Longitude Prize 2014 - Objectives all wrong (in my opinion)

I agree with this bit, but isn't that what I already said?

 

I probably missed it then, if you have.

 

World population is going to balance out at 18 billion, then start falling again.

We've already passed "peak child" http://www.gapminder.org/news/world-peak-number-of-children-is-now/#.U44u4BVX-uY

and the 3rd world countries are realising that too many children mean poverty.

Most of them are opting to have fewer children.

We've got a challenging time to come, but it will sort its self out

 

Generally, a high birth rate is often associated with a high infant mortality rate. Not so many years ago right here in Britain it was not uncommon for couples to have half a dozen or more kids, partly because of social things like stigmas about contraception, or simply having nothing to do but breed, but also to some extent because I guess on some level, people knew that there was a high chance that some of the kids wouldn't make it to adulthood.

In Britain, we've mostly shaken this off now, with the average number of kids per couple standing at something like 2.1 nowadays I think, but we must remember that in other parts of the world, the advances in medicine and care that we have here, have yet to reach other parts, and even when they do, as they are starting to now in places like India and Africa, it will be at least a couple of generations before the effects catch up, so even though better care is now reaching parts of the third world, it will still take a while for people to get used to that idea. So, initially we will still see population boom, but then as the idea catches on that most of the kids will make it, and resources are limited, breeding rates will fall, as is the case here in Britain.

 

Sadly their ability to feed themselves diminishes as the west takes over more of their fertile land to grow crops for us. This article gives a brief overview..........

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/mar/07/food-water-africa-land-grab

The Nile delta is particularly sought after. As western concerns industrialise farming in this area less fertile land downstream suffers even more through a water shortage as water from the Nile is diverted to these mega-farms that pan-global concerns are building.

 

Obviously their governments dont see a problem otherwise this wouldn't be happening, they just see it a trade, plus work for the people.
Perhaps we should stop buying this produce, then we would be condemned for putting them all out of work.

 

This is why, as I mentioned earlier, the problem that needs to be tackled is not a need to increase production, but to reduce demand. There is a statistic that in Britain, the average household throws away £500 worth of unopened packaged food items. That is a lot. That is about 5 well filled trolleys, or about 6 month's worth of food. And, as I mentioned earlier, that doesn't even include food that we did use, but threw away as part of an unfinished meal because we made/served too much.

That's just the UK. I suspect it is similar in all the 'rich' nations, and I dread to think what that statistic would be in the US, where a combination of huge population and an apparent passion for everything large prevails.

If we start producing more food cost effectively, all that will happen as it stands is we (in the 'rich' nations) will simply buy more of it, as it will be even cheaper, and that means we will simply then throw more of it away, so the poorer hungry nations will not benefit from any such technological advance.

We see it in many aspects of life. Consider fuel. We're constantly told that fossil fuels are running out, so what is the standard response of governments? They tell us that they can scrape the last dregs out by fracking, with all the risks that go with it, rather than asking, can we find a way to reduce demand so that what we have got lasts longer.

When I was a kid, I remember one time cutting shapes out of a sheet of paper. Bizarrely, of all the things to remember, I vividly remember drawing a circle right in the middle of a piece of paper, and just as I was about to cut it out, my older sister explained to me that if I drew my circle right in the corner, then I'd have more paper left to cut more shapes out. Had she not shown me that, I would have cut the circle from the middle, then used a second piece of paper for the next shape, thus wasting loads of paper and running out my finite pile of paper much more rapidly. Its basic stuff.

 

At risk of sounding harsh, the fear of putting people out of work should never, in itself, be a reason not to do something.

It would create a lot of jobs if governments collectively decided to level a huge area of some ancient forest and build a new major city on it, but that doesn't mean we should do it.

 

Fossil fuels Clue?
Dont you drive a gas guzzler?

 

Yep. I'm not claiming to be some uber-riteous one. I am part of the problem, as we all are. But then, while I am driving a gas guzzler, am I using much more than average? I don't know, but I doubt it. In 4 years I've never put the central heating on at home, I buy a lot of my food from local producers thus reducing 'food miles', and in any case, according to something I read on t'interweb once, I use less fuel for my car than the average household does, so I don't know really. What I do know is that I don't care that much, and I probably should. But my view is that sooner or later none of us will have the same freedom to drive as we do now, so we might as well enjoy it while we can.

 

It's called corruption.
There is no trade as such as these are all western owned businesses.
As for work, some of the people who used to farm this land before may get jobs. I have the figures somewhere for the amount of acreage for each worker compared to the same for the UK - if it were the UK the unions would be up in arms about how much their members were expected to do.

I did several years ago. However, biofuel is out of my hands now as it is mixed into all the diesel that we buy.

Most of that is due to having use by dates on the packaging probably.

