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Who will you vote for? Australian political parties (4 Viewers)

Who will you vote for

  • Labour Part of Australia

    Votes: 30 34.5%
  • Liberal Party if Australia

    Votes: 30 34.5%
  • National Party of Australia

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • One Nation

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Australian Greens

    Votes: 16 18.4%
  • Socialist Alliance

    Votes: 5 5.7%
  • Christian Democratic Party

    Votes: 1 1.1%
  • Family First

    Votes: 1 1.1%
  • Don't care or know / Donkey vote

    Votes: 2 2.3%
  • Shooters Party

    Votes: 2 2.3%

  • Total voters
    87

Trefoil

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orly

The Australian population is projected to hit about 40 to 60 million (by between 2050 and 2100) before it starts decreasing (or flatlines), and that's certainly a stable number from an environmental perspective (although it WILL require different and better farming and land use practices, among other things).

What would not be stable is something like 100 or 200 million, but we'll never reach that number.
 

boris

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It isn't just water that will limit food production, what about phosphorus? GM crops aren't that good, so far they just let you spray more herbicides around to kill weeds without affecting the crop.
 

Lentern

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boris said:
It isn't just water that will limit food production, what about phosphorus? GM crops aren't that good, so far they just let you spray more herbicides around to kill weeds without affecting the crop.
The sky is the roof when it comes to genetic modfication, we should be funnelling money into developing better kinds, the general principle is there, we can change what environments they need to survive, now we just need to develop that.
 

Lentern

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Trefoil said:
orly

The Australian population is projected to hit about 40 to 60 million (by between 2050 and 2100) before it starts decreasing (or flatlines), and that's certainly a stable number from an environmental perspective (although it WILL require different and better farming and land use practices, among other things).

What would not be stable is something like 100 or 200 million, but we'll never reach that number.
And why will it plateua? People are going to stop having children? Australia is going to become yucky so it won't be such a popular migrant destination? We going to line the shores with dingo's and bogans to scare off the migrants? I know it would be best if Australia had less or more people from a sustaining natural resources perspective but how does that fit in as practical with the rest of the worlds population growth?
 

boris

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I dont think GM is the silver bullet like you say it is. In the end a plant is a plant. With climate change also i think its just going to be harder and harder to grow crops. Also with the decrease in spending on agricultural innovation, i dont think these things are going to happen as fast as you think they are.
 

boris

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Lentern said:
And why will it plateua? People are going to stop having children? Australia is going to become yucky so it won't be such a popular migrant destination? We going to line the shores with dingo's and bogans to scare off the migrants? I know it would be best if Australia had less or more people from a sustaining natural resources perspective but how does that fit in as practical with the rest of the worlds population growth?
What are you talking about? Of course it will plateau. All populations do when they reach their sustainable limit.
 

Lentern

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boris said:
What are you talking about? Of course it will plateau. All populations do when they reach their sustainable limit.
We were sustainable at 15 million. What is going to cause the drop in immigration and the drop in births?
 

Lentern

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boris said:
I dont think GM is the silver bullet like you say it is. In the end a plant is a plant. With climate change also i think its just going to be harder and harder to grow crops. Also with the decrease in spending on agricultural innovation, i dont think these things are going to happen as fast as you think they are.
Actually after it is modified a plant is not just a plant actually it is much more than just a plant actually that is why it has been modified, actually. And I agree the spending cuts have not helped but they must surely increase again before to long with this agricultural crisis going to spread through the world as we continue to populate.
 

boris

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Lentern said:
Actually after it is modified a plant is not just a plant actually it is much more than just a plant actually that is why it has been modified, actually. And I agree the spending cuts have not helped but they must surely increase again before to long with this agricultural crisis going to spread through the world as we continue to populate.
What?


Farming is going to continue to lose interest and funding until it becomes such a problem that food shortages are commonplace. Until then, no one is going to invest in it. No one wants to be a farmer. Its fucking hard and doesn't even turn a profit these days.
 

Lentern

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boris said:
What?


