might imagine a projection of population of Ontario to double and might then go about (yeah right!) aiming at reducing per capita consumption to 50% of current levels in order to achieve no net increase in total consumption. However, doubling the population will entail upfront or continuing natural capital to achieve that lower consumption level and to simply meet baseline requirements of a larger population, regardless of its ultimate consumption level. Such up-front or one time capital is never included as an additive factor in the simple arithmetic relationship. Similarly, I am remined of China where the mean family size was reduced but the number of dwellings increased non-linearly with population due to the (unexpected?) desire of new generation Chinese to live without in-laws. You can all think of much better examples than mine but the bottom line is that we need to impress on people that nature is typically non linear and that we should qualify our simple arithmetic models with statements such as all things being equal and under steady state conditions. The more we use this kind of language the more we will be able to raise awareness of the myriad of caveats that are inherent in our (suboptimal) arithmetic.
Can you imagine for example the effect of a Green Party official saying something like:
If we double the population of Ontario and reduce per capita consumption by 50%, then, all things being equal and barring any non-linear responses by nature acting on our increased population, any unforseen threshold effects related to nature's goods and services (including abiotic and biotic), then under steady state conditions that ignore any first time start up consumption of resources, our total consumption will remain unchanged.
Keith Hobson is a biologist with the Canadian Wildlife Service in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and a member of our pan Canadian Malthusian discussion group sinkinglifeboat|AT|topica com
Posted by Tim Murray sinkinglifeboat.blogspot.com
The end of economic growth is a message of hope
Population is not a front page issue
By Valerie Yule - Monday, 17 December 2007 |
This article was originally published on Online Opinion. It is reproduced here under the terms of the Creative Commons License. |
Not openly discussed at the Bali Climate Summit 2007 is the one factor that will make it hardest to stop increasing greenhouse gas emissions - population growth.
Ironically, population growth was the main issue at an earlier Bali international conference 15 years ago. The issue has not gone away. Rather, it has become more pressing in the world, including in the Asia -Pacific region, and it is illustrated by the island of Bali itself.
The 1992 conference was organised under the auspices of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). Its outcome was the Bali Declaration on Population and Sustainable Development, 1992. (See here and here.)
Thirty-six of ESCAP's 52 member countries participated, and they reached consensus at a ministerial level on the controversial issue of setting population targets in line with sustainable development goals.
The Declaration stated that the goals of population policy were to "achieve a population that allows a better quality of life without jeopardising the environmental and resource base of future generations ... taking cognisance of basic human rights as well as responsibilities".
This was the first international meeting at this political level that set an objective of attaining by the year 2010 replacement level fertility, which is equivalent to about 2.2 children per woman. In 1992 the countries in the Asia-Pacific region had a total population of about 3.2 billion. Although the annual growth rate has been steadily declining, an increase of 920 million people is still expected by 2010. This increase would be mostly in the less developed countries which have the most acute problems of poverty.
These enormous numbers contrast with Australia?s population growth, from 8 million in 1950 to 21 million now, and 24 million expected by 2050.
The location of the Climate Summit, Bali itself, illustrates the problem of growth. When I travelled around the island in 1969, the population of about two million had no tourist industry to speak of and needed none, although there were social stresses indicated by the violence of the massacres of up to 100,000 suspected communists in 1965.
By 2000, the Balinese population had increased by 50 per cent to over three million, and it continues to grow. The tourist industry and emigration are now essential to economic survival. Other countries in the region with high population growth have severe economic and social problems. They include Papua Niugini, grown from 1.4 million in 1950 to 5 million now and 10 million expected by 2050, other regions of Indonesia (growth 82 million to 224 million and predicted 336 million), and Pacific islands such as the Solomons, (106,000 to 466,000 and predicted 1.1 million) - all stressed by youth unemployment and resources destruction. How can they be expected to stop deforestation? Countries now carrying out family planning policies to restrain population growth include China, India, Thailand and even Pakistan.
Growth in population inevitably means increase in human contributions to greenhouse gases and resource shortages, even if most people still live far below the affluent level of the West that they aspire to. In developing countries, families seek to have sufficient children to ensure that some will survive, and provide for old-age. As security improves, family size can drop, unless pushed by religious or political influences.
However, for Bali Climate Summit 2007, population is not a front page issue, despite our world growth trajectory from 6 billion now to 9 billion by 2050 - almost paralleling how the proverbial lily doubles its size in the lily-pond.
The sticking points are the nations of the developed West, which also provide sticking points for other aspects of capping carbon emissions. Countries like Australia or France can hardly promote family planning in poor countries when they offer baby bonuses to persuade their own women to have more children.
Western countries have still not worked out how to maintain their prosperity with a stable population. They still fear lowered fertility, and have made a bogey of ageing populations, which need not be. Indeed, our increasingly healthy aged need less support than children. Almost every Western country in fact has a greater population than in 1950, and most are still growing. (US Census Bureau International Data Base population tables.)
Meanwhile European countrysides are filling up with housing. Water, oil and fish face future shortages. And millions of economic refugees in the world ensure that no country's population need shrink. Behind the beat-ups of fearing declining fertility rates and suppressing the real issue of world population growth is a different economic bogey. The paradoxical problems that are shaking the United States and hence the world are insufficient consumer spending and building construction in the world's richest country. Yet it is this type of economic activity that most boosts greenhouse gas emissions.
It is possible for our capitalist system, which has always continuously evolved, to develop and be able to sustain prosperity without constant increase in material production, which requires increasing numbers of people to consume it.
As things are, we can only observe. There may be no Bali declaration in 2007 about stabilising populations and thereby cutting the production of waste. Yet this, even more than carbon trading, would be a major strategy in cutting the human contribution to devastating our planet.
Canadian Socialist and Green Icons contest multiculturalism
Multiculturalism is Canada's Ingsoc, a state ideology so powerfully pervasive that few in the media, in the educational institutions or the political parties would dare challenge it. One might think that the left would offer criticism, but apart from journalist and former socialist parliamentarian, Douglas Fisher, and columnist Larry Zolf, none come to mind.
The Liberal Party was able to steal the affections of working class voters earmarked for the social-democratic NDP by appealing to their cultural identities. Running candidates of the same ethnicity as the prevailing group in the riding, and granting federal money for the construction of ethnic centres was a classic Liberal formula for vote-buying. And it usually worked.
The NDP approach has always been to appeal to people's class identity above and beyond the language they speak and to their sense of solidarity to people who live similar lives but have different cultures. Multiculturalism has not been good for class solidarity.
J.S. Woodsworth, the father of Canadian socialism, founder of the CCF-NDP and described as the "Saint of Canadian politics", I think knew as much. Allen Mills in "Fool for Christ-The Political Thought of J.S. Woodsworth", wrote that during his leadership in the twenties and thirties he continued to evince a profound concern for " the social integration of the alien." Allen writes that Woodsworth talked "of uniting immigrants into a new Canadian type: he worried that the melting pot was not working and the country would become 'balkanized', there was a necessity to 'absorb', 'weld' and 'incorporate, immigrants into the Canadian way of life.'p.228
Although Woodsworth was an opponent of immigration in the 1920s and 30s because there were not enough jobs, he also recognized the need for more social cohesion. A higher proportion of newcomers of our own British traditions would mould these incoming armies of foreigners into 'loyal subjects'.
Greens have been among the most effusive champions of Ingsoc, with Green leader Elizabeth May justifying the country's absurdly high immigration levels as Canada's ongoing "multicultural project". Environmentalists claim that "cultural diversity" is the analogue to biological diversity, the necessary variation found in plant and animal forms. Trouble is, the immigration levels required to sustain these culturally diverse ethnic enclaves is fuelling urban sprawl and crowding out wildlife. Variety is the spice of life, but the human is flourishing at the expense of the non-human. Multiculturalism has not been good for the environment.
