And once again, we have the endless parade of long-discredited nonsense from people with no idea what the heck they're talking about... God, these threads depress me. I guess it's time to fix my Greasemonkey killscript again... 
Global Warming
- Thread starter Wayland
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I think you will find that the citified living that we have enjoyed for such a comparatively brief period in our history will be fairly short lived Mary. It only works when we have cheap fossil fuels to transport food, preserve food, dispose of waste etc. (or possibly in the case of a very few ancienct cities, a vibrant slave trade). When that fossil fuel runs out - and it will - shlepping food around huge distances becomes less viable for all but the uber rich. Sure some things have to be traded for or bought with a surplus. But we do not have to live a life so divorced from reality that we grow none of our own food, fuel etc. Where preserving is done for us and warmth comes from a cable.
My experience of cities and towns is that the people are much less neighbourly than rural people, and even those into small holdings and large farms love to get together, help each other out, have a drink, share a pig killing etc. Lots of people crushed together don't make a real community in my book.
Be that as it may however, this country cannot feed and provide fuel for 60 million people, and when the cheap fossil fuels go, nor will we be able to import it. Only this year a number of countries have refused to export wheat, keeping it for their own people. As populations expand and chemical fertilisers decline, this will increasingly become the case IMO. As you yourself say, people take care of their own population first. Sadly we are wholly dependant on other countries to feed us, clothe us and keep us warm. Unless we change that we face a very bleak future
Red
My experience of cities and towns is that the people are much less neighbourly than rural people, and even those into small holdings and large farms love to get together, help each other out, have a drink, share a pig killing etc. Lots of people crushed together don't make a real community in my book.
Be that as it may however, this country cannot feed and provide fuel for 60 million people, and when the cheap fossil fuels go, nor will we be able to import it. Only this year a number of countries have refused to export wheat, keeping it for their own people. As populations expand and chemical fertilisers decline, this will increasingly become the case IMO. As you yourself say, people take care of their own population first. Sadly we are wholly dependant on other countries to feed us, clothe us and keep us warm. Unless we change that we face a very bleak future
Red
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I'm on about you and me. They've started to tackle the problem in China. We've done nothing sensible about it here, we are indeed the issue.
Just listen to Red, he is perfectly correct. Our population has vastly exceeded the ability of our country to support it. There is no denying that. It is not a theory. So we plunder the resources of other countries to make up the shortfall. We've been doing that for centuries, and we grew up thinking that that's the way it should be, and it's all right, and we thought the Earth was flat too. Well it isn't, and it isn't (and it isn't). Those other countries are starting to notice. Before long they'll say "STOP!" and most of us here will either freeze or starve in the dark, or we'll go to war again. What do you think the war in Iraq was about? It was about safeguarding our supplies of oil. Pure and simple self interest, all prettied up with jingoistic cr@p about doing the right thing. Yet another disgraceful episode in our country's Imperial bloody history.
You are one of the people who thinks the Earth is flat. If we don't all open our eyes, the grandchildren you don't know if you've had yet might if they're lucky find themselves dragged screaming onto the operating table. If they're unlucky, well, they just won't make it.
I don't have any children. Way back when I thought about such things I took the decision that there were already too many of us so I decided to remain childless. I wrote to the new prime minister and asked him what he was going to do about overpopulation. His response was to get Cherie pregnant.
I don't think anyone is in denial here (at least I hope not) that things can "carry on as they are". Everyones lives will change - whether they want to or not
Whether we believe that climate change is caused by the use of fossil fuels is almost beside the point. Those fuels will run out - we are already drilling deep water and exploring wells that we wouldn't have needed previously. We have built our society on cheap, non renewable energy. However much there is, it cannot last forever. So we need to change our lives - both in terms of consuming less fossil fuel derived products and using different technologies to minimise that impact (be that triple glazing or low energy light bulbs). This may go some way to reducing the impact, but in no way will it remove it.
Our choices are to face up to a world of post oil and use the remaining reserves to allow a smooth transition, or to keep expanding our population, keep consuming and hit the buffers hard.
To change to a different more sustainable model means huge change though - less imported food (no diesel ships and planes), no imported fuel (gas and oil run out), less transport of food from creation to consumption (no refrigerated trucks), different lifestyles altogether.
Its a huge challenge and, quite frankly, one that I don't think we in the Western world will face up to.
Red
Whether we believe that climate change is caused by the use of fossil fuels is almost beside the point. Those fuels will run out - we are already drilling deep water and exploring wells that we wouldn't have needed previously. We have built our society on cheap, non renewable energy. However much there is, it cannot last forever. So we need to change our lives - both in terms of consuming less fossil fuel derived products and using different technologies to minimise that impact (be that triple glazing or low energy light bulbs). This may go some way to reducing the impact, but in no way will it remove it.
Our choices are to face up to a world of post oil and use the remaining reserves to allow a smooth transition, or to keep expanding our population, keep consuming and hit the buffers hard.
To change to a different more sustainable model means huge change though - less imported food (no diesel ships and planes), no imported fuel (gas and oil run out), less transport of food from creation to consumption (no refrigerated trucks), different lifestyles altogether.
Its a huge challenge and, quite frankly, one that I don't think we in the Western world will face up to.
Red
Our country can support us. It's we who need to adapt to what is feasible from it's potential.
Our population is stable, China is (thankfully, addressing it's population issues, how about the rest of the burgeoning world ??
We're not the problem.
Incidentally, our fossil fuels are good for at least 200 years of present usage, the issue is that it's cheaper to import them than pay our own folks a living wage to extract them.
The changes in my lifetime have been nothing short of miraculous I'm kind of looking forward to seeing how things go on
cheers,
Toddy
Our population is stable, China is (thankfully, addressing it's population issues, how about the rest of the burgeoning world ??
We're not the problem.
Incidentally, our fossil fuels are good for at least 200 years of present usage, the issue is that it's cheaper to import them than pay our own folks a living wage to extract them.
The changes in my lifetime have been nothing short of miraculous
I'm kind of looking forward to seeing how things go on cheers,
Toddy
Personnely think its a natural occurance that may be speeded up slightly by man, i also think its being used to take more off us in tax, and line some already well lined pockets.
Not sure how accurate this chart is, but I think this is part of Mary's point about us being stable.
As with regards to the oil situation, there is plenty out there still in the North Sea, recently a field was discovered that was the biggest since the Buzzard Field.
There is plenty there & with new technology we will get it.
Apologies if its wrong or not what you were inferring.
As with regards to the oil situation, there is plenty out there still in the North Sea, recently a field was discovered that was the biggest since the Buzzard Field.
There is plenty there & with new technology we will get it.
Apologies if its wrong or not what you were inferring.
Our population is not stable sadly it has risen from 52 million in 1960 to in excess of 62 million and estimates show it is continuing to rise
In the past ten years, self-sufficiency in food has fallen by 18 per cent in the UK. We currently import 95 per cent of our fruit and 50 per cent of our vegetables, and the volume of food imports has increased sevenfold since 1960.
DEFRAs figures on food self sufficiency for Britain are below
The same DEFRA report has the following to say on food self sufficiency
I'm absolutley not trying to start an argument about this - simply stating recorded facts and informed research.
The reason I think this is relevant to the topic in hand is that I simply do not believe that our acerage can support our population without large inputs of fossil fuels fertilisers etc. All of which output large amounts of greenhouse gases etc.
So if we want to survive - we need to keep on importing food, fuel etc.
If we believe there are sufficent reserves of these to keep on going indefinitely, and we don't believe this will cause damage through climate change etc. then we don't have a problem.
In the past ten years, self-sufficiency in food has fallen by 18 per cent in the UK. We currently import 95 per cent of our fruit and 50 per cent of our vegetables, and the volume of food imports has increased sevenfold since 1960.
DEFRAs figures on food self sufficiency for Britain are below
The same DEFRA report has the following to say on food self sufficiency
I'm absolutley not trying to start an argument about this - simply stating recorded facts and informed research.
The reason I think this is relevant to the topic in hand is that I simply do not believe that our acerage can support our population without large inputs of fossil fuels fertilisers etc. All of which output large amounts of greenhouse gases etc.
So if we want to survive - we need to keep on importing food, fuel etc.
If we believe there are sufficent reserves of these to keep on going indefinitely, and we don't believe this will cause damage through climate change etc. then we don't have a problem.
