Dear Alastair,
It is essentially happening that way already. China has shown that
growth rates of 10 to 15 percent are possible. Such growth rates are
impossible for the developed world which typically has growth rates of
1 to 4 percent at most – with a stable target of about 1 to 3
percent. There are very basic economic and development dynamics in
play. China shows what is needed to achieve high growth rates in the
developing world – stable and minimally economically rational
governance. There is no problem with this. There would be a problem
with long term negative growth in the developed world but that is not
something that the west would agree to.
The population dynamics are interesting. At the end of the century
Europe will shrink from 12 to 6 percent of global population. Africa
will swell to 25 percent. If this is the century of India and China
then I believe that next century will be Africa’s. But this implies
that economics is a zero sum game when it is not. The current GFC
shows the economic resilience (to human foolishness) that having
multiple global foci of wealth and development brings.
I certainly believe in sustainable systems – I have been working for
more than 20 years on sewage effluent recycling (it’s a shit job but
someone has to do it), water quality, urban stormwater, etc. I also
know that there is much ecological restoration that is required. We
are very bad at it in even in developed Australia because all of the
legislation focuses entirely on managing development – which could
largely manage itself - while other and much more damaging processes
proceed unchecked. Even land clearing legislation has ecological
costs because Australia is a land adapted to the fire farming
practices of the indigenous population. Land clearing controls are
the only way we can meet the Kyoto commitment – so we are swapping one
set of problems for another. If I may be permitted to quote
myself.
The Australian Terrestrial Biodiversity Assessment found that riparian
zones are declining over 73% of Australia. There has been a massive
decline in the ranges of indigenous mammals over more than 100 years.
In the past 200 years, 22 Australian mammals have become extinct – a
third of the world’s recent extinctions. Further decline in ranges is
still occurring and is likely to result in more extinctions. Mammals
are declining in 174 of 384 subregions in Australia and rapidly
declining in 20. The threats to vascular plants are increasing over
much of the Australia. Threatened birds are declining across 45% of
the country with extinctions in arid parts of Western Australia.
Reptiles are declining across 30% of the country. Threatened
amphibians are in decline in southeastern Australia and are rapidly
declining in the South East Queensland, Brigalow Belt South and Wet
Tropics bioregions.
Our rivers are still carrying huge excesses of sand and mud. The mud
washes out onto coastlines destroying seagrass and corals. The sand
chokes up pools and riffles and fills billabongs putting intense
pressure on inland, aquatic ecologies. In 1992, the Mary River in
south east Queensland flooded carrying millions of tonnes of mud into
Hervey Bay. A thousand square kilometres of seagrass died off
decimating dugongs, turtles and fisheries.
The seagrass has grown back but the problems of the Mary River have
not been fixed. The banks have not been stabilised and the seagrass
could be lost again at any time. A huge excess of sand working its way
down the river is driving to extinction the Mary River cod and the
Mary River turtle. The situation in the Mary River is mirrored in
catchments right across the country. Nationally, 50% of our seagrasses
have been lost and it has been this way for at least twenty years.
It is well known what the problems are. The causes of the declines in
biodiversity are land clearing, land salinisation, land degradation,
habitat fragmentation, overgrazing, exotic weeds, feral animals,
rivers that have been pushed past their points of equilibrium and
changed fire regimes. The individual solutions are often fairly simple
and only in aggregate do they become daunting. One of the problems is
that the issues are reviewed at a distance. Looking at issues from a
National or State perspective is too complex. Even if problems are
identified broadly, it is difficult to establish local priorities.
Looking at issues from a distance means that a focus on the immediate
and fundamental causes of problems is lost. There are rafts of
administration, reports, computer models, guidelines and plans but the
only on ground restoration and conservation is done by volunteers and
farmers. Volunteers are valiantly struggling but it is too little too
late. Farmers tend to look at their own properties, understandably,
and not at integrated landscape function.
There are ways forward. The UN has estimated that it would cost $40
billion a year to supply the very poorest with safe water and
sewerage, food security and basic health care and education. A
trivial amount in the scheme of things. There are ways to do these
things and sequester carbon for not much more.
Cheers
Robert
On Jan 12, 7:16 am, Alastair <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Jan 11, 1:14 am, Robbo <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > These projections are of course sensitive to actual replacement rates
> > but it is true that lower fertility rates result from the sort of
> > social factors mentioned by Al Gore. Economic development is
> > essential to a continuing decline in fertility - which makes attempts
> > to lower global economic growth not only potentially genocidal but
> > self defeating.
>
> Obviously it is those areas of the world where population is rising
> faster where the growth should occur. Regions where populations have
> stabilized have no need of growth, and should use a smaller share of
> global resouces in order to enable the poorer countries to have that
> growth.
>
> Don't you agree?
>
> Cheers, Alastair.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated
venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of
global environmental change.
Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the
submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not
gratuitously rude.
To post to this group, send email to [email protected]
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
[email protected]
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange
