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The Forum > Article Comments > Stable Population cuckoos invade Australia > Comments

Stable Population cuckoos invade Australia : Comments

By Malcolm King, published 4/7/2013

The SPP is using environmental and heritage groups - much as cuckoos lay their eggs in the nests of other birds - to hatch their anti-immigration message in the lead up to the September federal election.

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The SPP will win about as many votes as the Coke in the Bubblers Party.

You'd be better off investigating where the SPP's money is coming from. They have a generous benefactor.
Posted by DavidL, Thursday, 4 July 2013 10:05:04 AM
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You'd be hardly a "cuckoo" to vote for a stable population - or for whatever political party that promotes stability. The cuckoo is a clever and pretty bird that lays its eggs in the nest of other species. They unknowingly raise the chicks, displacing their own offspring! That's what mass immigration is doing to Australia - and the other countries that hold that policy. We are adopting other countries' problems when we continue to load our nation and then cause the problems these migrants are trying to escape from. While high immigration benefited in the past, it's now causing environmental, social, economic and political damage to our country. Why continue recklessly and blindly towards overpopulation that's causing an abyss of scarcities, extinctions, conflicts and climate change in other countries across the planet?
The SPP is for a STABLE population, a sensible idea, where immigration is limited. Immigration should equal emigration - so I'll be voting for these cuckoos!
Posted by VivienneO, Thursday, 4 July 2013 10:07:54 AM
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"The SPP has returned to the tired old theories of Thomas Malthus,"

Drivel-- the author has constructed a fantasy SPP, the article is simply an attempt to discredit the messenger rather than provide evidence that a high rate of population growth is beneficial, rather than detrimental to Australia. It is of course, a nice little earner for certain vested interests, who are adept at passing on the costs to the public.

Check the SPP website itself.

VivienneO,

Agreed. Reminiscent of the type of sophistry used by the climate change deniers.
Posted by mac, Thursday, 4 July 2013 11:11:17 AM
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Another off-the-planet piece by Malcolm King! Where would one begin to list its fallacies and distortions?
Posted by Livio, Thursday, 4 July 2013 11:13:47 AM
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It's nice to see that the flat earth society is alive and doing well.
perpetual growth for ever.
Really, you wonder where these people come from that cannot see the end of the myth.
Posted by Robert LePage, Thursday, 4 July 2013 11:33:53 AM
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After reading Malcolm King's article three times, I still can't figure out where he is coming from.

Malcolm seems to support the idea that planet Earth can absorb any amount of population increase. I drew that conclusion, because Malcolm attacks anybody who has the idea that endless population growth is a bad idea. Malcolm could not be a liberal greenie, because most greenies are smart enough to figure out that unrestricted population growth will eventually kill our planet.

So, I can only conclude that Malcolm is either a Catholic, or his family has a vested business interest in maintaining high population growth.

Of course, Malcolm does address the irony that many liberal greenies are finding themselves in. It is rather stupid, if you are a greenie, to support high immigration into western societies to produce endless growth. More people, means more cars, more electricity, more dams, more desalination plants for clean water, more concrete, and more greenhouse gases. Supporting high population growth would make a greenie feel like a Christian Scientist with appendicitis.

So Malcolm trots out the old "racism" todge to scare the greenie liberals back into supporting high immigration. People who want to limit immigration and population growth, says Malcolm, are racists, right wingers, eugenicists, and anti Semites. You don't want to listen to people like that, do you? You don't want people to think that you are a (shock, horror) racist, do you?

From my poet of view, if you are a liberal greenie, then you had better start listening to people like that. Because throughout history, the only way to limit overpopulation in localised areas was through war, famine, or pestilence.

My own bet is on pestilence. Think of the Earth as an organism, right? Most of you can conceptualise that. And humans as the pathogens, right? While diseases like AIDS, drug resistant TB, Ebola, Schistosomiasis, Yellow Fever, Malaria, Meningitus and Machupo, and drug resistant Influenza, are the antibodies, and you got the idea.

I think that Malcolm is an accomplished wordsmith. He know how to use flowery language present total insanity as something credible.
Posted by LEGO, Thursday, 4 July 2013 12:22:24 PM
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Malcolm’s entire premise in his post is a fallacy, he is obviously deluded.

The underlying theme he espouses is that population is not a problem; despite the growing evidence human overshoot on this planet is creating some serious problems.

Malcolm fails to acknowledge we will need to triple, at least, energy production by the end of this century to meet demand. No matter what mix this energy production actually is will be irrelevant, the only possible conclusion we can come to is that the "expected demand" will never come to pass because there are almost certainly limits to growth in energy production.

Every which way you look at it, a planet of nine or 10 billion looks like a nightmare.

