to think if the country is already 'too full up' we should probably stop having so many children?

[IceBeing]

After listening to a discussion on a bus between two women, it would seem that the country is far to stretched to take in any refugees at the moment! We are full to busting and not enough money for services for those already here.

AIBU to wonder where the concerns of these people were when they had the (apparently) six kids that were along with them?

The refugees are already alive and in need of shelter, food, medical aid etc. Our unborn need not come and add to the problem....

So, maybe a China style policy...although we could probably afford to do 2 kids per family....unless we really are full to busting as indicated.

Don't worry, I've already solved the problem as I've left the UK and I'm sure plenty more folk will leave in due course.

dads oh yes WE have civil liberties...for US. We have the rights to education etc. But we aren't willing to extend that right to people born in the wrong country....silly people...if only that had made sure they were born here! What were they thinking....

Fundamentally the right to have as many kids as you like isn't sustainable.

At some point civil liberties encounter the hard facts of living on a planet with limited resources.

The planet is finite. We cannot continue to pretend it isn't. We use MASSIVELY more than our fair share of resources in the UK. The very LEAST we could do is to have less kids and take in more of the globally displaced people.

tracy I agree...this country certainly isn't full....the only time when people think it is...is when people try and move here from hell on earth in their birth countries.

But the planet IS full. So we, like everyone else should start thinking about that.

IT isn't just how much of the land is built up...it is everything that a person consumes to stay alive.

addy that's good ... but you probably need to have no kids and possibly kill yourself as soon as you retire to earn a proper medal for saving the planet...

That figure is rot. They included things like canals and football stadiums in 'not built on' because they included what could be 'natural habitat' eg Turf. They also included places which cannot be built on such as lakes, rivers, marshes, coastline, uninhabitable countryside.

It also only includes the actual floor space of houses. So if you were going to get close to the figure some people want to indicate 'full' it would mean no gardens, no parks, no sports fields, no playgrounds, no national parks - the Peaks, dales and Highlands built over.

So what are you suggesting OP? That we house them all buy building in your back garden or over your local park?

People are loading their families into boats and trying to float into Europe.

These people are not only fleeing horrific situations, but they are being lied to and exploited by criminals. They are being fed stories of promise lands and easy lives, and they are paying huge amounts of money to get on these boats, that were never intended to reach the other side.

The problem is so much bigger than us being full, or selfish, or having too many children.

Even if the government capped the amount of children we are allowed to have, it would be a drop in the ocean. We have a population of 64mil, the USA has a population of 318mil. We are only 0.2% higher than them in terms of fertility rate. France is higher than us at 2.01, with a population of 66mil.

Why are we the ones being called upon to sort out all these problems? Are France or the US going to cap their birth rates too?

The migrants are passing through several perfectly suitable countries in order to get here. Why? Yes the language is an issue, but from what I have read, the majority believe that people here are more tolerant of them. So all these other countries are not tolerant, yet we are accused of being racist and selfish because we don't want 3000+ coming in per day? We are selfish for wanting to have children while these people are wanting to come here?

You might have a point about the world population OP, but the UK birthrate and immigration do not go together. I have no objection to us accepting asylum seekers, but I do have an issue with the large numbers of economic migrants trying to get here by criminal means.

So are you saying that you think we should have limits, or just using it as a device to show that we're not full up so should be letting more people in?

TracyBarlow we actually don't have plenty of food produced in this country. The UK imports 40% of its food. That is not plenty.

With regards to the % of land built on, the 'undeveloped' land includes the Highlands of Scotland and other such places some of which are pretty much sheer cliffs. The quoted % is ridiculous because it doesn't take account of land that it is impossible to build on. Also, of the remaining land, a large % of it is agricultural - if you decrease this, you decrease the amount of food that the UK can produce, thus decreasing our food security.

binky I mostly think that airing the idea of control of birth rate would wake people up to the idea that refugee numbers are a drop in the ocean of the UK population. To point out that it is pure selfishness that makes people try to turn away refugees and not a practical issue which people are simply hiding behind.

But I also think we need to raise awareness of the fact that having lots of children is seriously selfish and detrimental to the planet.

The refugees are majority(going by those we have seen footage of in Calais), young single men..... They have upped and left the women/children/elderly to their own devices?

slice why is it our job to do something about this? Because the UK will suffer if the climate collapses. No amount of 'well they were doing worse' will make any difference if that happens.

We will face the outcome...so it is up to us to try and prevent it.

oh yes WE have civil liberties...for US. We have the rights to education etc. But we aren't willing to extend that right to people born in the wrong country....silly people...if only that had made sure they were born here! What were they thinking....

