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The Forum > Article Comments > Much more than a 'thought bubble' > Comments

Much more than a 'thought bubble' : Comments

By Dick Smith, published 20/4/2011

Dick Smith responds to Ross Elliot and explains why population growth is not the solution to Australia's problems.

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Dear runner

What you wrote is rubbish really. The climate debate is not lost - the issue is very much alive. Emissions are still climbing and the Earth is warming and we are heading for disaster unless we turn the situation around. Australia has lots of land but very little of it is arable but even the soils there tend to be infertile. Our climate is variable and subject to 'droughts and flooding rains' which will get worse under climate change. The 'big polluters' that have brought us temporary material comfort are destroying the atmosphere with their emissions. Those who raised the alarm in the 1970s about famine were not wrong - we were simply given breathing space thanks to the green revolution. Now that global population is nearly twice as big, we have twice the problems. It all comes down to population and resources. We not only hit the limits, we passed them in 1979 and are now in overshoot.
Posted by popnperish, Wednesday, 20 April 2011 11:33:10 AM
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Nope fellas, Cheryl is far closer to the truth than our mate Dick.

But Dick is right to the extent that there is no real reason to populate as opposed to not-populate, and his suggestions that we should then eliminate concessions of various sorts for larger families is one of the only two possible responses (the other is to limit immigration), if we choose to go down that route.

However, the concessions do not encourage larger families as such. Their removal would do absolutely nothing, people do not have babies due to tax concessions. What their removal definitely would do is increase poverty. In other words, Dick is advocating an increase in poverty.

There are many other problems I could point to, but where I do become very impatient with this sort of material is where the writers seriously try to claim food security as a reason for limiting population.

Others have pointed out that food exports far outweigh imports with no sign of this changing. Dick cites a government report which I looked at. In essence, this report 'Australia and food security in a changing world' is a lobbying document, designed to push more government funds into agricultural research. One of the giveaways is the vagueness about just how Australian agriculture might somehow fail to feed Australia's population, followed by definite, but alarmist, nonsense about how lack of nutrition would affect the elderly and babies.

Really, Dick should know better than to foist this sort of rubbish on us, and he did not make his millions listening to these sorts of "experts".
Posted by Curmudgeon, Wednesday, 20 April 2011 11:39:53 AM
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Priceless, Mr Windy..

>>The only thing that Malthus was wrong about was the timing.<<

Just like the first century Christians who anticipated the return of Jesus during their lifetime, I suppose. The only thing they were wrong about was the timing.

It is very easy to look around you and find reasons to fear the future.

Yabby sees Perth's shortage of water as a sign of the approaching apocalypse, avoiding the admission that it is a straightforward lack of foresight and planning. Or the challenges of getting rid of New York's waste, as if that were a new problem, or one that could not be resolved if it were given political priority.

The pompous "sustainable population" advocates also carefully avoid any thought that this country might be able to support a population significantly greater than it does at present, before it becomes necessary to "sustain" that level. How come all the previous predictions have come to nothing, but suddenly we have to take this one as gospel?

No offence to those gospellers, by the way, still waiting for the Second Coming.
Posted by Pericles, Wednesday, 20 April 2011 11:48:01 AM
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Pericles, what I am pointing out, is that this whole frigging
circus that we have built in the last 100 years, is basically
built on the back of the cheap energy genie. All that food,
all those lights, all that carting away of rubbish, none of
it magic, all due to cheap energy.

Remove the genie and see what happens.

Dick rightly points out that there is no good reason to take
things to the limits. The more that we do, the higher will
be the price paid, by those living here. It won't be me lol.

Next we'll have Cheryl bleating about the starving babies.
Remove cheap energy and see what happens to the price of food.
If you want crowded cities, Bombay and Calcutta would be
great places to live.
Posted by Yabby, Wednesday, 20 April 2011 12:34:10 PM
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What a dilemma we live in.
Economics - tell us that we need growth to keep us in our comfort zone and that encompasses all that it entails. Well I believe "economics" will need to be rewritten for a sustainable future. Worldwide population growth of 80/90 million people per year will certainly be test to that.
We (being the human race)like to keep a check on all other life forms, don't we. Oh those pesky animals/birds who dare to scrounge or prey upon or near us. And those trees, we can cut them down at "any" rate we like. I mean to say, they will grow again, wont they?
I was always told that the world works at a finite balance. Too much of one thing and what do we do?
As far as immigration goes, I think back 50 years and say what an idealistic place we live in with our large blocks of land and small capital cities, and think how long can we keep this going. Even if Australia had zero population growth, will the rest of the world be the same and would eventually we be committed to give our space to equalize distribution anyway?
Decisions will need to me made eventually.
Posted by Ely, Wednesday, 20 April 2011 12:44:03 PM
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Cheryl

People who advocate for a sustainable population don't need to use emotional language when arguing for their cause. Australia's position as the ninth largest exporter of energy should be used to increase our per capita wealth. As mining is not a big employer of labour. It is not humanist to dilute Australia's export income among more people. This just increases the potential for creating more poverty within Australian society, as if there is not enough already.
Posted by tet, Wednesday, 20 April 2011 12:49:16 PM
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