Should The Poor Accept Their Lot?

democrates

Many of us are accustomed to an affluent lifestyle, while the worlds poor are accustomed to a life closer to that of an equivalent non-sentient animal. But the global rate of consumption and pollution according to recent sceintific evidence, is unsustainable. Humanity needs to cut back, we get climate change and that every major ecosystem is in decline.

At the same time, the poor aspire to the affluence they see about. This is clearly an impossible dream. Historically, we had coal-driven industrial revolution and then hi-tech based on cheap oil. Mass production, scale economies, and cheap products coming out of our ears, but while we thought we could carry on indeinitely it turns out this was a once off deal.

So what next. We're recycling, composting, backing off gas-guzzlers, going green and thrifty. But the worlds poor can't come close to the level of consumption and pollution enjoyed by others, because if they do, all predictions are that it is the poor who will suffer the worst of it.

Should the worlds poor just back off the drive for affluence in order to survive?

purple'n'gold

Mother Nature usually sorts things out in her own time. There are far too many people in the world’s poorest continent, Africa. They don’t use birth control but the balance of nature is keeping the population down, with AIDS.

stovelid

purplengold wrote:

Mother Nature usually sorts things out in her own time. There are far too many people in the world’s poorest continent, Africa. They don’t use birth control but the balance of nature is keeping the population down, with AIDS.

* puts on coal scuttle helmet and ducks down *

Zambia

The Western worlds largest health Problem = Obesity
Africas Largest Health Problem = Starvation

Akrasia

democrates wrote:

while the worlds poor are accustomed to a life closer to that of an equivalent non-sentient animal.

That's a really terrible thing to say. These people might suffer from extreme poverty, but they're still people, they still fall in love, have hopes and fears and ambitions.

sovtek

purplengold wrote:

Mother Nature usually sorts things out in her own time.

There is nothing natural about the continent with the most resources being the poorest one at the same time.

There are far too many people in the world’s poorest continent, Africa.

Actually there are vast areas of virtually no humans in Africa...try finding that in Western Europe or North America. Africa could support a lot more people.

They don’t use birth control but the balance of nature is keeping the population down, with AIDS.

...and what kept the population down in Ireland whilst condoms were illegal? An absence of potatoes? Heart attacks are evening out the population in the "first world" at the moment.

purple'n'gold

"Actually there are vast areas of virtually no humans in Africa"

Yes, they are called deserts.

Zambia

purplengold wrote:

Mother Nature usually sorts things out in her own time. There are far too many people in the world’s poorest continent, Africa. They don’t use birth control but the balance of nature is keeping the population down, with AIDS.

Bit like the famine did with Ireland , cause they didnt use birth control either.

No body on this earth should accept their lot , at least go down fighting if you have to.

But I see the initial Question was that we cant really afford to have everyone at our level of affluence, based on the earths current resources. A piont I agree with as if everyone in asia/Africa drove a car at the levels of Western Car ownership well I dont think we have the Steel or the oil to sustain it. Never mind the Green house effect.

As you cant tell these countires to stop developing (not going to happen). Well then either lobby your goverment to wipe out China or something as forward thinking. Or sit back and watch the resources dry up and your lifestyle disappear. Fact is most of the wealth we enjoy today is on the back of peoples all over the world we could never imagine living like.

sovtek

purplengold wrote:

"Actually there are vast areas of virtually no humans in Africa"

Yes, they are called deserts.

I guess you never heard of Las Vegas?

democrates

Akrasia wrote:

That's a really terrible thing to say. These people might suffer from extreme poverty, but they're still people, they still fall in love, have hopes and fears and ambitions.

I'm only referring in the context to their environmental footprint being closer to subsistence level.

fly_agaric

democrates wrote:

...while we thought we could carry on indeinitely it turns out this was a once off deal...

Should the worlds poor just back off the drive for affluence in order to survive?

Maybe they should if the options are so extreme - a) aspiring to the high-energy "rich" lifestyle that people in a country like Ireland have, attaining that, and trashing the planet or b) living in poverty while only a select few can live that high energy life [without totally trashing the planet].

However, asking this question seems somewhat pointless for 2 reasons:

1) I don't think the options for the poor are as extreme as you suggest (...looking first at the way the worlds richest countries and people waste resources at present). Of course, the rich, powerful countries can't preach any type of sustainable development to anyone until they tighten their own belts, but I think they can preach women's rights, family planning and population control without being rank hypocrites.

