To think, without upsetting anybody, we are massively overpopulated on this tiny Island??? What sensible non punitive solutions are there??

[PasstheBucket89]

Its pretty relevant with all the talk about migrant boats, priti patel saying she will make the passage unviable etc she has done some awful things, it makes my blood run cold tbh i doubt she cares about the safety of them in that boats. But, what di we do, and when suggestions are made its often motivated by hate not quality of life issues. And yes, the ageing massively adds to the overpopulation aswell, but what should we do? reasonably? this tiny Island is massively overpopulated, it doesn't benefit anyone to be crammed in like sardines like this, massively effects access to housing, healthcare, education etc, What should the gov do, not adding to the hostile environment??.

@Stressing

The debate keeps veering away from population and back to allocation of resources. This isn't the point. Yes we could house and feed far more people but not under the current capitalist system we currently have. It's not good for anyone if more and more people are added to the desirable, yet wholly unsustainable way of life that is modern day western civilisation. Whether or not it's morally right that the UK takes more migrants (and I stress migrants NOT refugees as of course we do have an obligation to take the latter) is besides the point. We can't if we want to create the sustainable, self sufficient country we need to sustain life.

We've run out of land. And yes we could ban second home ownership and ensure all UK housing is actually lived in, but that still doesn't solve the issue. No amount of building affordable homes is going to solve this, quite the opposite, it'll add to it because the only way out is to start respecting the planet and living with nature not against it.

We need to free up quality agricultural land for organic farming and maintain wild green spaces for absorbing carbon emissions, reducing global warming and to provide civilians with the natural environment they need for their health and well being, including fresh air and water, which at the moment we don't have, or have in dwindling supply.

Changing the way we live just so we can cram more people in because it's perceived to be the right thing to do doesn't solve the problem. All that will happen is that the native population and the immigrant population will go down with a sinking ship. Whereas much of the immigrant population will presumably have another home to go to and dual nationality to take advantage of, much of the native population won't, so that's one privilege the natives are missing out on; the privilege of abandoning the sinking ship when the time comes.

Sure, we need to take away from the people who have too much,
The gross and disproportionate amount of wealth distribution is a travesty in the UK. But we also need to reduce the population, give back the land, go back to a simpler, more holistic way of living that will involve a great deal of doing without, and leave it there.

Then we can look at how to incorporate more migrants into this new, sustainable environment under a fair, sustainable and ethical process that benefits all. It's the only way out.

I think this is fair, though many simplistic people would call it racist.

(For the record, I'm a descendant of various forms of economic migrants, and have no issue whatsoever with migrants that can be sustained - I also have a research background in race relations and post-racial conflict resolution/genocide, and populations under resource stress are NOT a good environment for race relations - shock!)

It's very easy to imagine a more sensible world. Home working and local work hubs reducing the need to travel. Reduced working hours and stress resulting in better work-life balance. Reconnecting with local communities and services. More UK based travel. Travel abroad using more environmentally friendly methods because you have more time - I would love to travel 'slowly' stopping off in a few countries, but planes are 'necessary' to facilitate fast travel.

Getting there is far harder. The practical thing would be to hit a pause button, agree some national objectives for reducing the population in a way that's comfortable, upskilling training and education in this country and distributing resources. The current situation is the worst of both worlds - facilitating and accepting the arrival of immigrants whilst simultaneously fostering an unfriendly social environment and failing to address the systemic problems.

(But this brings us back to my 'humans are twats' point... which I admit may have come from my extensive studies of the very worst things humans can do to each other.)

Yes we could house and feed far more people but not under the current capitalist system we currently have

No we couldn’t. I’m not sure how many more we can feed and house, but there are geographic and environmental limits and we are fast approaching them.

I don’t know why British people find it really hard to conceive of hard practical limitations!

A pp mentioned the water shortages the SE is experiencing - per capita there is less water there than in parts of the Sahara. Just to cheer everyone up, improvements in crop yields are tailing off, and the nutritional content of food grown here is falling. Soils around the world are becoming exhausted. We’re lucky that the UK is so forgiving and regenerative, but there are still limits. This may be why the seas are such a sticking point in our Brexit negotiations despite our complete lack of anything approaching a sufficient fishing industry.

I decided to stop being lazy and that it was not too hot to do some googling a few days ago and came across this report that may interest some. One would hope that the parts on transport are now out of date, but for some reason I’m doubtful.

publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201719/ldselect/ldeucom/129/129.pdf “Brexit: food prices and availability”

There is no completely 'unracist' way of approaching the issue because native populations should always be prioritised over foreign born nationals. If all countries looked after their own citizens then there would be less reason for economic migration. Charity begins at home. It sounds insular and self centred but if every government looked after its citizens then there wouldn't be the need for mass migration in the first place. In fact most of the world's problems are caused by countries not looking after their citizens. And the UK's government is failing in this, by prioritising GDP and its economy over quality of life and thus ignoring the basic needs of its population.

pepper I'm not recommending that its something we should be aspiring to but practically speaking we could have more people if we literally made everyone farm the land, live in shoeboxes and filter rainwater to drink. It would mean overturning all our infrastructure over to nature and everyone living like medieval peasants, but it could be done. I am in total agreement that we are maxed out and taking preventative measures to curb the population so we can properly sustain ourselves is the only answer.

Very well put @Stressing the whole 'British people won't do these jobs" was an insidious way of encouraging slave wages & Labour,, its made it so its really difficult to have a' grown up' conversation about it without screeching.

Lol at all the posts saying how small a percentage of the UK is urbanised. Because of course the logical response to overcrowding in urban areas is to build on farmland & forests. It's not as if they're useful for anything.

Yes we could house and feed far more people but not under the current capitalist system we currently have

No we couldn’t. I’m not sure how many more we can feed and house, but there are geographic and environmental limits and we are fast approaching them.