Currently politicians have opted for failed diplomacy, i.e. the UN Convention to combat desertification, whose job it's been for 20 years to stop land degrading and becoming desert: Failed. The Convention on biological diversity, whose job it's been for 20 years to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss: Failed.

What politicians and governments say about their commitment to global problems is completely different from what they are doing.

The key here is very simple; humans don't want to change their behaviour.

Unfortunately Malcolm has no idea or understanding that humans cannot change their fundamental behaviours.

Malcolm has also failed to acknowledge our animal (deterministic) nature. It is pretty obvious to anyone with half a brain that past human behaviour is a reliable guide to future human behaviour.

Malcolm’s confusion would disappear if he would acknowledge the painful, depressing fact that humans are what they are, and will therefore do what they do (and have always done) in these large, fundamental matters (e.g. growth and consumption).

The scale and the nature of the problem are simply not being communicated and Malcolm is a case in point.
Posted by Geoff of Perth, Thursday, 4 July 2013 12:45:52 PM
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I must object to Malcolm King's fabrication that I said the following in the February 2013 Sustainable Population Australia newsletter:
"In the 1990s, John Tanton founded the anti-immigration Zero Population Growth. Tanton is an anti-Semite and set up FAIR [Federation of American Immigration Reform], which wrote Arizona's anti-immigration law. Groups associated with him almost took over the Sierra Club. There is no point in arguing with racists using green arguments to forward a racist agenda."

I did not publish anything in the February 2013 SPA newsletter and I have never slandered John Tanton, period. In fact, I was one of the guest editors in the last edition of The Social Contract, the journal Tanton publishes. It was a special Canada edition, called "Beaver Fever", and the articles can be read here <http://www.thesocialcontract.com/artman2/publish/tsc_23_3/index.shtml>. I would hardly have agreed to be a guest editor in a magazine whose publisher I objected to! Furthermore, I think that Zero Population Growth is exactly what we need (actually we should be aiming for negative population growth) and that FAIR is a perfectly sensible organization trying to introduce some sanity to US immigration policy. As for Arizona, it has reason to be concerned about illegal immigration and the US government's failure to deal adequately with the problem. Regarding the near take-over of the Sierra Club, I would have been happy if the people associated with Tanton had taken it over, or I should say, taken it back from the traitors who allowed themselves to be bought off by David Gelbaum. In return for $10 million from Gelbaum, the leadership of the Sierra Club agreed to ignore immigration, by far the greatest driver of US population growth, thereby abandoning any hope of achieving sustainability. I am full of contempt for those who accuse people of "using green arguments to forward a racist agenda".

I don't know what Malcolm King thinks he's up to but I would strongly urge him not to put words into my mouth that may be what he thinks, but are certainly not what I think.
Posted by Madeline Weld, Thursday, 4 July 2013 12:53:23 PM
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High immigration is about reducing staff costs, growing customer base and increasing property demand (go out west and look at the size of an average block in the new estates - 300-500 sq metres, use to be 1,000 sq metres). Good for the wealthy but the middle class is faced with less job security, less space, and consequently, an obesity crisis and much smaller family size - the birthrate has dropped from 4 to 1.8 since globalisation kicked in. The reason the SPP focus on business led high immigration at the moment is because natural population is below replacement so natural growth is not an issue....the middle class never asked for the supposed benefits of globalisation in the first place.
Posted by progressive pat, Thursday, 4 July 2013 1:15:03 PM
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Apologies to Ms Weld. The error was mine as it was a review she conducted for Feb 2012 and was attributed to a third person. I will ask Graham to remove the reference.
Posted by Malcolm 'Paddy' King, Thursday, 4 July 2013 2:03:29 PM
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Some good comments here. My favourite is "I can only conclude that Malcolm is either a Catholic, or his family has a vested business interest in maintaining high population growth."

Nope on either score. My background is in labour strategy and media. That's why I can use DEEWR figures with confidence as I worked on both the Pop area and older worker strategy. It's also why I find it easy to debunk the SPP and poor old Stop Population Growth's silly assertions.

The defining feature of the SPP push is 'demographic consciousness' - which is a fancy way of saying people who nothing about population dynamics have moved in to the space and are using it as an ideological hammer - paired with a fundamental environmentalism - to scare people. A good example is The Guardian article.

The SPP's statements about demography are presented as incontrovertible technical facts when of course they are highly nuanced and involve a process of selection and exclusion. They are motivated by a much wider ideological agenda which involves notions of power, race and nation.