2) Even if in the end there is not another option I don't think very many people will accept living in poverty if they see the possibility of living a much better life. And for alot of people, harming someone else not directly related to you is too abstract a concept to take into account when weighing up a course of action. Harming "the planet" or "destroying humanity" are way, way too abstract. Not to mention plenty of people couldn't give a crap so long as they've got theirs anyway.

El Stuntman

purplengold wrote:

Mother Nature usually sorts things out in her own time. There are far too many people in the world’s poorest continent, Africa. They don’t use birth control but the balance of nature is keeping the population down, with AIDS.

I travel to sub-Saharan Africa several times each year

I suspect you don't - otherwise you would never make such an egregiously offensive statement. Quite surprised you haven't been banned for it btw

El Stuntman

sovtek wrote:

I guess you never heard of Las Vegas?

pithy comment

ahem, Hoover dam (quite a sight)

not a facility available in most parts of the Sahara!

silverharp

Alot of you are making the assumption that the 3rd world can't get up to our standard of living, it could easily go the other way and the first world will drop in it's consumption of energy and standard of living. The standard of living in the west is based on cheap oil, take that away and alot of infrastructue and wealth will vanish and I'm not sure how people will cope.

johnnyskeleton

I would have thought that the Sahara will be a massive resource in the future i.e. vast cheap flat areas of land that receive large amounts of sunlight throughout the year. I don't think the world has ever seen solar power being used on such a scale, but wouldn't it be an ideal place to source renewable energy.

Regarding the main point: it is not the case that there are some countries where everyone is poor and some countries where everyone is rich, in what we call the third world there are lots of rich people, may rich beyond our wildest dreams. This is to how it used to be in most developed nations - starting with a war where a few people take all the spoils (e.g. William the Conqueror), then the people revolt into getting more freedoms (e.g. Magna Carta), then a civil war wrests power from the elite, and common people have a small chance of success (e.g. English Civil War), then a series of governmental reforms and workers agitations results in a situation where there are no restrictions on the poor becoming wealthy (e.g. Liberal/Labour governments and the TU movement), and in some cases they are encouraged to succeed (e.g. positive action in the US). So it is not the case that it is impossible for the world's poor countries to become rich.

In any case, the greatest waste of resources in the world is not consumer goods, luxuries or anything of the kind - it is military supplies. If mankind stopped war we would a) massively decrease consumption, especially in the developing world and b) cease the destruction of what we already have.

purple'n'gold

El Stuntman wrote:

I travel to sub-Saharan Africa several times each year

I suspect you don't - otherwise you would never make such an egregiously offensive statement. Quite surprised you haven't been banned for it btw

I was in sub Saharan Africa many times, probably before you were born.

Zambia

purplengold wrote:

I was in sub Saharan Africa many times, probably before you were born.

I would believe you where, however your opening statement still doesnt sit well with me. You seem to think Africans deserve to die from Aids or thats the impression I get.

If thats the case then your right there are too many people in Africa one of them is you, please dont go there again if you have a attitude like that.

El Stuntman

purplengold wrote:

I was in sub Saharan Africa many times, probably before you were born.

really -where? on your travels, did you speak to many AIDS victims?

of course if it was before I was born then AIDS didn't exist...Africa is a very different place now than in the 60s

purple'n'gold

Zambia232 wrote:

I would believe you where, however your opening statement still doesnt sit well with me. You seem to think Africans deserve to die from Aids or thats the impression I get.

If thats the case then your right there are too many people in Africa one of them is you, please dont go there again if you have a attitude like that.

I simply said that nature has a way of dealing with overpopulation. I never said I wanted Africans to die. Africans are human beings as entitled to live as any other race of people. But nature will always find a way of getting the balance right, whether it be earthquake, famine or disease. And please do not be coming to erroneous conclusions abut me or my character. I believe in the force of nature. I am not a racist.

Zambia

purplengold wrote:

I simply said that nature has a way of dealing with overpopulation. I never said I wanted Africans to die. Africans are human beings as entitled to live as any other race of people. But nature will always find a way of getting the balance right, whether it be earthquake, famine or disease. And please do not be coming to erroneous conclusions abut me or my character. I believe in the force of nature. I am not a racist.

