Thailand Facing Population Crisis

[John K]

as I said just a number thing. Africa may endure a bit longer but when the tipping point comes we as humans will have already started moving food around. When it comes down to it, military survival training shows us foods we normally would view as too disgusting to eat. A lot of that is food is in Africa so they may last longer. We will proceed to extinct a lot of species making them food further upsetting the balance of nature.

I don’t know when that tipping point will come, but I have no doubt it will be tied to global warming. More than likely our youngest children will see this come to be in their lifetimes. It is a bit sad we leave this future for them.

[astral]

There is an interesting poster in the office where I am this week.

It reads:

"We have not inherited the earth from our ancestors,

we have borrowed it from our children. "

[bingobongo]

palm, the average midlife crisis is 5 to 8 years, so not sure when you will be coming out of yours. jealous of homedebtors in thailand? i prefer gold and silver (which have done better than property), and cash

anyway, here is some interesting news....

The urge to splurge in Thailand

The Thai economy has slipped under the junta's watch, lagging behind the economic growth rates seen in several other regional economies. Meanwhile, foreign investors have openly lamented the military-appointed government's economic management since coupmakers seized power from deposed prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra in September 2006.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/IK03Ae01.html

[John K]

Somehow I think the above post is in the wrong thread.

[Tony Clifton]

I don't believe this population crisis thing coming from a scholar. There are still today no real statistics on road casualties, crime etc. Why would he be right?

My wife, the neighbour to the left and right are pregnant. 3 houses in a row, what are the odds?

A bus stops every day at the village next door and drops off 9 women wearing the same factory uniform, 7 of them are pregnant.

Only one house out of 20 on this street and the street facing us that has no children living there. Babies and kids everywhere!

That's is one of the things that caught my eye here, seeing at least one pregnant woman every day, unusual to me anyway.

[John K]

I don't believe this population crisis thing coming from a scholar. There are still today no real statistics on road casualties, crime etc. Why would he be right?

My wife, the neighbour to the left and right are pregnant. 3 houses in a row, what are the odds?

A bus stops every day at the village next door and drops off 9 women wearing the same factory uniform, 7 of them are pregnant.

Only one house out of 20 on this street and the street facing us that has no children living there. Babies and kids everywhere!

That's is one of the things that caught my eye here, seeing at least one pregnant woman every day, unusual to me anyway.

Check to be sure that ginseng is not getting into the local water supply Tony.

[TAWP]

If you really think the planet is far beyond it's capacity just because there is people packed as sardines in a few cities, I suggest you go out and travel some more in the world.

I take it you have never been to China. One of the most enduring memories I had of China was the huge population. When I went to stores virtually every rack of clothes had it’s own sales clerk, where is compared to the USA you need to wander around looking for a sales clerk. Negotiating your way down a side walk was a headache. I actually needed to wait just to step into the flow of people. No wonder China has their population control polices. ShenZen a city about the size of Bangkok has a population of 25,000,000 as compared to Bangkok 7,500,000. If you think Bangkok traffic is bad, triple the population and look again. On a bus trip I noticed nearly every free meter of land was devoted to some form of food production from fish farms to rice, to whatever.

I have also been in very rural places in the USA and other than the cows you are the only person.

Nature has it’s way of bringing things back in balance. Global warming will trigger natures correction, of that I have no doubt. When nature gets around to doing it’s thing it wont be pleasant.

Your posts doesn't really make sense.

Yes, some places are very crowded. Some others are very desolated. Which is my point.

For the world to become overcrowded ALL places has to be equally crowded to the point of being 'too crowded'.

And we aren't there by a long-shot. But don't let's facts get in your way of sounding like an alarmist.

[John K]

Well how would you like a nice house in the middle of the Sahara desert or Antarctica, the population there is rather sparse. The local land will not produce sustainable quantities of food and or water. Where the population centers are now are based on climate and the ability to produce food.

[TAWP]

Not completely true, since if it was needed a lot of things could be done to a lot of areas, including areas running the risk of becoming desert and being included in the ever-growing Sahara. But we won't seeing many spending much money on that...yet.

In anyway, there is still space. And a lot of it too.

[Cyberstar]

There's more consequences of global warming than just the "bad" ones such as rising sea level and heating of places already too hot, rendering some areas barren. Although it doesn't fit well with some gut-feeling theories, global warming will also effect areas that are now too cold for much to grow ...