So why, then, do we have a balance of payments deficit? We import more than we export because if we didn't we'd starve (for the greater part, I guess, in a state of utter boredom for lack of entertainment). We import 50 percent of the sugar that we use. That one import alone supplies around ten percent of the food energy requirement for the entire population. Can you think of any other foodstuffs we import? In 2009, the UK's agriculture, hunting and forestry imports were around 30% greater than its exports.
We agree. That will mean reducing the population of these isles.
We disagree.
It just will not do to say that it's all somebody else's fault. If we didn't have Trident missiles, the people you're trying to blame would probably have come over here to tell us that personally by now. A few of them have tried to make the point anyway. We call them terrorists.
Wayland, you've been quiet...
Our dependance on fossil fuel fertilisers is simply because they are cheap. Similarly the imports of fruit, etc.,
The Clyde side (that's the upper valley, not the shipbuilding bit) used to be wall to wall glasshouses and orchards. Cheap imports killed that. It wasn't that they couldn't produce the food, in fact Lanarkshire groaned under the weight of plums, apples, spuds and tomatoes every year. That story is repeated right across the UK.
Change that dynamic and we can feed ourselves. We *waste* more food than would feed a third world nation. We don't even feed it to pigs, instead we feed the seagulls and rats that horde over the dumps.
To someone who grew up in the sure and certain knowledge that the bombs would hit the nuclear sub bases on the Clyde and the prevalent weather conditions would make sure the radiation would wipe out the central belt, your comment is singularly crass
Despite repeated attempts in the past the last time anyone managed to really set foot here was 1066. What do you think has changed ??
The population of Scotland *fell* year on year until the last one.......and that has been credited to immigration, so that hare won't start.
Our attitude to smaller families, backed up by a security that their fewer children will survive, is the change that's needed, but we've already got the message.
If we reduce ours all we're doing is creating a vacuum for those who have no intention of limiting their families.
Our changes should be less waste, acceptance that we cannot have *everything* we want at rock bottom prices, and more encouragement to be productive ourselves.
cheers,
Toddy
The Clyde side (that's the upper valley, not the shipbuilding bit) used to be wall to wall glasshouses and orchards. Cheap imports killed that. It wasn't that they couldn't produce the food, in fact Lanarkshire groaned under the weight of plums, apples, spuds and tomatoes every year. That story is repeated right across the UK.
Change that dynamic and we can feed ourselves. We *waste* more food than would feed a third world nation. We don't even feed it to pigs, instead we feed the seagulls and rats that horde over the dumps.
To someone who grew up in the sure and certain knowledge that the bombs would hit the nuclear sub bases on the Clyde and the prevalent weather conditions would make sure the radiation would wipe out the central belt, your comment is singularly crass
Despite repeated attempts in the past the last time anyone managed to really set foot here was 1066. What do you think has changed ??
The population of Scotland *fell* year on year until the last one.......and that has been credited to immigration, so that hare won't start.
Our attitude to smaller families, backed up by a security that their fewer children will survive, is the change that's needed, but we've already got the message.
If we reduce ours all we're doing is creating a vacuum for those who have no intention of limiting their families.
Our changes should be less waste, acceptance that we cannot have *everything* we want at rock bottom prices, and more encouragement to be productive ourselves.
cheers,
Toddy
Not according to the Scottish Government I'm afraid - they record growth every year for the last seven years
Scottish Governement said:
Well one thing that's changed is that a weapon which can turn Greater London into a glass-lined hole in the ground in approximately 100 milliseconds can be carried by a skinny teenager in a 50 litre backpack.
Yes, I'm wondering what I have started.
I'll admit that I only have a basic grounding in the sciences, usually enough to understand the conclusions, but not always enough to understand how they made them.
All that often leaves you with is a sort of belief in what feels "right". I guess it's a bit like faith, some have it, some don't, but how many of us really understand what it's all about.
Of course, that doesn't stop people wanting to kill each other over it and it seems that Climate change provokes the same kind of polarisation between people.
I really do not know the causes of our current situation. There may very well be natural factors at work, I think that is highly likely, but my gut feeling though is that things are changing so rapidly that there must also be some correlation with the boom in our society. It just doesn't "feel" natural to me.
I know that is not very scientific but I put a lot of trust into my instincts. Ultimately, I remain open minded.
What worries me most is that widespread polarization of opinions. It does not seem to be a very good way to go about finding solutions. Argument is sometimes useful but dogma is rarely helpful.
I've often thought that science is the new religion, but the danger is that if people entrench themselves in any kind of narrow ideology, even if it is scientific instead of religious, it is just one small step before people start lobbing bombs at each other.
......
Sorry BR, the last I read was that the last year was the one that changed the falling population demographic 
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/population-in-scotland-hits-a-31-year-high-1.1023902
Interesting how the increase in immigration corelates so closely with the increase in birth rate in the graph you show however
cheers,
M
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/population-in-scotland-hits-a-31-year-high-1.1023902
Interesting how the increase in immigration corelates so closely with the increase in birth rate in the graph you show however
cheers,
M
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You got that right.
To some extent I've hijacked your thread (sorry) in an attempt to remove the subjective "what's causing what". Instead, I tried the approach "Oooh, look what's happening! What do you think about that?"
Unfortunately it seems that the polarization is undiminished.
Well I don't think people have ever needed much of an excuse to start lobbing bombs at each other, and despite the leaps and bounds of our technology, from that point of view we haven't really changed a great deal in the last couple of thousand years.
You might have a point about 'science' being the new religion, I'd never thought of it that way. Unfortunately it seems to be science as regurgitated by journalists. Nowadays, the ultimate put-down for somebody getting his facts all round his neck is to liken him to a BBC science reporter. There's a lot of absolute gibberish written by so-called 'science' journalists and AFAICT it's swallowed whole by the masses.
I've seen evidence of similar tendencies just in this thread. Several people have made claims which are totally unjustified and provably wrong, apparently in an attempt to bolster a position taken on what I think you might call religious grounds, I'd probably call it selfishness. In the 1970s, nobody (well nobody with any sense) said that fossil fuels would run out in 40 years time. They said that proven reserves were a few decades for oil and gas, and a few centuries for coal. I know, because I was there at the time and it was the sort of thing that I studied because I was in the nuclear power generation game. Since then we've proven some more reserves, and we'll continue to do so. But oil was a few dollars a barrel then, so it wasn't even worth drilling for it in the North Sea. We had to wait until it would fetch EIGHT dollars a barrel. Makes you think.
It's not an indictment of science that people take great liberties with it. They'll do it with anything, and especially the politicians will do it. Who was it who said that there are "lies, damned lies and statistics?" But true science doesn't play fast and loose with the numbers. That's because of publication, and peer review. True science stands up to scrutiny in the cold, hard light of day, and if there's a flaw in the argument it hopes and expects that it will be found. Unfortunately that doesn't make for catchy sound bites, and the duration of the review processes (never mind that of the original research) will exceed the combined attention span of the Daily Mail's readership by several orders of magnitude. So they have to give us sound bites, and what we get in the media (all the media) is at best a pale imitation of the Real Thing.
First follow NATURE, and your Judgment frame
By her just Standard, which is still the same:
....
A little learning is a dang'rous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring...
Re population growth and stability.
Have a look at the World Bank projections on this site.
Contrast the European Data, or the Chinese, with Sub Saharan Africa, or South America...........
Europe is actually lowering it's population whilst others are doubling theirs.
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXT...68445~piPK:64168309~theSitePK:3237118,00.html
Cheers,
Toddy
Have a look at the World Bank projections on this site.
Contrast the European Data, or the Chinese, with Sub Saharan Africa, or South America...........
Europe is actually lowering it's population whilst others are doubling theirs.
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXT...68445~piPK:64168309~theSitePK:3237118,00.html
Cheers,
Toddy
Without wanting to cause probs, our population growth is increasing due to immigration rather than national birth rates which i think of UK nationals fell slightly recently.So pandabeans graph is right in that its people coming from developing countries that are increasing the world population albeit in this country also through work migration as well as there own.
The bit that interested me was that Scotland is, in the long term, a net exporter of people
I guess if immigration is a bad thing, then all that emigration was a bad thing too.
Red
I guess if immigration is a bad thing, then all that emigration was a bad thing too.
Red