Biofuel, Which just adds to the problems.
It's high time that we gave up on all this renewable rubbish and got on with setting up a nuclear infrastucture for electricity. I don't see any risk involved in fracking, but the potential for local environmental damage is not to be taken lightly.

 

Tightass!!!!

 

4 years, Cleveland, no central heat? You have my respect, Clue-de-grâce. And you are wise to lead by example in demonstrating to your children that it's better eating to live than living to eat. The pleasures of the table are anyway more fully savoured later in life.

To reduce demand would require a philosophical awakening on an unlikely scale, a complete change of human values -- a change already impossible in the developing economies that want exactly what they saw us having, idiocies and all. Absent a global catastrophe, such philosophical evolution occurs within individuals, not populations. In the presence of a global catastophe, people are too busy surviving. Most of the world economy as it is currently structured would fall to bits if sense were being made.

 

But one that has to happen. If we're going to use the term 'awakening', consider this. If we're asleep, sooner or later we have to awaken, unless we sleep til we're dead. We live on a finite world, with finite resources, so it follows that we can't increase production infinitely.

I'm not wholly sure that's true. If it was true, surely there'd be no religions, no concept of a country or state, no fashion.

Humans have been culturally evolving forever. Consider some of the things that were once considered normal, perfectly acceptable things, but now are not. It was once 'fine' in most circles to take people as slaves and force them to work for nowt. A bit more recently it was considered ok to mock people based purely on the colour of their skin, or their accent.Over time, we realise that these things are not ok, so we 'culturally evolve' to stop doing it. It could be said that these things start with individuals, but its a bit interesting (at least I think it is) that such changes in opinion appear to happen spontaneously and simultaneously in many seemingly unconnected individuals around the same time.

I also find it interesting that every generation has their mini-revolution, usually in some way for the better. For my parents, it was the hippies. As the legend that is Austin Powers points out, they didn't get it all right, but the essence and intention was right. When I was a young man it was rave culture. The grown ups and the media thought it was all about drugs and noise but it wasn't, it was about people coming together regardless of who they were. While I'm sure it must have happened somewhere, I personally never saw a fight in a rave These things, individually, happen fairly small scale in global terms, but such things seem to pop into existence quite a lot, and quite randomly. I saw on telly a while ago that a group has randomly popped up in Germany, where 'activists' dress in what at first glance look like nazi uniforms, but on closer inspection, their logo is something innocuous (can't remember what it is), and they are actually 'fighting' (peacefully) to shake off any remaining stereotype of fascism. Apparently they chose the nazi like uniform specifically to get the maximum attention, because they figured the masses only listen to people that they find annoying

True, but if we continue to the path of trying to achieve infinite supply with finite resources, sooner or later there will be such a global catastrophe.

One of the things people tend to do when they are 'busy surviving' is to fight. If you and your children and your immediate neighbours were starving while just across the road you could see people sat in their gardens with a massive burger in one hand and a can of cold beer in the other hand, stereo blasting out, people laughing, smoking rising from the barbie, while your kids were crying with hunger and nobody was doing anything to help, would you not attempt to steal the food from over the road? And if the people in the barbie party resisted, would you not fight them for their resources? I would. I hate violence, and pride myself on having not even had a scuffle since I was a youth, and even then it was in self defence, but if I and my kids were starving and someone else had an abundance, I would fight them for it if it was a choice of that or see my kids starve.

In exactly the same way, if we continue down the route of trying to increase supply, which really means increasing supply for those that can afford it while decreasing supply for those that can't, then such conflict is inevitable. If/when that happens, it wont only be the poorest that suffer. When there is conflict in the region that something comes from, the price of that something goes up, because it costs more to protect and ship that something and of course supply drops if conflict means that raw materials aren't getting through.

 

...as many do, for the most part fairly contentedly, in some cases through multiple generations. I make that point not as a snide remark but to indicate the difficulty of bringing change to a culture quite intent upon the individual's right to do as he darn well sees fit with his own life. Freedom necessarily includes the freedom to cock up really badly and take the consequences.

These unifying concepts remain subject to individual interpretation -- another central pillar of modern life. An acquaintance of mine, for example, thinks anarchy could work as a way of life. No government, local decisions. He's a rational man who has taken time to work out his position carefully. If everyone were like him, anarchy probably would indeed be feasible. But as I once tried to tell you before we were interrupted, the open-minded habitually overestimate their own prevalence, and so do the rational. Lots of people will respond positively to a good, timely idea. The realisation of the idea will, however, be full of surprises for most of its proponents. Not all unpleasant surprises, of course -- but still, not quite what we bargained for. Look what happened to communism.

Theft wouldn't be my first approach. Nor, I'd wager, would it be yours.

We need desirable alternatives to consumption.