Attenborough – correct or "barmy" himself

So our National Legend believes that:

Attempting to solve famine in Africa by simply sending flour bags is “barmy”, Sir David Attenborough has said, as he argued it was nature’s response to too many people and not enough land.

Given the argument on the free school lunch thread (ie, if you cant afford to feed your kids, dont have them) is Attenborough correct?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/10316271/Sir-David-Attenborough-If-we-do-not-control-population-the-natural-world-will.html

The Torygraph seen to be running with this and Christine Odone is clearly not impressed:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/cristinaodone/100236478/the-sinister-side-of-david-attenborough/

But that is more of a rant!

… and Christine Odone is clearly not impressed

Well, she can do one, then – he’s right, as far as I’m concerned, and certainly better-qualified to speak on the subject than she is.

Totally agree with him.

nature’s response to too many people and not enough land.

This does rather ignore the effect that wars, inter-tribal conflicts, competition for natural resources with companies growing food for the western consumers and the arbitrary dividing of tribal lands into countries with borders has had.

He is a wise man. 🙂

It does seem a bit mad that we’re sending them basic food supplies while they use all their arable land and water supplies to make sure we have asparagus, year round, in Tesco

Having said that, I do like a roasted asparagus with parma ham and Parmesan shavings, even in winter. So **** ’em! They can live on bags of UN flour!

He’s scientificaly right, but not very humanitarian.

this guy has a point 😉

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/tory-councillor-phil-taylor-provokes-outrage-on-twitter-for-urging-sir-david-attenborough-to-commit-euthanasia-8824262.html

I’d go with a bit of truth in it, but it is hard to account for the wars that more than devestate these places, wars which without external influence would have died out a long time ago. You could say, that should intervention stop the wars, could the populace sort the mess out for themselves? That i think would provide a true grasp on what “nature” is capable of.

He is correct in principle, but rigidly applying a completely Malthusian world view means you are over-riding one of the key aspects of animal behaviour – the human ability to empathise with the suffering of other humans and respond to it.

This is a social behaviour that has evolved over many millions of years, so it clearly offers some kind of advantage, and while this particular expression of it – flour bags to Africa – may in essence be a futile one, overall it’s a behaviour we should encourage.

bit thick when he moves off his area of expertise isn’t he.

this guy has a point

I had exactly the same thought when he made those original comments. He went very much down in my estimation that day.

Odone’s article is a perfect example of a modern truism- if you need to misrepresent someone’s argument in order to criticise it, you are admitting they’re right. Attenborough hasn’t said “Stop feeding famine victims”, he’s said expecting to fix the problem by sending food aid to famine areas is barmy. Which is incredibly obvious- it doesn’t fix the problem at all, it just sustains it.

^^^ WHS

He’s cranky, old a bit of a grumpy man in real life (so I am to hear). And probably smells a bit of wee. I’ve never liked him, from a childhood being of subjected to his endless hushed narrative of lions shagging, to now when he considers himself qualified to opine about all manner of ‘environmental’ subjects. He got a zoology degree once, that’s it.

He’s not a national treasure FFS – he is – and always has been – just a TV presenter.

He’s almost certainly right about sending aid over there: “give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day, teach him how to fish and he’ll eat for ever” and all that. Alternatively, the western world needs to stop operating such a stupid way of life and learn to support developing countries rather than bleeding them dry of natural resources (including quality farmland) and selling them weapons.

Oh yeah, and he’s right about population growth here too:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-politics/10317992/Sir-David-Attenborough-is-my-new-feminist-crush.html

bit thick when he moves off his area of expertise isn’t he.

No he’s right, it’s natures response, the human response to natures response is to send flour.

+1 for Attenborough

World is over populated, We won’t be able to feed ourselves in the future on our current diets and destroying the planet with the need for more food producing land. Families across the world in any situation should be limited these days I think.

Agree with Attenborough here. We’ve got an economic model that demands unrestricted growth, sooner or later we’re going to run out of resources or most likely we’re going to price the remaining accessible resources the planet has to offer out of reach of the majority.