But there is a JS Woodsworth of Canadian greens. He is none other than the famous co-author of "Our Ecological Footprint", Dr. William E. Rees. This is taken from his "Globalization, Trade and Migration: Undermining Sustainability?"
"... there is sufficient evidence to hypothesize that multi-racial or multi-cultural countries are more likely to unravel chaotically in the event of rapid ecological change, resource shortages, or economic decline than are more homogenous societies. Because socio-political stability is a prerequisite for ecological sustainability, we thus have yet another reason for a pre-emptive cautionary approach to large-scale migration in coming levels and adopt explicit 'melting pot' strategies designed to facilitate the integration and assimilation of new-comers into the social and economic fabric of their adopted countries. They should also include ongoing public education programs that stress both the need for, and the national benefits of, limited immigration.
The main objectives of this approach are to discourage the development of persistent immigrant enclaves, to accelerate immigrants' development of a sense of identity with the larger society, and to improve public understanding of the modern role of economic and environmental changes that may be required for ecological sustainability. Immigration policies that favour multiculturalism and that apparently succeed during periods of growth and plenty may not be adaptive in the face of rapid global ecological change of economic decline."
So while the sheep continue to bleet "diversity", the wise old shepherds speak of the virtues of integration and cohesion.
Just as Central Asia exported the bubonic plague, and Central Africa exported the Ebola virus, Canada gave the world the ideology of Multiculturalism. It might be cautionary then to heed the words of our brave critics as they spoke them right in the guts of the ogre before the Thought Police could silence them.
Tim Murray,
Quadra Island, BC
Canada
December 23/07
The ball is in your court: Hard questions for Soft Greens
Topic:
South East Asian wetlands threatened by overdevelopment
Article by Song Kinh, 29 November 2007.
The sea of nodding pink lotus extends into a misty horizon. Fishermen and women catch tiny fish in hand nets, while others herd ducks in the open water. Some net the quarrelsome crabs recently identified as being unique to this wetland. Rice fields hem the wetlands, heads stooped with ripening grain. A hunter in baggy cutoffs passes with a home made rifle, looking up at the trees in the hope of bagging some flying protein. The rural world in an urban confined space.
I wondered what this small piece of paradise would look like covered with the promised Chinese-built factories and houses.
The seemingly doomed 20 square kilometers of That Luang wetlands, that embrace Vientiane, the capital city of Laos, are a source of joy for the eye and for the belly. Even the Buddha gets a cut of the action, as women gather lotus buds to sell at the markets for offerings at temple ceremonies. In times of floods, the wetlands act as a reservoir, absorbing the excess waters and preventing the city from being submerged.
Areas such as this are under threat in all parts of Asia. In late October this year, Greenpeace, aided by hundreds of local villagers, blockaded a palm oil development site in Riau, Indonesia. They back-filled the eight-metre-deep canals being dug to channel water out of the peat swamp.
Just like in Indonesia, Vientiane’s wetlands provide food and generate income for the poorest of the city’s urban population. The day I visited, teenagers were collecting snails for sale and for food. The place is a haven for the poor, particularly women. Widows and divorced women without other means of support, fish here. "I was born here" one man told me. "My family has always lived here. The water is clean. Closer to the city", he said, waving his hand in the direction of the metropolis, "it is polluted and no fish live there. But here we can still catch them."
Yes, the fishermen and women knew about the plans. The swamp would be filled as far as that galvanised iron factory one said, pointing his chin to the west. Where would he go? He shrugged and looked at the water. The vast amount of pollution generated by the proposed development would kill the surviving aquatic life, overwhelming its capacity to biodegrade waste. What would that do to the livelihoods of the 38,000 people who are thought to live around the wetland’s rim?
Unlike Indonesia, protest is impossible, even if it was culturally appropriate. Individual and family punishment is still the norm for those that speak up in Laos.
It is said that the King, when he was alive, would attend the annual Ork Phansa (end of Buddhist Lent) celebrations by sailing down the Mekong to a wharf located near where the Beer Lao factory is currently situated. From there he would take a small but highly decorated pirogue to the highly revered That Luang temple for prayers. Some old Laotians can remember seeing that event, and remarked that it was a wonderful time when the marshes were full and water reflected the clouds and rich blue of the sky.
Wet Dreams
In 1995 I visited a wetlands project in South Sumatra, Indonesia. Labeled a swamp reclamation project, it supported the then President’s Soeharto’s fanatical if not deluded vision of making Indonesia self sufficient in rice-growing. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) had supported this delusion by lending more than US$200 million, most of which was filched by the nimble and creative bookkeeping of the Indonesians involved.
The swamps were converted into concentrated rows of rice fields, and hapless families were imported from Java and Bali to work the land. It was one of the worst projects I have ever seen. People’s lives were made a misery. The daily tide floated human waste to the surface where it contaminated drinking water; children died in huge numbers. The soil was acid when exposed to air, as well as saline, so nothing would grow. In despair, the valiant farmers grew orchids which they sold to nearby Singapore. The Department of Agriculture, keen to show the ADB their diligence, forced the farmers to rip the orchids out and replant the doomed rice seedlings. During later storm surges, the conversion of mangroves to rice-paddies enabled the seas to enter. It was development torture.
Recently World Vision, the Poverty Reduction Fund and World Food Program collaborated on a similar completely ill-conceived, but probably well intentioned, project in southern Laos. By filling the chain of wetlands they thought to provide poor farmers with more rice fields. What they did not understand is that the wetlands are sources of valuable protein and micronutrients. The local people had developed both a taste for the aquatic foods and well developed ways by which to maximize the haul. Filling the wetlands increased poverty and malnutrition, as fish is more expensive than rice. Selling fish had enabled landless farmers to buy rice, and rice farmers to balance their diets. Without the wetlands, malnutrition quickly set in.
Wet Waste
Wetlands are there because of subsurface run off and geological strata that funnel water into the ponds. Vientiane simply does not have alterative drainage and infrastructure to carry that amount of water. The Mekong in 2007 rose higher than it has in many years due to typhoons in the north. Now more than at any time, Vientiane needs these wetlands to ameliorate any future flooding arising from global climate chaos. Those needing a reality check should look at the photos of Vientiane in 1967, when flood waters engulfed the famous Morning Market.
However, wetlands seem to be perceived as wastelands. Engineers dream of filling them and town planners see flattened expanses to be covered in urban development. Already the incremental filling of the Vientiane wetlands have sent several animals into local extinction, the most dramatic being the population of Siamese crocodiles as well as several species of birds and fish.
While countries of the economic North are seeing the error of filling wetlands, and are now trying to reconstitute marshes, Laos seems to be hell bent on selling one of its national treasures to its neighbours. According to the Vientiane Times (October 12), the Government who owns most of the wetlands is about to re-zone them as a development area after a Chinese group showed interest and the colour of their money to some of the more starry-eyed in the government. There is I gather, a lot of controversy, as many in government are bitterly opposed to the conversions.
A significant amount of the already shrunken wetlands will be handed to Chinese developers for suburban development to house, it is said, 18,000 Chinese. The Times went on to say that the Chinese company is ready to invest billions, and turned down another site offered to them, claiming it was too far out of town. The developers promise shops, factories and hotels; and of course, housing for an increasingly visible number of Chinese people in Laos.
It is hard to know who will benefit, except maybe the folks that take the inevitable kickbacks. Laos is regarded as one of the more corrupt regimes by Transparency International who ranked them with Pakistan and Bangladesh. Several donors nations have threatened to pull up stakes, but they will not be missed, as private equity pours in.
Moreover, construction logistics are a nightmare. Structures need extremely deep footings and structural cross bracing, or will crack and crumble. Rising damp eats construction materials. In Florida, anyone who wants to build something as small as a boat ramp on the famous Everglades, has to get planning permission from the Environmental Protection Authority and the US Army Corps of Engineers.
