It is very difficult to
dramatically reduce greenhouse gases and to lessen the chances of global
warming when the world’s population remains on such an upward trend.
Additionally there is the problem of increased standards of living all over the
world. That compounds the use of resources and the production of carbon, writes
Stephen Dobson, Managing Director of Ramtec, Australia’s first rammed earth
building company in Perth, Western Australia, and an advocate of a sustainable
population policy in ine with that launched by Dick Smith in Australia.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon launched
the 7 Billion Actions campaign in by saying, “The seven billionth citizen will
be born into a world of contradictions. We have plenty of food yet millions are
still starving. We see luxurious lifestyles yet millions are impoverished. We
have great opportunities for progress but also great obstacles.”   UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund,
is an international development agency that promotes the right of every woman,
man and child to enjoy a life of health and equal opportunity. www.7billionactions.org

National Geographic says: Population
is a complicated topic. With the worldwide population slated to top 7 billion
in 2011, we decided it was one we needed to tackle. But we wanted to do it in a
way that gives readers room to think. We spread out our coverage over a year,
with articles that take deep dives into specific issues—demographics, food
security, climate change, fertility trends, managing biodiversity—that relate
to global population. www.ngm.nationalgeographic.com/7-billion

UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, is an
international development agency that promotes the right of every woman, man
and child to enjoy a life of health and equal opportunity. UNFPA supports
countries in using population data for policies and programmes to reduce
poverty and to ensure that every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe,
every young person is free of HIV, and every girl and woman is treated with
dignity and respect. Source: www.unfpa.org

Contribution from Stephen Dobson.

Here are my further thoughts on the
world population issue:

I genuinely believe that your
newsletter is very informative and doing a lot of good but the issue of world
overpopulation is bigger than ALL of the matters mentioned in your newsletter.  Overpopulation is so very connected to global
warming.

It is VERY difficult to
dramatically reduce greenhouse gases and to lessen the chances of global
warming when the world’s population remains on such an upward trend.
Additionally there is the problem of increased standards of living all over the
world. That compounds the use of resources and the production of carbon.

It is unreasonable to deny anyone
in any country a lower standard of living but I consider it VERY reasonable for
countries to control their populations.

This is best done by education
and empowerment of women. Some of the VERY developed economies have stable or
falling populations eg Japan.

The massive increases in
population are in the poorer and less educated countries eg. India, Africa,
Philippines where due largely to the influence of Roman Catholicism, women are
not permitted to use birth control techniques (to limit the numbers of their
children) and the population is increasing dramatically and poverty is
expanding massively.

More generally:

The world’s population reaches 7
billion in 2011.

The general scientific opinion is
that the sustainable level of population with a European standard of living for
all is about 2 million.

There are some who argue strongly
that for true sustainability and not depleting the worlds resources then the
world can carry a population of only 100 million people.

Australia has been inhabited by
the Australian Aboriginals and they have the world’s longest surviving culture.
They have lived for some 30,000 or more years in a truly sustainable way. Their
population was very low.

In Perth, a city now of over 1
million, it supported less than a few hundred aboriginals in a truly
sustainable way. Perth has all the problems of overpopulation.

Pretty well all of the world’s
problems and issues are made worse by or caused totally by overpopulation.

Problems of overpopulation :

1. Food shortage

2.Water shortage.

Well water levels falling and
turning to salt worldwide.

Perth and Melbourne and more
Australian cities are now getting more and more of their water via seawater
desalination. This is a trend worldwide. Such plants produce good drinkable
fresh water but use massive amounts of energy.

So Australia has now run out of
natural water (in the attractive populated areas) and is moving to man-made
water via desalination. When energy prices rise, water prices must too.

3. Species extinction

4. Over-use of fossil fuels.

5. Over clearing of rainforests
and other land areas.

6. Working the land hard to
produce the needed food, leading to land degredation.

7. Arable land being used for
housing in the endless quest to build houses for all.

8. Over production of carbon,
CO2, greenhouse gases etc

It is interesting that there is
no talk of global population levels at Copenhagen or at the summits on Global
warming.

It is wrong that if humans have
produced this climate change then why can we not talk about the numbers of
humans. Why are all the leaders so fixed in avoiding the subject of
overpopulation? They seem to accept that there is no chance to slow or limit
population growth, but that is not true.

Many leaders seem to believe that
the carrying capacity of the world is infinite. It isn’t. It needs discussion.

It is so basic that massive
increases in population make CO2 reductions so much harder.

Why cannot the “elephant in
the room” of climate change be discussed?

Ramtec’s Managing Director,
Stephen Dobson.

Ramtec was formed as Australia’s
first rammed earth building company in Perth, Western Australia, in 1979 to not
only promote the art and science of building in rammed earth but to get out
there and design, engineer and build it cost-effectively. To bring rammed earth
from the status of a “forgotten art”, no longer practised in
Australia, into the mainstream of the building industry. Ramtec rammed earth is
now a modern, structural, load bearing, durable, waterproof, beautiful,
artistic, breathing, green, cost-effective, environmentally-sound building
material. It is widely used and respected.

Source: www.ramtec.com.au