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Jakarta Is Crowded And Sinking, So Indonesia Is Moving Its Capital To Borneo
Indonesian President Joko Widodo says his country will create a new capital city on the island of Borneo, revealing new details about his plan to move the central government out of Jakarta. The capital's current location faces a number of problems, including the fact that it's sinking.
Widodo's announcement Monday comes months after he said he wanted to move the capital, seeking a place that can offer a break from Jakarta's environmental challenges as well as its relentlessly gridlocked traffic.
While rising seawater levels from climate change are a widespread concern for island and coastal areas worldwide, experts say Jakarta has played a central role in its own predicament. "Jakarta's problems are largely man-made," NPR's Merrit Kennedy reported earlier this year. "The area's large population has extracted so much groundwater that it has impacted the ground levels, and many surface water resources are polluted."
Jakarta has a population of around 10 million, with 20 million more in the greater metropolitan area.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 27 2019, @09:29PM (2 children)
Ok, fine so you didn't learn from the last time.
There are objective facts out there such as declining population for developed world populations that are beyond second generation immigrants.
Indeed. That's how empirical argument works. It doesn't matter how explodingly population growth looks to you when it's not.
Actually, the opposite happened. My narrative continues to grow stronger as all national level populations continue to decline in fertility.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday August 28 2019, @12:27AM (1 child)
And you never learn, either.
I'll sign off with these: your empirical evidence is attempting to predict the future, using the same flawed tools and arguments that were predicting future Zero Population Growth / peak population of 6 to 8.5 billion when they were making these arguments back in the 1970s.
All predictive models are uncertain and flawed, but one thing is certain: if you tell the masses that everything is fine - no need to worry, enjoy the party, they're gonna eat that shit up just like they did for climate change up until about 5-10 years ago. While nobody knows the future, one thing is certain: present perception influences outcome, and pushing the "party on people! it's gonna be just fine" picture is indeed pushing the future toward a Soylent solution.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 28 2019, @12:33PM
That's a pretty weak parting shot. First, who was predicting future zero population growth in the 1970s? For example, the author of The Population Bomb [wikipedia.org] wasn't predicting that. Instead, he was predicting much as you, a Malthusian outcome with population collapse by now - unless of course, there was undemocratic, ruthless population control implemented. The control wasn't implemented yet the population collapse didn't happen.
Meanwhile we have seen radical declines in birth rate and human fertility worldwide. The real world is fitting that model despite your claims to the contrary.
This isn't the first time that someone has claimed you need to fool the population in order to save it. The same game has been played with climate change. It works to some degree.