Granted I retract it completly now you have clarified that position.

purple'n'gold

Living in trees is fine, provided you
1 don’t use a man made pallet as a platform
2 don’t try and stop an upgrade of the N11 in Wicklow
have a good day.

Kevster

Zambia232 wrote:

The Western worlds largest health Problem = Obesity
Africas Largest Health Problem = Starvation

That's the best answer by far because it is simple and yet says so much.


Is it due to laziness that first-world countries don't set up [fair] trade routes to poorer nations? ...are we that mean that we cannot simply give the food away for free?


Plus, why cannot we just help these people grow their own food by improving their infrastructure? They shouldn't have to pay for our help because we - as the most economically powerful nations - should just give it.


I'm aware that some African governments are corrupt but all of them are not. We can help the ones that are not.


Kevin.

DublinWriter

democrates wrote:

Should the worlds poor just back off the drive for affluence in order to survive?

Interesting question, but I think you're looking down the wrong end of the telescope.

Maybe you should ask the question "Should we in the rich West expect to remain retain our lot?"

I have a grim prophecy that I've shared with many on both the left and right of the political spectrum and it's always equally dismissed. It goes something like this:

Around about 2012, we are expected to hit a situation called peak-oil. This in short will lead to a rapid decline of industrialisation and the global financial markets, the very foundations of the Western society as we know it. As financial systems and markets collapse, abstract forms of wealth (chiefly hard currency) will quickly cease to have any value and mankind will be put back into a pre-Industrial revolution agrarian-type state for the foreseeable future.

Why do people dismiss my argument? Everyone seems to expect some miracle just around the corner to happen the day the oil runs out, zooming over the horizon just like Superman to save the day, whether it be nuclear-fusion, zero-point energy or technology salvaged from alien-spacecraft at Area 51.

Should the poor accept their lot? It all depends if you feel that you will shortly become one of their number or not.

Goodshape

DublinWriter wrote:

Around about 2012

2012 seems to be the popular date for just about every end of the world prophecy these days. Should be an interesting year.

Regardless, if 2012 is the date for 'peak-oil', then what is it you want or expect us to do about it?

It's not dismissing, it's just helplessness. It'll probably take five years just to get the planning permission for a few wind turbines, nevermind subsidising our reliance on oil.

Personally I think that if "2012" is the date, then our 'way of life' is already ****ed. And if that's the kind of kick in the arse wake up call that we need, then so be it.

Maybe next time around we'll do things a bit more evenly, and not try to catapult ourselves into the fast lane at the expensive of half the planet.

democrates

DublinWriter wrote:

Interesting question, but I think you're looking down the wrong end of the telescope.

Maybe you should ask the question "Should we in the rich West expect to remain retain our lot?"

I have a grim prophecy that I've shared with many on both the left and right of the political spectrum and it's always equally dismissed. It goes something like this:

Around about 2012, we are expected to hit a situation called peak-oil. This in short will lead to a rapid decline of industrialisation and the global financial markets, the very foundations of the Western society as we know it. As financial systems and markets collapse, abstract forms of wealth (chiefly hard currency) will quickly cease to have any value and mankind will be put back into a pre-Industrial revolution agrarian-type state for the foreseeable future.

Why do people dismiss my argument? Everyone seems to expect some miracle just around the corner to happen the day the oil runs out, zooming over the horizon just like Superman to save the day, whether it be nuclear-fusion, zero-point energy or technology salvaged from alien-spacecraft at Area 51.

Should the poor accept their lot? It all depends if you feel that you will shortly become one of their number or not.

Spot on, it was a devils-advocate question. But with Irish property prices I don't expect much appetite here for easing back in the race for income. Dependance on economic growth regardless of the fairness to others or effect on our environment is the putrifying underbelly of the ff/construction axis.

As for peak oil I think private mpv's are the easy cut to buy some time, it will happen as fuel prices rise and taxes change to favour necessities and discourage frivolous uses, of course no big prob for the wealthy who can carry on regardless as usual, but hard times ahead for those with big mortgages and energy bills, and particularly those with a long commute due to urban property prices...

Absenting radical alternative energy we're headed for a major global depression, there's simply nothing built into the current globalised market system to avoid it, in fact it's design in concert with population growth guarantees it.

