Comic Relief

[Hacker Khan]

Perhaps off topic.... the BBC isn't using it's old building any more....



One BILLION??? Go figure Apparently there's people dying in the world yet we have a billion to spend on a building, but feel the need to fleece £75M from the general public for 'Red Nose Day' and make many 1000's feel guilty as hell.

Comic Relief and the BBC are different organisations. For the hard of thinking, the BBC is a broadcasting organisation that broadcasts programs. And Comic Relief is a charity. The Comic Relief broadcast is broadcast on the BBC.

The fact that BBC have spent the license fee on a building has nothing to do with the funding of Comic Relief. It's like asking why the BBC have not done anything about climate change as they have broadcast 'An Inconvenient Truth'

 

[Sweep]

I cant think of any world problem that would not be eased by smaller populations. Just take a look at Britain, we cannot support the lifestyles we have become accustomed to without massive borrowing, how can this be sustainable. Politicians will not face the reality that the population will either have to accept and expect less state support or we will slowly but surely be reduced to living a third world existence when the money supply runs out.

I couldn't agree more. Question: Since the 1960's the workplace has been bolstered by a huge number of women. Now most households have 2 working adults whereas in the 1960's typically there was 1. The workplace has also been bolstered by huge immigration. How is it that the unemployment figure has remained relatively static at around 2.5m even though the population has increased by around 10m? Answer: Jobs create jobs. More public transport, more sandwich bars, more office space, more construction etc etc required. Successive governments love it because more jobs = more tax. However, this is false growth and as you say, not sustainable. What we and the developing nations need is less population working to create real growth like we used to. Here just like in the developing nations, we need to learn quickly that if we can't afford children then we shouldn't have them. Of course it is impossible for any government to turn its back on a child and no-one is suggesting it should. The fault lies with the parents and the state handout culture. As I said in a previous post on this topic, it's time we all started to take responsibility for our own actions.

 

[Sweep]

Perhaps off topic.... the BBC isn't using it's old building any more....



One BILLION??? Go figure Apparently there's people dying in the world yet we have a billion to spend on a building,

I received the following figures by email (many of you will probably have received the same). I haven't done the maths to check if this is absolutely correct, but I have no reason to doubt it and I guess its easy to check if you have half an hour and a calculator with lots of zero space. Nowadays, the figure one billion just seems to trip off our politicians tongues. But next time you hear someone talk about one billion like it is pocket change, consider the following:
One billion seconds ago it was 1959. One billion minutes ago Jesus was alive. One billion hours ago it was the stone age.

 

[cm_qs]

I think people fail to understand the scale of the problem.......

Based on the figures that the punters on the telly were bandying about then , over a period of 25 years, Comic Relief have raised circa £700m of which about 60% (£420 m) has been spent in Africa and the rest in the UK to improve countless millions of lives. This £420m is spread over a population in the region of 1,200,000,000.

Our local General Hospital has an estimated repayment cost through the PFI initiative of circa £750m over an equivalent 25 year period and serves a local population of maybe 120,000.......and all anyone ever has to say about the place is how **** it is. I disagree.

So at that rate we've given enough to Africa to build half of an ordinary UK hospital that would be ten thousand times busier based on population size.

Which is better value in human terms?

The £5 i texted to Comic Relief or the £5 that it cost to park for a couple of hours at the hospital when I was visiting me old grampa?

 

[Kellfire]

How did the developed world become so? Did we sit about getting handouts to build wells, malaria nets and vaccinations? OR did we make them ourselves? Did we develop new skills and techniques to overcome out environmental restrictions?

And how did the Western world do that?

Oh yes, by raping the natural resources from Africa and enslaving its peoples, leaving it reliant on making the most of a climate that the isn't conducive to supporting the life it hosts when we were finished. Oh yes, I forgot, we also lent them money at massive interest though a lot of that was thankfully wiped out. We owed them that much.

You really need to open your mind to these people.

 

[DappaDonDave]

And how did the Western world do that?

Oh yes, by raping the natural resources from Africa and enslaving its peoples, leaving it reliant on making the most of a climate that the isn't conducive to supporting the life it hosts when we were finished. Oh yes, I forgot, we also lent them money at massive interest though a lot of that was thankfully wiped out. We owed them that much.

You really need to open your mind to these people.

And how did we develop the means to exploit them?...go further back...we obviously built something to get to Africa...

If we help everyone the world will become over populated, we'll completely run out of resource

 

[Smiffy]

I think people fail to understand the scale of the problem.......