Madeleine, if you are still out there, why did you get mixed up with Tanton? Are any other Australian groups such as the SPA associated with FAIR?
Posted by Malcolm 'Paddy' King, Thursday, 4 July 2013 2:46:22 PM
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Malcolm King shows yet again he is a blight to the term journalist. He says:
'Even Madeleine Weld, the President of the Population Institute in Canada wrote of John Tanton in the February 2013 Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) newsletter:

"In the 1990s, John Tanton founded the anti-immigration Zero Population Growth. Tanton is an anti-Semite and set up FAIR [Federation of American Immigration Reform], which wrote Arizona's anti-immigration law. Groups associated with him almost took over the Sierra Club. There is no point in arguing with racists using green arguments to forward a racist agenda."'

There is no mention of Madeline Weld at all in the February issue of the Sustainable Population Australia Newsletter. It seems Malcolm King just makes things up to suit his unfounded prejudices.
John Coulter
Posted by JohnC, Thursday, 4 July 2013 3:24:53 PM
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The commentariat has said it all and there is nothing left for me to say except, "What a load of bull."

David
Posted by VK3AUU, Thursday, 4 July 2013 3:53:48 PM
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The Democrats were well rid of Dr Coulter and his anti-population push. JC was always a little behind the times - as was his post. Who can forget his call on the last Parliamentary sitting day in Canberra, to tax air fuel on environmental grounds just before he hopped on a plane back to Adelaide?

It's very odd and troubling that in the past, poverty was condemned because it degraded people. In the latest ecological version of Malthusianism, poverty is both the direct or indirect cause of environmental degradation. The poor are to blame.

The search for limits (finite or other wise) always seem to distract the SPP and their followers. The fatalism regarding future innovation reveals that the real limit which preoccupies them is not so much that of land or of resources, but their own limited view of human potential. This pessimism is combined with a cavalier analytical procedure which declares that all the problems facing the environment are by definition associated with the number of people.

For those who are genuinely concerned with the environment, the answer does not lie in population control. With more innovative forms of social organisation and technology, conservation measures can and are being mounted and new approaches found.
Posted by Malcolm 'Paddy' King, Thursday, 4 July 2013 3:59:09 PM
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VivienneO
I don’t think Malcolm is saying people who oppose population growth are cuckoos. He’s saying that the right-wing anti-immigration strand of anti-population thinking is infiltrating the institutions and organisations of left-wing environmentalist strand to push what is at root a racist agenda. I’d add that there is internal contradiction in the position of some on the left who simultaneously support multiculturalism and oppose migration.

LEGO
You say “Malcolm seems to support the idea that planet Earth can absorb any amount of population increase”. That’s just nonsense. Support for moderately positive population growth in Australia’s current circumstances is entirely different and entirely reasonable. I know I won’t live for ever, but that doesn’t mean I should die today.

Geoff of Perth
You say “humans cannot change their fundamental behaviours”. How is it, then, that most western countries have birth rates below replacement rates?

You also say “a planet of nine or 10 billion looks like a nightmare”. Not to me it doesn’t.

I can imagine Malthus, writing when the world’s population was about 1 billion, would be equally appalled to be told the population would double within 150 years. And yet – contrary to his expectation – living standards rose massively during that period, as they did with the next doubling.

Given the power of demographic momentum, I also wonder what measures you propose to stop that increase that would not be far worse than the “nightmare” you anticipate.
Posted by Rhian, Thursday, 4 July 2013 4:35:45 PM
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Malcolm

You got it wrong about Madeline Weld, and although you're retracting that bit, you've got it wrong generally. It would be easier to deal with you if you weren't as nasty and insulting. But you are, so let's get on with it. John Tanton is a bit right wing but neither a racist nor eugenicist. He stayed with his wife and daughter in my (left wing) house for several days some years ago and, indeed, I went to Washington in 1991 at his expense to work in the FAIR office. FAIR is not racist, simply wants to get immigration levels back to those recommended by Barbara Jordan in her Commission - about half a million a year. It could be said FAIR is actually fighting against racism because high levels of Hispanic legal and illegal immigration have displaced African-Americans in the workforce, or driven down wages to a point where the latter are not earning a living wage.

I attended the writing workshops sponsored by the Social Contract in 2010 and 2011 in Washington and while they were a bit right wing for me (anti-Obama and pro-Republican), they nevertheless had a lot to offer. Immigration is out of control in the US and surely they have a right to talk about it and seek solutions. Population is growing by 3 million a year and infrastructure is not keeping up. Schools are deteriorating to a point where parents are home-schooling their children in those states with rapidly growing populations as a result of illegal immigration, specifically California and Arizona. (continued next post)
Posted by popnperish, Thursday, 4 July 2013 4:35:50 PM
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as I was saying...

The craziness of those who protest against groups such as FAIR and Social Contract was illustrated when they demonstrated in 2011 at the annual conference of Progressives for Immigration Reform (PFIR). See http://www.progressivesforimmigrationreform.org/ This is an organisation led by a black woman lawyer, Leah V.Durant. The deputy is Professor Philip Cafaro, the most genuinely liberal and progressive person you could meet. They are real progressives. They are not anti-immigrant; they are not racist. They want a fair go for existing Americans, whatever their colour but, like FAIR, they see excessive immigration as damaging environmentally and socially in that it is driving down wages.