Actually, the whole issue of global warming is much more complicated than just to estimate how many extra degrees it takes to melt enough cubic miles of arctic ice for the sea level in Bangkok to rise how many centimeter.... Global warming means the whole pattern of wind and rain will change...

Just to mention one of the more obvious things: Higher temperature together with larger water surface will give the global evaporation-rainfall cycles a boost and the global patterns of wind will change. What says that windpatterns can't change in such a way that exess water from the Gulf of Thailand will fall on Sahara or the high plains of Tibet (once it is warm enough for growing wheat in summertime)?

Exactly how these changes caused by global warming will be is about as predictable as the weather - it actually is like a weather forecast 10, 20, 50, 100 years ahead. Just as a weather forecast - isn't but a calculated probability for rain/sunshine (and thus doesn't tell us how the weather actually will be even tomorrow) - no model or simulation used in global warming forecasts can possibly tell us how its effect actually will be.

Well, I don't study this issue, so I don't know what probability quotient the scientific models and simulations yield for future farming in Antarctica, Siberia, Sahara, Northern Sweden, Western China, Gobi Desert, the high plains of Tibet, etc. .... However, I'd say, no credibility can possibly be assigned to claims that global warming means less food growing areas and less inhabitable areas in the future. Too many variables for even expert scientists to combine.

[Scott]

I think one of the concerns with the global warming issue is that we don't know a lot about how it will affect us. No doubt the "growing" regions will change. Disease is likely to be a big problem as well, especially the movement of tropical diseases into more temperate regions.

Many of these changes might be more manageable if the population of the world were less, unfortunately there are going to be large numbers of losers and since mass migration isn't likely to be allowed, at least not legally, this could spell a lot of trouble for a lot of people.

[JR Texas]

The OP who pulled the figure of 20 billion people being sustainable is pushing it big time! The earths resources are stretched as it is!

Many believe that as it is the earth is reaching critical mass when it comes to sustaining the numbers we have as it is.

6.6 billion people now inhabit the planet and thats a lot. Overcrowding and overpopulated areas are already a problem. Less is needed, not more say some of the experts. Having less children is one way of cutting down the population to managable levels.

20 billion would mean a very crowded and very hungry world, unless we suddenly start building cities underground, in the sea or just in the middle of deserted parts of asia.

Thailand, not having a welfare state should do alright.

The mainstream mass media devotes 99% of its space on the population issue to the "elderly problem." Thailand, like all countries, has a huge population problem--too many people in relationship to its natural resources and ability to provide a quality lifestyle for all of its citizens. The elderly problem is real and is a predictable outcome of fertility decline and people living longer. In the long run, however, the best approach is to reduce population levels radically and allow the elderly problem to take care of itself via deaths......the best approach, that is, if we want to create 21st century sustainability and improve the quality of life for future generations.

As an aside, the mainstream mass media encourages population growth because it is controlled by the ruling elite (corporate-political-military triangle of power). THEY want a global slave labor force to keep wages down and profits up........they also are locked into a growth mentality that depends on an increase in consumerism. Reducing population levels would lead to a reversal of the labor supply problem (too many people searching for too few quality jobs). That would shift power away from the ruling elite to the masses. This is the unstated reason for focusing on "the elderly problem" and encouraging a rise in fertility. Think how many times you have read in the mainstream mass media what I have just stated........zero.

"Labor is the superior of capital and deserves much the higher consideration." --Abraham Lincoln

"All things in excess are contrary to nature." -- Hippocrates

[tijnebijn]

The OP who pulled the figure of 20 billion people being sustainable is pushing it big time! The earths resources are stretched as it is!

Many believe that as it is the earth is reaching critical mass when it comes to sustaining the numbers we have as it is.

6.6 billion people now inhabit the planet and thats a lot. Overcrowding and overpopulated areas are already a problem. Less is needed, not more say some of the experts. Having less children is one way of cutting down the population to managable levels.

20 billion would mean a very crowded and very hungry world, unless we suddenly start building cities underground, in the sea or just in the middle of deserted parts of asia.

Thailand, not having a welfare state should do alright.

The mainstream mass media devotes 99% of its space on the population issue to the "elderly problem." Thailand, like all countries, has a huge population problem--too many people in relationship to its natural resources and ability to provide a quality lifestyle for all of its citizens. The elderly problem is real and is a predictable outcome of fertility decline and people living longer. In the long run, however, the best approach is to reduce population levels radically and allow the elderly problem to take care of itself via deaths......the best approach, that is, if we want to create 21st century sustainability and improve the quality of life for future generations.