Based on the figures that the punters on the telly were bandying about then , over a period of 25 years, Comic Relief have raised circa £700m of which about 60% (£420 m) has been spent in Africa

And of course, we (as a nation) and Comic Relief are the only people raising money for Africa??? What about Oxfam that went before, and all of the other countries (other than ourselves) in the "civilised" world that have raised money for Africa over the years?????
Billions and billions have been channeled into Africa over the years. Yet nothing changes. It's still the same as it ever was.
Somethings proper broke.

 

[bobmac]

The starving nations either need a bigger pie or they need less people eating it.

 

[SocketRocket]

The starving nations either need a bigger pie or they need less people eating it.

Same in the UK.

 

[JustOne]

If we help everyone the world will become over populated, we'll completely run out of resource

That's not really true actually. We would need to change the way we live our lives though.... and it's happening all the time, only very, very, very slowly.

 

[MarkA]

I get the impression that all our money is just prolonging the agony. Unless the money can be used to change the weather or educate them to stop having so many children, I fear for them. Between 1990 & 2008 the population of Africa increased by 55%, more than anywhere else in the world!



Please don't condemn someone as a criminal just because their charities of choice differ from yours.



'Africa, the world's poorest continent, also has it's highest birth rate. A woman in sub-Saharan Africa will give birth to an average of 5.2 children in her lifetime. Africa's population of 1 billion is predicted to MORE THAN DOUBLE in the next forty years (http://www.prb.org/pdf11/2011population-data-sheet_eng.pdf) to 2.3 billion, accounting for about half of projected global growth over that period.

Africa is growing fast because it is young. The top 10 youngest populations in the world are all from the continent, led by Niger (an estimated 48.9% below the age of 14), Uganda and Mali. Many will have big families, knowing that despite ongoing efforts to combat malnutrition and HIV, there is a strong risk many of their children will die'.
They need to be educated as to how to become self-sufficient with the resources that are available to them, and that means they must just stop having so many children.
I don't think we're helping as much as we think we are.





:thup:

Slime.

Great Post.
Until you get to the root of the problem things will never change. The human animal is adaptable to change when times are bad populations dwindle, when they are good they grow - nature regulates its resources, by pouring aid into starving and ill kids you only prolong the agony(the pictures you see are heartbreaking but the message still isnt getting through there isnt enough food , birth rates have got to fall there are simply too many mouths to feed and that can only mean one thing - Red Nose day is not the answer

 

[JustOne]

nature regulates its resources, by pouring aid into starving and ill kids you only prolong the agony(the pictures you see are heartbreaking but the message still isnt getting through there isnt enough food

Not having the funds to improve your agricultural output isn't 'nature', I guess in your world WAR is natural selection?

 

[MarkA]

Actually no it isnt - it doesnt matter how about how much funding is put in place when the countries are drought ridden - no amount of money will ever sort that problem out. Natural selection is natural selection ie weather,disease and crop failures and these funds you refer to invariably end up the hands of a corrupt regime to buy more arms. You cant keep pouring money into countries that simply wont ever be able to support themselves due to climate and over population

 

[MarkA]

And have you ever though all these natural disasters, droughts, famine, crop failures might just be natures way of telling us there's too many people on the planet?

 

[JustOne]

And have you ever though all these natural disasters, droughts, famine, crop failures might just be natures way of telling us there's too many people on the planet?

I don't believe in fairies.

 

[stevie_r]

I have no idea what that comment is meant to mean

 

[JustOne]

I have no idea what that comment is meant to mean

About fairies?

 

[stevie_r]

About fairies?

yes, about fairies.

 

[JustOne]

Fairies don't exist, neither does 'Mother nature' or the Easter Bunny.

An earthquake doesn't happen because there's too many people on the planet, or crop failures. Things (climate change?) might be related to the amount of pollution we are pumping into the air but not how many people there are. There's plenty of space, more than enough for a load more people, and we could easily provide for everyone WITHOUT having to pump a ton of crap into the air - it's POLITICS that prevents it.

 

[stevie_r]

Fairies don't exist, neither does 'Mother nature' or the Easter Bunny.

An earthquake doesn't happen because there's too many people on the planet, or crop failures. Things (climate change?) might be related to the amount of pollution we are pumping into the air but not how many people there are. There's plenty of space, more than enough for a load more people, and we could easily provide for everyone WITHOUT having to pump a ton of crap into the air - it's POLITICS that prevents it.

Ok, for 'mother nature' lets read 'natural selection'. The planet has a finite capacity