Note that Paul Spicker conveniently switches from UK to Scotland. One needs
to be quite clear about which of these two entities one is speaking about.
Scotland is part of the UK. It is overall UK data - population,
consumption, emissions, exports and imports that is needed for any assesment
of carrying capacity of the UK. Also note that the assertion that a country
x has gone beyond carrying cappacity is not, repeat not, based just on
population density.
I gave my reasons for asserting that the UK has gone beyond carrying
capacity in my essay "How many people can the earth support? Part two.
Ecological Footprints" which is attached to the Comment and Analysis page of
our web site
www.gaiawatch.org.uk or www.population-growth-migration.info
Kindly note, first, that this essay is not really original work, it is
based on the published work of people like Andrew Ferguson, and the Living
Planet report produced by WWF , United Nations Environment Programme and
WCMC (research of Jonathan Loh and others.)
Second, the Ecological Footprint method used produces results about the
present situation- it does not assert what would be the situation if that
situation was changed in some specific way (e.g. by a massive improvement in
technology, achieving much greater delinking between material input and
output (impact), and economic activity measured by GDP).
Third. The details given in my essay will no doubt need revising to bring
the numerical conclusions up to date, but I do not think this will in any
way alter the basic conclusions.
John Barker
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Spicker" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, August 24, 2004 11:38 AM
Subject: Re: Migration Watch
> Thanks to John Barker for the provenance of the figure of 153,000. It
> doesn't alter the basic criticisms of Migration Watch's figures. Their
> numbers don't add up. There is liberal rounding up - 233,000 becomes
> "nearly 250,000", 153,000 has 50,000 added for illegal immigration, and
5.9
> million people become 7.6 million people. Projections are based on the
> highest annual figure available: average immigration since 1971 has been
> less than one-sixth of their projection for the next thirty years.
> Countervailing trends - like the out-migration of half all in-migrants
> within five years - are ignored. There are inconsistent figures used,
> chosen to show their case in an alarmist light. The main appeal they make
> is to the changing cultural and ethnic character of the population through
> these population flows, which is crudely xenophobic. This is a political
> position, not a reasoned appeal to evidence.
>
> Both Migration Watch and Gaia Watch claim that the UK has reached a limit
> for population density - Gaia Watch refer to the UK's limited "carrying
> capacity". This is myth. At 77,925 square kilometres, Scotland is the
> same size as the Czech Republic (78,370 sq km). Scotland has about five
> million people at a population density of 65 people per square kilometre;
> the Czech Republic has 130 people per sq km. Italy, to take another
> comparison, has a population density of 193 people per square kilometre.
> Scotland would need 5 million more people before it reached the same
density
> as the Czech Republic, and 10 million more people before it reached the
same
> population density as Italy. The problem currently with expanding the
> population is not the numbers of people per se, the quality of the
climate,
> or the scope for different land use; it is the lack of an adequate
economic
> infrastructure to support it.
>
> Paul Spicker
>
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