Comments

Don't forget Foran and Poldi's Future Dilemmas: Options to 2050 for Australia's population, technology, resources and environment, 2002. http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/33785/20030616-0000/www.cse.csiro.au/research/program5/futuredilemmas/index.htm Commissioned by the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigeneous Affairs(DIMA), it predicted all our problems, and the government ignored it.

Just with reference to Peter Cook's recommendation that "The Australian Government should fund the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) to publish projections of the likely impact of varying rates of population growth on the built and natural environment. This analysis could form part of the CSIRO’s National Outlook publication. The release of this analysis should be synchronised with the release of the Australian Government’s Intergenerational Report," I wanted to remind people that the CSIRO provided such a report just before it was largely privatised. Economists actually distorted the expression of the scientific conclusions in their editing, which was largely forced on the scientists. The report, by Barney Foran and Franzi Poldi, was called, Future Dilemmas: Options to 2050 for Australia's population, technology, resources and environment, 2002.

About the Report
What impact will the size of Australia's future population have on the environment, the physical economy, the national infrastructure and our quality of life?

To gain insights into what the future might hold for Australia, researchers at CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems have developed new tools and approaches to modelling Australia's dynamic physical economy.

Future Dilemmas is a technical report that encapsulates the results of this research, which was commissioned by the Commonwealth Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA).

It explores the future effect of three population/immigration scenarios on infrastructure, resources and the environment out to the year 2050.

The first scenario considers what would happen if the net immigration rate was zero persons a year (described as the low scenario in the report).
The second considers what happens if the rate was 70 000 a year (the current policy setting, and described as the medium scenario).
The third examines the consequences of an immigration rate set at two thirds of one percent (0.67%) of the current population per year (described here as the high scenario).
The low scenario (zero immigration) represents the policy position of some environment groups. Based on current population growth, it would see a domestic population of 20 million by 2050. The medium scenario gives a population of 25 million by 2050. The high scenario (0.67% growth pa) is a position advocated by many business interests. It gives us 32 million people by 2050.

Future Dilemmas explores the consequences of these three scenarios for people, urban infrastructure, the natural environment, energy, water and a broad range of other issues.

Future Dilemmas: options to 2050 for Australia's population, technology, resources and environment was officially launched on Thursday 7 November 2002 by the Hon Philip Ruddock, Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs.

The following are excerpts from Orthodox Christmas in Southern Serbia, Oaks and Casual Cruelties (9/1/18) by Dr. Binoy Kampmark | Global Research. As well as this terrible instance of neglect and cruelty to animals, this article is about the threat of ethnic strife and renewed war between Muslims, Serbs and other ethic groups in the Serbia Town of Bujanovac.

The man, gristle and all ... was spotting a particularly agitated dog, udders swollen and heavy, with disdain. The word was that he had hit that same animal the previous day. The memory stung; the dog, barking with helpless fury, wanted a revenge it could never have, a dish it could never savour.

As the barking continued with increasing agitation, a set of strangled yelps were released, followed by a sequence of piercing howls. The man had deployed his stick once more, having gotten off his perch and metamorphosed into a mobile being. No longer still statue, clothes animated and moving with the corporeal form, this mass was now directing his stick with committed viciousness. The dog, beaten, fled again, its cries weaving through the pot-filled streets of Bujanovac like lengthy stretches of pain.

The scene of casual cruelties in the town of Bujanovac alight along the potted road to the village church in neighbouring Rakovac, a village of Serbs in an area also replete with Albanians and the sound of mosques in prayer.

A puppy blackish and brown, its pygmy presence barely a few weeks old has been abandoned, its doomed cries as it vainly struggles in the damp grass defrosted from the night, bruising to the heart. Some pass by without a glance at this blur of colour, the animal struggling to find his bearings, legs giving way; others register a sorrowful regret at not being able to take the animal home. There are priorities, and the dog as pet is less valued as the dog as guard, soldier and functional protector. Animals shelters where these creatures can be saved are not thought of; the grim reaper shall have his feed tonight.

...

I would like to believe that, if I had been a resident of Bujanovic, amidst the cold, lacking food, firewood and fearing a further outbreak of ethnic strife and war that has been endemic to the region since NATO destroyed Yugoslavia in 1999,that I would have still rescued that dog or at least given it some food and and water and taken the time to show it a little kindness.

Thanks Sheila - yes you did support that idea when I published it.

There were a few comments here.

I don't think change can come from the system that benefits from the status quo - the Catholic church is perhaps a good example here - change from outside - from a grass roots movement started by mainly one man who tapped in to popular sentiment and people felt strongly enough about the issue to risk being killed (often by burning).

Thus I feel a similar process will eventually happen now in relation to our current power system - only much worse, as we are now dependent on the system for all our food and other needs, whereas once this power was much more decentralised and democratically distributed.

As an intermediate approach I have proposed the following:

An alternative planning approach

But I think it will be too late soon, if not already. Not too late for change, but too late to avoid massive suffering.