As an aside, the mainstream mass media encourages population growth because it is controlled by the ruling elite (corporate-political-military triangle of power). THEY want a global slave labor force to keep wages down and profits up........they also are locked into a growth mentality that depends on an increase in consumerism. Reducing population levels would lead to a reversal of the labor supply problem (too many people searching for too few quality jobs). That would shift power away from the ruling elite to the masses. This is the unstated reason for focusing on "the elderly problem" and encouraging a rise in fertility. Think how many times you have read in the mainstream mass media what I have just stated........zero.

"Labor is the superior of capital and deserves much the higher consideration." --Abraham Lincoln

"All things in excess are contrary to nature." -- Hippocrates

Your post makes sense !

[Tony Clifton]

I don't believe this population crisis thing coming from a scholar. There are still today no real statistics on road casualties, crime etc. Why would he be right?

My wife, the neighbour to the left and right are pregnant. 3 houses in a row, what are the odds?

A bus stops every day at the village next door and drops off 9 women wearing the same factory uniform, 7 of them are pregnant.

Only one house out of 20 on this street and the street facing us that has no children living there. Babies and kids everywhere!

That's is one of the things that caught my eye here, seeing at least one pregnant woman every day, unusual to me anyway.

Quoting myself here to correct a mistake in my number of houses in a row with pregnant neighbors.

I was wrong in saying three.

We learned today that it`s four! I kid you not!

[Martin]

I hadn't been able to get around to looking back at this thread for a while, so I have only just seen #24 from 'Prakanong', where he says:

"Martin I respect your research interests et al but do you really beleive there is going to be a reverse migration back to the fields and agricultural working?

Where has this happened before except for the forced returns of China during the cultural revolution and Cambodia under the KR and we saw what they were!

Its just not going to happen.

The suffiency economy is a myth - an opium for the poor while the rich wallow in it right from the top down."

Taking his last point first: I, too, have a feeling that the rich feel that "sufficiency" is for others, and that they can go on in excess. I sometimes say that I will know that Bangkok is waking up to the need to embrace 'sufficiency' (which is the middle of the range between 'deficiency' and 'excess') when I see the first changing of a golf course into vegetable gardens.

As to 'reverse migration', I think that it may happen in Thailand.

I don't think that the people who find that they can't afford to eat properly in Bangkok will stay on in Bangkok when they know that they have a standing invitation to go back to the family village and 'kin keow'.

At the moment, they may be preferring dunking donuts to tackling 'keow niow' and 'somtam', but the latter will win out over hunger.

(Yesterday evening, I was sitting in Dunkin' Donuts at the Northeastern Bus Terminal in Bangkok looking at all the various folk who were joining buses and heading home to Isaan and they all looked remarkably happy considering that they had a long, tiring journey to face. But those were only the ones for whom the 'pull of the village' is stronger than the comforts of Bangkok. I was thinking that those who find that the comforts of Bangkok have dwindled away and are more 'pushed by Bangkok' than 'pulled by the village' won't face the journey so happily. But I think they will face it, will settle in, and will strengthen the social capital of the provincial villages, amphoes and cities immensely. That'll have big political effects, too; but I am keeping my thoughts on that to myself!.)

In the West there are pessimists (who would protest that they are just realists) who predict a 'return to the rural' in the form of marauding gangs from the cities thieving in the rural areas when driven to it by the lack of food that is to come.

I take no position on that, as far as other countries are concerned.

But, so far as the Mekong Region countries are concerned, (though there is no way of verifying or contradicting this except waiting and seeing) I feel optimistic that they can manage a transition to a higher proportion of agriculture (mostly self-sufficient plus some surplus to trade) and a lesser proportion of industry.

Please note that I did not say "transition back". I don't feel that is reasonable to predict (as some do) that we will go 'back to the Stone Age'.

Price pressure that reduces and reduces the number of cars, trucks, buses and aircons till they are rare, and which reserves the high-priced petroleum primaries for use as feedstocks, won't reproduce earlier times.

The rural villages and amphoes and the provincial cities won't step back fifty years, because nothing is going to be uninvented.

All of Information Technology and entertainment will still be possible, provided a minimal electricity grid can be kept going, fed by hydro-generated electricity.

And basic mobility, mostly by bicycle, will be aided by the roads and highways that will still exist.

The provincial cities that are linked to their capital city by railway should be able to maintain the link, provided electrification is carried out.

