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??.

[Pepperwort]

(I'm beginning to idly wonder if instead of universal basic income, we should have universal basic housing - home security with water and basic heating would be provided then the rest is up to you... but I haven't thought it through much yet)

And food. I keep thinking that we need to look much more directly at resources than the financial representation of them now. The financial representation is a) bonkers b) opaque c) broken.

Flatpackback I wondered about that from the start too. The general opinion at the time was that we didn't need to be so self-centred and egotistical in the UK, and they would much rather find homes elsewhere in Asia.

[thecatsthecats]

@Pepperwort

(I'm beginning to idly wonder if instead of universal basic income, we should have universal basic housing - home security with water and basic heating would be provided then the rest is up to you... but I haven't thought it through much yet)

And food. I keep thinking that we need to look much more directly at resources than the financial representation of them now. The financial representation is a) bonkers b) opaque c) broken.

Flatpackback I wondered about that from the start too. The general opinion at the time was that we didn't need to be so self-centred and egotistical in the UK, and they would much rather find homes elsewhere in Asia.

Yes, well, this is why I didn't want to go too far.

I actually tried to design a system when I was 10 where everyone had enough food and water etc (I mean, I was a ten year old girl, so I also reckoned that everyone needed a pony), but I realised it didn't really work when it came to arts and culture etc.

My reason for sticking to housing is vaguely pulling together a lot of different sociological and psychological theories, which broadly suggest that:

a) Insecure housing is behind the worst social and personal ills. We're innately wired to go out and obtain food, but not having a secure base to return to is fundamentally disturbing to us as a species.
b) There are immense benefits not just from having food, but from obtaining it ourselves, or by working to get money for it.

So my nebulous idea is that everyone is entitled to a home, with sufficient energy to heat it, and free water supply. But possessions and food are something you have to earn because the process of earning them is something that benefits you personally.

I agree that the financial representation of essential resources is bonkers, but I don't think you can sever the link entirely. I'm yet to be convinced about Universal Basic Income because:

a) There aren't any long term studies about what it does to society as a whole.
b) I don't think it can be leveraged to create equality in an unequal society, and I'm not aware of any trials in societies as unequal as ours. Those on UBI would have the means of surviving, but in this country would be limited to the poorest areas, sharpening the divide in inequality between rich and poor, as being 'UBI' would be undesrible.

Hence my thinking around targeting the worst form of poverty psychologically and sociologically - which IMO is housing.

(which all links back to the very old idea that wood, water and stone should be free to all, and you can't own them - housing, water and heating!)

[Spaceprincess]

So are the problems with roads, trains, NHS and schools because of "overpopulation " or under investment in public resources...

[Ces6]

Italy and South Korea have smaller population sizes than us, with their land mass, how have we allowed this to bloody happen

A lot of Italy is really crowded though. If you just look at landmass and population size that doesn't give you the whole story - you can't live on rocky mountainsides.

[CHIRIBAYA]

It is not the poorest people in the world who are responsible for making everyone else poor. There is one individual on this planet whose net worth is now more than nearly every country in an ENTIRE continent. Instead of scrutinizing a system that allows such grotesque accumulation of wealth, focus is instead deflected onto those who have NOTHING. We reserve our hatred, our wrath and our fear for those who are already on the receiving end of the worst kind of economic, social and environmental crap that our global systems can dump on them. We begrudge them opportunities, hopes, a fair stab at building a future - ie the sorts of things that ALL OF US would want for ourselves and our families. The elites are bloody good at what they do, turning us on each other. Maybe Brexit is a good thing afterall. Give it ten years, when people who felt forgotten and left behind still feel forgotten and left behind they might be able to work out why. Climate destruction refugees? That could be us in 50 years time, or our children, knocking on someone's door to let us in. Wonder where we will be made to feel welcome? Or where we deserve to feel welcome? It will be a short list I think.

[Pepperwort]

Speaking as a female not interested in doing what every passing male tells me to, I’m not welcome anywhere. There is no way I would attempt to migrate into the kind of different cultures which hate women, and it’s true I don’t like those cultures, which hate me even more than my own does, coming here. I agree about the appalling distribution and control of resources, but that control - some of it a necessary part of building a specialised economy - does not stop geographical and environmental limits being reached here. Premise a and b being correct do not mean premise c can’t be correct as well.

thecats good point about food. It’s the capability to earn a living that we need, and it’s that very capability that is being taken away by the richest for those of us here.

