Refugees/migrants

[al_yrpal]

Al

You may have covered this before and I've forgotten but how did you come to live where you are now?

TC, I moved here from South Oxfordshire so that I could share a house with my daughter who already lived locally so that we could care for my wife who was suffering from dementia. I asked my daughter to suss out various things before we moved which she never did. Dont get me wrong I am quite comfortable with the local immigrant population but there are lots of very openly racist locals here who arent. As to the expansion of this pretty run down town I guess that folk all over Britain are asking the same questions that I am "what on earth is going on in this overcrowded little country?" My wife and I always feared being burried in the West Country. I much preferred whee I lived before, better cycling, culture, lots of easily accessible countryside and easy access to London and its airports. Even back in Oxfordshire adding in thousands of extra houses has been causing severe problems to public services and infrastructure. I must admit that public services are better here but no doubt building eye popping numbers of extra houses will have the same effect.

Al

[al_yrpal]

There are a lot of inspiring stories of immigrants moving to a new country, learning a new language, integrating
Often their children go to university and get important jobs in politics, business, media
..

You missed the point, most people in Britain arent anti immigrant. They are just worried that the scale of immigration and population growth is untenable. If you want a future where our country looks like Hong Kong all over good luck with that. Most of us dont!

Al

[mercalia]

There are a lot of inspiring stories of immigrants moving to a new country, learning a new language, integrating
Often their children go to university and get important jobs in politics, business, media
..

You missed the point, most people in Britain arent anti immigrant. They are just worried that the scale of immigration and population growth is untenable. If you want a future where our country looks like Hong Kong all over good luck with that. Most of us dont!

Al

the scale matter is relative to the resources the govt is prepared to invest in infrastructure - they clearly aint prepared to eg the housing issue already mentioned

[simonineaston]

So, here's the deal. As the effects of global warming ramp up, so the need for large numbers of the worst affected to move to places where the effects are more toterable will grow. In living memory, notable waves of immigration into the UK took place either by invitation (post-war immigration from the Caribbean), or by agreement (Idi Amin throwing out Ugandan Asians, Maastricht Treaty). We've now moved into a totally different situtation. Whilst a significant proportion of immigrants still move because of underlying socio-economic factors, the numbers that move because of climate factors are starting to increase. See here.
If we think "immigration is a problem" now, in 2020, just wait 'till climate change really kicks in and people start to move in their millions, simply because they cannot continue to stay alive in their country of origin... it's important to acknowledge that this armagedon has already begun... if we think of it as something that might start to happen in the future, we are, all of us, lost.

[Bonefishblues]

Al

You may have covered this before and I've forgotten but how did you come to live where you are now?

TC, I moved here from South Oxfordshire so that I could share a house with my daughter who already lived locally so that we could care for my wife who was suffering from dementia. I asked my daughter to suss out various things before we moved which she never did. Dont get me wrong I am quite comfortable with the local immigrant population but there are lots of very openly racist locals here who arent. As to the expansion of this pretty run down town I guess that folk all over Britain are asking the same questions that I am "what on earth is going on in this overcrowded little country?" My wife and I always feared being burried in the West Country. I much preferred whee I lived before, better cycling, culture, lots of easily accessible countryside and easy access to London and its airports. Even back in Oxfordshire adding in thousands of extra houses has been causing severe problems to public services and infrastructure. I must admit that public services are better here but no doubt building eye popping numbers of extra houses will have the same effect.

Al

There's absolutely no doubt that our town has benefited immensely from what you bemoan in terms of infrastructure, healthcare etc. It doesn't have to be like that.

[Oldjohnw]

There are a lot of inspiring stories of immigrants moving to a new country, learning a new language, integrating
Often their children go to university and get important jobs in politics, business, media
..

You missed the point, most people in Britain arent anti immigrant. They are just worried that the scale of immigration and population growth is untenable. If you want a future where our country looks like Hong Kong all over good luck with that. Most of us dont!

Al

Perhaps. But the PM is anti-immigrant. He says, wrong, that people trying to cross the channel are indulging in criminal and illegal behaviour. They are not.

[kwackers]

So, here's the deal. As the effects of global warming ramp up, so the need for large numbers of the worst affected to move to places where the effects are more toterable will grow. In living memory, notable waves of immigration into the UK took place either by invitation (post-war immigration from the Caribbean), or by agreement (Idi Amin throwing out Ugandan Asians, Maastricht Treaty). We've now moved into a totally different situtation. Whilst a significant proportion of immigrants still move because of underlying socio-economic factors, the numbers that move because of climate factors are starting to increase. See here.
If we think "immigration is a problem" now, in 2020, just wait 'till climate change really kicks in and people start to move in their millions, simply because they cannot continue to stay alive in their country of origin... it's important to acknowledge that this armagedon has already begun... if we think of it as something that might start to happen in the future, we are, all of us, lost.

And if the predicted sea levels turn out to be correct some of those migrants will be us.

[thirdcrank]

... TC, I moved here from South Oxfordshire so that I could share a house with my daughter who already lived locally so that we could care for my wife who was suffering from dementia. ...

