World Problem 1 Human population WORLD PROBLEM: It is claimed by non-government sources that human population levels are too high, and government-sources in developed nations that population levels are not high enough. TRENDS SUPPORTING THIS VIEW AND THE SOLUTIONS SOUGHT BY GOVERNMENTS: The environment has to continually lose trees and its wildlife just to allow room for houses to be built as well as a massive "biodiversity-reduced" agricultural system to exist to help support the human population. This observation seems to support the non-government sources. Among the scientific estimates provided by people like the CSIRO in support of this observation in support of a possible overpopulation is the statement published recently that if the rate of animals and plants disappearing throughout the planet continue the way it is going, more than half of all animals and plant species will become extinct in less than 50 years time. And the finger of blame is being pointed squarely at humans for this tragedy. Business professionals and governments, on the other hand, prefer to see the current extinctions as one of natural climate change and various other natural explanations. Or could it be that some L-brain people who change the environment want to have their names in lights? As Bill Vaughan said: 'Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them.' Assuming the reason is not an egotistical one, then according to recent UN studies, the explanation for losing trees as due to natural climate change appears to play only a small role according to the scientists. Unnatural climate change and other events due to human intervention such as land clearing is believed to be the major contributing factor to the latest massive worldwide extinction. The Government and businesses want to blame certain animals in the natural world for consuming more food than human beings. For example, the Japanese Agriculture Minister Tsutomu Takebe made the extraordinary and rather ludicrous remark that whales were to blame for the hundreds of millions of people starving around the world. In an attempt to defend his country's controversial scientific whaling program, Takebe said: 'I wonder whether you know that whales consume more than three to five times the maritime resources [that humans do], or in terms of fish, 300 million to 450 million tonnes of fish. 'I also have to point out that on the earth there are 800 million human beings who are under-nourished.' (1) ## SPECIAL UPDATE ## February 2004 Greenpeace is now investigating what may be a similar attempt at reducing the number of animals consuming fish for human consumption with the slaughter of thousands of dolphins in and around the English Channel by certain anonymous humans. It is either that, or there are some people in this world who have such low self-esteem and/or are not surviving well enough in society that they have to damage the environment on the false pretense it will make them feel better or will make them inexorably rich. ## SPECIAL UPDATE ## Early April 2004 Some governments in the world are arguing the culling of some animals is necessary to prevent the extinction of other animals (including humans presumably). While there are not enough natural predators to maintain balance in the ecology, humans must act as the predator. In the meantime, if animals have to be culled, the governments and some businesses might as well benefit from the sale of animal skins, meat etc. It is either that or the entire economic system must be challenged and a new system implemented. But how many people who are doing well financially in the current system want to change? ## SPECIAL UPDATE ## 15 May 2005 Japan has applied for an international license to increase the number of whales it can kill from 900 to a greater commercial number and to get permission to hunt the protected hump-back and fin whales. The argument being that (i) there are many whales including the hump-backs to justify the cull; and (ii) the whales help with Japan's scientific research (and not for sushi). Why hump-back whales specifically? In fact, why any whale for that matter? Are the numbers so apparently huge to justify such action? Well, an interesting statistic obtained in 2005 suggested hump-back whales were increasing in numbers. Although admittedly it is a slow process. What was once an endangered species with only a few hundred left in the wild back in the 1960s has crept up to 4,000. But is 4,000 considered too many hump-back whales in the oceans? Are these creatures overpopulating the oceans to the point of affecting all other species? If you're a small Japanese person, the answer is probably yes. Because it is likely they will argue the whales are very large creatures compared to a Japanese person and 4,000 of them is virtually overpopulating the oceans. And if we were to include the statements of Japanese Agriculture Minister Tsutomu Takebe, then the whales must be affecting some humans as well. Are there starving Japanese people in our midst? Someone will need to do some scientific studies to prove these claims. As for the scientific research explanation, what is there to learn? Are the Japanese scientists trying to figure out why whales die when they are harpooned? Seriously, there is one way to conclusively prove this so-called research explanation. Get Japan to agree in having independent crews and vessels from other world nations to accompany the Japanese "scientific research" ships, board the Japanese ships as soon as a whale is brought in, and watch their progress. As soon as the Japanese scientists have finished with their so-called scientific research and sampling (assuming it is not of the gourmet variety), the independent crews can immediately dispose of the whale without allowing the Japanese to have any more access. A very simple solution. Then we will see how long the Japanese can live without their whale meat or whether they are indeed conducting research. Essentially stop any potential appetite for the whale and see how long it takes before the Japanese scientists say they've studied enough and now want to eat whales. ## SPECIAL UPDATE ## 21 May 2005 According to Australian correspondent in Toyko for the Sydney Morning Herald, Deborah Cameron, the case for research in the manner being carried out on the whales is because (i) Japan needs lots of samples and measurements (more than 100 at last count) for each whale taken from the oceans; (ii) Most samples and measurements cannot be conducted unless the whale is dead; and (iii) to make it look like it isn't a waste, the meat is transported to Japan where it can be put to good use for the people. The opposing argument according to some scientists is that (i) much scientific study can be gleaned by non-lethal methods such as DNA analysis of skin samples; (ii) the Japanese aren't learning very much from the research given the number of whales it has to kill after many decades to get whatever it wants and now it wants to kill even more whales for its study giving the impression they have learned less than where they started from; (iii) the scientific results from the study is not going to benefit anyone (the Japanese men working for the private organisation conducting the research claims the work is being done for the scientific members of the International Whaling Commission or IWC, but the IWC allegedly denies it and says it doesn't require the information); and (iv) whale populations (with the possible exception of Minke whales) are not high enough to justify killing the animals. Why not cut the crap and say exactly why the whales have to be slaughtered? It is clear Japan needs whales other than for research when we listen to Shigeko Misaki in the Japanese province of Wakayama. Misaki, an adviser to the Japan Whaling Association and historian: 'It is healthy food for [Japanese] children and it is a symbol of the community. Whaling itself is not just about acquiring food, it is a point of solidarity.' (Cameron, Deborah. Whale is back on the school menu after 20 years: The Sydney Morning Herald. 21-22 May 2005, p.19.) Because food is probably the real issue, Japan would have had a better case if it argued the need to kill human beings knowing how many people there are in Japan, let alone the world. Come to think of it, the world is truly Japan's oyster if humans are on the menu. Just say, "Flame-grilled humans in teriyaki sauce" and everyone will understand Japan's position (and may even get approval from the world if they target their own population). Alternatively, Japan could work with other nations by sending a Japanese team to clean up any whales that get stranded and die on the beaches? Japanese people can do their supposed research on the whales and be welcomed to take the carcasses to Japan for food processing if they can't be saved. Now wouldn't that be a more environmentally-useful exercise? Or is this more a question of some Japanese people rebelling against the US for its aggressive stance on world issues including opposing the killing of whales? Or is it to do with how starving Japanese people defeated by the US after World War II suddenly saw the value of whale meat to improve the population's health more so than what the US did for Japan immediately after the war? If this is true, what is Japan doing to help the US by preserving and enhancing the quality of breeding among whales, to control human population levels in Japan (and the world) so it can potentially maintain its traditions of whale hunting at a sustainable level, and to find alternative food sources in the meantime having the same level of protein, fats and other quality nutrients? This is a bit like the antagonism between China and Japan because neither country are willing to listen to each other's suffering in World War II. Japan caused suffering to China during World War II by killing some of China's citizens. China caused suffering to Japan by not helping Japanese citizens to start a new, fresh chapter (ignore the leaders for a moment). Now the traditional, strongly nationalist Japanese people are having the same gripes with the US. Stop this reliving the past constantly and start working together for a brighter future. The US and Japan should work together to find ways of maximising the breeding of whales or look for alternative food sources (use DNA to create all the proteins and taste in plant material). While China and Japan should work together to build a monument on a piece of land donated by one country for joint ownership of the nations to respect the people of both nations. It is time we all move forward. A decision on Japan's latest international whaling license will be made by the IWC in Usan, South Korea on 22 June 2005. ## SPECIAL UPDATE ## 21 May 2005 In an indirect attempt to quell anger and avoid diplomatic incidents among environmental and animal welfare groups with Japanese whaling company Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha, Australian Federal Court judge James Allsop said any legal action to take the Japanese business to court would be futile because (i) it would be too difficult to legally enforce decisions to stop Japan from hunting whales in the international waters off the Antarctic coast; (ii) it could create a diplomatic nightmare and have economic consequences for Australia (and Japan) if Australian law could be upheld against the Japanese business; and (iii) the Federal Court is unable to resolve an international dispute between Australia and Japan. Well, how would a bit of bad publicity for Japan do? Surely that would get Japan to be honest in what they are doing and a willingness to search for alternative solutions. ## SPECIAL UPDATE ## 22 June 2005 The decision by the IWC today to stop commercial whaling hasn't perturbed Japan. The country is pursuing a legal loophole in the law where it can increase the number of whales killed for scientific research. It is almost like Japan must be facing starvation again or some other crisis to persist with this argument. Maybe we should ask ourselves, how easy is it for Australian and American people to go without their KFC if it means protecting the chickens? Would we kick up a fuss and do our own thing just like the Japanese men with their whales by killing our feathered friends just to enjoy the flavour of KFC on our chicken? ## SPECIAL UPDATE ## 25 June 2005 Surely the taste of minke whale isn't the prime reason for Japan continuing to hunt the animals? As Bryan Beudeker of Riverview in NSW, Australia, said: 'The fried minke burger "really tastes like beef" according to Miku Oh, the manager of a Japanese burger chain ("Whale burger high on this food chain", Sydney Morning Herald, June 24). If that's the case, why not just eat beef?' (The Sydney Morning Herald: The real thing (Opinion & Letters). 