It is well recognised in government and environmentalist circles that the maximum carrying capacity of the Earth is around 10 billion people. We can transiently exceed this total and may be able to expand it slightly but any disturbance such as climate change or war will lead to a fall in carrying capacity to below the maximum. The current population of the world is just over 7 billion and it may reach 10 billion by 2040.
There is no doubt that carrying capacity can be varied as a result of technology and it has risen from perhaps 5 billion a century ago to 10 billion today. This is why the less aware cheerfully state that "Malthus was wrong". However, the current population is within 70% of the current carrying capacity. The people of the world are currently in a precarious position.
Overpopulation leads to apparent paradoxes, for instance, in Sub-Saharan Africa the proportion of people who are undernourished has fallen from around 33% in 1990 to 23% in 2014 but the absolute number of people who are undernourished has risen by 45 million because there are so many more people in total. The countries of Sub-Saharan Africa are richer, so have better transport infrastructure and availability of transport but they also have more people who need to escape. Furthermore, if you live in Sub Saharan Africa and are poor you can see that becoming poorer is not just unpleasant but catastrophic for you and your family so you will also want to escape.
So what has prompted the rush to escape in the past 5 years beyond the steady push of ordinary poverty? The people of the world are currently in a precarious position. Any war or crop failure can cause the carrying capacity of their region or country to be exceeded and the people can now flee. Eritrea is an example of crop failure:
Nigeria is an example of war causing dislocation.
Prior to the development of easy transport out of disaster zones it was possible to provide aid to some of the people within the zones so that they stayed put. This is now not the case and any disaster, even minor setbacks, will produce a migration of populations, and, in a world that is near to carrying capacity, these events may occur globally.
Is Europe a sensible destination for the refugees from famine, economic collapse and war? No. Europe is a ridiculous destination. Europe is well past its carrying capacity and survives by buying food from Africans who can only spare it because they are capable of ignoring the poor and malnourished. Expanding the population of Europe to save Africans is just stoking the chaos. Absorbing the refugees in Europe is, even now, an immoral decision. Should climate change or a war that affects Europe occur then Europe itself will be afflicted by famine because it is already past its carrying capacity.
Any population density map of the world shows where the people from disaster areas might migrate:
The Americas, Australasia, Africa and Russia are the only places left. Ironically, Africa is one of the places that can accommodate millions..
This raises other issues. If one country has implemented education and family planning programmes so that it can support its population is it then morally obliged to take vast numbers of people from another country that has failed to manage its affairs? Is a country that has provided a surplus of employment for its people morally obliged to take labour from badly managed countries? Obviously in both cases all of the benefit of good management will be reduced and it might seem pointless to strive in the first place. Why should a Nation exhort its population to strive for good conditions, such as the space that comes from controlling population growth, if there are no borders to protect their achievement?
Of course, the EU can end the migration immediately by simply ferrying all migrants back to Africa after rescuing them. When this was done by the Italians the migration almost ceased and did not restart until, the EU appointed, Mario Monti came to power. But this does not address the debate within Europe about whether or not the migrants should be granted entry.
Recently there has been an attempt to re-badge the migrants as "refugees", this sounds like a good idea but large refugee camps in the EU cannot be the answer.
Some people might dream of making the whole world like Europe or Russia. Hitler and Stalin are examples of such dreamers. A borderless world, like a single empire, an homogenized world achieved by agreement between statesmen. Is this a good idea? No-one has a monopoly on the right way of life, even if other ways of life appear to lead to an early death, and to be fooled by evangelists into believing that they have all the answers is the mistake of children and school teachers. Homogenising the world so that people can move anywhere is a mistake. Without countries like Eritrea to remind us of the wonders of Socialism children might start to believe once again that Marx and Lenin had all the answers and without a diversity of countries the idiots could sink us all. Without countries like the USA, outside of a global empire, there will be no rescue from tyranny.
11/6/15
There is no doubt that carrying capacity can be varied as a result of technology and it has risen from perhaps 5 billion a century ago to 10 billion today. This is why the less aware cheerfully state that "Malthus was wrong". However, the current population is within 70% of the current carrying capacity. The people of the world are currently in a precarious position.
Overpopulation leads to apparent paradoxes, for instance, in Sub-Saharan Africa the proportion of people who are undernourished has fallen from around 33% in 1990 to 23% in 2014 but the absolute number of people who are undernourished has risen by 45 million because there are so many more people in total. The countries of Sub-Saharan Africa are richer, so have better transport infrastructure and availability of transport but they also have more people who need to escape. Furthermore, if you live in Sub Saharan Africa and are poor you can see that becoming poorer is not just unpleasant but catastrophic for you and your family so you will also want to escape.
So what has prompted the rush to escape in the past 5 years beyond the steady push of ordinary poverty? The people of the world are currently in a precarious position. Any war or crop failure can cause the carrying capacity of their region or country to be exceeded and the people can now flee. Eritrea is an example of crop failure:
 |
| Eritrea crop production per capita (World Bank Data) |
Nigeria is an example of war causing dislocation.
Prior to the development of easy transport out of disaster zones it was possible to provide aid to some of the people within the zones so that they stayed put. This is now not the case and any disaster, even minor setbacks, will produce a migration of populations, and, in a world that is near to carrying capacity, these events may occur globally.
Is Europe a sensible destination for the refugees from famine, economic collapse and war? No. Europe is a ridiculous destination. Europe is well past its carrying capacity and survives by buying food from Africans who can only spare it because they are capable of ignoring the poor and malnourished. Expanding the population of Europe to save Africans is just stoking the chaos. Absorbing the refugees in Europe is, even now, an immoral decision. Should climate change or a war that affects Europe occur then Europe itself will be afflicted by famine because it is already past its carrying capacity.
Any population density map of the world shows where the people from disaster areas might migrate:
The Americas, Australasia, Africa and Russia are the only places left. Ironically, Africa is one of the places that can accommodate millions..
This raises other issues. If one country has implemented education and family planning programmes so that it can support its population is it then morally obliged to take vast numbers of people from another country that has failed to manage its affairs? Is a country that has provided a surplus of employment for its people morally obliged to take labour from badly managed countries? Obviously in both cases all of the benefit of good management will be reduced and it might seem pointless to strive in the first place. Why should a Nation exhort its population to strive for good conditions, such as the space that comes from controlling population growth, if there are no borders to protect their achievement?
Of course, the EU can end the migration immediately by simply ferrying all migrants back to Africa after rescuing them. When this was done by the Italians the migration almost ceased and did not restart until, the EU appointed, Mario Monti came to power. But this does not address the debate within Europe about whether or not the migrants should be granted entry.
Recently there has been an attempt to re-badge the migrants as "refugees", this sounds like a good idea but large refugee camps in the EU cannot be the answer.
Some people might dream of making the whole world like Europe or Russia. Hitler and Stalin are examples of such dreamers. A borderless world, like a single empire, an homogenized world achieved by agreement between statesmen. Is this a good idea? No-one has a monopoly on the right way of life, even if other ways of life appear to lead to an early death, and to be fooled by evangelists into believing that they have all the answers is the mistake of children and school teachers. Homogenising the world so that people can move anywhere is a mistake. Without countries like Eritrea to remind us of the wonders of Socialism children might start to believe once again that Marx and Lenin had all the answers and without a diversity of countries the idiots could sink us all. Without countries like the USA, outside of a global empire, there will be no rescue from tyranny.
11/6/15
Comments