A Laotian engineer commented "It’s the craziest idea I have ever heard in my life", suggesting it was an ecocidal money laundering project.
The ex-head of the newly defunct Mekong Wetlands Project suggested that the sacrifice of the marshes represented the crush between development imperatives and rising land prices. That may be true, but the land is clearly not for Laos but for Chinese companies and speculators, and the land loss will seriously compromise the livelihoods of thousands of Laotian residents. Rather it is a mark of the more brazenly open influence of the Chinese on the Laotian government. This year the Chinese government requested and were granted the ability to influence planning and development strategy in the northern provinces which border China. It is, some say, colonisation by stealth.
Wet Services
As the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reported, the That Luang Marsh helps keep Vientiane's head above water.
The conservation of urban wetlands leads to economic gains for both urban residents and municipal councils, generates goods and services with an economic value in excess of US$ 4.8 million per year. These benefits accrue to the 38,000 people that live directly around the marsh, and the estimated 161,000 residents of Vientiane.
The wetlands offer flood attenuation and wastewater treatment services valued at US$2 million a year according to the IUCN and WWF. In the wet season, some city roads quickly become impassable. Existing urban infrastructure and the lack of reticulated sewage treatment means that Vientiane is unable to provide the vast sink that the marshes offer, much less convert the water into income. It has been estimated that the services offered by the That Luang ecosystem constitute investment savings of more than $18 million in damage costs avoided, and $1.5 million that would need to be spent on technologies required to fulfill the same functions. I now understand the engineer’s response.
These marshes have some of the densest settlements found in Laos and have the longest history of settlement, not surprising in view of the sheer generosity of the natural environment. In the 1990s about 1,000 hectares were reclaimed by rice farmers. Gordon Claridge, a specialist in wetland ecology and birds, reported that in the 1990’s the municipality dug a drainage channel and constructed a pumping station to enable new rice fields to be claimed, cutting off the direct link between the Mekong and the wetlands. The marshes have been decreasing ever since.
As pointed out by several Laotian scientific writers - Chanphhenxay, Latsamina and Xaphakdy - the problem is that there are no unified rules or regulations related to town planning, urban development or in this case wetlands. A Laotian economist recently calculated that the value of the rice produced is overwhelmingly trounced by the value of the wetlands just being there. The claims that filling and growing rice on the wetlands alleviates poverty may be true for the rice farmers, who often come into conflict with the landless over creeping intrusions, but not for the broader population.
The Laos Constitution insists that the state and the people have a responsibility to protect and use natural resources renewably. The development of the That Luang wetlands would seem, then, to run counter to the Constitution.
The ink has not been put on paper, so there is still time for those opposed to this project to make their voices heard. But the case is hindered by the absence of an avenue for protest, well resourced and independent town planning expertise or a cohesive city plan, and the fact that they stand between a minister and his payoff. Blatant land grabs by the well connected ensure that land is used according to economic gain and not national benefit. One only has to see the brands of cars that prowl the streets of Vientiane to realise that some are making lots of money in the least developed country.
The symbol of the Buddha, the lotus, may well soon be overtaken by the symbol of capitalism, the factory. That it is being done in and by nations that at one time eschewed capitalism, is the final irony.
Originally published in Online Opinion on 29 Nov 07. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Moreton Bay Threatened by Channel Dredging
The following is a media release from the Wildlife Preservation of Queensland
Moreton Bay - Gold Coast channel dredging must consider fisheries
Channel dredging proposed in the Gold Coast Waterways Access Needs Study will impact upon a significant area of the Moreton Bay Marine Park and its fisheries, yet the environmental impacts of this dredging are not being considered.
Simon Baltais, spokesperson for the Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland Bayside Branch, said that the determination of the future management of Moreton Bay Marine Park is at a critical point and the Access Needs Study must consider impacts of dredging on seagrass and other valuable fisheries habitat as well as the physical features.
“it is ironic that the Review of the Moreton Bay Marine Park Zoning Plan is taking place, yet it seems the environmental impacts of dredging, promoted by the Access Needs Study, are not even going to be considered,” said Mr. Baltais.
“We are talking about a Marine Park - we must determine the environmental impacts and how these impacts will be addressed in this study.”
Mr. Baltais said, “If you are going to dredge you will need to know what environmental values exist and how you will avoid impacting upon them. This will have a great bearing on the location of channels and depth of dredging.”
“We already know previous dredging caused major changes in tidal movement which caused a significant loss of seagrass and high levels of boating traffic is increasing turbidity, the number one killer of seagrass,” said Mr. Baltais.
According to the 1993 Study by WBM Oceanics on the Southern Moreton Bay:
“Substantial losses of seagrass occurred during and after the construction of the Gold Coast Seaway. Aerial photographs taken in 1987 show that more than 90% of the dense seagrass beds present in 1982 were lost.
“Lower low tides within the Broadwater (up to 30 cm lower) aerially exposed seagrass beds on the intertidal sand banks for longer periods and resulted in some subtidal beds becoming intertidal.” (Source: “Fluctuations in Wetland Extent in Southern Moreton Bay,” R.M. Morton, 1993 – attached.)
“Seagrass is not only essential to turtles, dugongs and other marine creatures, but to healthy fisheries and therefore important to recreational fishing, which the boating industry is dependent upon,” said Mr Baltais. “If the boating industry is concerned about their future they must consider the environmental impacts of dredging.”
Simon Baltais, Spokesperson
Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland – Bayside Branch
Mobile: 0412-075-334
There is No Sanctuary from Economic Growth
Peace in our time, Habitat forever?
For those who recall the scene when Neville Chamberlain stepped down on the tarmac of London's Heston aerodrome on September 30th of 1938 waving his piece of paper, the #announcement">announcement by the government of the Canadian province of British Columbia (B.C.) on October 16, 2007 must have seemed like déjà vu. On both occasions, an announcement promising 'peace in our time' (for people or wildlife) was met with jubilant relief from people who wanted to believe that the insatiable appetite of a monster can be appeased with an hors d'oeuvre.
In 1938 the monster was Adolf Hitler and he was not to be believed or trusted. In 2007 the monster is economic growth, and its need for lebensraum will not stop at greenbelts, farmland, wetlands and nature reserves. It will devour what it needs to fuel its momentum and bend governments and laws to serve its ends. The strictest land use plans will fall before its armies. Even the home of 'smart growth', Portland, Oregon, stood helpless as growth forced population to spill over tight urban boundaries into adjacent farmland. British greenbelts are beginning to suffer the same fate. As planning consultant Eben Fodor was moved to comment, "smart growth is merely the planned, orderly destruction of our remaining environment."
Economic growth is a function of population growth, driven in North America largely by immigration, coupled with obscenely excessive consumption---and it is crowding out wildlife habitat. The question is, can the dedication of conservation areas permanently shield wildlife and flora from developmental pressures? Experience suggests that it cannot.
In their 2005 Report, the National Refuge Association of the U.S. revealed that "many endangered or threatened species are not even found on the refuges, including 40% of all listed mammals, birds and reptiles, 75% of listed fish and amphibians, and about 85% of listed plants and invertebrates." The area outside refuges will be more and more a killing zone. Much of the 40% of all housing units that will exist in America in 2030 will be built on previously open lands, and "lands within five miles of fully 78% of the western refuges have been mined, drilled , offered to or otherwise controlled by mining, oil and gas interests." And nearly 40% of refuges have greater than 50% human-impacted landscape within 5 to 40 miles. Particularly vulnerable are the 20% of wildlife refuges smaller than 1000 acres, or refuges fragmented into small parcels that can't adequately defend the ranges of the species that need protection.