25-26 June 2005, p.34.) Add to this the fact that high quality protein and fats for a healthy mind and body can be obtained from virtually any fish, and the position Japan is taking to pursue the hunting of whales under the argument of a unique taste, unique nutrients, scientific research, and/or a feeling of starvation in the nation is looking decidedly flawed. It is now looking like the real reason for hunting whales is for traditional purposes for the sake of older Japanese nationals. In other words, having whale meat for breakfast, lunch or dinner is equivalent to becoming the quintessential "Japanese man". So does that mean the quintessential Japanese man has no brain too? Surely we are not so dumb into thinking a feed on a particular type of meat will make the cultural essence of a person? What kind of logic is that? It has to be true that eating whale meat should not make the "Japanese man". A Japanese man should have real brains, don't they? And anyway, if the taste of whale meat is no different from, say, beef, then surely Japanese people can look for alternative food sources to provide the same nutrients. What makes people go beyond being human and looking socially acceptable among your peers in the nation you live is the ability to take a balanced approach to life and learn to find alternative solutions. If clearly one type of food cannot be obtained because of short supply or the harm it brings to the animal, look for something else. Or try to control the human population levels to a sustainable level. In other words, use your friggin' brain and evolve to a new level of existence where all things can be protected. ## SPECIAL UPDATE ## 30 December 2005 A Canadian environmental group calling itself the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is attempting to stop Japan from killing whales in the Australian waters off Antarctica with threats of an attack and possible damage to Japanese vessels. The Japanese Government is considering sending a military vessel to protect its Japanese citizens (thinking Japanese crews will be the target of the attack). The Australian Federal (Howard) Government is twiddling its thumbs and saying nothing to help protect its own economic interests with Japan despite the killings taking place in its own waters. As this goes on, Australian authorities are working hard to stop smaller fishermen from other countries — mainly from Indonesia, Portugal, Spain and Argentina — invading Australian waters. A bit of a double standard here. ## SPECIAL UPDATE ## 20 January 2006 Due to limited fuel and food supplies, the attempt to get between Japanese whaling ships and the whales had to be curtailed somewhat. Now the move to target consumers in Japan buying whale meat will be the next aim to change human behaviour. As for the so-called research work being carried out by the Japanese on the deceased whales, Kevin Wellspring of Melba, Canberra, had this to say: 'So the Japanese whaling fleet continues to hunt whales in the Southern Ocean for research purposes whilst the Australian Government invents reasons not to intervene. 'Perhaps our Prime Minister could pick up his pen and write to the Japanese Prime Minister requesting a list of referred papers which have been produced as a result of their vital research. 'Such a list should also include the names of the relevant international journals in which these papers have been published. 'He could also be interested in a list of the significant advances in the understanding of whale populations, diseases affecting whales, their ability to recover from harpoon injuries and a heap of more esoteric research resulting from the thousands of whales killed for research purposes over the last, say, 5 years. 'Or perhaps our Prime Minister does not wish to benefit from the results of such a query at the highest level?' (The Canberra Times: Where's research?. 21 January 2006, p.B8.) ## SPECIAL UPDATE ## 25 May 2006 A scientific report titled Slaughtering Science claim Minke whales have dropped to a third of their natural population levels. This is at a time when Japan wants to convince the whaling committee it is okay to increase the killing of whales including the hump backs from 800 to 1,000 per year in 2007. Is Japan able to see the science in this report and not just the alleged science they are performing on the whales? ## SPECIAL UPDATE ## 8 June 2006 The ABC science program Catalyst aired on Australian television has collected all known scientific papers written by Japan about their whaling research over the past 18 years. Roughly 250 papers. Only 55 were peer-reviewed by other scientists (supporting the claim by Japan that its research work benefits the IWC). What do the 55 papers actually describe? Japan explains the papers were relevant to the sustainability of whales. However only 14 papers could be seen as potentially relevant. But when we ask the question, "Was it necessary to kill the whales to obtain the information?" we find something interesting. Japan claims it was necessary to kill 6,800 whales to get the information to write those 14 papers. However, the 14 papers fail to explain how the information can be obtained by less intrusive methods. For example, dieting information about the whales through DNA can be achieved by collecting whale faeces in the oceans. All you need is a net at the back end of a whale to pick up a small sample. Want more? No problem. There's plenty to pick up from a whale these days. Japan, on the other hand, claims they need to kill whales to determine the age of the whales. The precise age is determined by the size of the plug in the whales' ears. Yet the Whaling Committee and other scientists don't need this information. One can simply estimate the age by looking at the whale in its natural environment. Where killing might be necessary to determine the sustainability of the whales, scientists only found 4 papers. That's 1,700 whales killed per paper. Japan counters this argument saying Australia kills kangaroos in an unsustainable manner. Yes, but at least Australia isn't making excuses about doing scientific research on kangaroos. And anyway, it is because the population is so high. In times of drought, the kangaroos suffer greatly through starvation. And more importantly, no one is saying kangaroos are endangered. If anything, there is the risk of mass starvation of the kangaroo population. And Australian people think this is more cruel than selectively killing the kangaroos in a quick manner to make them sustainable in the Australian environment. You simply can't do that with the whales. Killing whales, no matter how effective Japanese technology might be, is still a slow and painful experience. Despite such arguments, Japan is determined to increase the killing of whales including the endangered species such as the humpback whales. So why should Japan be allowed to hunt the endangered humpback whales? And are the other whale species in sufficient numbers? NOTE: Do we ever need to hunt for animals for food or research? Can genetic-engineering of plants solve all the problems? ## SPECIAL UPDATE ## 16 June 2006 Japan claims it has the scientific evidence to show the whale numbers have increased to sustainable numbers. All it needs is for the IWC to approve whaling and set quota numbers for all nations wanting to partake in whaling. However an IWC meeting today has quashed Japan's dream for legal hunting of whales for food. Not that it matters to Japan. The nation will continue to kill for scientific research. ## SPECIAL UPDATE ## 24 June 2006 Japan is arguing another reason to resume commercial whaling. This time it is a question of economic survival. There is a view that if whaling is completely banned, both for research purposes and for human consumption, it would cause the collapse of the whaling industry in Japan, stopping researchers from carrying out their research into whales for new ideas, and put people out of work. As Professor Toshio Kasuya, a marine mammal biologist and a rare and possibly endangered Japanese anti-whaler in his country, said: 'Without the earning from the [whale] meat sales, the whaling organisation that undertakes the government-commissioned research program would be unable to continue operation, and the shipping company that provides the fleet for the program would not be able to recover costs for the whaling vessel construction. This is nothing other than an economic activity. It leaves no room for researchers to carry out research based on their own ideas. It certainly does not conform to the scientific purpose authorised by the IWC convention.' (Beeby, Rosslyn. Japanese 'research' just all yen: The Canberra Times. 24 June 2006, p.B7.) Yes, but isn't Japan smart enough to try a different industry altogether and to train the people to do something different? Can't the Japanese Government train the people building the ships for whaling and selling whale meat to build or sell something else? Mind you, the world could be smarter too. For example, Australia needs a good kick in the arse when it comes to the loss of natural old growth forests of which much goes to the woodchipping industry in Tasmania (and ultimately to Japan who in turn sell it back to Australia as paper). We all have some learning to do. ## SPECIAL UPDATE ## 14 July 2006 Whaling in the Australian waters off Antarctica by Japanese whalers could become a thing of the past following a Federal Court decision today to allow the Humane Society International (HSI) to proceed with a case to sue Japanese company Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha Ltd by placing an injunction on the company from further whaling. Previously a decision by Federal Court judge James Allsop to stop the legal action showed political influence after Attorney-General Philip Ruddock raised the concerns that the case against the Japanese company could spark a diplomatic incident. Now the court's full bench has overturned the Allsop's decision. As Chief Justice Michael Black and Justice Ray Finkelstein said in this latest judgment: 'We are also persuaded that the primary judge [Allsop] was in error in attaching weight to what we would characterise as a political consideration. 'It may be accepted that while legal disputes may occur in a political context, the exclusively political dimension of the dispute is non-justifiable.' (Ralston, Nick. Activists will sue Japanese whalers: The Canberra Times. 15 July 2006, p.10.) Nicola Beynon, HSI wildlife and habitat program manager, said: 'We now have permission to commence a court case where we will be asking the Federal Court to declare Japan's whaling in Australia's whale sanctuary illegal and order an injunction for the hunt to be stopped.' (Ralston, Nick. Activists will sue Japanese whalers: The Canberra Times. 15 July 2006, p.10.) It is unclear whether the Japanese company will contest the case in the Federal Courts. Somehow the company will have to create a lot more scientific research papers to justify the killings. ## SPECIAL UPDATE ## 31 August 2006 Two Australian commercial fishermen shot and killed 40 seals resting on the rocks of Kanowna Island near the Australian mainland in full view of several marine research students camped nearby. Victorian police are continuing investigations. But there is a general feeling among commercial fisherman that there are too many seals stealing fish and damaging nets and consequently affecting their livelihoods. ## SPECIAL UPDATE ## October 2006 Iceland decides to resume commercial whaling. It is not clear what the evidence is to support the decision but one must assume it has something to do with the numbers of whales — presumably they are in high numbers. The government of Iceland received a protest letter from 25 nations asking the nation to respect the world moratorium against whaling believing it is unnecessary. Then again, what can you grow on Iceland these days? They probably need whales to keep the people of Iceland alive. No excuse for Japan to do the same. The country isn't exactly covered in ice to support the killing of whales. ## SPECIAL UPDATE ## April 2007 Reducing fish stocks in the oceans caused by overfishing could be contributing to extra shark and sea lion attacks on humans. Further research is taking place to determine if this is true. ## SPECIAL UPDATE ## 15 January 2008 The Australian Federal Court has declared it is illegal for Japan to hunt whales in Australian and Antarctic territorial waters from this day onwards. It is now up to the Federal (Rudd) Government to somehow enforce the law without causing a diplomatic incident or to affect trade between the two nations. Somehow one gets the feeling this is not the end. Environmental groups have come up with a plan: to chase and film the Japanese in the act of killing whales in the territorial region governed by Australian law. In that way, the evidence can be used in a court of law and could result in massive fines for the Japanese company to pay. Captain Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd. Watson and his crew assisted in chasing the Japanese whalers out of Australian and Antarctic waters. So far it seems successful as the Japanese whalers don't want to find themselves breaking the law. Currently the Japanese whalers are trying to outrun the environmental groups in their ships in the hope they can resume whaling in secret. A number of scientists are noticing a rapid depletion of natural fish stocks. In the meantime, people like Jenny Goldie, the National Director of Sustainable Population Australia, have to say in a letter to the editor of The Canberra Times dated 20 September 2003 (p.B11): 'In your front-page report on the parlous state of our [Australian] fish stocks ("Loved to death: our fish stocks in crisis", CT, September 18), it is suggested Australians may have to cut consumption of fish in half. 