Farming is going to continue to lose interest and funding until it becomes such a problem that food shortages are commonplace. Until then, no one is going to invest in it. No one wants to be a farmer. Its fucking hard and doesn't even turn a profit these days.
It's perfectly simple just take out a few actually's.

Whether or not it is a popular industry the government will recognise how much it needs to to survive and that should ensure the investment comes through. Problem is all these nongs who've read Huxley and Orwell who shout "no you can't genetically modify crops it's the thin end of the wedge, next thing you know we'll have to walk in a specific way."
 

boris

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Lentern said:
It's perfectly simple just take out a few actually's.

Whether or not it is a popular industry the government will recognise how much it needs to to survive and that should ensure the investment comes through. Problem is all these nongs who've read Huxley and Orwell who shout "no you can't genetically modify crops it's the thin end of the wedge, next thing you know we'll have to walk in a specific way."
I understood it i was just wondering why all the actually's were included.

Do you think that by the time they recognise this the industry will be well into decline and much harder to resurrect? I support GM all the way but i just think you are investing too much hope into it being a miracle cure for global food shortages.
 

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boris said:
I understood it i was just wondering why all the actually's were included.

Do you think that by the time they recognise this the industry will be well into decline and much harder to resurrect? I support GM all the way but i just think you are investing too much hope into it being a miracle cure for global food shortages.
It's a consequence of watching too much yes minister, something Sir Humphrey does when he is picking on Bernard sometimes, don't worry, just my being silly.

On GM, no I don't think they will react when they should I think in truth they allready should have done and it will be a back breaking, hit the road running effort to desperately keep the thing afloat but I also think we just will, as we allways do. We end up getting into a nice little economic period and instead of preparing to weather the next storm we decide to live in luxury and cut taxes, give people computers and build NRL hall of fames. When the time comes and something absolutely must be done however most governments are smart enough to make the draconian cuts to non essentials to rustle up the stimulation packages.

As for my hope in GM, I know there are risks involved and if we don't discover what I'm hoping for and it turns out to be a boondoggle we'll be up the creek without a paddle. But I honestly don't know what else we can hope for? The Earths population, save a plague or war is going to keep getting bigger, we'd be silly to try and cheat that fact, we aren't about to just stumble upon a huge untapped area full of natural resources that can keep us going and even if we did it would be a finite solution. As i see it the only other way out of it aside from GM is that we urgently stop wasting fertile ground and begin using it to optimum efficiency, no more Vanilla Beans, Coffee, Tabacco or decoratively flowers, instead we need to be using them for efficient, easy grown crops, I'm not a farmer but judging by their popularity I'd say they would be staples like rice, considering how well my tomtao's are growing I'd hazard a guess and say they're pretty good as well. But gee whiz golly i think we'd have a better chance in convicing people to pay a little more tax so we can explore GM then of telling them only staples from now on.
 

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What
Is
The Secret
Of
soylent green
 

Lentern

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Iron said:
What
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Don't start! I'm sick of these dytopian novels, the alternative is that we start sterilising people, start killing people or live like cavemen. Especially Huxley, as if the Alpha Caste wasn't a perfectly nice place considering the period. If we manage an area half as nice in 400 years I'd say we've done very well indeed.
 

boris

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Lentern said:
It's a consequence of watching too much yes minister, something Sir Humphrey does when he is picking on Bernard sometimes, don't worry, just my being silly.

On GM, no I don't think they will react when they should I think in truth they allready should have done and it will be a back breaking, hit the road running effort to desperately keep the thing afloat but I also think we just will, as we allways do. We end up getting into a nice little economic period and instead of preparing to weather the next storm we decide to live in luxury and cut taxes, give people computers and build NRL hall of fames. When the time comes and something absolutely must be done however most governments are smart enough to make the draconian cuts to non essentials to rustle up the stimulation packages.

