So its about time all those lazy women got out and bred for the good of the aging? Have I got that right?

Maybe it would be good to look at how we actually support children and care for the people that bear and raise them. Our culture is now all about money, comfort and getting someone else to do the hard yards.

Dressing it all up as needing more people to produce babies without looking at the whole scenario of the various collapses, shortages and disasters we face is exactly the way of thinking that has brought us to this mess.

Graham

If you're going to write an article like this, start by getting your facts right. The populations of the world as a whole, and in Australia, ARE replacing ourselves and actually increasing, with a couple of exceptions like Japan and Russia. Just because fertility falls below replacement level, doesn't mean the population goes into immediate population decline. It takes a couple of generations. But we urgently need to stabilise and then reduce our populations because we are in "overshoot" - we are using more resources and producing more wastes than the biosphere can provide or absorb. We have passed the peak of conventional oil which means oil will become increasing expensive and that will flow on to the price of food. If we have another climate change-induced catastrophe such as the Russian heat wave or the Pakistani flood we may well face food shortages and even famine. Add to that the possible end of supplies of Phosphorus by 2030 and agriculture is in for tough times. It may well be that before long we will have to emulate the Chinese in their one-child policy (hopefully without the coercion) even if it does lead to ageing of the population. And please don't be so dismissive of climate change - mitigation and adaptation are going to be HUGE issues.

Breeding outselves back into the stone age! Well, if you're going to forecast, why do things by halves?

For once I agree with popnperish (gasp!) Although there will be more old people around in the next couple of decades, there will still be plenty of young people coming through the system to spoon feed the drooling oldies...

In any case, as has been pointed out now countless times, the oldies stay active much longer and stay in their jobs much longer, on average, than they use to. Those factors alone are enough to destroy any of the old calculations of the ratios of workers to dependents..

Hmmm. As the song goes, I'm torn between two loves and I feel like a fool.

While I'm against the social engineering of some of the more rabid anti-populationists, I aint saying we should go gangbusters for more people either.

My old sparring partner Micheal-in-Adelaide, the Uber leader of the anti-pops and me agree on one area - it's pointless breeding like rabbits to support oldies in their infirmity. Then we're on a breeding merry-go around.

Am I right Graham in saying that you are more worried about the concertina effect of history so that we are not adapting to new changes in technology so that we are hamstrung when radical change does come along?

For a change I am also in agreement with Cheryl. There is no point in continually exacerbating the problem. History shows as societies become more educated population will decline. There is no resilience in overpopulating.

The post-war baby boomers (like me) will eventually pass away peacefully into the night of our own accord. We won't ever see the baby booms of the past again unless we start obliterating human populations through war, then the cycle might naturally and necessarily begin again.

Monumental rubbish in this article.

In Australia, from ABS data.....our birthrate is double our deathrate.

Worldwide, we are going from 7billion to 9 billion.

Has the author any comprehension that we can't feed 7 billion and that with the price of oil about to increase rapidly, that "cheap" food is over and the world is facing mass starvation ?

Is there any hope for authors' who are so specist in their attitudes, that until the last eco-system is destroyed for food production...they can't understand that the bio-spere has been pushed to the limits ?

"Do gooding",environmentally illiterate commentators push the poor further towards chaos, while congratulating themselves on how wonderful their booster policies are for the World.

Please throw your religious, cultural baggage out the window and look at the World through the eyes of the poor and the poor doomed species we "share" the planet with.

Ralph Bennett