When tight belts start to cut flesh, there's no guarantee it will be handled with graceful composure. Oil wars, water wars, mass economic and climate migration, marginalised immigrant poor, we may only have seen the tip of the iceberg from hell.

And that's if we're lucky. If food crops fail en masse because the bees keep dying from the sinister Colony Collapse Disorder blighting America and now spreading through Europe and the double-whammy of the Japanese Hornets explosive bee-killing invasion, we could be practically extinct by 2016, that's how serious bee-gate is. Of course I'll volunteer to manually pollinate crops but bees can get into slightly smaller gaps and forget reductive surgery, I'll starve or go cannibal first.

So I'm an optimist, what's the alternative?

redspider

Zambia232 wrote:

Fact is most of the wealth we enjoy today is on the back of peoples all over the world we could never imagine living like.

Very true, and we are where we are now due to the history of colonisation and more recently globalisation and the economic groupings that have gathered together to protect their interests.

The world will continue to change, but some of us are just appalled at the slow rate of change in the colective Human mindset, and the current econmic systems which are making life a misery for 100's of millions if not billions of humans, the same as us the privileged, on this planet.

Redspider

SeanW

Kevster wrote:

Is it due to laziness that first-world countries don't set up [fair] trade routes to poorer nations? ...are we that mean that we cannot simply give the food away for free?

That's actually the problem - we have been giving away food free (through aid schemes) and at ultra-subsidised rates from 1st world farms via Agricultural subsidies to domestic farmers.

For example, a government in the EU or USA decides to keep prices for an agricultural commodity at €/$ per tonne or per head, for a certain number of farmers. The government then seals off the domestic markets to imports and commissions an "intervention" purchases X tonnes/head of produce to keep prices at the set level.

Of course the commissioning has absolutely no use for the stuff it just bought so they sell it at rock bottom prices, to the third world. This can have the effect of wrecking the target country's agricultural sector and any agri-business sector which, even though it has a dramatically lower cost base, cannot compete with ultra-subsidised imports.

This contributes to African poverty. That's why on many forums here I've been a robust proponent of biofuels especially rapeseed methyl ester based biodiesel. Not only do they have serious environmental benefits over petroleum based fuels, but they also could give 'our' farmers something useful to do instead of depending on destructive and expensive schemes like CAP. Heck, biofuels might even give African farmers a boost.

As for the other side - the starvation, that's a simple matter of economics, they (who are starving) don't have money to buy food.

BTW If we really wanted to help in Africa, we'd feed the starving people by buying food sources as close as possible to the people in question. That would have the twin effect of feeding the hungry and kick starting the closest functional agricultural system.

Scigaithris

DublinWriter wrote:

Around about 2012, we are expected to hit a situation called peak-oil. This in short will lead to a rapid decline of industrialisation and the global financial markets, the very foundations of the Western society as we know it. As financial systems and markets collapse, abstract forms of wealth (chiefly hard currency) will quickly cease to have any value and mankind will be put back into a pre-Industrial revolution agrarian-type state for the foreseeable future.

2012 peak-oil? Does this date factor in the vast global oil deposits found in shale? Doubtful.

Further suggest that you examine the large scale non-oil alternative fuels that Brazil is developing from agriculture. That nation of about 150 million people is seriously attempting to move away from oil dependence. (Sorry, I cannot remember the citations at the time of this post)

Furthermore, as the price per barrell of oil increases, alternative energy sources become more economically feasible; e.g., hydrogen fuel cell technology already exists, the source can be found in the air we breathe, and the emission from the hydrogen combustion process is water. I would suspect that there will not be a doom-and-gloom crash of world economies, but rather a gradual global shift to alternative fuels, these alternatives becoming more efficient and effective, driving down their relative costs over time.

"Should the poor accept their lot?" Do they have any choice? If there is any merit to World Systems Theory, the developed core nations will continue to exploit the peripheral lesser developed nations that possess natural resources and cheap labor. In terms of those of us living in the developed nations, social stratification will continue under all forms of government, no matter what we choose to call them. C. Wright Mills pointed this out years ago in his Power Elite. There will always be "have's" and "have-nots." Unfortunately, the deprivation felt in lesser developed countries can mean starvation and death, whereas, the relative deprivation in Ireland and other developed nations can be associated with fewer choices, differences in life styles, and feelings of status inconsistency.