The Green Belt
Paul Honigmann raises some uncomfortable questions
The need to review Green Belt policies has been in the news and recently prompted two letters in the Friend. One was from Jonathan Riddell (3 February), which refers to a previous correspondence by Barry Barber (20 January).
Jonathan writes that such a review is not in keeping with the Canterbury Commitment on sustainability. He says: ‘We must all learn that to be truly sustainable humans cannot keep increasing in number… at the expense of the planet’s very fragile biodiversity.’ As a member of Quaker Concern Over Population (QCOP) Jonathan believes that until we consider the impact of human population we cannot be truly sustainable.
In one sense he may be correct, but I have reservations about the implications. Jonathan thinks it is wrong to allow new housing on Green Belt land. This is ironic because in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Quakers played a large part in the urbanisation of those areas we now call Green Belt land. Believing that their employees should not live either in slums or other unhealthy locations, the Cadbury and Rowntree families built a village in Bournville and New Earswick. Ebenezer Howard was instrumental in establishing the ‘Garden Cities’ of Letchworth and Welwyn. Friends created the Quaker village of Jordans in Buckinghamshire. All these were built on what, at the time, were rural sites. I believe these were forerunners of non-Quaker ‘New Towns’ like Harlow, Crawley and Milton Keynes. Does QCOP consider, with the benefit of hindsight, that all those developments were misconceived and/or unethical?
I regard those implications as unconvincing, premature and raising issues which not only Friends but most people worldwide would find disturbing. It is unconvincing because at present nearly ninety-three per cent of the UK land mass is not urban, as in relating to, or designating a city or town. ‘Urban’ is not the same as ‘built on’. Of the remaining approximately seven per cent of the UK land mass, parts are woodland, public parks, rivers, canals and reservoirs that are shared with flora and fauna – so this does not seem disproportionate. It is premature because building in the Green Belt will not affect the ratio significantly for many years. And it is disturbing for many reasons.
The United Kingdom has a chronic shortage of housing. More than five million new homes may have to be built in England alone in the next twenty-five years, according to government estimates. Where are these houses to be built? ‘Brownfield sites’ are insufficient to develop on this scale. Would they be houses or, in order to save space, would there be hundreds of high-rise residential blocks? Would you, Friends, move into such apartments to aid sustainability?
Population growth is a UK and global problem. Our planet already has over seven billion people and this is expected to rise to nearly ten billion by 2050.
I accept that there should be population control – but how? Birth control may help, but it is not the entire solution. China has modified its one-child policy because it has unbalanced the ratio of youth to age. It is probably unacceptable to a large proportion of the world population for religious, social and other reasons. This cannot be ignored. Thus, it is likely that we shall all have to face the unthinkable; not birth but death control and how that is to be achieved.
It may take one or more directions, which will require scrutiny before the answers can be agreed:
a) Is it sensible for medical research to strive for ever-longer life expectancy, or should such research be banned?
b) Would one encourage suicide instead of trying to prevent it?
c) Should people be executed (humanely, of course!) when they reach a certain age and, if so, what age?
d) Would it be right for the young to support the ever-increasing proportion of the elderly, by which I mean the finance of pensions, care homes, nursing homes, geriatric wards in hospital and so on?
I believe that people worldwide would find death control utterly repulsive. If QCOP accept that enforced death is an unacceptable policy, what practical steps to achieve sustainability do they propose?
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