Of course, the #announcement">announcement on October 16 by the B.C. government offers habitat protection on a vastly larger scale. An area twice the size of Jamaica of old growth cedar, pine and spruce, and a buffer of forest that is to be harvested with sensitive care. The coalition of ten environmental groups who fought for the habitat are sanguine. But even with 2.2 million hectares set aside, they would be advised to keep their powder dry. Especially when you look at the province's barren mountainsides and remember the government slogan, "Forests Forever".
The hard truth is, as long as economic growth runs loose like a mad dog, no land of any size is safe from predation. Growing populations and growing development envelop pristine sanctuaries, reach a tipping point, and then the resources that these sanctuaries are harbouring will be ravaged. Just as the B.C. government set aside this Mountain Cariboo habitat, the U.S. Congress once established Yosemite National Park. When mining and logging interests came knocking at the door, with the stroke of a pen, Congress released 1400 hectares of the precious park for their exploitation.
Shocking betrayals of this kind by government have and will be made when the economic chips are down, as the Plains Indians will attest. The solemn Treaty of Laramie guaranteed the sacred Black Hills to the Lakota people in perpetuity, but when white prospectors found gold, all bets were off and the monster was let loose. Miners flooded the area and in just eight years the Dakota territory was a white colony and the sacred hills a hub of activity.
One day soon, in a country near you, with the oil the price of gold and power down, there will be a desperate and ruthless scramble to use up resources wherever they can be found, even behind the sacrosanct walls of conservation lands. And government will pave the way.
First it was the tiny Sudetenland, then it was Poland and then it was the vast steppes of Russia. Feed a crocodile a morsel and he becomes stronger and bolder, coming back for more and more. The only safety for nature is to slay the beast, not to hide from it within the confines of a National Park. Economic growth must be stopped and a steady state economy instituted. Now.
Tim Murray, dirrector of Immigration Watch Canada
Quadra Island, BC
Canada
October 25/07
The Dependence Law
Illegal aliens burn precious forest while Sierra Club is mum
Funny, I never read about THIS in any Sierra Club publication or newsletter. I wonder why? Environmentalists have had much to say about the damage a Mexican border fence would do to wildlife movement. But precious forests being torched and they say nothing? Could it be that David Gelbaum's money has bought their silence on this outrage too? Is there any catastrophe involving immigration---illegal or legal---that WOULD awaken this organization's conscience? The website of our local Sierra club---"Sierra Quadra"---described themselves as a "respectable" environmental organization. If they were an authentic environmental organization they would not be "respectable", ie. compliant with government policy, but quite the opposite. Paul Watson, for example, understands the threat that human population growth in North America poses to wildlife habitat and is not willing to step around politically correct eggshells just to widen his subscription base and fund a bloated bureaucracy. From the Washington Times of 18 June 2007:
Illegals setting fires to burn agents out of observation posts and patrol routes
"U.S. Border Patrol agents seeking to secure the nation's border in some of the country's most pristine national forests are being targeted by illegal aliens, who are using intentionally set fires to burn agents out of observation posts and patrol routes.
The wildfires have destroyed valuable natural and cultural resources in the National Forest System and pose an ongoing threat to visitors, residents and responding firefighters, according to federal law-enforcement authorities and others.
In the Coronado National Forest in Arizona, with 60 miles of land along the U.S.-Mexico border, U.S. Forest Service firefighters sent in to battle fires or clear wild-land fire areas are required to be escorted by armed law-enforcement officers.
Are these arsonists the kind of people the ruling clique of the Sierra Club referred to when it said it had to keep immigration reduction and population stabilization out of its policy book so it could broaden its membership base beyond English-speaking people---and keep David Gelbaum's $100 million bribe?
And then there are the thousands of tons of trash left by illegal aliens who have made the Sonoran Desert of Arizona north of the Mexican border a virtual landfill site. Have the self-appointed guardians of North American wilderness---the Sierra Club---said boo about this environmental disaster?
Apparently not. The Grand Canyon Chapter of the Club, stationed in Phoenix, is more worried about the damage that 7 miles of border fencing will do in impeding jaguars from reaching their historical American range. What the Sierra Club does not understand, because its livelihood depends on not understanding, is that nothing threatens wildlife like the traffic of HUMANS across the Mexican border. Runaway population growth will destroy wildlife habitat, and is rapidly doing so. Even the protected national parks are being loved to death. Oxymoronic 'smart' growth palliatives so favoured by the Sierra Club and the green establishment can't indefinitely sequester wildlife from developmental pressures propelled by rapid population growth.
If immigrants and their children will potentially add another 105 million consumers to America in the next five decades, the choice will not be, as the Grand Canyon Chapter would put it, between jaguars or a border fence, but between jaguars or illegal immigrants.
One cannot help but observe, with bitter irony, that both the environment and the North American working class would prosper from a "closed-borders" policy, and yet, both are betrayed by organizations led by those who take the contrary position.
Tim Murray
Quadra Island, BC
Growth is OK if it is shared?
Greenpeace Diesendorf: Carbon emissions reflect population numbers - Reduce immigration
New technology won't save us from the population bomb
- The construction of this solar electricity plant will consume large quantities of fossil fuels and produce a large amount of GHG.
- The farm land that the solar panel site has taken over will be lost forever, thereby increasing our reliance on our areas, either on Canadian farm land whose supply is very limited or on nearby foreign farm land whose supply is decreasing because of population demands.
- The immigrants will consume much more than the household electricity produced by the solar farm. They will consume water, electronics, paper products, air travel, etc. Increases in human population inevitably lead to the expropriation of other areas for the use of the new people.
Book Review: Immigrants: your country needs them by Philippe Legrain
Book Review: Immigrants: your country needs them by Philippe Legrain (Little Brown Book Group, UK, 2006) A$35.00 review by Mark O'Connor.
Some angst was caused in February 2007 when Philippe Legrain (with this book in tow) was featured at Perth Writers Week. The problem was not that a debate on migration was irrelevant to a literary festival but that there was no debate--and that the supposed expert (Legrain) seemed ignorant of Australian conditions.
I am struck by how little and how selectively Philippe Legrain has read in the area on which he claims to be an expert. Despite his Australian publicists' claim that he offers a lucid and enlightened account of "Australian policies, facts and statistics" the facts he states are frequently incorrect or slanted. His index is barren of references to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), which perhaps explains his bizarre claims that Australia's population is 19 million, that its net migration is some 90,000 a year (see p. 9), that births are not keeping pace with deaths (p. 108, in fact they are twice deaths), that immigration was slashed from 1996 by the Howard government (see p. 53) and so on. In fact we have never had such a high-immigration government as Howard's. Only in the immediate post WWII period, when most of our migrants were war refugees, has immigration been so high.
Australia, along with Canada and the USA is one of Philippe Legrain's three best examples of countries which have sought and accepted what is by world standards a bizarrely high level of immigration. For Australia, he seems to have relied on interviews with a couple of high immigration advocates (Stepan Kerkyasharian and Abdul Rizvi). The rest of his figures on Australia could have been gained from half-an-hour's googling---some time ago. Of critics of high immigration in Australia he seems ignorant. There are no references in his index to CSIRO's Ecumene project, to People and Place, to Sustainable Population Australia or even to the numerous publications of the Bureau of Immigration Research, which at least attempted a certain objectivity.
On the UK and the USA (his main market target) he seems only a little less ill-read. When referring to critics of high immigration he concentrates on Peter Brimelow and Samuel Huntingdon, but seems unaware of such important players as Britain's Migration Watch Committee or America's Federation for American Immigration Reform and the Centre for Immigration Studies. All of these have websites that could have provided him with an encyclopedia's worth of articles and information on relevant issues of which he seems ignorant. But I get the impression that Philippe Legrain is a gentleman who likes to make up his mind and then not disturb it by looking at inconvenient facts or contrary opinions.
