The environmental issue that keeps getting ignored

[quinton]

During the few times when environmental issues are discussed, Canada's deliberate population growth is never debated.

It seems that Canadians are only willing to discuss finding ways to reduce their per capita consumption. Apparently population growth is too controversial for an unsophistocated electorate.

This is a huge issue. If you research on Statistics Canada, you'll see about 1% per year population growth in Canada.

Of which about 200,000 is from net immigration and 100,000 is from net reproduction.

Netting around 300,000 new Canadians every year is deliberately done for "economic growth" and it has huge impacts on the environment. Even the NDP and Green Party's current party policy platforms are promoting this population growth.

Here are forumulas that I agree with:

Environmental Degradation = Population * Per Capita Consumption
Economic Growth = Population Growth * Per Capita Consumption Growth

Therefore Economic Growth is the same as increasing Environmental Degradation. Why don't we work towards a steady state economy that doesn't rely on constant population growth and increasing consumption?

EG: what is suggested on: http://www.steadystate.org/FAQ.html

Until we stop population growth, we will never be able to protect biodiversity, wilderness, natural heritage, and overall quality of life.

Today's environmental problems are far too numerous and difficult to solve without looking at the root problem: Too many people chasing too few resources.

We also must prevent the continued exploitation of Canada's resources (forests, water, fish, fossil fuels, minerals) for exportation to insatiable globalized markets.

Here are some forums I have started to discuss this issue:

http://www.alldebate.net/index.php?showforum=21
http://www.myccr.com/SectionForums/viewtopic.php?t=14811

Here is someone else's forum topic that I agree with his position:

http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic4672-0-asc-0.html

Here is someone who gives me hope that people might wake up soon. He shares my same viewpoint, and has written the following two articles:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4585920.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4584572.stm

 

[Jersay]

You got a plan, but it is not going to work.

 

[the caracal kid]

Yes, growth is an issue.

Sadly, our world is absorbed in the unsustainable economic model of growth=good. I have long thought we need to change how we regulate ourselves for a sustainable future, but those that control the money are not interested in balance, but in profit growth. Sadly, the way to increase sales/revenues is to have more to sell to, or to have products need replacing (or peceived need) more frequently. Thus we are both increasing pops and decreasing product lifecycles at the expense of the planet to service the greed of capitalism.

 

[Timetrvlr]

Quinton, I totally disagree with you, we are in the same quandry as Australia, we have a huge landmass and a very low population. We are surrounded by overpopulated neighbours (think China, India, Mexico). It's very simply a case of use it or lose it.

I favour a whole new immigration policy that is for the benefit of Canada; selective in that we attempt to match up employment and entreprenurial needs with qualified applicants. The other thing we must do is direct immigrants to the areas of high over-employment such as Fort Mcmurray and Alberta in general as well as hot spots in the territories. We must spend the money and effort to certify or accredit immigrants before they immigrate. The whole immigration process should be for the benefit of Canada.

I understand that your concern is the additional strain on the environmernt that additional populations would incur. It's not population that is the problem, it is the incredibly inefficient way that we manage and use resources. We use a lot of fresh water but we foul an immensely larger quantity of water by dumping sewage, toxins, fertilizers, and other contaminates into it. We could change. We foul our air with emissions from power plants, automobiles and trucking; so much so that 2200 people die every year in Ontario from asthma and other respiratory diseases. We could stop that if we wanted too but it's easier to continue as in the past.

We have an abundance of energy all around us, the one ingredient necessary for an expanding economy and population, but we flail about unable to figure out how to use it. Perhaps we could look to Germany or Denmark or Norway for answers, but we don't.

 

[Jersay]

Canada's population Quinton, I don't know if this would upset you or not, is actually, 33.2 million people.

 

[Hank C]

I believe that we do need to increase our population because we do face an ageing population. However I would encourage more natural population growth within Canada rather than increasing immigration levels. There needs to be a balance between both growth by immigration and raising birth rates.

 

[the caracal kid]

but Hank,

that is like "throwing good money after bad"

the solution is population stability, not perpetual growth. The time to start stability is NOW.

 

[quinton]

the caracal kid, thanks for making some good points.