We’re a Malthusian catastrophe waiting to happen unless either we get a grip on population control or we suddenly discover the multitude of new technologies required to keep us all in food, energy, fresh water and raw materials.

Give a man a fish…….

Natures response ? nature is not an alternative to god who gets a bit pissed off and wipes out the uppity humans . We are more than capable of feeding the entire world population and then some on current production notable famine areas have less dense populations than many affluent areas Africa the continent is a net exporter of food. Ethiopia was exporting more grain than it received at the height of it’s famine. Population growth appears set to tail off and reproduction rates have reduced.

The problem is politics/economics Africa is a disaster zone because we (the developed world) keep funding, supplying and ignoring wars and corruption so that we can rape their natural resources.

Imposed Population control is just a comfort blanket for the affluent west to recommend as they throw away over a third of the food they monopolise.

He’s absolutely spot on – it’s called natural selection, survival of the fittest, etc. The weak die, the strong live. To go against that, i.e. to try to help the weak to live (or to preven them from dying), is against nature – it’s unnatural. It doesn’t happen elsewhere in nature.

On R4 this morning he was quizzed about this and I can’t imagine anyone being that outraged by his observation that areas where women’s literacy and empowerment is greater have lower population growth.

It’s a contentious issue and I’m sure anyone can take a partial quote and choose to get offended by it – but this morning’s interview had him coming over as very articulate, considered and humane.

I’m not sure if he hung up the phone later in the interview though when they were talking about euthanasia…

would have to agree with him, but i feel that even here in Europe we are over populated.

i’ve met Mr. Attenborough… a nice bloke, very polite, knowledgable… or so i’m told by my mum. i was about 2 at the time. still have my signed harback copy of “the living planet”.

Yes John, but somewhere along the track, ‘natural selection’ helped humans evolve characteristics and behaviour which causes us to help the weak by, for example, developing medicines and vaccines, developing education systems, and being inclined towards charitable acts. Empathy is an evolved trait which has benefited us greatly.

The unfettered natural selection argument applies far less to human society than other species, unless you believe that the products of society and empathy I’ve listed are equally wrong.

Attenborough had an urgent heart operation a while back, so if survival of the fittest was the only criteria in town, he’d currently be making a contribution to a completely different bio-system.

Of course he is correct – doesn’t even need saying really – and the pointless journalist cant see past the end of her nose blah blah blah – or count – or think logically or rationally.

Of course she cant – these basic human abilities are not required for a journalist. What is required is to get all emotional and soppy when shown pictures of melting ice caps, starving children and homeless puppies – and then right a story about it.

He’s absolutely spot on – it’s called natural selection, survival of the fittest, etc. The weak die, the strong live. To go against that, i.e. to try to help the weak to live (or to preven them from dying), is against nature – it’s unnatural. It doesn’t happen elsewhere in nature.

reflect on that next time you’re sitting in A&E

Survival of the fittest relates to an individuals ‘fit’ into their evolutionary niche, not their threshold/number of strava KOMs

And Attenborough was talking about the fact that providing aid in the way we do ‘encourages’ people to remain in areas that probably can’t support them in their current state. I.e. investing in infrastructure etc is a better way of getting the environment to support the population/enable the population to move from there rather than giving people short term aid

He’s right because sending food does feed the hungry in the short term (and that matters if you’re the hungry one) but it doesn’t “solve the famine” it just puts it off a bit.

He’s absolutely correct, and has got some pretty big b*lls for actually saying it, and not just taking the easy ‘political’ way out so beloved of our politicians too worried about their re-election chances to actually tell the truth……..

Population and Energy are going to be this worlds next crisis items, and how the greedy (myself included) 1st world copes/deals with this will be interesting, and almost certainly very painful for millions.

Population and Energy

Fresh water.

Some folks don’t know what “survival of the fittest” actually means- it’s not physical fitness, but fitness for purpose. So for example, man’s ability to keep people alive when nature would cause them to die is an example of survival of the fittest not an example of unfitness.