A crucial document is the 1994 plenary resolution of the Australian Academy of Science on Australia's population options. This specified that our population should probably have been capped at 19 million, but must in any case be capped at no more than 23 million, and that net migration must therefore be kept below 50,000 a year.
1994 was also the year of the Cairo Conference on Population, in which the nations of the world pledged (with only a few selfish exceptions) to hold their populations in check, and not to use emigration as a way of unloading their population problems upon others. Needless to say, Cairo also is missing from Legrain's index. Nor does he mention the way in which the USA's immigration-fed increase has prevented its population stabilizing and made it dependent for its life-style upon a risky pursuit of foreign oil.
Nor does he mention the issue of the vast increases in greenhouse effect caused by migration from the low GHG to the high GHG producing countries. Most telling of all, against Legrain's irresponsible vision of open borders, is the fact that the two large-population countries that have had spectacular success in reducing their population growth (Iran and China) did so precisely because they had quarreled with the West and could not lean on it to take their emigrants. By contrast, those countries like Mexico and the Philippines, where families could hope that an extra child might be the lucky or talented one that would get to the US and bring in the rest of the family, have neither solved their own problems nor ceased to drive up population in the wealthier countries. Legrain complacently notes that the Philippines relies on remittances from its emigrants for something like 40% of its economy. (And still the babies keep coming.) By contrast, Legrain asserts (p. 20) that "freer migration is one of the best ways to help poor countries." For a capitalist economist Legrain is oddly naïve about the problems of population socialism. A visit to www.garretthardinsociety.org might trouble--yet expand--his mind considerably.
Legrain seems to share the common economist's delusion that growth can go on for ever, that there are no other species or environments to be considered, and that almost the only thing we lack (to fuel an eternal bonfire of growth) is more people.
Overall, this book, despite its parade of academic references, is not a serious attempt to examine the issues. It should be read as a piece of rhetoric: a first speech for the government in a student debate "That this house believes the world should have open borders". Legrain's 'lucidity', which some foolish reviewers have praised, is largely a reluctance to explain his economic modeling. He simply asserts. He claims at one point (p. 64, cf. p 19) that studies show freer immigration could 'potentially' make us all far richer--which is code for saying he won't explain the assumptions behind the calculation. [ revised: He offers no refutation--only an ad hominem put--down but no adequate refutation --of the detailed calculations of the Harvard economics professor George Borjas, a much more eminent economist, who draws the opposite conclusions. Legrain's calculations of the economic effect of immigration in the USA seem based on the assumption that one need only make sure that the supply of capital increases in proportion with the workforce. Then more immigrant workers simply make everyone better off. The inconvenient issues of resources, space, greenhouse emissions, and environmental degradation are ignored by Legrain (and one suspects by those economic studies he cites on his side). Perhaps Legrain knows he is writing for people who want a feel-good sense of moral superiority, and don't want to be bothered with inconvenient details. ]
Yet if Legrain can get us used to using cheap immigrant servants and cooks and nurses, he will then try to make us feel guilty about "the anonymous people whose existence you barely acknowledge . . . We just never bother to ask" (pp. 26-27). It doesn't make much sense. But as I say, Legrain is a rhetorician, not a thinker.
Perhaps most irritating is Legrain's glib sense of moral superiority--backed by his publisher's predictable assertion that he is offering an original "challenging and powerful" version of the open borders case. Not so. If the facts were as Legrain claims, and if the only issues to be considered were the ones he propounds, then everyone would come to his conclusions. Intelligence and moral superiority don't enter into it. Naivety and ignorance do.#
Race to the bottom on renewable energy
Beattie call for 50 million reflects vested interests
Sustainable Population Australia Media Release, 5 Sep 2007
Queensland Premier Peter Beattie's call yesterday for an Australian population of 50 million echoes those by vested interests of the housing, construction and real estate industries, according to Sustainable Population Australia inc (SPA).
National President of SPA, Dr John Coulter, says that this is not surprising given the very large donations that members of these groups make to political parties.
"But far more important than this distortion of democracy is the clear lack of any concern for the natural environment," says Dr Coulter.
"The most recent work by the Hadley Centre in the UK indicates that global temperatures are likely to rise sharply in the next few years as natural cycles augment the increase in greenhouse gas emissions. Eastern and southeastern Australia will be prone to even worse 'droughts', water shortages and crop failures than experienced in the last few years," he says.
"The industries that Beattie and his fellow travelers in both major parties want to establish to support this larger population will all add to the severity of climate change and make Australia less able to support even its present population."
Dr Coulter claims that Beattie, Rudd, Howard and the political parties they represent are caught in a time-warp.
"Their push for ever more population and economic growth is a recipe from the 1960s. It ignores the reality that humanity and its economy depends on the natural environment. And the environment is telling us, loudly and clearly that this continual growth is no longer sustainable.
"Fifty million in Australia is not achievable. But the attempt to bring it about will progressively destroy any possibility of making Australia environmentally sustainable. Far from being leaders these people and their parties are strongly inhibiting the transition to a new and sustainable relationship with our supporting natural environment.
"Science is warning that we have little time left to respond. Beattie has shut his ears to the message," Dr Coulter concluded.
Complaints about Melbourne 2030: record of submission to Planning Minister 16-8-07
The submission below about Melbourne 2030, which is a radical populate and develop plan imposed on Victorians, was made by Sustainable Population Australia Inc., Victorian Branch to the Minister for Planning, Justin Madden, re Melbourne 2030 August 2007 for meeting with community groups 16 August 2007.
Points made covered the following areas.
- #PopulationGrowth">Melbourne 2030's raison d'etre of population growth,
- #VictorianGovernment">Victorian Government's role in affecting and effecting the rate of population growth,
- #Consultation">Melbourne 2030 and population growth - style and content of consultation with people of Victoria,
- #Information">Quality of public information from Victorian Government regarding Melbourne 2030/population growth,
- #Effects">Effects of Melbourne 2030 and its Population growth.
#PopulationGrowth" id="PopulationGrowth">
1. Population growth and Melbourne 2030
Melbourne and outer areas do not have the option of stabilizing in any way as population growth is programmed into our future. In 2002 The Bracks Government and other stakeholders held a 'summit' in Melbourne to discuss the need or otherwise of a population policy. The then Premier, Mr. Steve Bracks, in his keynote introduction pre-empted the outcome of the conference yet to happen! He made the absolute assumption that experts would converge on the desirability of increasing Victoria's population. Many in the audience had huge reservations and objections to this path mainly on the grounds of environmental sustainability.
Melbourne 2030 is about a commitment to social engineering in the form of forced population growth.
#PopulationGrowth" id="VictorianGovernment">
2. Victorian Government's role in affecting the rate of population growth.
Excluding net increase from international and interstate migration, Victoria's population is increasing by more than 30,000 p.a. It will be more than this with the current baby boom. This fact should be well known, but it is not.
In the year to March 2006, the additional increase from net overseas migration was 37,068 . The total increase in Victoria's population annually is in excess of 60,000 people. The Victorian government has given itself a role in affecting this number. One way it achieves this is via its $6 million skilled migration strategy which includes international and domestic marketing (see www.liveinvictoria.vic.gov.au).
In the 12 months to March 2006, there were 65,700 extra Victorians, or in other words, an additional Ballarat.
The Victorian Government is not a passive recipient of population growth. It actively seeks it. Victoria only needs radical planning because it has very high population growth by western standards, of which more than half is not through natural increase.
#Consultation" id="Consultation">
3. Consultation with the Victorian people regarding population growth and Melbourne 2030.
Many people have told me that Victorians were not consulted on Melbourne 2030.... but we were. Glossy books and pamphlets were delivered in all letter boxes with invitations to attend public meetings which were facilitated to funnel ideas from the public to the master of ceremonies at each meeting. People were separated onto tables of about 8 people each and if there was sufficient volume of opinion of a particular aspect of Melbourne's future on any one table then that idea got up and was promoted to the end distillation of ideas. The underlying assumption however was that growth was inevitable rather than a political decision. The politics and policies of engineering growth remained outside the discussion and slow or no growth were not presented as options.