Canada still has 25% of the world's wilderness forests. I don't want Canada to turn into another USA with almost 300 million people. Canada is vast, but it is predominately, harsh uninhabitable shield rock or arctic tundra. Most of Canada's land would require tremendous heating requirements to overwinter there.

I don't want Canada to become like Taiwan, Lebanon, or UK, where the people would die if they stopped importing food from other countries.

We may have a huge die-off of 5.5 billion people anyways though because oil and natural gas could run out by 2032 and a pre-fossil fuel world has only proven the ability to support 1 billion people.

The environmental deterioration from population growth in Canada is happening right here right now in our life times. I live in SW Ontario, and the air quality kills thousands each year prematurely. The rivers are increasingly polluted, and the housing developments just keep springing up pervading all green space.

Furthermore in my travels up north I have seen huge clear cuts > 260 hectares which is supposed to be the allowed limit by the Liberal government's MNR.

97% of the productive boreal forest is already licenced for industrial logging according to an article in Canadian Geographic.

 

[quinton]

I hope you all will consider these questions seriously:

Will humans ever stop their perpetual population growth or will nature stop it for them?

If nature stops our unsustainable ways, how many people will die of starvation or bloodshed?

What will cause human population growth to stop? (oil depletion, melted polar ice caps reducing total land area, etc)

How much biodiversity will have been lost by 2050 when the UN predicts a global population of 9.1 billion?

Could the mass public opinion change to one that looks negatively upon economic growth (population growth times consumption growth)?

Will the public realize that economic growth is the same thing as loss of biodiversity and environmental degradation?

 

[BCRick]

RE: The environmental iss

The answer to solving our environmental problems comes down to two basic questions.
How much am I willing to give?
How much am I willing to give up?

The obvious answer for the vast majority of Canadians is "NOTHING, I would rather have more".
Nothing will be allowed politically to change until the crisis effects the majority of peoples standard of life.
As of 2006, "Life is good."
A near two thirds of the world's population have nothing to give.
1/3 of the world's population consumes 80% of the world's natural resources.

When it comes to immigration, can we morally deny people emmigrating to Canada seeking a better life.

 

[quinton]

BCRick you obviously haven't read and carefully thought about my comments.

Your use and spelling of the word "emmigrating" suggests that you don't know what you are talking about.

If you in fact meant immigrating, yes we can morally deny letting more people into Canada than what is ecologically responsible.

We already deny immigrants who do not bring with them a lot of money or earning potential.

We can deny letting in more immigrants than there are emigrants because it is morally what is best to protect the quality of life for existing Canadians (meaning that existing Canadians should have a right to protect some degree of biodiversity and protect land, air and water against pollution)

The more immigrants that come into Canada, the more greenspace becomes housing developments, expanded highway lanes, clearcut forests, etc.

 

[Machjo]

The original post is somewhat myopic. From an ecological perspective, if the person comes from another country, while it might be true that the consumption of resourses increases in Canada by one person, it decreases elsewhere by one person also. So from an ecological perspective, it balances out anyway.

 

[Machjo]

Re: RE: The environmental issue that keeps getting ignored

I believe that we do need to increase our population because we do face an ageing population. However I would encourage more natural population growth within Canada rather than increasing immigration levels. There needs to be a balance between both growth by immigration and raising birth rates.

that's beyond the government's control. Don't forget emmigration also.

 

[quinton]

Machjo says:

From an ecological perspective, if the person comes from another country, while it might be true that the consumption of resourses increases in Canada by one person, it decreases elsewhere by one person also.

Machjo, when you let population move from already overcrowded areas of high concentration to unspoiled areas of low concentration, the overcrowded areas tend to quickly fill up again with however many people left to the country of low population.

Therefore unlimited migration is ecologically disastrous.
If Canada were to take 1 million Hatians for instance, Haiti's population would quickly grow again to reach former levels and Canada would lose more of its wilderness.

 

[quinton]

Quote from ECO of Ontario gives me hope that at least someone is seeing that population growth is the mother of all environmental problems:

The projections call for GTA and central Ontario populations to grow by
almost 40 per cent by 2031. Setting aside and servicing the necessary land will
involve further sprawl, massive Great Lakes water takings and undeterminable
storm water and sewage impacts. Yet where do these population projections come from? Who decides that the landscape will be consumed in southern Ontario but that the north will depopulate?