[feistyoneyouare]

I stayed in a city in the Midlands overnight for a funeral of a relative, and honestly it looked like Chernobyl. Sorry now but it was not one bit pleasant TBH.

That's not even a remotely constructive comment, seeing as you don't explain in what way you thought it was 'like Chernobyl'.

[Flatpackback]

I stayed in a city in the Midlands overnight for a funeral of a relative, and honestly it looked like Chernobyl. Sorry now but it was not one bit pleasant TBH.

What on earth is this supposed to mean ? Explanation needed please.

[PasstheBucket89]

It simply isn't true that Rural areas haven't faced over population and strain on public services and it just cities.

[woodhill]

It's the lack of affordable housing and everyone competing for it. You don't need anymore competitors

[Aesopfable]

honestly it looked like Chernobyl.

Deserted and full of wildlife?

[xtinak]

The figures here might not be right but this is an interesting way to think about it:

"Moving on to the UK, we currently have a total agricultural land area of 17.3 million hectares, and the average UK biocapacity is 5.6 hectares per person. So, if we’re to look at the UK as a completely self-sustainable country producing all our own food - with the limitations that brings - in order to maintain our current standard of living, the population would need to reduce from its current size of 66 million, to around 11.8 million people, or an 82% reduction."

[Pepperwort]

xtinak I do think along those lines, but, no offence intended, those figures can’t be right, for two reasons. Firstly that 11.8 million is close to the estimated upper limit of the population in medieval times, and crop yields have gone up since then. Actually perhaps that’s where the figures come from. Secondly, probably more to the point, we’re currently feeding half the population, which is 30 - 34 million or so. I stuck a link up to a parliamentary info paper a few pages ago.

I do not know the carrying capacity of the island. A belt-and-braces guesstimate would be perhaps up to 50 million in an emergency? Based on what we currently export and the number we currently feed.

[xtinak]

Pepperwort No offence taken, no worries. It's clearly a very complicated picture and your 50 million estimate sounds believable to me. I would like to think some government department is working on this, and factoring in the likely changing climate over the next century, in order to make plans and contingencies...but then look at the pandemic department.

So suppose the carrying capacity is 50 million. I suggest that means that having a lot more people means we are unfairly and perhaps unsustainably drawing on the resources of others. But then I don't know what a humane and ethical approach to land and population management would look like if that were the case. It's not easy.

I worry that we may all be brutally brought back to living within planetary boundaries over the next century and if only we could d preempt this to avert some of the suffering. I will be accused of being Malthusian. I'm certainly no techno-optimistic. But I think it's better to be honest than pretend that if we are just kind then somehow everything else will take care of itself, like some sort of loaves and fishes parable. I don't think that is how nature works, sadly.

[Pepperwort]

Googling again it seems that there was a big surge of interest in these kind of issues - demographic and resource limits - round about the 2000s and particularly 2008. There were government reports, reports in media, reports from special interest groups like the Soil Association in those years. Probably triggered by the increase in immigration. There was even a promise in 2008 that the then-government would not let the population go above 70 million.

We’re nearly there now and leaving the EU was not on the drawing board back then. Now I get called an ‘eco fascist bullshitter’ for raising the same issues. I do not know what the hell has happened to this country since just 2008. Rationality has gone out of the window in favour of self-righteous ideologies.

[Pepperwort]

Unfortunately we are now out of easy solutions. The window for them has long since passed. I agree with your approach of honesty and doing the best we can xtinak. It does not help when you can’t get past the baseline of people preferring their cosy little belief systems and social niceties!

[GrumpyHoonMain]

We aren’t overpopulated. The problem is that most of our resources are skewed to the South East or around cities and so people naturally want to live there. We need to balance things out and improve infrastructure such as roads and wifi and embrace work from home / flexible working so living 50miles from Inverness can be just as economically viable as living in Surrey.

