Overconsumption sounds more like an engineering problem the anything else. The problem here is that birth rates are going to continue to have 20 year lows. Thats tragic.
> If "The UK should have net migration of at least 600k/year" was on the ballot, which way would you vote?
LOL at your use of "should". I'd vote "not giving a shit about migration figures"; if it's ranked-choice, that would be sandwiched above "why is this even a vote, let people live wherever they want" and below "more safe routes for migrants, less gloating about channel drownings".
I’m so glad that the term Torygraph exists. I can never remember the British newspapers’ political leanings other than the Telegraph (thanks to Torygraph) and the Guardian (because it seems to be the only left wing UK newspaper I ever come across). For any of the rest, I have no idea what bias they’re bringing to the table.
As a general rule of thumb, all the large British papers are right-leaning. The notable exceptions are the Guardian (broadsheet) and Mirror (tabloid). (British TV news tends to be more neutral/centrist; excluding the recent Fox-News-wannabes like GB News and TalkTV, which the public thankfully seem to be rejecting https://nation.cymru/news/welsh-language-paw-patrol-triumphs... )
> Lord Rothermere was a friend of Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler, and directed the Mail's editorial stance towards them in the early 1930s.
> In an article published in Daily Mail on 24 September 1930, Rothemere wrote: "These young Germans have discovered, as I am glad to note that the young men and women of England are discovering, that is no good trusting the old politicians. Accordingly, they have formed, as I should like to see our British youth form, a parliamentary party of their own...We can do nothing to check this movement [the Nazis], and I believe it would be a blunder for the British people to take up an attitude of hostility towards it."
> Rothermere's 1933 leader "Youth Triumphant" praised the new Nazi regime's accomplishments, and was subsequently used as propaganda by them. In it, Rothermere predicted that "The minor misdeeds of individual Nazis would be submerged by the immense benefits the new regime is already bestowing upon Germany".
> Rothermere and the Mail were also editorially sympathetic to Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists. Rothermere wrote an article titled "Hurrah for the Blackshirts" published in the Daily Mail on 15 January 1934, praising Mosley for his "sound, commonsense, Conservative doctrine", and pointing out that: "Young men may join the British Union of Fascists by writing to the Headquarters, King's Road, Chelsea, London, S.W."
> In April 1934, the Daily Mail ran a competition entitled "Why I Like The Blackshirts" under which it awarded one pound every week for the best letter from its readers explaining why they liked the BUF.
> The paper editorially continued to oppose the arrival of Jewish refugees escaping Germany, describing their arrival as "a problem to which the Daily Mail has repeatedly pointed."
> In December 1934, Rothermere visited Berlin as the guest of Joachim von Ribbentrop. During his visit, Rothermere was publicly thanked in a speech by Josef Goebbels for the Daily Mails pro-German coverage of the Saarland referendum
> During the Spanish Civil War, the Daily Mail ran a photo-essay on 27 July 1936 by Ferdinand Touchy entitled "The Red Carmens, the women who burn churches"... Touchy declared his horror at the young Spanish women had rejected the traditional patriarchal system, writing with disgust that the "direct action girls" of the Worker's Militia do not want to be like their mothers, submissive and obedient to men... writing with utter horror at the possibility of these women engaging in premarital sex, which for him marked the beginning of the end of "civilisation" itself.
> George Ward Price, the special correspondent of The Daily Mail... was one of the few British journalists allowed to interview both Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler because both fascist leaders knew that Ward Price could be trusted to take a favorable tone and ask "soft" questions. Wickham Steed called Ward Price "the lackey of Mussolini, Hitler an...
It seems like the biggest problem is that we have been so consumed with growth that we have failed to implement strategies for graceful reductions in population and economic activity. Now that so many nations are experiencing demographic changes it might be good to come up with something for that.
Yes it has amazed me too that the topic of overpopulation/overconsumption strategies hasn’t really been openly discussed in many governments. I know it’s controversial but it’s so important it really should be more transparently discussed.
I think we perhaps have failed to ask what does a person need actually.
Heading off the standard rebuttal many many consequential things aren't very resource intensive, like vaccines, safe food, birth control. And a lot of resource intensive things kind a suck, looking at you Mr Car in the driveway beckoning me to drive yet again into the office.
They're careful not to say the quiet part out loud but it's utterly damning the way they suddenly and without segue switch tracks to talking about the birth rates of foreign borns.
The UK tabloid rhetoric serves as a strong reminder to me why I left the country and have no desire to ever live there again. Brexit was a resounding sledgehammer driven nail in that coffin. Every single day I am happy I left and all this does is reinforce why. UK journalism has a weird mixture of some of the best and some of the most toxic in the world.
I feel we're the reverse of the Americans in some ways, from what I understand their TV news is completely rabid in the same way our tabloids are but their newspapers are relatively level-headed whereas our TV news (particularly from the BBC) is pretty level-headed but our newspapers are just raw, unverified polemics probably the most toxic in any free country.
