[permaculture-oceania] population challenges - Adelaide as one big community garden?

[davidarnold at iinet.net.au]

Hi Russ, 

On 8/6/06 7:34 PM, "brookman" <brookman at bigpond.com> wrote:
> 
> > Thanks Jedd
> > Whether Lovelock or Evans are correct we would need, in theory, to
> > shed at least half the world's current population
> 
> Glad this is in theory. The reality is that it won't happen, so we
> have to devise ways to live with the predicted 10 billion by 2050.
Don't you think it might happen, by tragic circumstance in which, as access to fossil 
fuel resources contracts, the world fails to produce and distribute enough food?

I hope it does not happen, but I cannot declare that it won't.

 A pitfall of talk about how we "have to" shed so many billions of people
> starts to sound too much like accepting social Darwinism. It would
> mean, of course, a fortress Australia in which the doors on the world
> are closed as conditions over there deteoriate sharply and the
> deterring of a plague of boat peeople that would make the boat people
> exodus from Vietnam in the 1980s and the Siex X and children overboard
> episodes look totally insignificant.

All of that could happen.  It is a grim prospect, but I feel that if we do not face up to 
such possibilities we risk not applying sufficient rigour to our own actions.

Regards,

David Arnold			davidarnold at iinet.net.au

4446 Murchison Rd, Violet Town  VIC  3669
03 5798 1679		0428 981 679



-- 
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.8.3/359 - Release Date: 8/06/06