To me, there looks to be a feasible scenario of the Mekong Region countries managing their transitions to their post-industrial age in a civilised manner. Whether that scenario comes to pass remains to be seen (especially as it does involve big tracts of land presently held and worked extensively by rich landowners being transformed into small holdings to be worked intensively).

We will live in interesting times.

During my visit to Chula,I didn't have a chance to track down the report on which the OP is based. Sorry.

[PeaceBlondie]

My wife, the neighbour to the left and right are pregnant. 3 houses in a row, what are the odds?

A bus stops every day at the village next door and drops off 9 women wearing the same factory uniform, 7 of them are pregnant.

Only one house out of 20 on this street and the street facing us that has no children living there. Babies and kids everywhere!

That's is one of the things that caught my eye here, seeing at least one pregnant woman every day, unusual to me anyway.

Quoting myself here to correct a mistake in my number of houses in a row with pregnant neighbors.

I was wrong in saying three.

We learned today that it`s four! I kid you not!

Tony, perhaps you live in the fecundity center of Thailand, Nakhon Fahkon. Pregnant women are not common in the parts of Thailand I've lived for the last 4.6 years. Experts in population, including the folks at WHO, have said for many years that the national reproduction rate has plummeting, for thirty years now.

Martin's projections are interesting, but he could not meet the challenge to think of one historical example where people have willingly gone back to the farm after seeing the bright lights of the city. Modern agricultural methods have liberated farmers from the toils of the plow, and labor-intensive methods are no longer needed to supply food to the populations.

[JimsKnight]

The OP who pulled the figure of 20 billion people being sustainable is pushing it big time! The earths resources are stretched as it is!

Many believe that as it is the earth is reaching critical mass when it comes to sustaining the numbers we have as it is.

6.6 billion people now inhabit the planet and thats a lot. Overcrowding and overpopulated areas are already a problem. Less is needed, not more say some of the experts. Having less children is one way of cutting down the population to managable levels.

20 billion would mean a very crowded and very hungry world, unless we suddenly start building cities underground, in the sea or just in the middle of deserted parts of asia.

Thailand, not having a welfare state should do alright.

The mainstream mass media devotes 99% of its space on the population issue to the "elderly problem." Thailand, like all countries, has a huge population problem--too many people in relationship to its natural resources and ability to provide a quality lifestyle for all of its citizens. The elderly problem is real and is a predictable outcome of fertility decline and people living longer. In the long run, however, the best approach is to reduce population levels radically and allow the elderly problem to take care of itself via deaths......the best approach, that is, if we want to create 21st century sustainability and improve the quality of life for future generations.

As an aside, the mainstream mass media encourages population growth because it is controlled by the ruling elite (corporate-political-military triangle of power). THEY want a global slave labor force to keep wages down and profits up........they also are locked into a growth mentality that depends on an increase in consumerism. Reducing population levels would lead to a reversal of the labor supply problem (too many people searching for too few quality jobs). That would shift power away from the ruling elite to the masses. This is the unstated reason for focusing on "the elderly problem" and encouraging a rise in fertility. Think how many times you have read in the mainstream mass media what I have just stated........zero.

"Labor is the superior of capital and deserves much the higher consideration." --Abraham Lincoln

"All things in excess are contrary to nature." -- Hippocrates

JR Texas is right on some that, using history as an example, just before the Black Death in England the country (and Europe) was on the verge of mass famine (due to uncontrolled growth and lack of food). The Black Death came along and after it had passed the surviving working class folk got massive pay rises cause there was hardly anyone to do the work and food was plentiful .

We don't have to worry too much about all the population rises, nature has a way of 'culling' the masses when mankind oversteps the line.

A lot of the posters need to realise that all things being equal, Thailand will do alright. The Thai King was wise when he spoke of sustainability. Thailand would be able to manage it because it's a very fertile country, has enough natural resources and materials to ride any 'rough weather'.

[disgruntled]

Everyone should be required by law to possess two acres of land which can be developed. At birth each government should give two acres of land to its new citizen. From that day on that person legally must own two acres. It must be impossible for them to sell the land and have less. They may change the land for other land which they prefer more but they cannot have less than two acres. It's really up to them to develop the land or leave it as wilderness. With this concept all people will have something. Even a hobo living on the street will have two acres somewher in his name. If you don't want to do anything with the land you got at birth, you could rent it to someone, switch your land for farmland and let someone farm it, you could hold wilderness land to protect the environment, etc.