I don't think I could leave for good though, I think I have something of George Orwell's frustrated attachment to the place.
> from what I understand their TV news is completely rabid in the same way our tabloids
Your understanding is flawed. Cable news ( fox,cnn,etc ) is rabid, but broadcast news ( abc, nbc, cbs ) is more serious and 'professional'. Especially the nightly news.
> but their newspapers are relatively level-headed
Once again it depends. The wall street journal ( more professional ) to the ny post ( more rabid ) which oddly enough are owned by the same company controlled by the same foreigner who answer to the same elite.
The rabid-professional or the left-right dichotomy is an illusion because the media pretty much is controlled by the state/elite. They appear to be superficially different on silly cultural matters but fundamentally agree on the important stuff.
So, pray tell, where did you go that you deem free of toxic press? It surely isn't anywhere in Europe or the US. Certainly, couldn't be China, South Korea or Japan. Definitely not Australia.
> Birth rate slump in West will address overconsumption, former government adviser says
The birth rate may be dropping but net immigration has reached a record last year and population is still growing relatively rapidly (if not at record pace). I.e. no positive impact on 'overconsumption' at all.
> Almost one in three children born last year were delivered by mothers born outside of the UK. The number of births by women born outside the UK rose 3,600 year-on-year to account for 30.3pc of all births. The previous peak was 29.3pc in 2020.
And yet the population growth of the UK continues to rise steadily [1], where the UK needs to produce at least 300k homes per year for the next 10 years to meet demand (an impossible order). I can't see how so much construction and infrastructure is 'good for the planet'.
The only thing the UK has done is 'outsource' child births. It's like getting fuel synthesised in China and claiming your product is clean because no emissions were generated on home soil in it's creation, also forgetting it generates most of its emissions during its working life.
I don't see there is anything to be celebrated here. Sarah Harper's point about overconsumption reduction appears to be false.
You may not have noticed, but earlier this month we passed Earth overshoot day, when humanity's demands for ecological resources and services exceeded what our planet can regenerate annually.
Many economists criticizing the developing degrowth movement fail to appreciate this critical point of Earth's biophysical limits.
etc.
"10 year old opinion piece says it's hard to measure resource footprint"
Sure.
So what's your estimate on our current resource burn rate with > 8 billion people, several tens of billion tonnes of ore extraction per annum, terrawatts of energy generation causing problems with the atmosphere, etc.
We golden, or are the cracks starting to show?
The key point you're missing isn't
* whether or not the people that originally looked at resource burn rates Vs. renewals got their sums correct, but
* whether the idea that globally we're overstripping our resources is sound.
Your link agrees that this is an issue:
But I for one imagined that the footprint analysis was a bit smarter, that it had some handle on how we are overusing our soils and water reserves.
Sadly, it does not measure the things that most of us assumed it does – and the things we really need to know.
So, ten years on, do we have a better understanding of our sustainable usage?
Some context to help understand how absurd this article is: Britain finally reached it's pre-WWII population level in 2017. That of course includes immigrants.
All human birth rate reduction is good for the planet.
The arguments here of whether the person was born in the UK or Kenya are pointless.
The overwhelming majority of the difficulties facing modern society are driven by too many people on the planet.
The current voluntary reduction in reproduction, unfortunately, is only going to be a drop in the bucket. Our massive overexploitation of natural resources, coupled with largely unmitigated toxic waste generation/disposal is going to lead to birth rate reduction on an unprecedented scale.
As ecosystem disruption begins to affect agricultural output, third world population will begin to feel the effects first. Then as these effects become global economic problems, warfare will proliferate.
We'll have War, Pestilence and Famine. The big three of population reduction.
In the next 100-200 years the earth will have a human population billions less than now.
46 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 94.2 ms ] threadIf "The UK should have net migration of at least 600k/year" was on the ballot, which way would you vote?
LOL at your use of "should". I'd vote "not giving a shit about migration figures"; if it's ranked-choice, that would be sandwiched above "why is this even a vote, let people live wherever they want" and below "more safe routes for migrants, less gloating about channel drownings".
---
Hmm… I wonder if Nigel Farage's German wife has given birth lately… :thinking_face:
> I’m so glad that the term Torygraph exists
The other easy one is "Daily Heil", e.g. the 1930-1934 section of their Wikipedia page is a wild ride https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daily_Mail#1930%E2%80%931934
> Lord Rothermere was a friend of Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler, and directed the Mail's editorial stance towards them in the early 1930s.
> In an article published in Daily Mail on 24 September 1930, Rothemere wrote: "These young Germans have discovered, as I am glad to note that the young men and women of England are discovering, that is no good trusting the old politicians. Accordingly, they have formed, as I should like to see our British youth form, a parliamentary party of their own...We can do nothing to check this movement [the Nazis], and I believe it would be a blunder for the British people to take up an attitude of hostility towards it."