He’s scientificaly right, but not very humanitarian.

^this

Give a man a fish…….

this relies on the ratio of people to fish (*or other resources), which I think could be a bit of an issue nowadays and increasingly so in the future

He’s scientificaly right, but not very humanitarian.

^this

He’s calling it as he sees it.

Can’t be more humanitarian.

He’s absolutely correct

He’s not.

Why does DA think that famine in Africa is caused by ‘too many people and not enough land’? Because Africa is far less densely populated than Europe. Why isn’t he talking about the need for Europeans to curb their greed and needless wasting of global resources? the UK in particular has long exceeded the point where it can be self-sufficient in regards to it’s own population. We import most of what we consume.

Famine in Africa isn’t caused by ‘too many people and not enough land’, it’s caused by corruption and grossly unequal distribution of resources. If the plug were pulled on the UK, and we were expected to be fully self-sufficient, most of us would starve. We survive because we possess sufficient military, political and economic power to ensure we have a disproportionate share of global resources. Which means some other poor sods, in faraway lands, go without.

DA would do himself and others a favour by concentrating on what really causes famine, rather than ignoring some uncomfortable truths.

bit thick when he moves off his area of expertise isn’t he.

I agree. He should stick to being a tv presenter. Actually, maybe if he didn’t fly around the globe so much, consuming so many of those precious resources he mentions, there’d be more to feed the starving in Africa.

redpanda – Member

He’s absolutely correct

He’s not.

Why does DA think that famine in Africa is caused by ‘too many people and not enough land’? Because Africa is far less densely populated than Europe. Why isn’t he talking about the need for Europeans to curb their greed and needless wasting of global resources? the UK in particular has long exceeded the point where it can be self-sufficient in regards to it’s own population. We import most of what we consume.

Famine in Africa isn’t caused by ‘too many people and not enough land’, it’s caused by corruption and grossly unequal distribution of resources. If the plug were pulled on the UK, and we were expected to be fully self-sufficient, most of us would starve. We survive because we possess sufficient military, political and economic power to ensure we have a disproportionate share of global resources. Which means some other poor sods, in faraway lands, go without.

DA would do himself and others a favour by concentrating on what really causes famine, rather than ignoring some uncomfortable truths.

bit thick when he moves off his area of expertise isn’t he.

I agree. He should stick to being a tv presenter. Actually, maybe if he didn’t fly around the globe so much, consuming so many of those precious resources he mentions, there’d be more to feed the starving in Africa.

I thought he was agreeing with you that sending bags of flour will not change the problem of corruption, skewed distribution, war, famine, etc.

Africa could be the bread basket of the world, but its not, its poorly managed.

teach a man to fish, etc.

There are very few problems in the world that wouldn’t be helped by a large drop in population, not just in Africa. The answer to the specific African problems revolve around better education, smaller families and strong, corruption free, government. Easier said than done though.

Essentially Attenborough is totally correct however.

He does have a point in that more could and should be done to find suitable land to live on for people who live in notorious famine spots. Sending flour and other food stuff can and often does find its way to warlords too…take Somalia for example who then use it to dictate over others.

thought he was agreeing with you that sending bags of flour will not change the problem of corruption, skewed distribution, war, famine, etc.

He’s using the red herring of ‘not enough land’, when the reality is that Africa has been plagued for centuries by western colonialism, the legacy of which we still witness today, with rival ‘warlords’ fighting over scraps (divide and rule) and despots imposed by western nations with a vested interest in keeping Africa poor and therefore subservient to our greed.

What he should really be discussing, is the fact that western greed for the latest iThing etc is keeping much of the world poor. And that it is in fact us in the ‘developed’ world who should be curbing our reproduction.

The UK is far more densely populated than Ethiopia. The average UK citizen consumes many, many times the amount of global resources compared with the average Ethiopian. We’re the real problem. Why isn’t he calling for population ‘control’ here?