'Such reductions were forecast by CSIRO's Barney Foran and Franzi Poldy in their comprehensive report on population and resources "Future Dilemmas" published last year, except they said so in the context of Australia's population reaching 50 million. 'Clearly, the situation is even more urgent than they anticipated. 'It does illustrate, however, the central problem of a growing population: that the per-capita availability of resources, such as fresh water or [ocean] fish, progressively declines as the number of people increases [especially if the resources form an integral part of developing human society]. 'Supply of a natural resource may go into a steep dive at some point, or even irreversible decline. 'Cod populations in the North Atlantic, for instance, have not bounced back even after the Canadian fisheries were closed. 'Those seeking an ever-higher population for Australia, or are complacent about still-exploding populations in some developing countries, have to understand this basic population/resource balance equation. You simply cannot have unending growth in a world of finite resources.' Again this observation and quote suggests an overpopulation issue. Well, something is eating or depleting the fish and it ain't the sharks doing all the work. Or is this observation of reduced fish stocks more to do with profit as businesses over-fish the oceans for extra money. Either that, or blame it on the fishermen because their massive nets are not quite able to properly discriminate the more valuable resources from the non-valuable ones (eg. leaving the females behind and the younger fish and those that are not marketable or don't provide much feed to humans) let alone the fact that the size of the nets scoop up too much out of the oceans? Or perhaps blame it on the people whose job it is to manage the fishermen and the fish stocks. Or how about we just simply control human population levels? An increasing number of commercial fishermen are arguing how important their mission is to feed the human race. Before it may have been to quietly make a profit from selling the fish (and probably still do to this day) and to feed their families. But now, as human population increases, it seems the commercial fishermen are making themselves more integral than ever before to the survival of the human race by claiming they are there to feed people. And many of them do this while still indiscriminately catching huge numbers of fish in large nets. ## SPECIAL UPDATE ## December 2005 The Australian Federal Government through Fisheries Minister Ian McDonald has announced a A$220 million plan to buy back Commonwealth licenses from the fishing industry to help curb overfishing in Australian waters for the sake of maintaining a viable business in the next 5 to 10 years. To feed the human population, farmers feel compelled to expand their food production with the help of generous government subsidies. If the Government cannot blame other animals for the human problems, it will attempt to totally blame the problems on certain people in society, in particular the weak, the poor and other disadvantaged people without putting themselves in the picture as well. As some well-heeled people would say, "If there weren't so many poor people around, we wouldn't have to feed so many people." The Government starts being cynical about social problems by saying things like, "We can't abolish poverty" and "It's not our fault for society's problems". For a glimpse of this extraordinary attitude in the current Australian Federal (Howard) Government, please read this article. (2) The Government needs a scapegoat when implementing their socially negative, cost-cutting programs, so they blame the weak, the unemployed, the poor, and all the least important people for all the social problems. They do this indirectly by subjecting the disadvantaged people to financial hardship through unexpected overpayments in the social security system which have to be paid back often at a late stage, a sudden and unexpected reduction in rental assistance from the government, the use of secret surveillance activities to find out whether people are doing the right thing or not (and if not, attempt to remove them from further financial support), indirectly influencing the disadvantaged to join the Defence force, reducing government funding to public educational institutions in order to get the disadvantaged to join the Defence force or to enter specific areas of employment which the Government wants (3). And all this effort in an attempt to convince the taxpayer the government is justified on moral grounds to remove the disadvantaged from social security services or having to pay for any appropriate training and/or education using these draconian methods; The Government will spend millions of dollars trying to create evidence through situations of entrapment and surveillance activities developed by the Government to help allegedly prove that people are "not doing the right thing" and therefore create the moral and legal grounds to deny people further government support. While it is understandable that there are a tiny percentage of people who do abuse the system for whatever reason and get more than their fair share of support (and something which is regularly drilled into our subconscious by various current affairs programs), statistics have regularly and consistently shown that this is not representative of the entire population who are legitimately entitled to adequate support while they are trying to achieve certain goal(s) for society. However, from the way the government wants to perceive this financially overburdened social security system, one gets the impression that all people who get any form of support from the government are "worthless parasites on society who deserve nothing from the rest of us who have a proper job". NOTE: Now if only those millions of dollars spent on surveillance activities could be redirected to more useful social and "self-esteem building" activities like low-cost education, access to low-cost and stable accommodation, and encourage people to contribute in their own way to society (before the ones who are doing very well for themselves start to burden everyone else with their problems and expectations), the government will almost certainly have a better chance of solving the financial and social problems. To get people off unemployment benefits and other government funded social security schemes, the Government starts to say things like "It is better to have a bad boss, than no boss [or, by implications, job] at all". For example, according to official media reports, Australian Workplace Relations Minister Tony Abbott was known to have said in July 2002 that: '...it was better to have a bad boss than no boss at all...' (4) Abbott is a young minister who is learning the long and presumably honorable traditional ways of the Australian Liberal (Howard) Government (perhaps learning a little too well for most people's liking). Fortunately he seems to be learning to be a little more balanced in his views after receiving a barrage of criticism from union leaders and politicians for his ill-advised and thought-provoking remark. To save even more money, the Government will suggest to parents caring for neglected children of other families to fill in the form for being a guardian of the children instead of being a carer. This means the Government can cut the family allowance to the parents to an absolute minimum. Then the Government will argue that the children are not at risk to avoid allowing parents in financial strife to be legally classified as carers. The Government has to treat the increasing number of asylum seekers entering the borders of a country with contempt and made to live like second-class citizens in appalling detention centres or prisons (should be aptly named concentration camps given how similar the asylum seekers are treated short of being put to death as the Jewish people had been under the Nazis) for years as if the current political climate does not encourage compassion and generosity of spirit to the visitors. The reason for this, according to the Government, is primarily because of high costs to feed, house and provide security to asylum seekers (and now, following the 11 September 2001 attacks in New York, the Government feels it has a legitimate concern of terrorists getting into the country). NOTE: It has been argued that the cost to feed, house and provide security for one asylum seeker in an Australian detention center is equivalent to putting an Australian student through medical school. There are too many students to educate in public schools and universities, so the Government reduces funding to the institutions with the ultimate aim of fully deregulating the entire education system. The Governments start to notice a reduction in the amount of available fresh water supplies for drinking purposes, so they will advise the population to conserve water and later enforce it through legislation instead of controlling population (because people will spend more money on conserving water through new technologies provided by businesses). In the meantime, the Governments receiving taxes from their citizens would prefer to ignore there is a population problem partly because some Governments are too profit-motivated to do the right thing or just need the money to pay for essential services because they need to win the next election, or others simply don't know what the solution is. So the Governments will continue to permit the building of new homes to support a greater population level without advising people that there could be a population problem (or a population that is not yet reached sustainability for the amount of natural resources available to the population). As Zac Bamba of Ballina, NSW, Australia, has noticed as of September 2003: 'In view of the fact that Premier Bob Carr has advised we will face water shortages in Sydney, why then are new land subdivisions being sanctioned? It seems something of a paradox to me. 'Will the quality of life in Sydney be any better when we are 10 or 20 million souls as compared to today?' (5) The Government and businesses say you have lots of choices, but somehow manage to restrict you to just one or two particularly "well-funded" or "incentive-loaded" areas until enough people have joined and then later get them to pay high fees for the service. Examples of this include increased funding to private educational institutions (where parents are still required to pay a high fee for their children's education) and less to public educational institutions, and the public health insurance industry such as those in Australia and the US. The Government has to change legislation to help classify more and more people as employees rather than "self-employed" contractors running a business (including situations where they allow recruitment agencies to match clients for them and/or after working for a period of time for one client). In that way, the Government can maximise the tax they receive from these people. The Government has to classify more people as earning a high income through "tax bracket creep" so people have to pay extra tax. Then around election time, the Government may give a small tax cut to its citizens as if the people have short memories and therefore will re-elect the Government for being nice enough to give some money back. As the Australian Labor Shadow Treasurer Mr Mark Latham has remarked in September 2003 about tax bracket creeps: 'As wages go up [for the average working Australians], people move into higher tax brackets. They pay more taxes through to [Treasurer Peter] Costello. And the government at budget time gives part of them back in the form of a sandwich and milkshake tax cut. 