Requiring everyone to hold a part of the planet, would be much better than just letting those with money or brains have it all. As long as assets get you things then violence will always be one of the assets used to get things. No one would have to die poor, a slave, or landless on this planet.

If governments really care about people and want more then they should change the way we are living and give those who come into this world no matter what country they are born into a chance. Guarantee land to all people now.

[Martin]

'PeaceBlondie' said, in post #76:

"Martin's projections are interesting, but he could not meet the challenge to think of one historical example where people have willingly gone back to the farm after seeing the bright lights of the city."

He is quite right that I couldn't meet that challenge. In fact, I didn't give more than a moment's thought to it, because my instinctive reaction was: "I don't suppose there is one".

I am (among other things) a retired electricity-generation engineer and the deep study of History never came my way, so I would be interested to hear if my jumping to a conclusion is wrong and there is/are historical example/s.

But I wasn't saying that city dwelling-people will be 'willing', more that many 'are going to have to, whether willing or not'. Hunger can be expected to overcome unwillingness.

My understanding of the broad outline of History is that city life is attractive and cities have drawn people from their rural hinterlands until the city:rural population proportion has grown to the stage where the hinterland could only just support the city and there has then been no more growth of the city.

Or the city has gone on growing, beyond what could be sustained by its hinterland and the transportation system, and collapse of the city (and, maybe nation and empire) has occurred.

'PeaceBlondie' also added: "Modern agricultural methods have liberated farmers from the toils of the plow, and labor-intensive methods are no longer needed to supply food to the populations."

Again, he is right. (Though wrestling with a walking tractor looks, to me, as much like 'toil' as steering the plow behind a water buffalo!! Perhaps 'chownah' would comment on that.)

However, the point is that modern agricultural methods are unsustainable, because they depend on artificial fertiliser and tractors with internal combustion engines that require oil-based fuel.

The feedstock for artificial fertiliser is natural gas. Its manufacture requires considerable electricity (largely generated fom natural gas now), and its distribution requires the operation of internal combustion engines.

An analysis of the energy inputs into the growing of wheat for bread and corn to feed meat-producing cattle is what brings the conclusion that " Steak-eating Americans eat coal, oil and natural gas". And so do the pork-eating Chinese .

Take out the ability to produce food by modern agricultural methods and the only possibility of feeding a population is by their labour-intensive work or by purchasing the surplus of those who produce food by labour-intensive methods.

At the moment, we are in the transition period from oil getting easier and easier to win (and so, ever-cheaper) to oil getting more and more difficult to come by (and so, ever more expensive).

No doubt, the historians of the future will look back with the perspective of the historical timescale and see it as a tipping point, but to those of us living through it, we feel it to be more like a mudslide collapse.

In this time of "Sauve qui peut!", I am optimistic that the Mekong Region countries can swim on top of the slide.

But, if it was my role to look at the prospects for longer, and more heavily, industrialised countries I think that my conclusions would be more pessimistic.

[plachon]

My wife, the neighbour to the left and right are pregnant. 3 houses in a row, what are the odds?

A bus stops every day at the village next door and drops off 9 women wearing the same factory uniform, 7 of them are pregnant.

Only one house out of 20 on this street and the street facing us that has no children living there. Babies and kids everywhere!

That's is one of the things that caught my eye here, seeing at least one pregnant woman every day, unusual to me anyway.

Quoting myself here to correct a mistake in my number of houses in a row with pregnant neighbors.

I was wrong in saying three.

We learned today that it`s four! I kid you not!

Tony, perhaps you live in the fecundity center of Thailand, Nakhon Fahkon. Pregnant women are not common in the parts of Thailand I've lived for the last 4.6 years. Experts in population, including the folks at WHO, have said for many years that the national reproduction rate has plummeting, for thirty years now.

Martin's projections are interesting, but he could not meet the challenge to think of one historical example where people have willingly gone back to the farm after seeing the bright lights of the city. Modern agricultural methods have liberated farmers from the toils of the plow, and labor-intensive methods are no longer needed to supply food to the populations.

I'll help Martin out a bit here, although I'm sure he can think of a few more examples. You're a Yank aren't you PB? Well, you should know about the Amish in Pennsylvania relish in rejecting modern technology and live highly sustainable lifestyles, producing their own food, clothes, etc. In Britain and elsewhere, there is the startings of a move towards eco-communities by a number of organisations, and the urban-rural drift of disaffected middle-class back to the soil abandoned by their ancestors 4-6 generations earlier has been well underway for a couple of decades. Admittedly, there is still rural-urban drift, due to the low wages and high house prices making country-living unaffordable to many young people, but with a change in policy towards sustainable communities and affordable housing, this could be nipped and reversed. Then there is the massive rebirth of interest in allotment in UK, which I have seen myself first hand as I get on a waiting list as long as your arm for my turn at practicing labour-intensive agriculture in the community.