There was goodwill and cooperation at the meeting I attended in Moorabbin as people enthusiastically put forward their priorities apparently thinking they were having a significant say in the Melbourne which was being shaped for future generations.
I suggest that the audit of Melbourne 2030 must seek the attitudes of Victorians to the politics of population growth and to population growth itself. Adequate consultation thereto would rely on good information about what planning decisions are necessitated by population growth - in terms of amenity, environment and economic well-being of the average citizen.
#Information" id="Information">
4. Information re Melbourne 2030 and Population growth from the Victorian Government.
Please make clear in public statements what is actually happening to us. It is a fact that adverse changes are occurring very rapidly to our surroundings and many people express bewilderment over this. They look at housing estates covering what used to be farmland and ask "where are all the people coming from?"
We have a longstanding approximately 2:1 birth to death ratio which means our population is growing without any immigration. On 15 August 2005, the then Premier of Victoria Mr. Bracks told the Melbourne Jon Faine morning show audience that in Victoria we had a naturally decreasing population and that deaths exceeded births. I wrote to the Premier asking him where he got his figures from and told him that the reverse was true. He never replied to my letter and as far as I know never corrected this misinformation.
#Effects" id="Effects">
5. Effects of population growth
Most new settlers in Victoria go to Melbourne. Melbourne is full. Extra population puts pressure on land, there is pressure to intensify development. "Opportunistic infilling," (Dr Bob Birrell's expression) occurs in random fashion as houses come up for sale and private buyers are out-bid by developers.
There is pressure on public land. It is lost to the public (e.g. Royal Park lost 20 ha to private development plus 85 million cash) Trees and open space are taken from both private and public spheres including gardens, parks, reserves and roadsides.
Urban consolidation is not enough to accommodate the current level of population growth. This growth puts pressure on the outer areas, on wildlife, on open space. Melbourne 2030 standards are applied in what are essentially country areas, resulting in dense developments often unpopular with incumbent residents.
Wildlife - development occurs in areas inhabited by wildlife with an ensuing conflict over territory between humans and animals. This is often only managed when brought to the attention when locals complain vigorously to the authorities. It is never resolved in favour of the animals. They always lose. e.g. Somerton kangaroos.
We ask for a wildlife assessment to be done before any development takes place and for all planning to incorporate wildlife corridors in cooperation with the Coalition for Wildlife corridors - see http://www.awpc.org.au/newsite/documents/proposal_to_link.pdf
Water - we don't have enough for current needs. Melbourne 2030 and population growth exacerbate this situation. Any savings we make will be consumed by population growth.
Pressure on house prices is increasingly caused by population growth, in which demand exceeds supply. This causes prices to rise as we have observed particularly over the last decade, when we have had very high immigration.
Recommendations:
- A real effort to keep the public accurately informed of demographic changes in all relevant government documents and public statements. Make information clear so as not to confuse or obscure data.
- 2. Seek public opinion on the underlying assumption, that we must boost our population. Does population boosting benefit the majority and, if so, in what ways? What are the negatives? How to they weigh up?
- Real Estate spokespeople now connect house prices with population growth when speaking publicly. Government should do likewise.
- Planning policy puts economic growth above environmental concerns. This needs to be redressed. Planning policy must take in the Precautionary Principle where growth compromises our environment.
- High density living in the outer areas of Melbourne which are poorly served by public transport leaves communities vulnerable to being marooned in terms of basic requirements and transport by declining oil affordability / availability. In addition, tiny lot sizes remove most opportunity for self sufficiency in food provision. To remedy this the Government should make zoning changes. R1 allows very small lots in regional towns and outer suburbs (with potential for higher population density than in Singapore and Berlin). We need to keep outer suburbs open and spacious. SPA suggest a new Residential zone 3 with a minium of lot sizes at 500 square metres and above, plus minimum permeable area of 50% per lot.
- More space for large trees in inner and outer suburbs is essential to maintain transpiration and microclimate, and to keep temperatures down. In the past 150 years increases in population and activities have impacted thermodynamically to raise city temperatures. (For instance snow rarely falls in cities anymore).
- The expected effects of oil depletion should be taken into account in planning- i.e. the layout of the city and suburbs, transport needs for commuting and provision, delivery of food and degree of opportunity for self-sufficiency.
Jill Quirk
President, SPA Victoria
with Sheila Newman, Vice President, SPA Victoria
Help us put final nail in coffin of Mount Cotton Superquarry Wed 9am Cleveland
According to the Bayside Bulletin Newspaper (see below), the vote of two councillors who had formerly favoured approving the expansion of the existing Mount Cotton Quarry into a rainforest-destroying superquarry, may change in response to concerted community oppostion. Nevertheless it is still important that the pressure be maintained.
Protest outside Redland Shire Council chambers against plans to destroy Rainforest and Mount Cotton community with a giant quarry.
Where: Redland Shire Council Chambers, Bloomfield St., Cleveland
When: 9.00AM Wed 8 Aug 2007
Also please attend the protest on Sunday 12 August.
For further information see candobetter.org/SaveMountCotton or visit www.superquarry.com.au
Daniel Hurst
from the Bayside Bulletin of 16 July 2007
A QUARRY company has suffered a setback over its controversial expansion plans at Mount Cotton, with most Redland councillors looking likely to vote against the proposal.
Redland Shire Council appears set to block the so-called "super quarry" project, with seven out of 11 councillors saying they either oppose the development or are inclined to vote against it.
The news comes after nearly 1000 people sent submissions to the council last month and follows vocal objections from a protest group.
But the Barro Group, which wants to quarry hard rock from a new part of its Mount Cotton property, has urged councillors to consider the application on its merits.
The company has already mined about 18 hectares of its 241ha site and wants to quarry another 47ha over the next 60 years in a key koala area.
While critics have raised environmental, health and traffic concerns over the proposal, the quarry operator has argued that hard rock is needed for local construction work and 72 per cent of the site will be
conserved.
Councillors Toni Bowler, Craig Ogilvie, Debra Henry, Karen Williams and Helen Murray have told the Bayside Bulletin they oppose the quarry, while Cr Alan Beard and Deputy Mayor Peter Dowling said they were
leaning towards voting against it.
"I don't believe I can support it," Cr Dowling said, citing residents' concerns.
Mayor Don Seccombe and Crs Alan Barker, John Burns and Murray Elliott said they would wait for council officers to prepare their assessment report before committing to a position.
It may be months before the council votes on the proposal and council officers have not yet made a recommendation but the Barro Group could launch legal action if its application is rejected.
Meanwhile the State Government, which listed the site as a keyresource area in its planning policy on quarries, has the power to override council decisions.
"Despite the fact that the council may not have legal grounds to reject this application, I feel the only right course of action is to represent my constituents and for me to vote 'no' to the super quarry," Cr Williams said.
Cr Bowler, who has been campaigning against the proposal for years, cautiously welcomed the councillors' comments but said the community should remain vigilant as it was the vote on the day that counted.
Barro Group Queensland general manager Ian Ridoutt said he was confident the council would "carefully consider the officers' report when it becomes available to weigh the merits of our proposal".
Where do they sit?
THE Bayside Bulletin asked each councillor for their position on the Barro Group's quarry application at Mount Cotton:
OPPOSED: Toni Bowler (Div. 6), Craig Ogilvie (Div. 2), Debra Henry (Div. 3), Karen Williams (Div. 9) and Helen Murray (Div. 10).
LEANING TOWARDS OPPOSED: Deputy Mayor Peter Dowling and Alan Beard (Div. 8).
