Population a question of good management

Add a Comment

Comment by Adrian Barclay on November 4, 2010 at 14:55

Hi Ronnie,

I've read your sources.

The first one from the Tele ( I don't trust anything from the Tele) said:

Supermarket duopoly the main reason for food price increases.

The second article seems to show price rises over a 10 year period without taking into account the real price. I.e. in yr 2000 dollars (adjusted for the respective years taking into account inflation) whether products are more expensive relative to income. Probably safe to assume that only meat significantly rose above wage levels due to drought, low supply and meat exports (which Australian taxpayers subsidise only to end up paying more for their own meat - thank heavens for the ' "free" market')

Comment by Ronnie Wright on November 3, 2010 at 7:12

Adrian I would have to agree with you that we are not going to be able to tackle climate change by controlling the population. It’s too late for that now. It would take a very long time to bring down the population to a level where it was sustainable given the way we live.

Although I personally think that we should remove all incentives to having children and take action to reduce consumption here in Australia. Australia’s growing population level is only possible with growing resource levels and is tied to the availability of cheap energy. We are rapidly approaching the peak in both resources and cheap energy. I know people will say we have enough of [insert name of resource here] resource to last [enter number of years here] number of years but that is the point I’m trying to make. We can see the end in sight and unless we change our consumption habits most of the resources we use today will not last through the next few generations.

So, I do think we need to work to reduce the population but not to prevent climate change. I think we need to do it to preserve our natural resources and the future for our children and their children instead of taking the greedy path and using it all up ourselves. Our society has forgotten how to save for the future and has gotten into the habit of spending it all today. We do it with our money and as a result our resources.

The bottom line, I think, is that we have got to address one or the other or both at the same time: population level and consumption. If we reduce population levels down to where we can live the lifestyle we currently enjoy there would not be many of us left if we wanted to sustain that lifestyle into the future. If we want to keep the current level of population or allow it to grow further then we would have to reduce our consumption habits to a level that is sustainable into the future. I think the last time humans did that we were called hunter gathers. Would it make sense to work on both and hope to find a balance that will at least slow down the decline of our civilization?

Here are a few other comments that apply to your post that I wanted to share:

Food Cost

The cost of food has been on the rise here in Australia over the past decade. As an example there is this article that quotes statics from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development that show that:

- Australians are paying the fastest-rising food prices of any major developed nation.

- The cost of feeding a family has shot up more than 40 per cent this decade, new OECD figures reveal.

And then there is this from another even more recent article:

- The cost of feeding an average Australian family has risen dramatically in recent times. Recent statistics show the cost has gone up by at least 40 per cent since 2000. In the past 20 years, the price of everyday necessities such as bread, milk and eggs rose by at least 6 per cent each year, and lamb prices by almost 8 per cent each year. Food price inflation in Australia, unlike in other advanced countries, has been greater than overall inflation for the past 10 years.

The largest increase in food prices looks to be meat as indicated in this article:

- Since 2000 the price of that family favorite, the lamb chop, has risen by more than 100 per cent, now costing around $19.90/kg compared with $9.30 in 2000.

- And as for a steak dinner - rump prices have gone up 57 per cent from $13.03/kg in 2000 to more than $20/kg this year.

- Even humble beef mince has risen by about 50 per cent, to $13.99/kg from under $10 in 2000.

There are many reasons for these increases but there is one factor that has not played its card yet; peak oil. Peak Oil will drive these prices up even further since every part of the production of our food relies on oil in some way or another. I think it will also drive Coles/Woolworths out of business when they can no longer import cheap food that they depend on. I think there will be a shift back to locally grown food sold by local owned family business again and the entire landscape of our modern food production system will go through a major change with more people working the land (see below).

Population of Cities

As the cost of energy goes through the roof, as a result of peak oil, coal and natural gas, and the cost of everything goes up as a result of those peaks I think we will see cities like New York depopulated due to the scarcity of locally produced food. The large cities we have today are a direct result of the Industrial Revolution. Prior to the Industrial Revolution the majority of people in the world lived in rural areas but now the majority live in cities. That revolution was fought on the backs of cheep abundant energy. That energy made it possible to replace men with machines on farms. Those farmers put out of work, and their families, migrated to the cities and most of the small family farms were merged into vast mechanised corporate farms. Well, the revolution is just about over. The machines will rust in the fields as they are doing now in Cuba. The whole process will be reversed.

As far as the claim that New York is an environmental utopia is concerned I could only respond that that is not an accurate way to describe it. And here is why:

- Consuming less of a non renewable energy source is still consuming a non renewable energy source. It will just take a little bit longer to run out.

- Emitting lesser harmful emissions into the atmosphere is still emitting harmful emissions into the atmosphere. It will just take a little bit longer to wipe out life on the planet.

Something that is bad is still bad even if you do less of it.

Cheers,
Ronnie

Comment by Adrian Barclay on November 1, 2010 at 12:14

Fair comments.

Australia is kind of like Alaska in population density, and they do ridiculous things like extract oil only to ship it down to mainland USA for refining, then ship it back to Alaska to use as fuel. We are probably going to be a per-capita CO2 pariah nation for a long time to come. Yet we still have the opportunity to maximise efficiencies in our denser cities. People in the cities will in effect be subsidising carbon use in regional Australia.

And I'd be out of my mind to think that earth doesn't have a maximum population cap. We may have passed it. I am somewhat confident that in the long-term, population will fluctuate according to the capabilities of earth, especially, however long it takes, that fossil fuels become far more scarce to the point of effecting daily production fundamentals.

I didn't watch that doco. I'll have to track it down. Sounds interesting. I saw the Foreign Correspondent on Chinese pollution the other day. The shot of the peasant woman smelling burning plastic fumes in order to sort into the different categories of plastic for recycling was particularly disturbing.

Comment by Karen Horne on October 27, 2010 at 16:33

I get the sense that one of the reasons Australia has such large carbon emissions is the sheer size of our country in relation to the small population spread over it. All that transportation of goods and services across those distances - those wide open spaces we treasure in this country.

If you happened to see the ABC last night, a documentary "Slumming It" shows just how incredibly efficient are the people who live in the slums of Mumbai. Efficient with everything including space and water. It's like the Manhattan example times 10 (or more).

I can't agree that the world has the resources to feed an infinite number of people - there are limits - but regardless I agree our current expectations of material and spacial needs ought to be managed and adjusted.