See:

Out of the Wreckage

There are links forward and back to causes and solutions. At least he is trying. But reality seems to be that no matter how many books are written on the causes, problems and possible solutions, not much seems to change. The sticking point seems not be knowing what is wrong, or what to do about it, but rather making any change happen.

I posted this comment beneath the YouTube video which was embedded below. Those who read this and who have already read previous comments will find that much of what is in this commen has already been posted above.

The talk appears to have omitted the underlying cause of the conflict between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK aka 'North Korea') and the United States.

North Korea was devastated in the war of 1950-1953. US Air Force General Curtis Le May perversely boasted how 25% of the population of North Korea was killed by his B29 bombers and how no building more than one storey high was left standing. The DPRK suffered this bombardment because they refused to surrender to the United States and its local proxies who had been imposed upon the southern half of Korea in 1945.

In 1945, the new US President Harry S. Truman turned on the Soviet Union and many of the United States' other war-time allies including the ELAS partisans in Greece, the communist partisans in Italy, the Viet Minh in Vietnam, the Chinese communists and the DPRK in Korea.

In the southern half of Korea the United States' occupation forces put into power a government largely composed of Koreans who had collaborated with the Japanese occupiers. This government was named the "Republic of Korea" (ROK aka 'South Korea'). The US Army and its local ROK puppets savagely repressed supporters of the DPRK in the south and DPRK supporters resisted this repression. This civil war became a conventional war on 25 June 1950. Had the United States and its allies not massively increased the size of their intervention, the army of the DPRK could have easily beaten the army of the hated ROK. The subsequent invasion of the North was stopped, but at a terrible cost to the DPRK and to its Chinese allies. Peace was never signed in 1953. Officially that war continues. The DPRK leaders know that any one of the annual joint military exercises of the US and ROK, which resemble practice invasions of the North, could easily turn into a real invasion should the US be able to manufacture a pretext. Accordngly, the DPRK has repeatedly asked at the United Nations that these exercises cease.

THe DPRK leadres saw that they had no choice but to create weapons which could deter the United States should it ever again attempt to do what it failed to do in 1953.

Kim Jong-Un shamed Trump (Ruslan Ostako)

< >

I posted the comment below to a discussion beneath the article Pentagon: US Forces To Stay In Syria “As Long As We Need To” (5/12/2017) | South Front.

Starlight, whilst I continue to be appalled by the scale of the overt and covert crimes of Israel against the Arab peoples and the rest of humanity, it is wrong to imply that every jewish person is complicit. I beleive that this sort of language only helps Israel and the United States' government.

President Vladimir Putin made Russia a sovereign country again after almost nine years of misrule by his drunken predecessor Boris Yeltsin. In Syria, Russian military intervention almost certainly saved the government of the popular and democratically elected Presdident Bashar al-Assad which was facing an invasion by hordes of terrorst mercenaries from all corners of the world.

President Putin should rightly be viewed alogside the likes of United States' Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and John F Kennedy and President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt.

Nevertheless, I think President Putin has shown surprisingly poor judgement in a number of critical conflicts. Even the Syrian conflict has been dragged out needlessly because of Putin's wish to reach a compromise with some of the 'rebels', instead of acting in concert with Syria, Iran and Hezbollah to finish off the terrorists altogether. (How many of the estimated 400,000 dead Syrians, including 80,000 soldiers, would be still be alive today had President Putin acted more decisively?)

Whilst Vladimir Putin was off attending the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics from 7 to 23 Feb 2014, the CIA and their local neo-Nazi Svoboda footsoldiers overthrew the democratically elected government of President Viktor Yanukovych. Had Russian government acted more proactively, I beleive there is a good chance that the coup could have been prevented. Unless this coup is reversed, how is NATO to be prevented from eventually placing conventional weapons and even nuclear weapons right on Russia's border?

President Putin's bizarre reconcilatory tone towards the American hegemonists is reflected in much of the reporting and discussion on its RT news service, which is surprisingly tame, given the scale of the criminality of the American government in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Ukraine and elsewhere. At least tens of thousands have died in each of these conflicts and the total number of dead is several millions. Why should the tone of RT be any less strident in its presentation of the truth than that of the lying corporate newmedia?

Nowithstanding this critique of RT, RT's Crosstalk discussion "Distrusting the News" (6/12/2017, 27:13 minutes) at https://www.rt.com/shows/crosstalk/412064-media-journalistic-standards-deal/ is well worth a watch.

From the PressTV article 400 US Marines to leave Syria after Raqqah operation: Coalition (1/12/17):

The US-led coalition, which has purportedly been fighting Daesh, says it is to pull more than 400 American Marines out of Syria, where they helped Kurdish militants capture the northern city of Raqqah from the Takfiri terror group.

"With the city liberated and ISIS (Daesh) on the run, the unit has been ordered home. Its replacements have been called off," the coalition said in a statement.