In Thailand itself, there is a growing interest in community living and self-sufficiency through movements like Santi Asoke, although these tend mainly to capture urban middle classes at the moment, there are signs that villagers are now starting to get involved too. These are people who ave seen and lived in the bright lights of the city, then conciousuly rejected them for a life of simplicity and self-reliance in the countryside. There is one near Chiang Mai I believe, so you may be interested to go check it out. A common theme when talking to the people involved in both East and West, is that they were not "liberated" at all when they left but were enslaved by capitalism and mass consumption, and it was self-sufficiency that liberated them. I think you would do well to read some David Henry Thoreau or Ralph Waldo Emerson before making such sweeping statements about the concept of "liberation".

[Martin]

Thank you for the help, 'plachon'.

I don't know much about the Amish. The bits that I have seen reported put the emphasis on their 'clinging to former ways', with a subliminal message of them dwindling. But now I wonder. Do they get new adherents, and are they growing in numbers?

Forty years ago, my late wife and I decided that we were going to bring up our foster children on a smallholding, as both of us had experienced as children.

So I got a job in the mountains of Wales and we left Outer London.

We saw them come, the hippies and the Flower Power people, and we saw them go.

We bought a copy of Seymour's "Self-Sufficiency" book and tried a few of his suggestions, but never became members of the 'knit your own yoghourt' brigade.

(In fact, I went the opposite way and got hooked on breeding pedigree cattle and sheep and became a Life Member of the Royal Smithfield Club, which is an example of a group dedicated to intense specialism.)

But I recognise that we, and others like us, were not representative of a mainstream majority, of which 'PeaceBlondie' was asking for an example.

If my late wife and I had not had the experience of seeing the older generation running a part-time smallholding alongside a 'city' job, I don't think we would have felt and acted as we did.

The only possible example of foregoing the 'bright lights of the city' for 'return to the land' that occurs to me is the way that some of the Thai people who I was observing yesterday evening would have been going back to Ban Nork to help with the rice harvest. Unless it has already been done, there is room for some research by Thai sociology students on how those people see themselves. Are they villagers who have to forgo village life to earn money in the city for a while each year? Or are they city people who have to go and help out their country cousins?

But, even if they are the latter, I think they could return permanently to the rural without too much trauma.

The interesting thing about the urban middle class self-sufficiency movement, to me, is that it is evidence that there is some atavistic urge among some city dwellers to get back to their ancestral roots. So maybe I would be wrong to be deeply pessimistic about the longer-industrialised countries coping with what is coming their way.

[PeaceBlondie]

The Amish are so 'quaint' precisely because they don't use electricity or internal combustion engines. Nor do they waste money trying to kill their neighbors. However, conversion to the Amish denominations, or to their lifestyle, is virtually unknown (at least in comparison to their losses to the slightly less conservative Mennonites and Church of the Brethren). Oddly enough for this discussion, the Amish and their near-cousins the Hutterites are probably more fecund than the people in Nakhon Fakhon. Their incredibly austere lifestyle, work ethic, and dependence upon living and working on rural farms enables them to make and support even more babies than I had when I was a Southern Baptist.

[JR Texas]

The Amish are so 'quaint' precisely because they don't use electricity or internal combustion engines. Nor do they waste money trying to kill their neighbors. However, conversion to the Amish denominations, or to their lifestyle, is virtually unknown (at least in comparison to their losses to the slightly less conservative Mennonites and Church of the Brethren). Oddly enough for this discussion, the Amish and their near-cousins the Hutterites are probably more fecund than the people in Nakhon Fakhon. Their incredibly austere lifestyle, work ethic, and dependence upon living and working on rural farms enables them to make and support even more babies than I had when I was a Southern Baptist.