'So it's a bit of a pea-and-thimble trick, to collect more taxes over the 12 months and then give back part of them in the budget. That's not something that's actually going to help the average Australian family.' (6) The quality of the most basic foods sold to a large number of people suddenly goes down. For example, you may buy bread or a packet of muesli and then discover a regular mouthful of what tastes remarkably like a piece of "rat faeces" fell in it, or whoever prepared the food "didn't clean their hands". Sometimes this rude awakening in the tastebud can be so strong, it can linger in your breath for several days after eating the food. So perhaps the food labels should now say, "No preservatives or colouring. However, this product may contain traces of faeces as a potential flavouring enhancer. Eat with extreme caution!" Scientists have to resort to genetic engineering to solve the food shortage and food quality problems. (7) ## SPECIAL UPDATE ## 21 November 2003 If there is a problem with our genetic engineering, all it takes is roughly 50 years before the problem expands through hybridisation and reproduction until the genetically-modified material eventually replaces the natural version. Or it could rapidly improve the problems in society. It depends on how much testing scientists do with the modified form. To use crops as a case to answer, managing director of the Grains Research and Development Corporation, Professor John Lovett, said Australia's reliance on imported crop genetics could eventually see traditional crops be completed replaced by genetic variants within 50 years: 'It's quite likely that the plants we will rely on in 50 years' time will be different. They may be the same species, they may be completely different species. 'They will almost certainly be used for different purposes.' (8) Politicians have to make remarks like people need rubber bungs for their backsides to solve certain pollution problems. For instance, former Australian environment minister Tim Moore made the particularly hilarious comment on 22 November 1989 that, "...putting rubber bungs in people's back-sides is the fastest solution to [the] beach pollution problem." For further details about this, click here. Perhaps we should now be calling ourselves environmental terrorists for stuffing up the planet knowing what a timebomb are backsides are and how they go off every day. The Government and businesses have to reduce the amount of green "publicly-owned" space by way of parks and ovals to make way for new, high density townhouses, supermarkets, office blocks etc. The Government and many business operators start to believe in the idea that "there is no such thing as a free lunch", as if nothing is free, not even for the most basic and fundamentals things we all need in life (including the oxygen we breathe according to astonishing stories emerging from some parts of Japan where people are now having to pay business operators for fresh oxygen just to improve the quality of their lives). In the meantime, the price for the most basic foods, housing and other fundamental social services suddenly goes up and the disadvantaged groups in society either have to suffer (with the hope of dying sooner rather than later according to the unspoken wish list of various right-wing "L-brain" Governments) or fight in negative ways for their share. Crime rates in society goes up as more and more people fight for their share of the resources while coping with a rather difficult and unsupportive world. To improve the chances of getting access to the resources, people may also get involved in organised crime such as eliminating competition through murder, using fear and violence as a means of getting resources and money from other people and so on. Such behaviour for the sake of surviving easily is what has made many a Hollywood movies like "The Godfather" famous or infamous depending on how you want to see this situation. As crime rates go up (or more likely they get displaced from one criminal activity to another), the Government would prefer to lock people up in prison and throw away the key for life (or even introduce the death penalty) because it is claimed to be too expensive to solve the problem any other way. But the funny thing is that the Government is prepared to spend A$25,000 per year for each person they want to keep in prison or until such time when a good enough legal reason is found to send people to death. Feelings of insecurity among ordinary citizens in society starts to increase. As crime rates increase, the Government must spend more money on law enforcement to bring greater law and order in society. More government advertisements on television and in newspapers become the norm to help calm the public that security measures are being taken so long as people maintain a certain level of vigilence in security matters. The rich and working Australians are learning to stay at home, purchase plasma screens to watch the world around them, lock up property inside garages and homes secured with alarm systems and, if possible, go on holidays in the more secure and familiar local region. As the cost of law enforcement to handle the increasing numbers of mentally-ill patients left to defend themselves in the community without adequate support and those other individuals and groups using crime as a means of survival or become rich increases and puts an enormous burden on the budgets of State and Federal Governments who must support the wider more populated community, the Governments start to think it is cheaper to lock up criminals and people with mental illness in prisons and mental institutions. For example, in a meeting held by mental health professionals on 6 February 2004, Mental Health Council of Australia chief executive Dr Grace Groom accused the NSW Government headed by Labor leader Mr Bob Carr of taking on a "law-and-order" approach to dealing with people having a mental illness in order to save money by the Government. Dr Groom said: 'They [the NSW Government] should be asking, "How do we care for people with a mental illness?" rather than how do we lock them up?' (9) Police officers start to feel the need to have more time to relax, be more creative, and just be themselves because they have so much crime to solve and so little time and other resources to do it all. ## SPECIAL UPDATE ## September 2003 Some Governments in the world (notably the State and Federal Governments in Australia) have boosted the police force numbers to record levels at certain times of the year. A lot of fuss will be made about it to the media. Yet, on the other side of the coin, we have crime continuing in modern Western society. Why? Do the Governments need to employ every citizen in the world to act as police officers to ensure crime is eliminated? Well, at least everyone will have something to do so long as money is available from the Government to pay for the work! ## SPECIAL UPDATE ## June 2004 Police officers are trying to make enough money and leave in droves as the stress of work claim a number of casualties. A few individuals heading the police force in some stations are putting up a brave face to the media claiming they have enough funding and there is enough police doing the work and controlling crime. There are too many people being kept in prison (including those with minor offences such as poor children stealing food from a local supermarket) and fighting in the courts for trivial matters. As a result, people in the legal profession are increasingly being forced to provide quicker and possibly ill-conceived judgements and/or dispatch particularly lenient sentences, even for serious crime like murder, so that the average person on the street do not overburden the legal and prison system (because ultimately it costs the taxpayers a huge amount of money to support and maintain). Talk of building new prisons soon becomes a reality for a number of governments. The governments will use the excuse that building prisons is needed to increase employment prospects for people. NOTE: It is far better for society as a whole and for the long-term security of everyone concerned to have only lenient sentences for serious crimes if people can be rehabilitated. It is not a question of locking people away for the rest of their lives (or even putting them to death) and expect the problem to be solved. That is too naive and silly. The problem will still return in the future again and again no matter how much money is spent on law enforcement, extra prisons, or bullets used to put the people to death, because we have not learnt a thing about why it happened. For the problems to be properly eliminated, more effort should be made to learn why people do the things they do and then try to implement opposite approaches to helping everyone reach a more balanced state. The law courts, both locally and in the High Court of a nation, have trouble handling the growing weight of cases to be processed. So instead of going through the cases properly and ensuring justice is delivered, the cases are quickly dealt with through behind-the-scenes mediation in order to get some form of quick agreement in writing by the opposing parties. Rarely is all the evidence listened to. Judges are more interested in closing the cases as quickly as possible and will tend to lend support to the party with the bigger financial capacity to win such cases rather than search for the truth. If a case does end up in the courts, judges may be forced to say "Ignorance of the law is no longer an excuse". So even if you have clear evidence to win the fight and prove your claim, you might as well close the case now if you don't know the law. As Maxwell Lotton of Calwell in Canberra has learned of the Australian legal system today: 'The article "Ignorance of law no excuse: justices" [The Canberra Times, 17 June 2004, p.5.] is a frightening revelation of the position of the law in our society. 'It has long been a standing joke that "the law and justice sometimes coincide" but to have the highest court in the land confirm it is no joking matter. 'The man in the street is interested only in justice. 'If law does not provide justice, does this mean that law is irrelevant and should be disregarded by all but the lawyers?' (10) And to make it even harder for people to get justice, the cost of hiring a lawyer to understand the law properly would be too prohibitive for the average person and there is still no guarantee of winning the case despite all the evidence (because it has to be clear, prove beyond a shadow of a doubt, and be well-understood by the judge otherwise it would be ignored even if an expert is present to explain it). Insurance companies and the Government has to increase the cost of premiums for things like health and property because of a large number of claims from people. And it isn't so much a profit motivated action by the insurance companies. According to Private Health Insurance Administration Council chief executive Hayle Ginnane in Australia: 'Generally, the entire [private health insurance] industry is operating on very tight margins — 90 cents in every contribution dollar goes out again in benefits. 'Estimates benefits paid for contributors will exceed A$7.5 billion this year. Increases in contribution rates are necessary to meet these increased benefits in a mainly not-for-profit market. The 30 per cent [government] rebate [estimated to provide $2.4 billion] provides support in meeting the costs of contributions.' (11) The main cause for an increase in health insurance premiums is an increase in the number of people entering private hospitals and the higher costs of treatment. As for property insurance premium hikes, it is primarily large numbers of people claiming for lost, stolen or damaged property. ## SPECIAL NOTE ## Higher insurance premiums could also be an issue of greed by some claimants wanting to receive money from the insurance companies for any reason (a problem with the way Western society emphasises money as more important than anything else). What few places for accommodation exist in society are often priced exorbitantly higher than what most people can afford to purchase or rent. So instead people, especially the so-called Generation X, make the lifestyle choice of spending money for the "here-and-now" things like Plasma TV screens, holidays, restaurants and cafes, expensive cars and so on. Little money is saved for the future or to purchase anything that will last too long to pay off. The Government and businesses have to reduce spending on health and social services because they claim it is costing them too much. (12) The Government has to implement policies that forces as many people to work in any job considered suitable to the Government to help support the population (and not only because people are getting older). NOTE: Again either demand for services across many areas has risen due to population growth and/or old age, or the Government is trying to save money by getting people to do any kind of job over short periods of time. The jobs market sees more and more people looking increasingly desperate for any type of job and in keeping it once they find one, even if it is not what they like or enjoy. Requirements of "Love whatever work you're in", "Smile constantly", "Get cosmetic surgery to force a natural smile", "Lift up your breasts and make them look bigger", "Lose weight" and so on, start to become the norm for staying in the job longer. Otherwise some employers will find an excuse to sack employees for not "looking right" for the job. To keep the jobs and so prevent others from getting them where possible, many people are often prepared to work overtime, perform shift work, work