UNDECIDED: Mayor Don Seccombe, Crs Alan Barker (Div. 1), John Burns (Div. 5) and Murray Elliott (Div. 7).
Water or Votes: Victoria vs Howard & the Murray-Darling Basin
Are nuclear fusion, fission and 'renewables' viable alternatives to fossil fuels?
Andrew Bartlett's articles, as well as attracting posts from people, like myself, who are critical of his pro-population-growth stance, also attracts critical posts from extreme market fundamentalist anti-environmentalists, who object even to Bartlett's flawed and limited pro-environmental stance as well as his progressive humanitarian values. One of those contributors, 'alzo', posted the comment:
"Fission reactors should tide us over until fusion reactors become a reality. There are lots of possible energy sources."
This is my response.
Alzo, today we seem no closer to realising the dream of unlimited supplies of energy from nuclear fusion than we were thirty years ago. According to one scientist, who has worked on nuclear fusion, the nail in the coffin of nuclear fusion will prove to be the lack of sufficient supplies of the necessary hydrogen isotope tritium. For further information, see the forthcoming second edition of "The Final Energy Crisis" edited by Sheila Newman (http://candobetter.org/sheila).
Hazards of nuclear fission
In regard to nuclear fission, it is obviously a more viable source of energy that just may, if we are extremely careful, provide a bridge towards a more sustainable future whilst stocks of Uranium and Thorium last, however it has a very considerable environmental cost. If we increase the scale of nuclear power generation to the extent necessary to fill the gap power the environmental risks we currently face will be multiplied many times. The Chernobyl disaster. which could have been far worst if not for the quick thinking of those courageous workers on the spot is one illustration. On top of the hazards of nuclear fission electricity generation, even more environmental threats are posed by mining of uranium, enrichment, reprocessing and disposal of nuclear wastes. A likely consequence of the expansion of uranium mining in Central Australia is that the Eastern seaboard stands to be exposed to clouds bearing poisonous radioactive uranium and other toxic metals blown from the mine tailings dumps (see David Bradbury's film "Blowin' in the wind" for a graphic illustration of this threat). In the past, the long-term containment of tailings from mining operation has been problematic and, more often than not, fails in the longer term (as Jared Diamond has illustrated in describing past mining operations in Montana in Chapter 2 of "Collapse" pp35-41). I don't hold out any greater hope that the mining companies will do any better a job containing the mountains of tailings from the planned expanded Uranium mines.
Practical limitations of nuclear fission
Another problem with nuclear fission is that it can only be used to generate electricity. In order to operate transport or run factory machinery or mine milling equipment, the electricity has to be either somehow stored chemically, or transported directly as electricity using power lines, transformers and other expensive infrastructure. In the former case, energy is lost, in creating, for example, hydrogen from water, and the containment of hydrogen necessitates the fabrication of particularly strong and well-sealed containers. In the latter case, large quantities of non-renewable resources, particularly copper, are required, and it is expected that the world's production of copper will begin to decline next year (http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=000CEA15-3272-13C8-9BFE83414B7FFE87).
Practical limitations of other 'renewables'
The other "lots of possible energy sources" are essentially derived from solar energy or geothermal energy. All require the use of equipment, the manufacture of which now requires non-renewable rare metals, petroleum-derived plastics and fossil fuel energy. The problems in building renewable energy generators, on a scale necessary to indefinitely meet global society's demands, as well as to provide the necessary additional energy to build replacement generators and infrastructure, without reliance upon fossil-fuel energy, appear to be overwhelming. It seems unlikely that this can be done on a scale anywhere near the scale we have been able to do thus far relying on our finite endowment of fossil fuels.
Applying the precautionary principle
So, I would suggest that it would be extremely imprudent to continue to consume natural resources at our current rate, let alone to increase our rate of consumption, and to go on trashing the world's ecology as we are doing now on the assumption that we can find an easy replacement to so much of that conveniently packaged solar energy captured over tens of millions of years that we have found buried under the ground. It would be far more prudent to assume that our current practices are unsustainable, and to begin now to reduce those levels of consumption.
Those who are consuming the most whilst contributing the least to society, such as property speculators and financial advisers should be amongst the first to be made to do so.
Mayor's 'bunkum' misleads and disturbs
MEDIA STATEMENT 12 July 2007
The opinions of Cr Henry are not necessarily those of Redland Shire Council/
Division 3 Councillor Debra Henry is challenging the Mayor's dismissive remark that rapid population growth in the Redlands is 'bunkum' (Bayside Bulletin 10 July, p 2).
Labeling his comments as misleading, Cr Henry has called for him to "come clean on a growth rate that is putting environmental and social services under immense pressure".
"Comparisons with Ipswich, Caboolture and elsewhere are irrelevant. The people of the Redlands have persistently identified Redland's natural features and relaxed lifestyle as valued assets to maintain and enhance. But these are quite obviously being eroded by rapid growth" said Cr Henry.
Cr Henry is concerned that the Mayor remains fixated with growth and refuses to grasp the realities of the Shire's growth. "It's simple mathematics" she says "Even what appears to be a small percentage (2%) when applied to a large number, grows quickly".
"A two percent growth rate equates to a doubling in 35 years. With a population of 135,000 two percent growth means the Shire's population will increase by another 135,000 in 35 years. It is exponential growth and never before have we faced growth of this magnitude. The Mayor's refusal to acknowledge this is disturbing" Cr Henry said.
But she believes there is a questionable agenda behind the Mayor's dismissive remarks.
"The Local Growth Management Strategy (LGMS) recently passed 6-5 by this Council and now with State Government for approval is a planning document of the highest order. It will lock the Shire into high growth for the next two decades and with his cries of 'bunkum' it appears the Mayor is trying to detract from the significance of this document" said Cr Henry.
"If approved, the LGMS will result in at least another 60,000 people in the Redlands in less than 20 years. It will result in amendments to the Redland Planning Scheme and the State's SEQ Regional Plan. It will give legal rights of development, and compensation would apply should hindsight indicate the land zonings are inappropriate".
Cr Henry considers it ironic that some of the Councillors supporting the LGMS have lamented some land zonings at Mt Cotton, saying the decision made some 20 years ago locked us into approvals, no matter how inappropriate that decision is in hindsight.
"Let's learn from the past, and use some foresight here. We can negotiate levels of growth, and we don't have to commit vast tracts of land to non-negotiable development".
Cr Henry, who has posted an "e-Petition" relating to the LGMS on www.parliament.qld.gov.au added that the Mayor's "flippant response to a serious situation, is a hindrance to democracy and a threat to sustainability".
Debra Henry
Councillor Division 3
Cleveland South - Thornlands
Redland Shire Council
crdebrah |AT| redland.qld.gov.au
07 38298618
0439 914631
South East Queensland over-allocation of land and resources must be reversed
Media Release
Wednesday, 11 July 2007
South East Queensland residents are using World Population Day, 11th July, to urge the Queensland Government to reverse the over-allocation of land and resources committed to development in the region.
According to the South East Queensland Branch of Sustainable Population Australia (SPA), concerned citizens are sending an appeal to the Premier that the Local Growth Management Strategies required under the SEQ Plan be delayed until biodiversity, climate change, natural resources, ecological services and quality of life issues are addressed.
"The government has committed South East Queensland to a level of development that will destroy its biodiversity," said a spokesman for the South East Queensland branch. "We are destroying our natural environment, both through the use of land for housing and infrastructure and through the consumption of natural resources, such as water and building materials."
"Quarries are already having an enormous impact on SEQ's biodiversity, destroying koala habitat and rare and threatened species; and with the increasing demand for building materials we will see even greater destruction," he said. "If the Environmental Protection Agency allows quarrying in 'of concern' regional ecosystems - those types of forests that are already down to less than 30% of their original cover - we will see massive losses of this region's species diversity."
