[vhfpmr]

don't forget the "long covid " sufferers, there are thousands of people whose lives have been severely disrupted

Only thousands? This neuroscientist who specialises in Long Covid says the figure may be as high as 10 million, and that we have no way of knowing because the data isn't being recorded adequately.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1814824165272080546.html

[paul cotter]

Could well be correct. I just wanted to raise the subject and did not intend to limit to "thousands".

[acsinuk (OP)]

The whole point is pandemics can kill millions which could be a good thing for our planet which is overheating due to the population explosion in North Africa/middle east.
Let God sort pandemics out not NHS pseudo experts with uneconomic lockdowns while science develop a vaccine; the alternative is wars over water rights and religious squabbles all scary alternatives.
Politicians should not react just procrastinate and wringing their hands about such large families making it impossible for their economies to keep up with building homes and infrastructure but leave it to our Creator to solve the problem

[vhfpmr]

the population explosion in North Africa/middle east.

Population growth is fixed, the increase in births has already ceased, and the remaining increase in total population is just what's already baked into the system as today's children grow up and have children of their own.

[Bored chemist]

Let God sort pandemics out

You are on the wrong web site.

[Bored chemist]

A previous administration was able to prevent an armed invasion (Operation Sealion) by the world's most efficient military force that had successfully invaded the rest of Europe.

I was intercepted in 1975 when sailing a registered yacht flying a British flag, which was boarded and searched for illegal immigrants, any of whom would have been immediately imprisoned along with the crew.

You need to start by taking the threat seriously and committing and equipping the Coastguard to do its job.

It would be better if people stopped conflating "illegal immigrants" with asylum seekers at every opportunity.

[alancalverd]

You are an illegal immigrant unless and until you have been granted asylum, unless you have been offered refugee status before arriving.

Very few people would automatically qualify from asylum if they have arrived from France. IIRC the Revolution was over 200 years ago and refugees from the Nazis mostly returned to France in the late 1940s.

Not that any of this is relevant to the question! COVID was imported to the UK by legitimate and documented travellers, roughly half UK residents and half visitors on business or vacation.   

[Petrochemicals]

You are an illegal immigrant unless and until you have been granted asylum, unless you have been offered refugee status before arriving.

Very few people would automatically qualify from asylum if they have arrived from France. IIRC the Revolution was over 200 years ago and refugees from the Nazis mostly returned to France in the late 1940s.

Not that any of this is relevant to the question! COVID was imported to the UK by legitimate and documented travellers, roughly half UK residents and half visitors on business or vacation.   

A good joke is that 2 jewish holocaust refugees moved to the U.K. in 1939 after suffering merciless persecution for 12 years in Germany, narrowly avoiding death in the concentration camps, losing all their posessions. They where housed in Glasgow. 6 years later, as soon as the war was over they moved back.

[acsinuk (OP)]

BC  " They where housed in Glasgow. 6 years later, as soon as the war was over they moved back."
But refugees in camps in the Sahara would move back to what?  A burnt out village robbed of all food and seeds??
7 millions in the camps already but what is their future??? How can we absorb millions of out of work children and teenagers looking for work and a way to advance their society and country?

[Bored chemist]

But refugees in camps in the Sahara

You seem to be the only one to mention the Sahara.
WTF are you talking about?

[acsinuk (OP)]

We are talking about world over population that is causing global warming and millions of child refugees!!!

Simple answer is limit families to 2.1 children so they inherit parents house thus limit building to improvements only. 

Free contraception supplied by do-gooder charities. WHO, red cross, docs without borders, red crescent etc.

[alancalverd]

I think you have put the cart before the horse but the underlying suggestion of population control is sound.

Climate change is inevitable, human population isn't. For the foreseeable future (about the next 500 years) the world will be unable to sustain the present human population at an acceptable standard of living. If the population doesn't decrease, there will be increasing numbers of people needing to migrate because their homeland is uninhabitable, and plenty more wishing to migrate because the grass is (literally) greener somewhere else and transport is cheap. Where the climate is presently tolerable, the standard of living is almost wholly dependent on fossil fuels, of which the supply is limited and mostly controlled by theocracies and other unpleasant dictatorships.

Limiting reproduction to one child would reduce the population to an indefinitely sustainable level within 100 years.

[Bored chemist]

Free contraception supplied by do-gooder charities. WHO, red cross, docs without borders, red crescent etc.

