AIBU to think population growth is unsustainable with climate change?

[Metalmotha]

To think that people surely must be starting to understand we can’t keep building more houses, we need to reduce the amount of people here and the rest of Europe. We simply cannot support a growing population

With climate change we just haven’t got the resources, less ran means less water which then affects everything from milk yields to quantity of grain as harvests are earlier.,

Theres going to be increasing areas which are uninhabitable due to frequent fires or rising water levels. We need to stop this idea we need a pyramid scheme of population. Numbers of children need limiting, we need to be very highly selective over who comes into the country and look at both our immigration and refugee policy. The people who are here need to be more productive.

We need to ration water hungry technology, we need to limit imports and encourage a repair and reuse rather that shopping addicted society. Consumer laws should be a lot stronger regarding how long things should last.

I went to Bluewater on a Saturday once, albeit reluctantly. It was like a vision of hell. Cars as far as the eye can see.

It was one of the moments when I really began to get that we can’t go on like this as a society. That and a parking post where a Mumsnetter explained that her family had five cars, one each for her and her DH, one for each of her three children…

I am generally in favour of small families because, being one of three myself, I think that three or more children put a lot of strain on parents, particularly mothers. I also believe that old certainties of children growing up and becoming self sufficient are disappearing and you should only have the number of children that you could realistically house and support into adulthood.

Actually, farming uses (69%) and built-up or towns, cities etc (8% to 12%, depending on whether gardens are included.

But we also don't have enough domestically-born working age people to sustain our current model for society.

Fundamentally, we need to reimagine how our society can function with an aging and declining population - until we are ready to bite that bullet, we need immigration.

What I’m talking about is the resources of this country. These are getting less and less because of climate change. I think climate change is reaching the point it can’t be reversed so we need to ensure the resources we do have are not put under even more pressure

People generally aren't willing to make meaningful personal sacrficies for the sake of combating climate change.

If we suddenly halted immigration, that means a higher tax burden per person and likely cuts to public services.

Governments don't persist with high levels of immigration because they mistakenly believe it super-popular.

This is a damn good point.

I think you are suggesting that climate change is about to cause widespread human displacement due to bits of land being uninhabitable and huge food shortages worldwide leading to famine, so we should sort of be in a war footing to stop that mass displacement heading our way?

I worry about how climate change will affect harvests, in the UK and globally, and our ability to produce our food. We already import so much but a dry summer like this year will affect the food that we can usually grow here. I'm not sure if there will be 19p Christmas veg in the supermarkets this year!

I don't think she has said that at all, but it is likely true. Mass migration is already linked to climate change and that will likely get worse.

But I think what op has clarified that she is saying is that we already have enough to deal with with climate change and that means we shouldn't welcome immigration on top of having to deal with the challenges climate change will bring. Correct me if that is not right obviously.

Did HRH Prince Philip have a point, when he said in 1988 that if he were reincarnated he would like to return as a deadly virus, to reduce the population? When the virus did hit, the global reaction was “keep people alive at all costs”.

If you want to reduce the population in Europe you need to cull the elderly, is that what you are suggesting?

We have more over 65 yr olds than under 20 yr olds. How does a country sustain that economically?

@BadSkiingMumpeople aren’t having loads of dc though.

@fishbowlee except for the two posters from the past couple days with 7 kids each! I also see loads of posters on here with 4 kids.

I am relieved every day to have not had children. The next few decades are not going to be pretty.

@Firefly1987look at birth rates!!!

People not having enough kids is probably the biggest structural problem our society faces. We should be doing more to incentivize having at least 2.

No country has managed to reverse birth rates once they drop below replacement rate, even with financial incentives.

The demographics are a massive problem. Smaller populations are a good thing but a smaller older one not so much.

It's not as if there's a long history of trying to cause birth rate recovery, though.

But I do suspect you have to change mindsets, massively financially incentivize, or move to a more socialist model of society with less incentive to delay or forego having kids in order to "get ahead".

That’s a particular demographic blip though due to the combination of the baby boomers and the fairly recent sudden drop in birth rates. Once the boomers are gone and this new level of birth rate has been normal for a while, there won’t be such an imbalance. There will still be more older people and fewer young people than historically but not in the ratio there is right now.

Well people will want to migrate away from desertification, salination and coastal erosion, to the northern hemisphere, basically.

If you are anti migrant you should be pro climate action. Personally I welcome migrants because the Uk birthrate is at an all time low and I would like to get a pension one day, and have a functioning health service today.

We still have plenty of chance to sort it out without reducing the population in, shall we say, unnatural ways.

@11AndCountingsomething shifts in the mindset & culture. There was a really good article on it, I think in the Atlantic

I don't know. Logan's Run made a pretty good fist of it.

@minipie but the imbalance is going to affect peoples lives today & tomorrow, politically it has big ramifications.
Even after boomers die we are still going to have an ageing population, much of the West will have the same issue so will be in competition to attract the young & skilled.

Are you a geography teacher?
Boserup has so far been proved right, but I’m not sure her theory will hold up forever.