faster and within tighter deadlines, and even go without holidays and overtime pay just to prove to the employer how valuable they are at work. The consequence of this approach is that there is often very little time to do anything else other than work. Thus all those other important things like family life, exercising, sleeping and eating a good diet are often overlooked. Then the children of these overworked parents grow up with poor food eating habits, too much watching television or playing games on the computers if not preoccupied with homework, become obese, display poor manners when dealing with strangers, and have little person-to-person communication unless it is on the Internet. Or people may decide not to have a family at all so they can perform their work without other stressors to contend with. Staying single or getting a divorce is therefore quite common. ## SPECIAL UPDATE ## 25 October 2003 It is actually easier and less costly to co-habit with one or more people under one roof. The expectations on individuals to meet the needs of others becomes much less and therefore people can live with far less financial and social stress. As a result, the divorce rate is now no higher than in 1981 because people are choosing cohabitation as the way to survive today. However while divorce rates for married couples remain high, those co-habitation circumstances leading to a de facto relationship between two people are increasingly likely to experience a break up now than had occurred in the past. According to recent statistics on Australian couples, as early as 1970s, only 16 per cent of people had lived with their partner before getting married. In 1995, the figure has jumped to 72 per cent. When couples do actually get married within 5 fives of co-habiting under the same roof, 64 per cent would do so back in the early 1970s. In the 1990s, the figure has gone down to 40 per cent. And when couples co-habiting under the same roof decide to break up, the figure was 40 per cent in the 1990s compared to 22 per cent in the 1970s. Of course, in such potentially intimate arrangements between couples (usually of opposite sexes) children may be brought into the world. Consequently this explains why more and more children are living with a sole parent (usually with the mother) today. The statistics support this view when we see that around 3 per cent of children born to a sole mother occurred between 1963 and 1975. In 2001, the figure has grown to 11.4 per cent. These figures were drawn from a study conducted by Professor David de Vaus at the Sociology Department in La Trobe University. The results were published by the university in a book titled Diversity and Change in Australian Families. In support of the higher numbers of people competing for employment and the need for more and more people to be multiskilled and to work faster, students at school are made to follow a similar trend. From primary school right up to college, students are placed in large class sizes and are forced to complete a large number of different courses in order to get a reasonably broad (but not indepth) range of skills. Now this may seem like a noble cause on the surface of things because it is difficult to predict what the world will be like in five years from now, let alone in 20 years. Young people need enough skills to cope with whatever new world they will face in the future. However the result of taking this approach in the modern education system is giving students less time to complete all work required of them by their teachers, increased stress and hyperactivity, plagiarising work to get the high marks needed to keep their parents (and later employers) happy in order to help them survive in society easily, unable to concentrate on a single task for long periods of time, increased misbehaviour in class, greater escapism through video games, practicing unsafe sex, higher levels of bullying behaviour in the playground as kids find avenues to relieve their stress at the expense of others etc. Consequently, students are more likely to follow the adult "L-brain" trend of becoming manipulative and learning to be deceptive to get something done or achieve goals as quickly as possible, to fight one another, and even if they are trying to be honest will quickly pick out information from any source (even if there are no authoritative references available to support the information) and often without doing much interpretation on that information and then inserting the information into their essays, assignments or reports ready to pass them off as their own work. Otherwise students becoming stressed at school is not unusual and tends to follow a similar trend as with the adults. NOTE: Perhaps the education system could be due for a major overhaul of how students should learn. Instead of trying to learn as many things as possible, the aim in the future might be to balance this with a subject that allows students to focus on one topic for up to 3 or 6 months in a year and ignoring all other subjects for a while. This may help younger boys to train their frontal cortex to concentrate on a single task of interest to them for a long period of time. Chances of boys and some girls experiencing hyperactivity, lack of concentration and other problems could be minimised by implementing such a system. There is an increase in the number of "hate" groups on the Internet or elsewhere who target specific people such as the blacks (there are lots of them in Africa), the christians (they populate like rabbits), or the jews (they keep to themselves, rigid in their thinking and make lots of money) because they feel these people are the cause for so many world problems. ## SPECIAL UPDATE ## July 2004 The problem is getting worse in places like Russia as the citizens of this nation struggle to survive and realise people from other nations living in Russia are taking quite a few of the jobs in the country. The result is young Russians getting together to promote racism (and following in the ideas of the former dictator of Germany, Adolf Hitler). ## SPECIAL UPDATE ## 29 July 2005 In the latest study published today in the journal Science, a group of black and white American volunteers living in New York, USA, were subjected to mild electric shocks in the interests of science. Nothing too great to cause injury. Just enough of a painful electric shock in the subjects to make the brain of these subjects learn to associate fear in certain specific images shown to the subjects at the time the shocks were made. The purpose of this study was to see how people of a different race behaved to certain images of people of another race which they have quickly learned to be fearful of because of the electric shocks and what happens when experiencing the same or similar images of this different race over a period of time after the shocks were removed. What was found by the scientists is that once the electric shocks were removed, people quickly overcame their fear of images showing butterflies, birds and, interestingly enough, neutral faces of people having the same colour skin as their own. However, images of spiders, snakes and people having the opposite skin colour took much longer (if at all) to overcome the fear. It would appear people quickly felt comfortable and less fearful with people of their own race, but not so for other races. What this appears to prove is that humans have developed distinct races in the past 100,000 years by learning through our experiences the hardships we have encountered with different races and even different species living on this planet. Where there is a conflict between different human races, it is likely because at some point in people's lives, there was a negative experience that made people stick to their own racial kind for comfort, security and love because people that look similar to us are more likely to provide the love. It is believed to be a natural evolutionary skill the brain has learned to ensure different races and even species do not readily intermingle otherwise we could become the next meal for another animal or be subjected to further pain and hardship under the rules of humans from a different race. This behaviour of sticking to our own kind and race is believed to be a natural survival instinct. But it is a type of instinct we have learned from our immediate social environment as well as our evolutionary history. So what happens when people of different races go out on a date and experience many positive things? The study looked at a number of volunteers who fit this criteria and noticed that after the electric shocks were removed were quickly able to overcome their fear of different races. Mahzarin Banaji, a member of the research team which conducted the study at Harvard University, said: 'The optimistic news is that this predisposition to fear members of another race may be changed by close personal contact. 'We are products of our evolutionary history and our immediate social environment. The former we don't control [at least not in our lifetimes], the latter we certainly do.' (Smith, Deborah. Racial fear banished by closer contact: The SYdney Morning Herald. 30-31 July 2005, p.7.) Emergency services spokespeople say they can no longer guarantee help to people in an emergency situation because there is not enough staff to handle the demand. ## SPECIAL UPDATE ## 13 January 2004 It would appear many governments of the world don't want to acknowledge high populations as part of the fundamental issue in this whole debate on the current health crisis. Instead, the governments will choose to keep quiet (since high population numbers having a paid job are needed around election times) especially while there are no complaints from doctors and other medical staff. But eventually, as the stress of handling the growing population (which in itself is also facing stress or is choosing to live it up too much without thinking about the consequences) increases and puts a toll on the aspiration of many young would-be doctors and nurses and those already in the profession are considering early retirement, the government starts to make excuses that there is not enough doctors to solve the health crisis instead of admitting the population is way too high for true sustainability and not enough people are looking after themselves. Later, reports of patients being quietly euthanised just to free up beds for other patients start to emerge and become investigated by the police. The Government has to demand an increase in the cost of Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) medications for the average person on the street to pay. In other words, where expensive life-saving drugs were previously subsidised by the government to allow people to survive, now the Government has seen the opportunity to save money by reducing the subsidies and asking people to pay more for their drugs. As Annette Ellis MP, Australian Federal Member for Canberra and Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Minister for Family and Community Services, said: 'The Coalition [Liberal (Howard)] Government attempted to increase the cost of PBS medications by 30% in the May [2002] Budget. Labor voted against this increase and the Bill was defeated in both Houses. 