[thecatsthecats]

@Pepperwort

Googling again it seems that there was a big surge of interest in these kind of issues - demographic and resource limits - round about the 2000s and particularly 2008. There were government reports, reports in media, reports from special interest groups like the Soil Association in those years. Probably triggered by the increase in immigration. There was even a promise in 2008 that the then-government would not let the population go above 70 million.

We’re nearly there now and leaving the EU was not on the drawing board back then. Now I get called an ‘eco fascist bullshitter’ for raising the same issues. I do not know what the hell has happened to this country since just 2008. Rationality has gone out of the window in favour of self-righteous ideologies.

Financial crash polarising politics, I guess?

I have clever, passionate and intelligent friends, who couldn't begin to engage with the kind of debate in this thread. Because to them, bringing the actual question of localised and global population tolerance is inhuman. Therefore impossible.

The irony being that debates like this, and the unpoliticised solution-driven attitude of scientists becomes taboo, which moves us further from the solution.

Hence my opinion that humanity must, like a limping penguin, be allowed to fail by its own messy standards. It's just not possible to get collective action.

(I'm not particularly of the opinion that we're as intelligent a species as we think we are - the achievements of a few have wildly improved the living standards of all, but all that does is bring a population including vast swathes of the less intelligent along for the ride. We're an anti-evolutionary species because the few create circumstances in which the majority can reach breeding age, without any specific aims of having a good life or a comfortable one.)

[Pepperwort]

I think you might be a bit harder than me, but I don’t deny we’re in a shit state right now. Or your right to say such things. It is about trying to balance factors.

[thecatsthecats]

Fair enough! I absolutely respect the right of people to try and enact change, and anyone who is engaged in the debate is more likely to reach a solution than people either disengaged or sticking their heads in the (nutrient depleted) soil.

If there were a way to put one hundred of the best minds together to create a plan that we all followed, we could be out of this problem within a generation... but sadly the world doesn't work like that (imagine the shit show of selecting those one hundred people...!).

[Parker231]

Turkey currently has 3.7 million refugees - the UK 126,000 - how can that be justified. The UK needs to do so much more.

[xtinak]

There are some quite good reasons why Turkey has so many refugees. It is closer culturally and geographically to where those people have come from. It might make more sense for the UK to support Turkey to support those refugees, many of whom may hope to return home some day.

[Stressing]

"While the most recent crisis with migrants arriving to the UK shores was used to distract from government failure elsewhere, Labour cannot turn a blind eye, pretend it isn't happening, or vaguely plead with the government for more 'competent' border violence," said Alena Ivanova from Labour Campaign for Free Movement.
"The Labour Party should speak with the voices of working class people regardless of where in the world they were born. Labour must demand safe routes for migrants, and full rights and dignity for all. We know what our policy is, we voted on it democratically last year. It is high time we started making the case for it to the public."

Whereas I'm not in favour of pointing our population increase to migrants in boat crossings (because I don't see them as significantly being the cause if overpopulation) I just wanted to highlight this quote from a labour MP.

Personally I find this quote alarming and misjudged. It's little wonder Labour is losing ground when it is failing on its main duty: that is to speak up for the working class people of the UK, not the working class of the entire world.

[phoenixrosehere]

We aren’t overpopulated. The problem is that most of our resources are skewed to the South East or around cities and so people naturally want to live there. We need to balance things out and improve infrastructure such as roads and wifi and embrace work from home / flexible working so living 50miles from Inverness can be just as economically viable as living in Surrey.

Definitely not overpopulated, just very bad planning and lack of imagination.

[Stressing]

I think if you look at the thread phoenix there have been many points made about the fact that the UK has surpassed the concept of sustaining itself as a nation when it comes to providing its population with the basic provisions it needs such as water and the green spaces we need for clean air and health.

Adding more people to the equation is counter productive. It isn't the infrastructure and housing that's causing the pressure on resources, it's the increasing population that demands these things. Yes we can be more clever with planning and allocation of resources, but if we don't address the increase in numbers then we'll just keep adding to the population until we are back at stage one.

So, it's perhaps not the population itself that's the main problem but the unsustainable rate of growth that we are currently experiencing/have experienced.