Thanks for that. BTW, you are obviously free to move home as you wish. I'll jump to the conclusion that your daughter didn't move there to get away from her dad but rather there was something that attracted her there. Unless she was marrying a native to the place, she was attracted to things like a job, easy commute or whatever. A "comer in."

To declare an interest, I've bought two houses in my time, both on previously undeveloped land. The first was newly built on what became one of the largest Wimpey estates on the planet, if not visible from outer space it's there on google earth. The land it was built on was known locally as Gobbinland - basically not much use for anything. Our reason for moving there was that it was the only place within reasonable travelling distance where we could afford a detached house. Then we moved here, already occupied but recently built on the Green Belt. The rumour was that the owner of the land was a member of the local authority which was lax about such policies. One of the main reasons for moving here - slap bang in the middle of the county of West Yorkshire was to minimise the ability of an autocratic chief constable to mess us about with travel.

[Ben@Forest]

And as to agriculture to feed everyone- the country has not been self sufficient in food for centuries. How we farm our land is a choice, not a necessity. Regardless as to how we farm, we will not be self sufficient. The extent to which intensive agricultural is needed globally is a different question, but not one influenced either way by uk net migration.

We haven't been self-sufficient in food for hundreds of years (especially if we include things like olive oil being imported into the British Isles even before the Roman invasion).

However, how we manage land is still hugely important and it's not just about farm production. We are expected to plant huge areas of woodland for carbon sequestration and provide extensive areas of new housing (last week a council here approved 450 houses on greenfield land).

We are a small country with an excessive population already, to maintain an environment with reasonable green space and a massively influenced but sustainable wildlife population we cannot keep increasing human numbers.

[al_yrpal]

. I'll jump to the conclusion that your daughter didn't move there to get away from her dad but rather there was something that attracted her there. Unless she was marrying a native to the place, she was attracted to things like a job, easy commute or whatever. A "comer in."

TC the reason she moved here was so that her totally deaf son could attend the Deaf Academy which has just moved from Exeter to Exmouth. Its a wonderful school and just been totally rebuilt on the site of an disused teacher training college. The old site in Exeter will of course be a new housing development.

Al

[mumbojumbo]

We are a small country with an excessive population already, to maintain an environment with reasonable green space and a massively influenced but sustainable wildlife population we cannot keep increasing human numbers.

Which part of the population do you identify as surplus,and are you including yourself?

[thirdcrank]

... TC the reason she moved here was so that her totally deaf son could attend the Deaf Academy which has just moved from Exeter to Exmouth. Its a wonderful school and just been totally rebuilt on the site of an disused teacher training college. The old site in Exeter will of course be a new housing development. ....

Again, thanks for that. What I'm trying to convey is that most people who go to the trouble to move house have a pretty good reason to do it and your daughter is no exception. My own younger son has worked in several European countries simply to get work, and back in the UK started in Yatton (other side of Bristol) and regularly moved further North over the last 10 or so years to different jobs in an era of short-term contracts. He's now back in Leeds, living and working in Hunslet only yards from some historic industrial premises. It's economic migration and it's what leads to economic development.

[Ben@Forest]

We are a small country with an excessive population already, to maintain an environment with reasonable green space and a massively influenced but sustainable wildlife population we cannot keep increasing human numbers.

Which part of the population do you identify as surplus,and are you including yourself?

There is an ecological concept of carrying capacity which can be defined as 'a species’ average population size in a particular habitat. The species population size is limited by environmental factors like adequate food, shelter, water, and mates. If these needs are not met, the population will decrease until the resource rebounds.'

Dependent upon who one reads and how one sees sustainable farming/maintaining other species the carrying capacity of the UK is 15 to 30 million humans. What we need is a disease which wipes out half of all humans, perhaps the next pandemic will do a better job

[roubaixtuesday]

We are a small country with an excessive population already, to maintain an environment with reasonable green space and a massively influenced but sustainable wildlife population we cannot keep increasing human numbers.

Which part of the population do you identify as surplus,and are you including yourself?

There is an ecological concept of carrying capacity which can be defined as 'a species’ average population size in a particular habitat. The species population size is limited by environmental factors like adequate food, shelter, water, and mates. If these needs are not met, the population will decrease until the resource rebounds.'

Dependent upon who one reads and how one sees sustainable farming/maintaining other species the carrying capacity of the UK is 15 to 30 million humans. What we need is a disease which wipes out half of all humans, perhaps the next pandemic will do a better job

What implication do you take from this?

That UK policy should be to reduce population?

Or something else?

[thirdcrank]

... There is an ecological concept of carrying capacity which can be defined as 'a species’ average population size in a particular habitat. The species population size is limited by environmental factors like adequate food, shelter, water, and mates. If these needs are not met, the population will decrease until the resource rebounds.'

Dependent upon who one reads and how one sees sustainable farming/maintaining other species the carrying capacity of the UK is 15 to 30 million humans. What we need is a disease which wipes out half of all humans, perhaps the next pandemic will do a better job

I suspect that the human race's proven ability to modify its environment makes the concept as you define it inappropriate for humans. It sounds as though different authors have shaped the concept to suit their own argument. However, the general idea that the human race will eventually eat itself out of house and home seems to be increasingly inevitable.