'While we believe there is no doubt that the funding of Australia's health system must be reviewed, raising funds by charging the elderly, the sick and families is just not fair.' (13) ## SPECIAL UPDATE ## September 2003 The Howard Government is trying very hard to balance its approach to the problem by advertising on television the importance of people using the PBS to ask a health professionals for drugs that they need only. This is a reasonable attempt. Putting stricter controls on the sale of cigarettes to children is another good attempt by the Government to improve the health of future Australians and ultimately the public health system. But the real test will come when the Government is required to put in the right legislation to ensure businesses operate in a balanced and sustainable way and to treat employees and the less fortunate members of our society well by giving them the time outside the business community to look after their own health and to do the right thing. Because this is how real savings are made by the Government in providing health services to the community. People feel generally agitated, irritated and/or cynical about various issues in life because of limited resources and support and their encounters and experiences with so many other similarly irritated people. People turn to drugs, sex, theft and other activities for relief from human hardship (including having to listen to more problems from other people) in a modern uncreative and unemotional "Westernised" world. People have to set up hydroponics in homes to grow illegal plants so they can sell the drugs and make enough money. Because with the money, people can afford certain things in society (as prices for certain things go up for whatever reason — either greed or high population levels demanding too many resources). At first it is to help pay for food and housing (sometimes it is for their own drug use), and later it becomes an avenue for getting rich quickly. Social security agencies have to purchase massive supercomputers costing millions of dollars just to handle the huge numbers of people on welfare. Then to reduce the impact of a large number of people on the welfare system, supercomputers are programmed to detect anything that may look suspicious or give the government any grounds to remove as many people as possible from welfare via pattern-matching techniques. People have to fight in wars for such simple things as adequate food and territory just to grow and survive properly. The Government starts to believe that war is the only solution to the population problem. The Government has to spend huge amounts of money on Defence (including an increase in the number of television and newspaper advertisements to recruit new Army reservists) and explain to the public how great the new Defence housing establishments containing all the latest modern technological conveniences for military officers are. They do this not only to emphasise the Government's (and all other rich and powerful people's) perceived insecurity in the world as well as attracting the less fortunate to Defence like a rabbit to a carrot, but also as a "final solution" to the human population problem (especially those people who overburden the system such as the long-term unemployed). As an incentive to join the Defence, the Government redirects money from vital social security budgets to Defence budgets. Thus by cutting back on social security pensions (or even putting a 6 or 12 month time limit on receiving social security benefits as occurs in the United States), it is hoped people will suddenly see the attraction (or the light) in joining the military and thus all the supposed glory in fighting a war for your country. You write a letter to the Federal Government department whose job it is to tackle employment issues about this Defence solution for unemployed people (eg. DEWR), and a letter comes back to you from a policy officer saying along the lines of: '...it is now standard government policy to include the Defence forces as part of a complete solution to the unemployment problem. Therefore if you want to join the Defence forces, there is nothing stopping you from doing so.' The Government has to use dubious means of getting the disadvantaged into the Defence forces. For example, it would not be unusual if young Defence cadets were to suddenly hang around near a long-term unemployed person who happens to be at one regular location (eg. the library), and start talking about how great it is to be in Defence, getting paid for going to university etc. If that does not provide sufficient indirect incentive to get the long-term unemployed person into the Defence forces, there is also the nasty approach which is to find anything the disadvantaged person may be doing wrong and try to get them into trouble with the law until the person cannot continue with his/her activities. On a more subtle level, Defence personnel may also try to destroy civilian relationships and make it difficult to find stable accommodation for the disadvantaged person. Then the Defence personnel and/or their families and friends will give the impression they are friendly, stable and helpful so the person would think that being in Defence is the way to go. Certain people within the Department of Defence, with the approval of the Federal Government (unless you are in the US Army, in which case you can do almost anything you like), may also provide free war games on the Internet to get civilian people interested in this kind of activity and so hopefully get them to join the Army, the Air Force, or the Navy. For example, the US Army has spent a small amount of taxpayers money to develop a free online-only (this allows the US Army to see who is using their software) first-person shoot-em-up game called America's Army. The software is designed to target anyone in the gaming demographics (especially the 18 to 24 year old market) with a view of attracting new Army recruits. The software was released in August 2002 and has tapped onto a big consumer market for 3D games. Interestingly, there is no option to choose which side you would like to be on. You are always forced to be an American soldier fighting against generic terrorists. A subtle form of government/military propaganda you might think? It certainly looks like it. It is a pity the US Army hasn't come up with a game called Diplomacy, Peace Missions and Helping our Fellow Human Beings in Need titles for alternative solutions to our growing social problems. As further incentive to join the Defence force, the authorities are happy to glorify war by letting newspaper editors publish articles promoting how great the military machine is in destroying al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan. One can observe this in the article titled Aussies helped kill 300 Taliban fighters: commander published in The Canberra Times dated 11 May 2002, page 2. While readers can understand that soldiers who are placed in a combat situation with al-Qaeda fighters on the ground will be forced to fight in order to survive and therefore have to kill, there is no need to show how great the war is on terrorism when people have to be killed. In other words, people do not have to make war look like a noble cause for humanity because they need to attract people to join the Defence forces. Yet the Government will be happy not to intervene and express an opposite view to help balance this type of subtle war propaganda in newspapers. The rather expensive business of attracting people to the Defence forces and the ugly business of participating in war itself has a definite purpose for certain governments (usually right-wing) when solving certain social problems such as overpopulation. (14) The Government and even certain participating businesses see the value of showing on television certain American comedy war sitcoms like M.A.S.H as a means of taking out the harsh realities of what it is like being in the military. By taking a more light hearted look at military life, it is hoped the average citizen on the street will decide to join the Defence forces. To avoid mentioning the overpopulation problems and its impact on the environment, the Government has to use shock statistics such as gazing into the crystal ball and predicting taxes could rise to unprecedented levels just to maintain the standard of living more and more people today are wanting to enjoy. Then the Government will suggest the solution is simply to get people to work harder in the same areas supported by the Government without needing to make radical changes to the current economic system. Some non-religious governments have to consider serious options such as euthanasia as a possible solution to overpopulation where a significant proportion of the population are in retirement age. Otherwise, if the population is aged much younger, wars and military service is usually considered the only "R-wing" solution to overpopulation problems. As population increases, possibly exacerbated by global warming, fresh water supplies go down. This means that people have to start considering recycling sewage water for their drinking needs. It is either that, or toilets have to be converted to the dry compost variety where no water is needed. And if dry compost toilets are used and water still runs out, the human population definitely knows it is in dire straits! ## SPECIAL UPDATE ## 26 November 2006 WA Premier was present to show to the media fresh water generated from the Indian Ocean using the power of wind farms and a new desalination plant. ATTEMPTS AT A SOLUTION IN AUSTRALIA: While the United Nations and various charity organisations encourage people in highly populated third world nations to use condoms and be educated in their use, governments in developed nations such as Australia are doing the opposite. The reason for this is primarily to maintain the current economic system as required for governments to be reelected when there are enough young people employed, happy and supporting the system: Sunday 8 August 2004 The Australian Federal (Howard) Government-funded ABC television station has televised what is presumed to be the true realities of abortion shown in graphic detail what actually happens to the baby fotuse when it is forcibly killed and removed from the womb of a woman who has chosen to have an abortion. It is believed such images will strike a cord with the conservative and religious members of Australian society and hopefully support the Government's latest policy of paying new mothers A$3,000 for each new baby born into this world. The ultimate aim would be to get voters on side with the Government as the election is only months or weeks away from taking place in Australia. Unfortunately the documentary is not completely balanced in its presentation: it will not show the realities leading up to the abortion from enough women in society who may be suffering financial problems, serious health complications, rape or whatever. For example, the documentary won't explain whether the poverty experienced by some women who choose abortion is an example of limited support and resources in a society that is too highly populated by humans all demanding their own support systems and resources? Similarly isn't rape an example of men who are suffering their own form of emotional, psychological, financial and physical problems in a society that is, again, suggesting it is highly populated and men dump their problems on women through such gastly acts? Come to think of it, if humanity had less than 1 percent of the total population in the world and with the same amount of resources and support as we do now, would anyone ever contemplate on having an abortion knowing that everyone would be virtually guaranteed the support they need to survive and achieve their goal(s)? 20 January 2005 The emphasis on making babies and supporting the family unit as required to maintain the current economic system for at least the next 50 years is reflected in the views of older power-driven male politicians in the Australian Labor Party. Despite the Party being described as a trailblazer in the 1970 and 80s for allowing women equal access and representation in political life within the Party, single women politicians are still discriminated against and made to be seen as not good leaders if they don't have children of their own. Now an official Federal (Howard) Government-funded report carried out by the head of the ANU's Demography and Sociology Program, Professor Peter McDonald, shows the reasons for Australia's decline in fertility rate which has now reached an all time low with an average of 1.75 babies per woman. This is lower than is required to maintain the population. Based on a national random survey of 1,250 men and 1,951 women aged between 20 and 39 years, two-thirds of males and 41 per cent of female respondents indicated they were childless. Around 7 to 8 per cent did not want children at any stage in their lives. The reasons given varied from their age, lack of a partner, the uncertainty aout the future of a relationship if a partner is found, health-related issues, a dislike of children, concerns of not being good enough to become parents, the world was not good enough to have children, to financial and lifestyle choices. The biggest reasons against having children, however, was the capacity to financially support children and the ability to be good parents. It is on the financial front where the problem becomes more self-evident. The job insecurity situation with more and more of the workforce going on casual and short term employment is the biggest concern. If people are not guaranteed of a sufficiently long period in employment (probably at least 5 years), then many male and female respondents were happy to forego children in return for building up wealth, savings and making major purchases. As the report said: 'Despite Australia's economic prosperity, people remain concerned about their capacity to create and maintain a family environment in which children can be nurtured and supported financially and emotionally.' (15) It is clear the Federal Government has a reason to be interested in getting the population to make babies. Thursday 10 February 2005 An effort to find ways to get people to make babies is mounting. Now the Australian Federal (Howard) government-funded research centres are coming out with new ways to increase the sex drive of women — time to start sniffing testosterone from a spray can! Only last week, Australian scientists have suggested a method of enticing men to become attracted to women through new perfumes containing female sex hormones. And just to make sure the hint has got through, the government-funded ABC television documentary program later that night would talk about babies and what they think about the world according to psychologists. Cute, isn't it? So what will happen next? Will Australian men be required to play a different game of rugby league originally known as the game of "organised bum sniffers"? Will the new game now be called the game of "organised pussy sniffers" just to get men interested in making babies with women? Don't be surprised if very soon we will see more and more people finding themselves in permanent part-time work (a balance between full-time, short-term employment) to help give the impression to people that financially they are stable and able to survive and therefore okay to be creating and supporting babies with the extra time on their hands. Thursday 24 February 2005 AMP Insurance has conducted a survey on the cost of raising one child in today's Sydney environment. While it is generally true that the more money parents earn, the more money is spent on a child, based on average wages and salaries of a typical Australian family, it costs more than a mortgage of A$335,000 to raise a child to 16 years of age. Actually, the total cost is around A$445,000. The figure can be reduced by living in a smaller town, not giving in to demands by the child to have everything, choosing to buy second-hand goods, making your own food in the garden and so on. If the costs can be sufficiently reduced, the likelihood of a couple having children will increase assuming the couple's aims are to create children and not some other goal. THE SOLUTION: All world problems have a simple solution. And no we don't have to start World War III to help reduce human population levels as some R-wing people would like to think. Solving world problems depends on: 1. The type of people involved (eg. R-wing/L-brain or L-wing/R-brain). 