"We’re drawing down combat forces where it makes sense, but still continuing our efforts to help Syrian and Iraqi partners maintain security," Brigadier General Jonathan Braga, the director of operations for the coalition, said in the statement.

Last month, the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an anti-Damascus militant group backed by the United States, took control of Raqqah, which had served as Daesh’s main stronghold in Syria since 2014.

The Syrian government, however, rejected claims by the SDF and its foreign sponsors that Raqqah has been "liberated."

Information Minister Mohammad Ramez Tardjaman said in late October that no land is considered liberated in the country unless national army forces regain control of it and raise the Syrian flag atop its buildings.

The statement further said, "Our remaining forces will continue to work by, with, and through partner forces to defeat remaining ISIS, prevent a re-emergence of ISIS, and set conditions for international governments and NGOs to help local citizens recover from the horrors of ISIS' short-lived rule."

... Read more

From the start, the brutal barbaric crimes of ISIS/Daesh as well as being part of the United States' proxy war against the Syrian people, also served as a cover story to allow US forces to enter Syria, ostensibly to fight ISIS/Daesh, but, in reality, to help overthrow the popularly elected government of Syria which, unlike most other countries in the region, refused to become subservient to the US.

As of 12:54pm, I have learnt that my post which was 'under moderation' is no longer there. Presumably, it has been deleted!

This begs the question: "What have the editors of Russia Insider to fear from the above post? If I am wrong, then surely they or somebody else can show other readers where I am wrong? If they cannot show where I am wrong, then quite posssibly what I have written is correct. So, how does the stifling of dissenting opinions, which appear to be backed up by evidence and logic, help Russia Insider fight against Washington's plans for global hegemony agenda in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Ukraine, the Black Sea, Eastern Europe, the Baltic Sea, the Arctic Ocean, Afghanistan, Korea, the South China Sea and elsewhere?

Whilst, as I have said before, Russia Insider is informative on many critical issues - Ukraine, Syria, Crimea, Flight MH17, ... - being seen to be covering up up for one of the worst tyrants in history, whilst, bizarrely, condemning Lenin and the Russian Revolution that Stalin claimed to uphold - The Bolshevik Revolution - a Russian Tragedy, Examining the Rotten Roots of Russian Redstalgia, Famous Syphilitic Psychopath Vladimir Lenin Celebrated at St. Petersburg Conference, Why Didn't the British King Save His Russian Cousin, Nicholas II After the Revolution?, The Real Lenin: Traitor, Parasite, Failure and 'Russians Are Sh*theads!' - Grandpa Lenin in His Own Words - can only undermine the global movement against the lying corporate newsmwdia and war.

I posted this in response to the Iranian PressTV video debate Why did North Korea sentence President Trump to death? (18/11/17) I was still downloading the 400Mb MP4 video file to watch it faster off-line, so I still haven't watched it.

However critically we may judge recent actions by North Korean President Kim Jong-Un, they pale into insignificance in comparison to the vast crimes committed by the United States since September 1945 against all the people of Korea, both in the North and the South.

In a seeming paradox, in September 1945, after the surrender of Japan, the United States military forces, which occupied the south of the country, installed in power a government, largely made up of Koreans who had collaborated with the Japanese against their own people, that is, against the Korean resistance who had fought against the same common enemy against which the United States had also fought since 7 December 1941. President Roosevelt (FDR), who had led the US in that war had died in April 1945. His successor, Harry S. Human, was much more a glove puppet of those in the military-industrial complex not sympathetic to the war aims of FDR. So, after the end of the war, US military forces acted to suppress those popular resistance forces who had fought against Japan and Nazi Germany in Korea, China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Greece, Italy, France and elsewhere.

The repression in South Korea was particularly savage. The popular resistance to that repression extended into what is referred to as the Korean War which began on 25 June 1950. In that war Koreans faced gound forces from the Uited States, France, the UK, Australia and a number of other allies. The United States' Air Foce (USAF) bombarded North Korea so much that it began to run out of targets to find. As perversely attested to by USAF commander General Curtis Le May (aka Dr. Strangelove) not one building higher than one storey was left standing. 25% or possible eve 30% of North Koreans died in that war.

The US refused to sign a peace treaty with North Korea. Every year, the North Korean military commanders have to take careful precautions should the annual practise invasion (aka 'military execises'), conducted by the South Korean military forces and the US occupation forces, turn into a real attempt by them to achieve what they had previously failed to achieve by 27 July 1953.

Thank you, John for the support in your comment and the link. Unfortunately, the article that you linked to is behind a paywall. The paywall doesn't even allow a visitor to make a one-off payment! To read Steve Keen's article, one has to first agree to make a monthly contribution. Whilst it is possible to pay as little as $1.00 per month, most people would have to pay bank administrarive charges on top of that, and I expect that patreon.com would hit you with more charges if you ceased making that contribution every month.

i have yet to find a paywalled site that allows a visitor to make a one-of payment.