Yes, it is.
I was not sure about Red Crescent, so I checked.
https://www.ifrc.org/sites/default/files/IFRC_CIC_Guidelines_EN_20200212_Web.pdf

But you also have to ensure that you provide retirement/ old-age pensions.
Because, for a lot of people their only hope for being looked after when they are old is their children.
While that's the case, they have a clear incentive to have lots of children.

[alancalverd]

The frequent misconception is that children work for pensioners. Grandchildren don't!

In developed countries (and the USA) the under-20's mostly do not pay any taxes and are a financial burden on the  state and their parents. State pensions are paid by the taxed 20 - 60 cohort, the "Working Fraction" which accounts for about 50% of the population, with roughly 25% in each of the 0 - 20 and 60 - 100 cohorts. The WF is also responsible for the economic activity that funds private pensions.

If the birthrate decreases below replacement level, the WF actually increases and the tax burden decreases, so there is more money available to pay pensions and more people (from the WF) available to support the elderly since fewer are involved in child care and education.

The only people who suffer from a decreasing population are the parasites whose incomes depend on economic expansion and a shortage of resources.

[paul cotter]

I agree, our two daughters are still a financial drain to some extent but less than in the past. The younger one(36) is almost independent but the older one(38) is a disaster: she is extremely gifted in many ways but totally impractical in day to day planning and organisation and I doubt she will ever be capable of independent living. Fortunately neither have produced any sprogs, yet.

[alancalverd]

Also worth considering less complex societies.

Historically, subsistence agriculture required a pyramidal family, with 5-year-olds herding animals and teenagers clearing forest and ploughing  fields, but the pyramid was assured by a life expectancy of about 20 years so only about one in ten would survive to effective retirement at age 50. Thanks to medicine and civil engineering, that life expectancy has more than doubled in the last 100 years and the pyramid looks more like a trapezoid, with the same amount of land, rain and sun supporting three times the population - except that the climate has changed, and there is no more land.

[Petrochemicals]

Also worth considering less complex societies.

Historically, subsistence agriculture required a pyramidal family, with 5-year-olds herding animals and teenagers clearing forest and ploughing  fields, but the pyramid was assured by a life expectancy of about 20 years so only about one in ten would survive to effective retirement at age 50. Thanks to medicine and civil engineering, that life expectancy has more than doubled in the last 100 years and the pyramid looks more like a trapezoid, with the same amount of land, rain and sun supporting three times the population - except that the climate has changed, and there is no more land.

Funny fact that the biggest factor in birth control in history has been poor health, if you married at 15 that would give you at least 20 pregnancies,  infertility was rife and many pregnancies did not run to term . Add to that the high level of infant and child mortality

[acsinuk (OP)]

 Gosh; My apologies to BC and you all as you correctly guessed I thought I was replying to the Environmental forum question of link between population expansion and global warming.  So sorry.
Anyhow, I agree with all the above comments but recommend charities major objective be family planning free aids, rather than food, health and medical care; particularly as with modern mechanisation a farmer with a tractor no longer needs a large family but as a responsible parent should ensure that his kids find a job to assist the community and a home to inherit in the future.

[alancalverd]

It's difficult enough to forecast the weather for next week's harvest. How is a farmer expected to predict the job market 20 years down the line? And if the kids inherit the farmhouse, hasn't that rather restricted their choice of career?

[Bored chemist]

The frequent misconception is that children work for pensioners. Grandchildren don't!

In developed countries (and the USA) the under-20's mostly do not pay any taxes and are a financial burden on the  state and their parents. State pensions are paid by the taxed 20 - 60 cohort, the "Working Fraction" which accounts for about 50% of the population, with roughly 25% in each of the 0 - 20 and 60 - 100 cohorts. The WF is also responsible for the economic activity that funds private pensions.

If the birthrate decreases below replacement level, the WF actually increases and the tax burden decreases, so there is more money available to pay pensions and more people (from the WF) available to support the elderly since fewer are involved in child care and education.

The only people who suffer from a decreasing population are the parasites whose incomes depend on economic expansion and a shortage of resources.

You forgot to say " WF actually increases and the tax burden decreases... for a while"
OK, just to make the maths easy, we can consider the case where the birth rate drops to zero.
For simplicity, we can say everyone retires at 60.
Broadly the same thing happens regardless of the distribution of retirement ages.

What happens over the period from 20 years to 59 years and 364 days later?
The WF drops to zero near zero.
And that one day's worth of people (due to retire "tomorrow") have to support the entire retired population. They will be paying several thousand percent tax to do it.

And the next day, the elderly have to look after themselves.

From the planet's PoV that might be a good thing.