Just a few observations:

1) sustainability is meeting our needs without impairing the opportunities of future generations....I would add a quality of life element to the standard definition;

2) to create sustainability we must radically reduce population levels worldwide (including Thailand);

3) to create sustainability we must develop and deploy a new energy system that is small-scaled, powerful, virtually inexhaustible, portable, environmentally friendly (our own personal energy system)........this is truly new and should be done with the encouragement of the UN.....a modern day "Manhattan Project;"

4) sustainability does not necessarily mean low-tech, austere lifestyle, etc; it could mean high tech with all of the comforts of modern society if we develop and deploy a new energy system.....fewer people would allow us to put more emphasis on education, art, etc.;

5) it is critical to strive for local, regional, and even global sustainability;

6) one solution to the present poverty challenge is to get as many poor people as possible out of the global system into sustainable lifestyles........this will ease the burden on creating jobs globally (this can be done if we do #3 above and most of these people are farmers, so living a simple lifestyle with better amenities is something that can be done and would be accepted.......now, of course, we are trying to bring all peoples into a global economic system that has already failed);

7) the only way to do any of this is to elect a new generation of politicians........people who have the ability to think out of the box (Al Gore would be a step in the right direction and I am still hoping he runs for the presidency).......we need positive leadership from the top......leaders who will, for the first time in 50 years, start talking about critical issues and demanding action.

[thaiclan]

Try out some Daniel Quinn books, especially "Ishmael" and "Beyond Civilisation". Historically there are several examples (with existing remains) of entire "modern" cities that were simply abandoned in favour of a better/easier/simpler life. At some point the various peoples simply downed tools and returned to their (interestingly enough) MORE SECURE methods of hunting and gathering food.

"Beyond Civilisation" explores the concept of why humans believe that there is ONLY 1 right way to live, as in grow food, lock it up and send people out to work to buy it all back again. As Homo Sapiens we have been roaming this Earth for 3 MILLION years, yet "Civilisation as we define it has existed merely 10,000 years, yet it DOESN'T work. Maybe for the top 5 or 10 or even 15% but for the remaining people Life is hard and INSECURE.

Aside from historical civilisations that abandoned their cities on a wide scale (unless Hancock wins the day for your opinion and you prefer to believe they are all dancing around on Mars!), there are a variety of "tribes" that thrive successfully outside of "civilisation". Some of these tribes have actively rejected a more "modern" way of life. Yet we view these people as primitive and UNcivilised! Yes I agree its so much more civilised to scavenge on a rubbish dump, or to make a basket which you are forced to sell back to the money lender for 5 or 6 cents, or to be a child prostitute sold to a brothel.....

I read this entire thread this morning so I cannot remember who first started on about there is plenty of land for everyone. Firstly yes there is plenty of undeveloped land on this Earth. However firstly we do not even have the oil reserves to maintain our population at the present level for more than 50 years maximum (Shell mentioned 25 years some while back), let alone to begin a fast track development of virgin land to sustain us (20billion some jolly optimist mentioned!) in the style we have become accustomed.

Secondly it is EXACTLY this line of thinking that has got us into so much trouble in the first place! Why do we as humans believe that this Earth is just for us? So we should continue an unrestricted population growth ("yes Dear, why don't we have 4 kids, oh whats that? you want 6? ah well lets just settle on 5 then"), and then serve the eviction notice for furthermore thousands of plant and animal species so we can raise our ever-so-important brood (its MY choice you know? My HUMAN RIGHT!) of little humans on their land.

Until we begin to learn to live side by side with the other species on this globe I really don't think our past actions should allow us to develop more of their territory and claim it as ours.

[brahmburgers]

"Tony, perhaps you live in the fecundity center of Thailand, Nakhon Fahkon."

good use of the English language!

In reference to PeaceBlondie's challenge to "think of one historical example where people have willingly gone back to the farm after seeing the bright lights of the city." ...there is the 'hippie' back-to-the-land' movement which started in the 1960's and a semblence of it continues today in America (and to some degree other developed countries). Most of the back-to-the-landers hailed from suburbia, but there were a significant number from cities. Even within cities (again, in developed countries, not in Thailand) there are communal organic gardens projects and many health food stores which enable people to tune in with their 'natural state of being.' Thailand may get there some day, but most of its young people are still too busy searching for the best skin whitener (none of which works, but the cosmetic companies and gossip magazines love the trend).

[John K]

A lot of good posts in the last day or so. However bottom line as some have said; population is natures business. Nature makes people want to mate to increase the population, and if there are too many people nature will thin the population. That is they way it has always been with everything on this planet from before the time we decided to carve up land and call the carvings countries. Unfortunately I doubt humans have experienced nature working to reduce the human population on a global scale. I expect that will occur soon.

Perhaps The Thai government may want to look at the visa laws again if they want to boost the population.