2. How much listening and gathering of information we do to understand a problem. 3. The careful balance of R-brain and L-brain skills when searching for a solution. 4. Choosing a solution that takes into account the feelings of those people and other living things that will be affected by the solution. 5. Applying the solution. When it comes to the issue of human population, we can see how controversial this issue is. On one side of the debate, we have people who believe there is no such thing as a population problem. These are mainly the business professionals and scientists who rely heavily on technology (and in selling it to make a profit) to solve other potential overpopulation problem. They need as many people to exist on this planet because people equates to customers, and customers help maximise the bottom-line for businesses. On the other side of the debate, we have those who believe our population is too high and cannot be sustained. These include environmentalists and other scientists. Do we really have a population problem? It all depends on what side of the fence you are on — either the business side or the environmental side. It may also depend on where the people are living (eg. in third world nations or developed nations, in the icy or sandy deserts or the rainforests, in the cities or the local countryside etc). Because a portion of land can only support so many people and the rest would be depended on infrastructure to bring in supplies from elsewhere should the population be too great. But one factor is common no matter where we live. There must be adequate resources in a given area to support the population. And if not, evidence of adequate recycling and environmental protection measures to restore the resources must be observed. Business professionals will argue that only a good economy will ensure the infrastructure is there to bring in enough food from other parts of the world to support a population. But once humans have access to all remaining food sources, we don't have the infrastructure to gather food from other life-bearing worlds in the universe. The size of our planet is putting a cap on the number of people we can sustain. You can have 25 billion people living in the world right now without a problem if the resources are available. But if the resources look depleted or rare to come by according to the prices in the marketplace and the high demand for those resources, then the population must be described as unsustainable. And we are now starting to see this in the high price for fish and, in this era of global warming and increasing periods of drought, vegetables and fruit. NOTE: These are critical foods to the development of a heathy human brain. Based on this resource argument alone, certainly a number of observations mentioned above are pointing in this direction. However, business professionals and the government would prefer to define sustainability in terms of the number of jobs available for the population to do. Because with a job, people will have the money to purchase any resources at any price. Unfortunately no job or any amount of money will ever sustain a population no matter how high the salary or profits unless there are adequate resources in the environment to support the population. You can pay a man one hundred million dollars to help him purchase what little resources remain in the world for him to survive. But once he uses up the resource, there will be nothing left to support himself or anyone else. It is better to invest the money in replenishing the stocks and recycling to return food sources back to a safe level. No job, no matter how much it pays, can ever ensure the sustainability of the population. To be safe and certain we are not reaching a critical state of unsustainable population levels on this planet especially as global warming kicks in, humans must learn to recycle virtually all its resources; design products to be small, highly durable and relevant to our needs (not wants); control our desire to create huge short-term profits without recycling; improve the environment to the point where there are adequate food supplies for everyone; and encourage each couple to have one or two babies at the most for the entire lifetime while being educated and learning to practice forms of sex (or abstinence) that will not lead to additional pregnancies. Generally it is true that the more educated you are about sex, the less likely you will develop a large family of your own which could burden society and the environment for extra resources. And it may also be true to help religious people to understand that more children need not necessarily mean more love in this world and that God approves of this activity. A women could produce up to a hundred babies in her lifetime and see it as love, but each baby has to be fed, clothed and looked after into adulthood. And then as adults, they must continue to be supported through our food supplies until they achieve something great for society. We hope it is something to do with recycling and looking after the environment. But there's no guarantee of that. No argument based on religion, economics or science will be enough until we learn the art of recycling and living within our means. NOTES The Canberra Times: Japan minister blames whales for hungry millions. 6 July 2002, p.14. Together with a compassionate heart to help raise the self-esteem of the poor and a rational and creative mind to help distribute the minimum physical needs required by everyone, education is the next important key to solving poverty. Because with education can people become truly self-sufficient and independent enough to solve all their own problems and eventually help everyone else in their own unique way. For further details of a good approach to educating people all over the world, read this article. The Federal Government is also reducing funding to the only course of its kind available in Australia at the University of Canberra—that is, the conservation of cultural materials—in favour of the more expensive government-subsidised courses designed to train people to become doctors, lawyers, engineers and even soldiers for the Defence. This is because there is an expected long-term financial benefit to the Government such as reduced health care costs, fewer litigation in the courts, more security and thus less money to spend on Defence, and so on. Subsidising training courses like the preservation of old artefacts and even the arts in general does not give the Federal Government enough financial pleasure to provide this sort of support over the long term. The Canberra Times: Abbott wary of manslaughter plan. 6 July 2002. Bamba, Zac. Our quality of life — News in review: The Sunday Telegraph. 21 September 2003, p.92. McCrann, Terry. Taking a trick with bracket creep tax: The Sunday Telegraph. 21 September 2003, p.95. Quote from Shadow Treasurer Mr Mark Latham of the Australian Labor Party. Genetic engineering is the process of manipulating (ie. adding, removing and/or replacing) one or more segments of the genes of a living thing for the purposes of enhancing and/or adding a potentially beneficial characteristic to it, or to remove an unwanted characteristic. Some of the potential benefits of genetic engineering if done properly and with extensive testing can involve things like: (a) Better resistance to insect, fungal and bacterial attacks (thereby reducing the need to use chemicals when growing foods). (b) Growing in a faster way and/or for greater longevity. (c) Producing a greater quantity of something. (d) Eliminating inherent diseases related to poor genetics. We shouldn't think genetic engineering is bad for us. Just so long as we know what we are doing and the modification won't create other problems, then the benefit to life could be enormous. In case we didn't know it, planet Earth is a giant natural genetic engineering experiment. Everyday, electromagnetic radiation, bacteria and viruses rain upon all living things and act as Nature's own special tools for manipulating our genes in a subtle and necessary way. Sometimes the modification is for the better. At other times, it may not be favourable. But one thing is certain, Nature is not going to stop its great genetic experiment overnight just for the sake of us or our concerns about gene manipulation unless the actual laboratory for running the genetic experiments called planet Earth is destroyed by an asteroid or whatever in the future. The fact that humans can now tamper with the very code of life will only help to accelerate the process started by Nature many billions of years ago. And why does genetic engineering exist in Nature? It is probably because we are all reaching a more stable state where all living things can live long enough to try all experiences and to learn enough to the point where we can answer the great mystery about this Universe. Perhaps our purpose is to explain the very essence of God itself. However, genetic engineering implemented by humans in its current rudimentary form also has another purpose for its existence: to make a profit. In this brave new world of genetic engineering, time is money and profit is seen by humans as the overriding principle of life. So while genetic engineering is linked to money, there is a risk for genetic engineering by humans not to be fully tested over time for all potential problems. For instance, the former scientific director of Celera Genomics Craig Venter who helped lead the way in mapping the human genome has new ambitions of trying to create a partly artificial life-form by creating a human-made chromosome to replace part of the genetic material in a bacteria so that hopefully certain tasks can be performed for human beings. In 2002, Venter was thinking about making microbes for absorbing the excess carbon dioxide in the air with a view of alleviating global warming or providing a cheap form of hydrogen fuel. (The Canberra Times: Artificial life the new goal. 23 November 2002, p.15.) This may seem like a harmless piece of scientific endeavour for humankind until we realise that if not enough testing is done under controlled conditions on this artificial bacteria, it is possible to create a life-form so ravenous that humans may not be able to curb the population growth of the bacteria. So what could happen? There is a strong possibility that humans could create a severe ice age on Earth because too much carbon dioxide has been absorbed from the air by the bacteria resulting in much of life on Earth becoming extinct. Unfortunately, what Venter has failed to say to newspaper reporters is whether he will also develop another artificial bacteria to counteract the effects of the first bacteria to ensure balance is always maintained in the natural environment (wherever balance should be in the eyes of the scientists). We have to remember that when science tinkers with the genes of something for the sake of profit or to deal with the lack of predators in a declining natural environment to help curb population explosions in certain species (eg. rabbits) or whatever the purpose for genetic engineering, it must always ensure there is some kind of an effective backup system to counteract the initial effects of the genetic experiment created by