As for my hope in GM, I know there are risks involved and if we don't discover what I'm hoping for and it turns out to be a boondoggle we'll be up the creek without a paddle. But I honestly don't know what else we can hope for? The Earths population, save a plague or war is going to keep getting bigger, we'd be silly to try and cheat that fact, we aren't about to just stumble upon a huge untapped area full of natural resources that can keep us going and even if we did it would be a finite solution. As i see it the only other way out of it aside from GM is that we urgently stop wasting fertile ground and begin using it to optimum efficiency, no more Vanilla Beans, Coffee, Tabacco or decoratively flowers, instead we need to be using them for efficient, easy grown crops, I'm not a farmer but judging by their popularity I'd say they would be staples like rice, considering how well my tomtao's are growing I'd hazard a guess and say they're pretty good as well. But gee whiz golly i think we'd have a better chance in convicing people to pay a little more tax so we can explore GM then of telling them only staples from now on.
I just read the wikipedia page about overpopulation. Since 1960, food production has increased faster than population has. So we have a fairly large buffer. The amount of overweight people is now larger than the amount of underweight people too. But that doesn't matter, as people will want to maintain their lifestyle. As food becomes more scarce, prices will increase for things like wheat and meats etc so this will drive the market up for them and decrease the market for vanilla beans etc. Also it said that population is ultimatelty controlled by food availibility. The only reason humans have been able to become as populous as they have is because of agriculture. When we reach the limits of food production, then population will plateou. Also there is nothing saying that our population wont decrease, russias has been decreasing for years.
 

black_kat_meow

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Lentern said:
It's a consequence of watching too much yes minister, something Sir Humphrey does when he is picking on Bernard sometimes, don't worry, just my being silly.

On GM, no I don't think they will react when they should I think in truth they allready should have done and it will be a back breaking, hit the road running effort to desperately keep the thing afloat but I also think we just will, as we allways do. We end up getting into a nice little economic period and instead of preparing to weather the next storm we decide to live in luxury and cut taxes, give people computers and build NRL hall of fames. When the time comes and something absolutely must be done however most governments are smart enough to make the draconian cuts to non essentials to rustle up the stimulation packages.

As for my hope in GM, I know there are risks involved and if we don't discover what I'm hoping for and it turns out to be a boondoggle we'll be up the creek without a paddle. But I honestly don't know what else we can hope for? The Earths population, save a plague or war is going to keep getting bigger, we'd be silly to try and cheat that fact, we aren't about to just stumble upon a huge untapped area full of natural resources that can keep us going and even if we did it would be a finite solution. As i see it the only other way out of it aside from GM is that we urgently stop wasting fertile ground and begin using it to optimum efficiency, no more Vanilla Beans, Coffee, Tabacco or decoratively flowers, instead we need to be using them for efficient, easy grown crops, I'm not a farmer but judging by their popularity I'd say they would be staples like rice, considering how well my tomtao's are growing I'd hazard a guess and say they're pretty good as well. But gee whiz golly i think we'd have a better chance in convicing people to pay a little more tax so we can explore GM then of telling them only staples from now on.
Um, fuck that.

Plus, in your eagerness to sound sophisticated with long words, your grammatical structure often suffers. Please make posts more readable, maybe space them out more if you're going to type like that?
 

boris

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black_kat_meow said:
Um, fuck that.

Plus, in your eagerness to sound sophisticated with long words, your grammatical structure often suffers. Please make posts more readable, maybe space them out more if you're going to type like that?
He is right though. These things will go. Food is so readily availiable now that people are able to become obese. When this is not the case due to overpopulation, there will be no massive tracts of fertile land to grow tobacco and coffee as it will be unprofitable compared to corn, rice and wheat for example.
 

Lentern

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black_kat_meow said:
Um, fuck that.

Plus, in your eagerness to sound sophisticated with long words, your grammatical structure often suffers. Please make posts more readable, maybe space them out more if you're going to type like that?
Yes I know my message sometimes gets lost in the sing song verbosity and perhaps I should read over my posts before submitting them but upon reflection it is in my simpler statements that I actually trip over words, less frequently in the airy fairy stuff.

In regards to the issue at hand we are faced with the predicament of using more than we have, it's that simple. Now the two solutions to that are either to create more, which is dependant on a technological breakthrough, I think we can get it but it's still a gamble, or use less.
 

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