Comments on: Humanitarians: Please, Spare the Humans

By: Peter Newland

Peter Newland — Thu, 28 May 2009 12:32:42 +0000

Overpopulation is not the problem: sin is.
That is THE issue. The Solution? We need to recognise and make known that Christianity is the source of freedom, democracy, etc etc which flows from salvation. (see “How God Saved Civilisation” and “How Christianity Changed the world”. Christianity changes people for better and that changes the world for the better – that is perhaps the most powerful and necessary message we need to give.
That said, of secondary importance is that food and resources are NOT limitations to world population growth.
There is plenty of land, food, water, minerals etc to go around for hundreds of years (see Lomborg’s “the Skeptical Environmentalist”).
We have oodles of space. Every person alive in the whole world could stand in the smallest state in Australia, Tasmania, and not be able to touch another person. They could all live in Queensland, Australia, with only 5 people per quarter acre block, and have room to spare.
There is plenty of food – our farmers could grow heaps more if they could sell it all.
If Australia had 200 Million people, instead of our paltry 20 Miliion, it would be sustainable to turn back 3/4 of the water flowing to waste out of Queensland to recharge the Great Atesian Basin and put water back into our inland rivers which rarely flow – to bring alive the ‘dead-heart’ of Australia. Similarly the water flowing to waste from the North of Western Australia and from the Northern Territory. With 200 Million people and such projects Lake Eyre could be a permanent inland sea and the inerior of Australia would turn from sunburt land to green heartland.
Peter Newland

By: John Nelson

John Nelson — Thu, 28 May 2009 06:33:11 +0000

Will Muslims be happy to reduce their birth rate?

John Nelson

By: Bill Muehlenberg

Bill Muehlenberg — Thu, 28 May 2009 00:33:36 +0000

Thanks Lucy

A few quick thoughts: Fertility rates are declining even in the developing world, just more slowly. And political realities have a lot to do with how nations fare. Since you mention Ethiopia, let’s look at it a bit more. It used to be known as “the breadbasket of Africa”. That was before the Marxists came into power. As usually happens, the Communists ruined production and destroyed the economy, effectively causing the famine there.

So foreign aid alone may not always help. As the late British economist Lord P.T. Bauer used to say, foreign aid is really about taking money from poor people in rich countries and giving it to rich people in poor countries. The type of government a nation has is often more of a concern than the nation’s fertility rates.

Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch

By: Lucy Z

Lucy Z — Thu, 28 May 2009 00:00:16 +0000

I don’t know if this is simply a form of racism. Oprah Winfrey is black, after all. I disagree with Mathew Hamilton to some degree. When the world became aware of the famine in Ethiopia in 1984, there were 35 million mouths to feed. Now, with the current famine in that area, the number of people needing assistance is 78 million. Certainly, this is not showing a birth rate of 1.3 children per woman. I’m a big believer in a hand up, not a hand out. Where are the programmes exploring ways of boosting food production in this area? Not GM and other abominations but grass roots efforts to improve the sustainability of life in these areas. I am absolutely opposed to abortion. Killing humans is not the answer. But what is? Can the developing world sustain population increases of this magnitude? Is it really selfishness on the part of the Western world or is this simply a fashionable way of removing responsibilty from the developing world to address its problems of tribalism, corruption, graft, etc?
I have lived in a developing nation as a child. All the aid that was given benefitted a small minority of people who were able to reap huge rewards for themselves and their families. The intended beneficiaries saw nothing. I have no problem with the giving of aid. But it should be targetted and effective. THAT is the key issue.
Lucy Zubova

By: Bill Muehlenberg

Bill Muehlenberg — Wed, 27 May 2009 03:06:59 +0000

Thanks guys

You three all make excellent points. And it is not just about Western elites benefiting while non-Westerners suffer. It is also about a subtle form of racism: ‘we white rich Westerners are the solution, you coloured poor folk are the problem’.

Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch

By: Mathew

Mathew — Wed, 27 May 2009 01:39:41 +0000

Yes, Michael – sin is everyone else’s fault! (I have some relatives who think along these lines – scary, esp. considering they see themselves as Christians, too.)

It continually freaks me out that environmentalists and conservationists seem to think that birth control via abortion is a perfectly acceptable form of population control. I have had dealings with one individual who believes that Western countries should not be providing aide to 3rd world countries – neither in times of natural disaster / droughts / famine or otherwise – because he believes it to be more “humane” that they just simply die out. This is apparently on the belief that if we provide aide, we just prolong a life fated to hardship and drudgery and unnecessarily stretch the world’s resources. When I pointed out that this type of practice would have the “side-effect” of benefiting him personally (ie. his quality of life would be maintained, if not increased since there’ll be more available resources to his country), he went quiet.

So in reality, population control of these measures don’t benefit the good of mankind – only the good of one particular mankind: elitist westerners.

Mathew Hamilton, Victoria

By: Ewan

Ewan — Wed, 27 May 2009 01:10:00 +0000

These rich elites are certainly a bunch of hypocrites. They’ve made their fortunes, had their kids, and now want to deny both of those things to the rest of the world.

Ewan McDonald.

By: Michael Hutton, Ariah Park

Michael Hutton, Ariah Park — Wed, 27 May 2009 00:00:13 +0000

But Bill, what about the huge drain on our worlds resources.
Isn’t the world about to explode or something?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates'_house
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockefeller_family#Family_residences
virtualglobetrotting.com/map/17197/

etc…

But I guess I should be more explicit. My argument is not simply the envious sour grapes: they’re so rich we don’t have to listen to them.

I would love some repsonsible environmentalist to actually work out who consumes what of the worlds resources.

I imagine it would mirror the wealth ratios. What is the statistic bandied around? Would the top ten percent of the world’s population consume 90% of the worlds resources? I don’t know, I can fairly confidently assert that it’s disproportionate.

What’s terible is that they are blaming the rest of the world who put them on their thrones in the first place (eg smokers for Buffet, office workers for Gates, housewives for Oprah).

That’s what sin does, isn’t it? It’s everybody else’s fault.

Michael Hutton, Ariah Park