[BEENTHEREDONETHAT]

Everyone should be required by law to possess two acres of land which can be developed. At birth each government should give two acres of land to its new citizen. From that day on that person legally must own two acres

disgruntled

Thailands population is approx 63 million and acreage is 127 million. They have just about reached the 2 acres per person level. What happens to the newborns 2 acres?

[plachon]

Everyone should be required by law to possess two acres of land which can be developed. At birth each government should give two acres of land to its new citizen. From that day on that person legally must own two acres

disgruntled

Thailands population is approx 63 million and acreage is 127 million. They have just about reached the 2 acres per person level. What happens to the newborns 2 acres?

Bit of a problem in UK too, with an area of around 60 m acres, giving us all an acre only to play with, following disgruntled's prescription. Nevermind the dilemma that countries like Holland, Bangladesh and Singapore would have in divvying out the two acres. Thus, one can only conclude that he is suggesting a radical redistribution of land from countries like US, Russia and Canada where there is a clear surplus of land going begging to countries with a shortage, such as those already mentioned and dozens of others. This brilliant suggestion could also solve other problem spots, like those of Rwanda, Israel, Palestine and parts of eastern China, where all the cooped up people of the world could go and claim their 2 acre chunk of Montana, Texas, Oklahoma, etc. and therby forget their internecine squabbles over land in their homelands............voila, two birds with one stone. I've got my eye on a nice bit of real estate on Manhattan Island to turn to a veg patch meself.

[JR Texas]

Everyone should be required by law to possess two acres of land which can be developed. At birth each government should give two acres of land to its new citizen. From that day on that person legally must own two acres

disgruntled

Thailands population is approx 63 million and acreage is 127 million. They have just about reached the 2 acres per person level. What happens to the newborns 2 acres?

Bit of a problem in UK too, with an area of around 60 m acres, giving us all an acre only to play with, following disgruntled's prescription. Nevermind the dilemma that countries like Holland, Bangladesh and Singapore would have in divvying out the two acres. Thus, one can only conclude that he is suggesting a radical redistribution of land from countries like US, Russia and Canada where there is a clear surplus of land going begging to countries with a shortage, such as those already mentioned and dozens of others. This brilliant suggestion could also solve other problem spots, like those of Rwanda, Israel, Palestine and parts of eastern China, where all the cooped up people of the world could go and claim their 2 acre chunk of Montana, Texas, Oklahoma, etc. and therby forget their internecine squabbles over land in their homelands............voila, two birds with one stone. I've got my eye on a nice bit of real estate on Manhattan Island to turn to a veg patch meself.

Just an observation about going back to the land/nature: This can be done in a high-tech fashion if we develop and deploy and new energy system. Less people will mean more available land per person is we massively reduce population levels and prevent one person (e.g., Bill Gates) from owning it all. The ruling elite want people to move from the rural areas (where they live in rural castles) to urban areas (where it is easier to control them for slave labor). Yes, I just said that.

Our psychology, the product of evolution, is geared towards living in uncrowded conditions close to nature. It is interesting that so many wealthy people buy up huge tracts of land to create their own versions of paradise. Ted Turner owns a huge swath of Montana. Harrison Ford owns a large segment of Wyoming. Bruce Willis and Demi Moore own vast tracts of land in Idaho........this list is endless (same situation across the pond).

What we are doing now is against our human nature........that puts psychological stress on us all.

Again, if we want to create sustainability (local, regional, global), we must radically reduce population levels worldwide, including in Thailand. And we must develop and deploy a new energy system--our person energy devices that we can take with us anywhere (allows us to grow food and keep warm in the Arctic if we want to live there).

This is not being done because the corporate-political-military elites (worldwide, including Thailand) like the status quo. They like the massive power and wealth they they are accruing at the expense of the vast majority of humanity AND FUTURE GENERATIONS. We have to recognize this and take political action to correct it!

"So human an animal." -- Rene Dubos

[PeaceBlondie]

I always thought "Blow up the TV, move to the country" was just a silly song. My ancestors were suburbanites in 1899, and founded a village on Long Island in the 1630's. We forgot how to hunt for mastodons and drag our women by their ponytails before that. Pongsakorn and Jitsuda moved to the cities of Thailand because they didn't/couldn't survive in the rural areas, and that was 40 years ago. Millions of Thais don't know how to grow rice or how to prune somtam trees. What would life be like without 7-11 stores that never close? Are we talking about urbanites being forced to return to farms they haven't lived on for two generations? It sounds like regress instead of progress.