That is very black and white thinking there OP. Its not as easy as that.

The governments of these countries are rich. There would be enough to go around so that all the citizens had a decent quality of life. But the governments are corrupt, and the money stays at the top.

So not only should those countries suffer, but now we should too? In order for those governments to continue getting rich?

I'm sorry, but no. I feel for all these people, I really do. But there is only so much we can do. We do have global responsibility, but it can only go so far.

Thanks - it is an interesting way of thinking about it.

slice but we have propped up some of these 'corrupt governments'.

Where was our lack of responsibility in global issues then?

The people living under a dictatorship likely have no say in policy and no ability to over throw it.

Why should THEY suffer and we not? We are both equally blameless?

Seeing as the average birth rate per couple is 1.7, that means for every 2 adults only 1.7 children are being born so in 30+ years time we will have a massive population of retired people but few young people to pay the national insurance needed to support the pensions and health care costs of the elderly. Any problems with over crowding and lack of funds to support our population is nothing to do with babies being born. the problem is people living longer.
As for refugees - they are not criminal's (mostly! obviously there is always the exception!) they are desperate people trying to escape war and persecution. And as for other EU immigrants, well i'm sure the majority of 'british' people has an immigrant somewhere along their family tree and we wouldn't be here without them.

I know. I know we have.

We have also torn countries apart in the name of overthrowing these dictators.

But the answer to all that is not to let the citizens come here, and lower the living standards of another country.

Or can no one be happy unless everyone is?

The people who make it to the fringes of the UK tend to be young men. The majority of people living in The Jungle in Calais are young men who will stop at nothing to get to the UK, when they are already in a safe haven which is France.

They are economic migrants rather than refugees. They come to the UK and then disappear into the black market. They may not even necessarily want to claim asylum.

Yeah, Ice because when the West gets involved with the overthrow of dodgy governments that works out so well doesn't it?

Not everything wrong with the world is our responsibility. If we let in every person from a war torn African country in we will just become an offshoot of Africa with just the same problems Africa has.

The problems in Africa aren't just because of governments either, some of them don't even have governments. A lot of the problems in Africa are just from ordinary people doing vile things to each other because it's culturally acceptable.

Where do other countries who take in large numbers of refugees actually house them?

blue yes, Should we welcome those men in? Who would be happy with that?

I think this is some thing that needs to be discussed

The question of population growth and responsibility for us all to consider worldwide have we not over doubled in world population since the Second World War

London is overcrowded those living here on record and there are many who are not is the highest number since the 30's when many were living in overcrowded slums

This is not a popular opinion on min apparently we should all just have as many children as we want but what about our children's future and their children's, natural resources, healthcare, schooling, housing is all under strain from such population growth and migration of people puts this under more strain

If the birth rate in the UK is 1.7 children.

Then again the issue is not the UK's as that is very low compared to places such as Africa.

Not everything can be blamed on the UK sometimes other countries need to step up and realise that actually it might be their fault too. Now then it comes down to if they won't change why should we (any other country) pick up the pieces.

Give a man a fish feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and feed him forever.

BinkyBix"Sorry not 7% between 2% to 3% of the Uk is built on

I'm sure I read a debunking of that stat somewhere - they hadn't included loads of stuff that any sensible person would consider 'built upon'. But it still wasn't that big a %."

Yes, I don't know exactly what percentages of land we have left available, but the 2-3% figure comes from a report into the state of the whole ecosystem - I can dig it out if anyone's interested - and includes everything within the island's borders - lakes, rivers, marshes, erosion zones, and as bakingdiva says all those areas where the land is more up and down (and very marginal for agriculture) than sideways. And we already have to import a lot of food. England alone is one of the most densely populated countries on the planet, above India and right behind Netherlands.

I have every sympathy with the Calais refugees myself, I don't particularly discriminate between asylum seekers facing immediate violence and economic migrants trying to get their kids fed. Also they do have more ties to the UK thanks to our past behaviour overseas and actually other countries take in a lot more migrants than we do. The whole issue needs looking at realistically, and probably at an EU wide level. Wish I had some solutions in my back pocket !

Macadaamia: "blue yes, Should we welcome those men in? Who would be happy with that?"

Of course not, we have borders for a reason. They are not genuine asylum seekers just chancers.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/28_06_12_uk_national_ecosystem.pdf

I think the public services being stretched is a separate issue though to be honest - they don't have to be, that is just the result of current government policy.