Vocal Voices

This came up on the news last night. A warning of impending famine in parts of Nigeria, with dire warnings of how many peopple might starve to death.

No mention however of this; in 1973 the population of Nigeria was 60.29 million. In 2013 the population of Nigeria had risen to 173.6 million, a rise of 113 million people in 40 years.

This sort of rise in population can't be sustainable, surely? In terms of providing jobs, housing, education, health care and food, how can you go on catering for a population that grows so quickly?

Quite, and look at Africa as a whole.

In 1970 it had a population of 370 million, now it is 1.2 billion, a threefold increase, and is projected to be about 2 billion around 2030. Africa has never been able to provide enough food for its peoples and eight of its ten most deadly famines have occurred since 1970.

Things can only get worse no matter how much we improve crop yields, if indeed we can. Currently we are making slow progress yet at the same time losing arable land. We will be sprinting just to stand still in the near future. but nobody with any influence or power is brave enough to talk about population: it's the economy and growth that matters.

Old story. Modern medicine ensures most children survive but old tribal habits ensure uncontrolled growth. Tribal tensions and wars, not to mention Islamic wars, cause destruction of the land and loss of habitat and food.

Of course when they start dying of drought the bleeding hearts will demand we send them food (which we have imported for ourselves), so they can produce another 100 million who will need feeding in the next drought.

Vicious circle but one that will end the first time we get rationing at home due to food scarcity.

Suff wrote:Of course when they start dying of drought the bleeding hearts will demand we send them food (which we have imported for ourselves)

And that is an awkward problem... because we do not produce enough to feed ourselves either, so we import theirs.

Where will we go for our food if others stop exporting? Will we reduce our population so we can feed ourselves? If we do, who do we get rid of - the old, immigrants, left-handers, people with bad breath? And if we do reduce our population what happens to the economy? We will certainly have a housing price crash, which will hurt the current economic model - that needs to change.

Then we have to think about water. India and Pakistan are currently squaring up over the waters of the Indus, Chenab and Jelum. India gets them first and wants to build reservoirs and hydro plants despite there being a treaty sharing them. If they do they will impact Pakistan's ability to provide drinking and irrigation water to its rising population. These two countries are nuclear powers. What happens if they kick off? We have ample, but lots of places do not.

We keep going on about climate change, but most of it is driven by global economics and population increases, yet nobody will discuss either of them.

Perhaps we are wrong thinking of it, and trying to solve it, as a global problem. Perhaps we should just consider it to be Africa's problem, and let it unfold as it will.

Time, perhaps, to cease providing aid and help.

Harsh, I know, but if we continue to enable the African population to expand as it has done, it will reach a tipping-point where it cannot be sustained even by global measures.

I agree Os. The countries whose populations are exploding must be made to confront the results of their actions. No one can make this better by trying to treat the symptoms rather than the cause. If 60 million Nigerians can create an extra 113 million Nigerians in 40 years, how many can 173 million create in the next 40?

It's scary and it has to stop.

cromwell wrote:It's scary and it has to stop.

The system is already broken and the Media love it. The more disasters they get the more they can get money out of it and the more they can make us feel guilty, making us buy their media who tell us we should be guilty.

Eventually this circle has to end, but at what cost. As WM says the Pakistan/India situation is a tinderbox with nuclear weapons as the chip on the bargaining table. India has a population problem which makes Africa look like a minor irritant. Yet India is one country and is rapidly gaining the wealth to reduce the population growth and with the ability to do something about feeding the hungry.

Where the climate change issue comes in is that it will degrade the ability of India to deliver for their people no matter how much they spend or how hard they work.

The world has become inured to fast moving crises. The funny thing is that prior generations, without all the technology we have, would recognise Climate Change for what it is and see the movement. Because their own lives, prior to the industrial revolution, were so slow moving, a slow moving disaster like Climate Change would be quite visible and lead people to be concerned about it.

Ironic, isn't, that the very change which caused Climate Change has made us totally blind to it. Allowing us to do stupid things like promote population growth in areas which are unsustainable without western style intensive agriculture and power consumption. Making the whole situation worse.

In a sensible world we would create sustainable and growing carbon neutral power then grow our agriculture and populations to match. Of course in a sensible world AGW couldn't exist.

In direct opposition to sanity, in the house of the sighted, everyone goes blindfold to make the one eyed man king.

Ossie wrote:Harsh, I know, but if we continue to enable the African population to expand as it has done, it will reach a tipping-point where it cannot be sustained even by global measures.

This is almost the case in the Sahel region where most countries have seen their populations rise fourfold since 1970. The Horn of Africa is not much better. Their numbers are still increasing and nobody is doing a damned thing about it.

One day another natural disaster will strike and as Suff says our newspapers and TV screens will be full of pictures as it all unfolds. Then it will be us who are asked to do something. The media, the UN and charities, will put us on a 'guilt-trip', as though it is our fault, our responsibility, and we must dig deep. Some of us will, but as many are now saying, it is going to have to stop.

We can't stop it, it is up to the countries themselves to act. If they do not then they should suffer the consequences.