> Rothermere's 1933 leader "Youth Triumphant" praised the new Nazi regime's accomplishments, and was subsequently used as propaganda by them. In it, Rothermere predicted that "The minor misdeeds of individual Nazis would be submerged by the immense benefits the new regime is already bestowing upon Germany".
> Rothermere and the Mail were also editorially sympathetic to Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists. Rothermere wrote an article titled "Hurrah for the Blackshirts" published in the Daily Mail on 15 January 1934, praising Mosley for his "sound, commonsense, Conservative doctrine", and pointing out that: "Young men may join the British Union of Fascists by writing to the Headquarters, King's Road, Chelsea, London, S.W."
> In April 1934, the Daily Mail ran a competition entitled "Why I Like The Blackshirts" under which it awarded one pound every week for the best letter from its readers explaining why they liked the BUF.
> The paper editorially continued to oppose the arrival of Jewish refugees escaping Germany, describing their arrival as "a problem to which the Daily Mail has repeatedly pointed."
> In December 1934, Rothermere visited Berlin as the guest of Joachim von Ribbentrop. During his visit, Rothermere was publicly thanked in a speech by Josef Goebbels for the Daily Mails pro-German coverage of the Saarland referendum
> During the Spanish Civil War, the Daily Mail ran a photo-essay on 27 July 1936 by Ferdinand Touchy entitled "The Red Carmens, the women who burn churches"... Touchy declared his horror at the young Spanish women had rejected the traditional patriarchal system, writing with disgust that the "direct action girls" of the Worker's Militia do not want to be like their mothers, submissive and obedient to men... writing with utter horror at the possibility of these women engaging in premarital sex, which for him marked the beginning of the end of "civilisation" itself.
> George Ward Price, the special correspondent of The Daily Mail... was one of the few British journalists allowed to interview both Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler because both fascist leaders knew that Ward Price could be trusted to take a favorable tone and ask "soft" questions. Wickham Steed called Ward Price "the lackey of Mussolini, Hitler an...
And don't worry, their skin will lighten in 5 to 8 generations, and they'll be 'white' too.
Heading off the standard rebuttal many many consequential things aren't very resource intensive, like vaccines, safe food, birth control. And a lot of resource intensive things kind a suck, looking at you Mr Car in the driveway beckoning me to drive yet again into the office.
I don't think I could leave for good though, I think I have something of George Orwell's frustrated attachment to the place.
Your understanding is flawed. Cable news ( fox,cnn,etc ) is rabid, but broadcast news ( abc, nbc, cbs ) is more serious and 'professional'. Especially the nightly news.
> but their newspapers are relatively level-headed
Once again it depends. The wall street journal ( more professional ) to the ny post ( more rabid ) which oddly enough are owned by the same company controlled by the same foreigner who answer to the same elite.
The rabid-professional or the left-right dichotomy is an illusion because the media pretty much is controlled by the state/elite. They appear to be superficially different on silly cultural matters but fundamentally agree on the important stuff.
The birth rate may be dropping but net immigration has reached a record last year and population is still growing relatively rapidly (if not at record pace). I.e. no positive impact on 'overconsumption' at all.
And yet the population growth of the UK continues to rise steadily [1], where the UK needs to produce at least 300k homes per year for the next 10 years to meet demand (an impossible order). I can't see how so much construction and infrastructure is 'good for the planet'.
The only thing the UK has done is 'outsource' child births. It's like getting fuel synthesised in China and claiming your product is clean because no emissions were generated on home soil in it's creation, also forgetting it generates most of its emissions during its working life.
I don't see there is anything to be celebrated here. Sarah Harper's point about overconsumption reduction appears to be false.
[1] https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/uk-population...
Population decline is going to hurt humanity and society in wild and unpredictable ways and the planet doesn't care either way, it's a giant rock.
but from an ecologist's perspective, it's inevitable
https://phys.org/news/2023-08-critics-degrowth-economics-unw...
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22029445-000-admit-it...
Sure.
So what's your estimate on our current resource burn rate with > 8 billion people, several tens of billion tonnes of ore extraction per annum, terrawatts of energy generation causing problems with the atmosphere, etc.
We golden, or are the cracks starting to show?
The key point you're missing isn't
* whether or not the people that originally looked at resource burn rates Vs. renewals got their sums correct, but
* whether the idea that globally we're overstripping our resources is sound.
Your link agrees that this is an issue:
So, ten years on, do we have a better understanding of our sustainable usage?The arguments here of whether the person was born in the UK or Kenya are pointless.
The overwhelming majority of the difficulties facing modern society are driven by too many people on the planet.
The current voluntary reduction in reproduction, unfortunately, is only going to be a drop in the bucket. Our massive overexploitation of natural resources, coupled with largely unmitigated toxic waste generation/disposal is going to lead to birth rate reduction on an unprecedented scale.
As ecosystem disruption begins to affect agricultural output, third world population will begin to feel the effects first. Then as these effects become global economic problems, warfare will proliferate.
We'll have War, Pestilence and Famine. The big three of population reduction.
In the next 100-200 years the earth will have a human population billions less than now.