"The South East Queensland Regional Plan was based on high projections and planning from the early 1990's, with little regard for the natural assets of the area," said the spokesman. "The Queensland Government has mapped almost all the vegetation left in the Region as being of state and regional significance for biodiversity, yet it has failed to protect this biodiversity from housing, tourism, rural industry and other impacts."
"We are asking that a moratorium be imposed until the over-allocation of South East Queensland land for development is reversed and sustainable outcomes are guaranteed," he said.
For more information about this important issue:
Sheila Davis, Secretary, SPA-SEQ, Mob: 0423 305478
Populate and Perish
Citizens arrest
Tackling climate change is now a worldwide crusade - so what's stopping campaigners driving its simplest solution?
David Nicholson-Lord
Wednesday July 11, 2007
The Guardian
The simplest truths are sometimes the hardest to recognise. This month, according to the UN, world population will reach 6.7 billion, en route to a newly revised global total of 9.2 billion by 2050. The latest housing forecasts for England predict that we will need about 5m more homes in the next two decades. The economist Jeffrey Sachs devoted this spring's Reith lectures to a planet "bursting at the seams". And the most recent Social Trends analysis from the Office for National Statistics painted a picture of a Britain driven mad by overcrowding. Meanwhile, Gaia scientist James Lovelock has been warning about ecological collapse and world resources able to support only 500 million people, with many extra millions driven to take refuge in the UK.
In the midst of all these alarms is a very quiet place where the green lobby should be talking about human population growth. Today has been designated World Population Day by the UN, but you will not see any of the big environment and development groups mounting a campaign on population. Indeed, you will be lucky if they even mention the P-word. Earlier this year, Nafis Sadik, former director of the UN's population fund, berated such non-governmental organisations for being more concerned with fundraising than advocacy. Their silence on population, she observed, was "deafening".
Mainstream concern
So why isn't the green movement talking about population any more? In its early days, back in the 60s and 70s, population growth was a mainstream concern. Groups including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth (FoE), WWF and Oxfam took well-publicised positions on population issues - endorsing the Stop at Two (children) slogan, supporting zero population growth and publishing reports with titles such as Already Too Many (Oxfam). These days, Greenpeace declares that population is "not an issue for us" and describes it as "a factor [in] but not one of the drivers of" environmental problems.
FOE last year tried to answer some "common questions" on the subject, including: "Why isn't Friends of the Earth tackling population growth?" Oxfam, which as recently as 1994 published a report entitled World Population: The Biggest Problem of All, now does not list it among the dozen or so "issues we work on", and nor does it figure in the "What you can do" section of WWF's One Planet Living campaign.
The green lobby's main argument is that numbers do not matter so much - it is how we live and consume that counts. FoE even remarks that "it is unhelpful to enter into a debate about numbers. The key issue is the need for the government to implement policies that respect environmental limits, whatever the population of the UK". It is a statement that seems to treat population and environmental limits as entirely separate subjects.
There are two powerful counter-arguments to this. One is common sense: that consumption and numbers matter and that if a consumer is absent - that is, unborn - then so is his or her consumption. The second is the weight of evidence. Sir David King, the government's chief scientist, told a parliamentary inquiry last year: "It is self-evident that the massive growth in the human population through the 20th century has had more impact on biodiversity than any other single factor."
The increase in global population over the next 40 years, for example, is roughly what the entire world population was in 1950. The UK, currently around 61 million people, is on course for 71 million by 2074, by which time England's densities will have outstripped those of South Korea, which, by some measures, is currently the world's second most crowded country - second only to Bangladesh.
The Optimum Population Trust today publishes a new report, Youthquake, that warns - echoing Lovelock - that environmental degradation caused by the number of humans may force more governments to follow China's lead and introduce compulsory limits on family size.
Many suspect other motives for the green lobby's neglect of the population issue. It is a sensitive subject, bound up with issues on which the progressive left, which most environmental groups identify with, has developed a defensive intellectual reflex. These include race and immigration - the latter accounts for more than 80% of forecast UK population growth, for example - reproductive choice, human rights and gender equality. Calls for population restraint can easily be portrayed as "anti-people" - surely people are part of "the solution"? It is far easier to ignore the whole subject; let somebody else - or nobody - deal with it.
Verbal contortions
This often involves intriguing verbal contortions. The 70s organisation Population Countdown, having morphed into Population Concern, in 2003 rechristened itself as Interact Worldwide - under its former name, consultants told it, its funders, and future, would dry up.
Faced with escalating forecasts of housing need - one recent government projection says we will need 11m more households in the UK by 2050, an increase of over 40% - the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) proclaims itself in favour of "development that protects the countryside and the environment" and ignores the fact that the main cause of forecast housing growth, responsible for 59% of the total, is population increase.
So why does the CPRE not campaign on the issue that poses the greatest threat to rural England? "If we did," says Shaun Spiers, CPRE's chief executive, "it appears unlikely that our actions would have any effect on population growth, and that would lay us open to the charge of misusing our charitable funds."
How to categorise such reactions? Pragmatism? Cowardice? Sensible tactics? Or an overdose of organisational self-preservation? Whatever the reason, it is infectious - the media (and politicians) take many of their awareness cues from NGOs so the silence on population becomes society-wide. As a result, family size is seen as an exercise in individual lifestyle choice: few people consider the consequences for the planet of their fertility decisions. That means fertility rates in the UK rise, and the population keeps on growing.
· David Nicholson-Lord is an environmental writer and research associate for the Optimum Population Trust. The Youthquake report is available at optimumpopulation.org
· David Nicholson-Lord is an environmental writer and research associate for the Optimum Population Trust. The Youthquake report is available at optimumpopulation.org
· Email your comments to society |AT| guardian.co.uk. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication"
World Population Day 11th July - growth out of control in SEQ
Media release
Tuesday, 10 July 2007
Water crisis, housing crisis, transport infrastructure crisis, hospital crisis and continued destruction of open space and bushland are all the hallmarks that show growth is out of control in South East Queensland, say environmentalists.
A spokesman for Sustainable Population Australia - South East Queensland Branch, said that World Population Day#fn1">1 is a time to focus on commitment and action to ensure our population is sustainable.
"However, SEQ's population is not only unsustainable, it's out of control," he said. "Every week the growth rate is driving water, energy and transport infrastructure and ecosystems deeper into crisis."
"What a way to celebrate World Population Day! SEQ is in a dismal state of affairs. It's a great example of what not to do," said the spokesman. ?While there are cries of climate change, falling fish stocks and loss of biodiversity, governments fail to tackle the root cause of these problems, unsustainable growth.?
"Never in the history of the planet has the Earth had to support a human population of over 6 billion," he said. "And neither has Australia had to support a population of over 21 million."
"A growing population demands ever increasing amounts of resources to supply it with the goods and services it needs. It also produces ever increasing amounts of waste," said the spokesman. "Our demands on the planet are depriving other species of their habitat and crippling the ecosystems that support life. Quite simply, we are living like there is no tomorrow. It is morally and ethically wrong."
"What is happening globally is being played out in SEQ. We struggle to support further growth and our lifestyle and environment degrades. If we are genuine about saving the planet, SEQ is a classic example of what not to do because growth in SEQ is out of control," he said.
For more information about this important issue:
Sheila Davis, Secretary, SPA-SEQ, Mob: 0423 305478
Sustainable Population Australia - SEQ Branch, Box 199, Mudgeeraba Qld 4213
Footnotes
1. World Population Day, 11 July, was designated by the United Nations in 1987 to raise consciousness about the impacts of overpopulation on the world and to mark the arrival of the five billionth person on the planet. Twenty years later, in 2007, there are an additional 1.6 billion people and the world is headed towards a population of 9 to 12 billion by 2050. The Earth's population has skyrocketed from 1 billion in 1880, to 2 billion in 1930, and now to 6.6 billion.
Recent comments