There was a paper years ago that looked at Kenneth Mellanby's book called Can Britain Feed Itself? and expanded on its workings for a variety of agricultural systems. I can't remember the exact figures but the results showed that under certain systems Britain could support a population of way over 100 million people. But the whole being able to feed ourselves arguement is a red herring. As I've said in a pp modern agriculture relies heavily on phosphate fertilisers, which have to be imported, unless you're one of the 25(ish) countries with a commercially viable deposit. Whether the UK importing the fertiliser, the machinary or fuel needed to process food or the people to work the land is irrelevant as we'll still not be self sufficient.

I don’t think moving back to self sustaining populations in the UK would be the best answer at this point although I agree with the rest of what you are saying. You would lose all the gains of specialist economies - all the economies of scale, as well as the greater achievements.

The most annoying thing about the issues we're facing now is that they've been known about for years. It's just the previous generation couldn't be arsed tackling them. We now have an aging population and a declining birth rate. Remove immigration and we'll collapse, simple as that. If we continue as we are we will just continue to increase the population and will be kicking the actual problem further down the road (and I'm not sure there's much road left).

If we stop migration, or reduce it, we risk not having enough workers to support the economy. We'd also need to consider things like forcing people into care or agricultural jobs (I'm sure there are certain sections of society who would love this. At least until it meant little Jacob couldn't be a lawyer and had to go work in the fields) but this still wouldn't solve the too small a workforce to support the economy issue, so it's not a viable alternative really. You can't stimulate the bottom of the population pyramid by increasing birth rates and we won't trim the top of the pyramid, at least overtly.

The only real alternative I can see is to immediately, and retrospectively, increase the retirement and pension age to 75 (no exceptions) and then limit migration to the areas of need. This will increase the workforce by around 5.5 million, reduce the state pension bill by £50+ billion and potentially covertly trim the top of the pyramid. Although knowing the previous generation that's as likely to happen as Trump admiting he's wrong on something.

Tl:dr - we're fucked.

Thank you Stressing you make some very valid points

We actually aren't it's a falicy. We have a larger amount of land given to golf courses as we do to housing

We could provide some affordable housing and subsidised childcare for the already here population and maybe the birth rate would increase especially for families who are working.

maddy68, those figures for golf courses are probably erroneous
www.ft.com/content/79772697-54e4-32c9-96d7-5c1110270eb2

And much of the land used for golf courses probably couldn't be built on and is no use for agriculture - many of Scotland's courses are links courses, on coastal margins.

However, I'd agree that we could probably build more houses - just not adding to the huge urban conurbations we already have, and not 5 and 6 bedroom executive homes,' mcmansions', but well built affordable homes for families, with gardens and space around them and good soundproofing, and well built, affordable 2 bedroom homes for retirees and singles/couples.

@maddy68

We actually aren't it's a falicy. We have a larger amount of land given to golf courses as we do to housing

Even if that statistic is true, it's utterly meaningless.

Now I think golf is dull as a bag of rocks, but the purpose of a country isn't to provide a soulless vehicle of existence for as many humans as possible. Those humans need feeding, education and care first, but leisure is not unimportant. Quality of life over quantity of life any day.

For all I know, we might have the perfect golf course to human habitation to farmland ratio.

And as leisure pursuits go, although golf courses aren't fantastic wildlife habitats, they're at least green space for an outdoor pursuit.

Also green spaces stop flooding unlike concrete housing developments

Yes we are overpopulated IMO. There are people who profess to care about the environment yet in the same breath, have no qualms about this government’s plans to build thousands of houses on swathes of beautiful open countryside. It’s such a bizarre contradiction

And quality of life is also a factor. Yes we could increase our population by 20, 50, 100 million and build over every single bit of countryside to accommodate it. But it would be a highly unpleasant place to live.

This has been a great thread. Loads of info and a good debate without anyone losing their shit over this remark or that.

Glad you feel that way @Stressing, I feel a bit dissapointed that @Arthersleep didn't reply to my questions, I thought with their level of knowledge in the field they would be able to answer them quite easily or at least suggest suitable links, have looked online and can only find companies designed to help developers reduce the onerous obligations.

Perhaps they still will come back to you frumperty

Im glad Stressing that was my aim.

Funny how no migrant boats in news since they announced the recession. Almost as if it wasn't really about few refugees on inflatable boats, but rather that they wanted to distract the people for few days🤔

Now the hard times come and people will lose jobs it will be because of that "damned forriners on the boats"...

Interesting idea Schrodingers news.sky.com/story/channel-migrants-brought-ashore-in-uk-for-unprecedented-10th-day-in-a-row-12048280 "Kent County Council has said it could be just "days away" from being unable to look after more children seeking asylum after making it to England."

@diplodocusinermine where will we build all the houses? In villages? Ruining the places where people have chosen to live? If people wanted to live in a built up area they would have chosen a town/city In the first place. I may be NIMBY but that’s my opinion.

Alaska, yes, in villages and hamlets and small towns - say we increase the size (or rather the number of houses) of every hamlet, village, town of less than 30,000 by 2% and not stupid executive homes but normal sized houses, bungalows, flats (and not tower blocks but small blocks of 4-6 flats with outdoor space.

A hamlet would probably have 1 or 2 extra houses, my town probably 30 to 50, and not on estates but dotted around the town. There's plenty of land available without building on green spaces or cramming 50 substandard new houses on a small parcel of land with no increase in infrastructure to deal with the traffic etc.

Our high street is pretty much dead. Why not convert shops into dwellings?

People need homes, and they need the homes to be built so that the residents have a decent quality of life.

We also need to stop the heart being ripped out of places like Cornwall and the Highlands where most properties are second/holiday homes. It is ruining these places.