Zombies and sensitivities

Iain Climie (New Scientist, Letters, 3/10/16) is right to emphasize the need for population reductions in the resource-greedy developed countries. But why does he think that we have difficulty "accepting our own entry in the obituary column" when this is, as my Chemistry teacher remarked, the only scientific law to which there are no known exceptions?

I don't believe that lust for immortality is the reason that we can't think clearly about population. In fact I see two reasons.

One reason is the 'zombie doctrine' that bigger is always better so a large population must be better than a smaller one. This doctrine helps to explain the political obsession with GDP - when GDP per head would make better sense (though measures of well-being would be better still.)

The other is the sensitivity over appearing to tell people how many children to have. But this is a mistake - a failure to distinguish between a need for discussion and a desire to give orders. An odd failure I think since most of the policies advocated to limit population, eg easier access to birth control, actually increase human freedom.

The real causes of wildlife losses

Martin Hughes-Games (Why Planet Earth II should have been taxed, Guardian, 2/1/17) does well to deplore the appalling loss of wildlife in the last 40 years. See, for example, my posts on apes and wilderness.

But it is ridiculous to blame Attenborough's wonderful documentaries for this and little better to demand a special tax on wildlife programmes. The losses of habitats, creatures and species are due to forces much more powerful than TV programmes. They are due to the increasing numbers of people - us - and our ever increasing demands for land, energy and food, especially meat.

Innate factors account for some of this but much is due outdated nationalism and short-sighted commercialism. Nationalist politicians - themselves a growing breed! - see a large population as a mark of national vigour and a source of economic growth. They use the power of the state and the media to play on our emotions and if that fails they try to ban abortion and contraception.

Businesses seek their own growth by persuading us to be dissatisfied with our lives and, especially, our possessions and diets. They send us to the sales and our spending feeds the juggernaut that each year grabs more and more of the Earth's resources.

This is unsustainable. It will end.

The question is whether we can restrain the forces that demand insatiable growth before they trash the planet - and us with it. Unless we do, and soon, we can say goodbye to the beautiful wild things that Attenborough has documented.

And that requires politicians willing to say stop.

Immigration: Time for a grown-up conversation

Why do so many people oppose immigration? And why do we on the left have such difficulty discussing it?

There are five kinds of objection to immigration.

The first is racial and is really about non-white immigrants. Older readers will remember the Tory MP who coined the phrase "British-born immigrants". He meant black and brown Britons of course; no-one was worried by Australian or even German immigration. Its root is a fear of difference and its the source of the right-wing hostility to immigration and immigrants exploited by the National Front, BNP and English Defence League.

This is racist, even fascist, and beyond the pale of civilised discussion. Few people now hold this view but it stays in our minds because of WW2 and because it used to be quite normal. For many of us opposition to racism was a test of political virtue and meant hostility to immigration controls - since they were demanded by obvious racists ranging from Tory knights to street-fighting thugs.

But there are other sorts of opposition to immigration.

The second is nostalgic and not necessarily or usually racist. The people who feel this don't generally hate non-whites. They do feel a sense of dislocation that familiar areas just don't feel familiar any more. Churches have become gurdwaras, faces brown or black and saris replace dresses in the shops. These are often the 'left behind people' - old and poorly educated - described in Revolt on the Right.

The third is cultural and is based on worries about integration. The current focus is on Muslims. Surveys show that many Muslims hold attitudes, notably toward women and gays, that are increasingly out of step with modern Britain. Many do not want to integrate and feel entitled to insist that British law and institutions impose their views on the rest of us, or at least on their fellow Muslims. The tendency of loud-mouthed self-appointed community leaders to attack democracy and tolerance and foresee 'the Islamic flag flying over Downing Street' is politically marginal but reinforces these worries.

The fourth is economic. Immigrants are supposed to be taking 'our' jobs and living off benefits provided by 'our' taxes. In fact immigrants generally take jobs that Britons don't want and draw less in benefits than Britons do. They also pay taxes and their presence stimulates our economy, creating more jobs. Indeed, they are more likely than Britons to be entrepreneurs!

So the economic objection is weak on the average. But we're not all average. Immigration does produce winners and losers and those with least capital and skill - the 'left behind people' mentioned above - are often the losers, facing energetic competition for the low-paid jobs for which they are qualified.

Finally there is a resources issue. The UK is a small and densely populated country that relies heavily on imported raw materials, food and fuel. In many cities, but especially in London, increasing numbers are experienced as rising rents, congestion on the streets, difficulty in getting GP appointments and a shortage of school places (and of places to build new schools). Now it's obviously true that immigration is not the only cause of these problems but its equally obvious that it is A cause.

And the future may be no better. The UK has not been self-sufficient for well over a hundred years but has so far been able to sell enough abroad to buy what it needs. Over the next thirty years Indian and Chinese economic growth and climate change will gather pace. We can expect increasing competition for shrinking supplies. We may have real difficulty in feeding our population.

So what's the bottom line? I think there are two:

• There are real disadvantages (as well as advantages) to continued immigration.
• Much of the opposition to immigration is fairly rational (insofar as politics can be rational) and not covert racism.

It's time for a grown-up discussion about population and immigration. It's time to stop seeing all critics of immigration (or of Islam) as closet racists and to recognise legitimate concerns. There are no easy answers, least of all BREXIT, but we do need answers.