scientists in the first place. So while we don't have this kind of long-term thinking going on in the field of genetics in the 21st century, we have to be very careful how we wish to apply genetic engineering in everything that we do. Genetic engineering is not a short-term solution just to make a quick buck and later stop the solution in its tracks without interfering with other lifeforms. As soon as you use genetic engineering, you have got to be prepared to do lots of testing over a long period of time to eliminate all problems. If we can't give the time for such work, scientists are better off solving the problem of interstellar problem so we can visit the results of genetic experiments on other life-bearing planets. Already SETI scientists believe there has to be life in the universe. All we have to do is venture to these places and look at the plant-like things living on other worlds to see the kind of genetic solutions we could implement (under controlled conditions). Better still, we should communicate with other advanced civilisations so we can make the best decision for which genetically-tested material is safe and beneficial for life on Earth. If we think this is still airy-fairy stuff and not practical enough, we should ensure all genetic engineering is done without pressure from business professionals putting the funding into them. Because one fact is now certain: if we introduce a bad genetic solution into the environment, we won't be able to easily stop it due to cross-contamination with the natural genetic versions. As evidence to support this, a government-funded UK study into cross-pollination between GM plants and their wild relatives has shown strong support of the view that hybridisation will eventually occur irrespective of what humans try to do to isolate the modified and unmodified forms. All it takes is a strong enough wind or for a flying insect to cross-pollinate between modified and unmodified forms and eventually the unmodified forms will hybridise with the modifed forms. As Professor Mike Wilkinson of Reading University who led the study said: 'This [study] shows that isolation distances will reduce hybrid numbers but not prevent hybridisation. It depends on what level of hybridisation you deem acceptable but if you want to absolutely prevent hybrids then isolation distances will not do so. 'Hybridisation is more or less inevitable in the UK context.' (GM hybrid weed poses threat: study: The Canberra Times. 11 October 2003, p.18.) Since hybridisation appears inevitable, the risk of producing other kinds of plants such as superweeds resistant to all forms of herbicides would be just around the corner. Now here is another problem to deal with and one which is considered quite feasible according to the UK study. Yet critics will argue the UK results are not applicable to other parts of the world claiming wildlife in other places are not likely to be affected in the same way as those in the UK. As Bayer's general manager of Bioscience, Ms Susie O'Neill, said: 'The UK results are not directly applicable to Australia because the UK environment differs markedly. 'Wildlife in the UK is heavily dependent on farms, particularly weeds found on farms, for sustenance. The UK has a long history of reducing biodiversity as a result of increasingly intensive agriculture. The Australian flora and fauna is much more reliant on native bushland and forests.' (Cauchi, Stephen. GM's growing pains: The Sydney Morning Herald. 25 October 2003, p.39) The UK study does not indicate hybridisation will occur with only a few select crops and weeds. The process could potentially occur with any kind of plant given the right conditions and time. Once the hybridisation occurs, scientists will not know for sure how the hybridised plants will impact on the numbers and types of animal species dependent on those plants. It really doesn't matter what humans try to do to separate GM from non-GM materials in the natural environment. All it takes is time for the contamination to spread throughout the entire crop and eventually to other plants and possibly animal life forms. Then the company making this modified crop won't care what happens to Nature because all it cares about is how much profit it is able to make from its GM products as the survival of the people becomes strongly dependent on the availability of this modified crop. As Wilkinson noticed in his UK study, hybridisation of say the "grow-once and produce no further seed" GM crops from US companies Monsanto and Novartis with other more natural crop varieties could eventually force more and more people to see food as a privilege rather than a right. Should this happen, a major social upheaval will begin in the global community. You see, people could see the modified crops hybridise with natural forms to create a crops that dies quickly, forcing a greater reliance on businesses to supply the genetically-modified crops for food at a price. When this happens, world governments will have a lot to worry about since people could choose to go against the current economic system. And that will cost the governments much more money by way of law enforcement and defence than we can ever imagine today to help protect businesses, politicians, rich citizens and other elitists. Looking away from this future social horror, what about the environmental costs of combatting hybridised superweeds resistant to the latest herbicides? Even if we pretend superweeds will never become a reality, the life that will depend on existing weeds for food could be put in jeopardy should farmers decide to use man-made chemical herbicides to reduce weed numbers over a wide area of land where herbicide-resistant GM crops are grown. Perhaps if scientists had introduced the genes for creating a natural chemical to retard weed growth from another plant in the GM crops, it may be better. But then we would not know the consequences to human health after consumption of this GM crop? Of equal concern to this debate on genetic engineering is not knowing whether a wide enough area of land for growing GM crops will not cause the extinction of rare and possibly important microbes and insects needed to support the natural ecological chain for life on Earth? Unless scientists are fully aware of what exists in the natural world and how everything is interrelated plus have the benefit of hindsight of millions of years of evolution to tell them how the natural world will cope with GM crops, we have to do a lot more testing. We know how much businesses would hate to hear those words, but this is what we must do. Because there are too many business people who do not think this far into the future to see their social and environmental consequences. For example the Australian Federal (Howard) Government has funded a study by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE). This study has predicted a substantial fall in economic gains for Australia, New Zealand and Europe if these countries stick to conventional non-GM foods while developing countries could suddenly benefit from a billion-dollar boom in taking up GM farming. The study is clear: the danger in GM crops is not so much the social and environmental consequences, but rather the loss in profit to a developed nation by not using the GM crops. We hear this type of business thinking in terms of profit all the time from people like Nobel Prize winner Dr Norman Borlaug, the scientist who developed the semi-dwarf wheat varieties that fed and saved millions of lives in India and Asia. For example, Borlaug claims at a CSIRO conference held in Canberra in April 2003 how our technology of genetic engineering is able to sustainably produce food for 10 billion people. As Borloug said: 'Without biotechnology, the world will need to clear more forests and wildlife habitats to keep food production balanced with rising populations.' (The Canberra Times: GM crop fears unfounded: scientist. 5 April 2003, p.8) Surely this must be irresponsible, especially while billions of people today are still struggling to find enough food today with a population of 6.5 billion. It is irresponsible unless you think in a business way. Businesses need people in large numbers to buy products and services. And anything to support the businesses must be okay. So GM crops is okay too. So what happens if the public chooses not to buy GM crops? This is not an unreasonable question considering developing nations are among the most suspicious of GM crops and EU leaders are already concerned about the potential impact of GM crops to their own economic, social and environmental circumstances given how many Europeans are presently against the technology in their foods. For example, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair was putting his weight behind GM foods. Yet his Government through Jack Cunningham, the man in charge of running the government's GM strategy, had to discredit a top quality scientist by the name of Dr Arpad Pusztai for disclosing publicly evidence he found strongly suggesting GM foods can cause damage to the immune system, brains, livers and kidneys of rats. The evidence was obtained through experiments he conducted at Rowett Research Institute. Furthermore, the Blair Government showed a total disregard for science by not repeating Pusztai's crucial experiments in the interest of public health. Instead, Pusztai's long and illustrious 37-year scientific career at the institute and more than 270 papers to his name has to end abruptly by the UK Government by enlisting imminent scientists to comprehensively discredit him. The secret plans to discredit the scientist has been revealed in the Independent. Despite the effort, the UK public effectively settled the debate by refusing to buy GM foods. Prior to the controversy of Pusztai's experiments, 60 per cent of foods on UK supermarket shelves had GM foods. Now, with the public aware of the experiments and the efforts by the UK Government to discredit the scientist in favour of its own political agenda, the supermarkets are removing the GM foods because they are not making a profit. Now Monsanto announced it would pull out of the European seed cereal business because of concerns that the Europeans in performing their comprehensive and more balanced studies such as the one in the UK could see EU leaders banning or putting restrictions on the use of GM crops. Controversy still exists in the EU with some officials trying to introduce Monsanto's modified corn named MON 863 currently being eaten by Americans and Canadians. Other EU officials are blocking the move saying secret research on rats by Monsanto indicates high consumption of MON 863 produces smaller kidneys and a potentially harmful blood chemistry compared to a conventional diet. Monsanto dismisses the results claiming it was due to normal variations in the rats. Other people are not too sure saying it vindicates Pusztai's own scientific work. NOTE: The Federal (Howard) Government has given the green light to introduce genetically-modified foods into the Australian environment. It is clear either the Government has new information scientists and the public don't know about, or the Government clearly hasn't got any scientific knowledge to use when making their policies. Are higher profits and a better economy seen as the only solution in the eyes of the Government? The Canberra Times: Crops 'totally different in five decades'. 22 November 2003, p.12. The Canberra Times: Mental health staff say Carr failing in duty. 6 February 2004, p.12. Quote from Mr Maxwell Lotton. The Canberra Times. Letters to the Editor - No justice. 19 June 2004, p.B11. Cronin 2004*, p.3. Could this issue of cost cutting by government and businesses be the simplified economic definition for higher than usual population levels? The Canberra Times. Mark Latham shrugs off attacks. 13 December 2003, p.9. People are not the problem, it is their belief system. And belief systems develop and support the side of the brain we prefer to use the most. People only become a problem when they act on their beliefs in ways that are negative and hurtful to others. But we should be tackling the source of all world problems - our beliefs. Killing people because of what they believe will not solve the problem (unless you intend to destroy all of humanity). You must deal with the beliefs. Why? All it takes is one person to carry on the beliefs and given enough time, the problem will reemerge as future generations learn about the beliefs and put them into practice. And next time it could be a whole lot worse for everyone. It is far better to deal with the belief systems of people now and be prepared to help everyone out during the learning process to a better and more balanced belief system than to spend billions of dollars on defence, but only if we are serious about creating a long-term solution to all our world problems. Cronin, Danielle. Birth rate linked to fear of losing job: The Canberra Times. 29 January 2005, p.3.

 
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