As for SPP in Australia, accusations of racism are sheer nonsense. There is not a skerrick of evidence for it.

Malcolm King is one of those economists who is in deep need of ecological training. If he can't manage that then he needs to look at resources in an objective manner and deterrmine whether there are sufficient to maintain population growth at its current rate. There's also the question of wastes and whether the biosphere can absorb them (they can't - that's why we have climate change). But I doubt he can grasp even the basics of science - his assertions managed to be largely evidence-free.
Posted by popnperish, Thursday, 4 July 2013 4:36:54 PM
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Malcolm states “For those who are genuinely concerned with the environment, the answer does not lie in population control. With more innovative forms of social organisation and technology, conservation measures can and are being mounted and new approaches found.”

This confirms my belief that Malcolm is no more or less clueless than thousands of other people who write about the Big Issues.

Malcolm suffers from the pattern taken by so many delusional people, he support the usual optimistic narrative and obligatory hope in the face of overwhelming contradictory empirical evidence which precludes hope and optimism.

If Malcolm had any basic understanding of human nature and the observable trends, particularly the innate urge to grow our populations and therefore consumption, he would realise that technological innovation or social organisation will only exacerbate the problems we face on this planet. Malcolm has no idea that empirical evidence precludes any basis for humans pinning their hopes on a positive outcome into the future.

Those of us who know that the worst is coming, based on a good enough view of human nature and observable trends which inform it, see why people like Malcolm are clearly deluded.

Malcolm doesn't have the self-awareness required to see through his own confirmation bias (whereby he unconsciously selects only the information that supports his pre-existing beliefs) to see that he's offering up more of the same rubbish which prevents rather than promotes effective action to fix the enormous problems we humans have and will continue to create.
Posted by Geoff of Perth, Thursday, 4 July 2013 4:49:41 PM
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Thanks Mark (popnrelish) for your fulsome reply.

“One of my prime concerns,” (Tanton) wrote to a large donor, “is about the decline of folks who look like you and me.” He warned a friend that “for European-American society and culture to persist requires a European-American majority, and a clear one at that.” New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/us/17immig.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

I don't think it's fair to judge a man by the friends he keeps but as you are running for the Australian Senate on an SPP ticket, discretion might have been the better part of valour.

I also enjoyed reading your articles at Social Contract Press - you might have gone further in your population arguments if you had actually studied demographics at ANU - rather than lamblast them as being soft lefties. You owe Paul Harrison big time for your liberal use of The Third Revolution.

Every time you and the SPP make a statement on population, you can hear the laughter from the fourth floor of the DEEWR Population and Labour Strategy branch in Canberra. Oh that's right, they're growthists. Ha!

Any comment of the 12.5 per cent of GDP thing? The $200K infrastructure spend per person?
Any comment on the SPP's sociobiological roots?
Any comment on Bill Bourke's quote in BRW that the SPP isn't about immigration?
Posted by Malcolm 'Paddy' King, Thursday, 4 July 2013 5:48:55 PM
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Hi Rhian,

You stated “You say “humans cannot change their fundamental behaviours”. How is it, then, that most western countries have birth rates below replacement rates?

You also say “a planet of nine or 10 billion looks like a nightmare”. Not to me it doesn’t.

I can imagine Malthus, writing when the world’s population was about 1 billion, would be equally appalled to be told the population would double within 150 years. And yet – contrary to his expectation – living standards rose massively during that period, as they did with the next doubling.

Given the power of demographic momentum, I also wonder what measures you propose to stop that increase that would not be far worse than the “nightmare” you anticipate.”

My response is simple, birth rates are irrelevant, 9 billion people not a nightmare, I guess you are just like Malcolm, you don’t get it.

As to living standards, well this was true until about 1970, since then real living standards have been built on credit (debt) which the piper is now calling in.

Additionally I don’t propose to stop any increase in population, no one can, my previous post points out why!

Perhaps, instead of thinking about living standards, you could consider the world wide and growing rate of fishery collapse, the loss of biodiversity, rapidly increasing rate of species extinction, bee and other insect mortality due to over exposure to pesticides etc and too many other natural world problems, never mind the spiralling per capita wealth loss occurring, inequity between the haves and have-nots…..blah blah blah.

But of course you don’t want to discuss these things because like Malcolm, you are comfortable in your own confirmation bias.
Posted by Geoff of Perth, Thursday, 4 July 2013 6:04:51 PM
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Rhian,

What happens when this happens?

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/india_water.html
Posted by Poirot, Thursday, 4 July 2013 6:13:32 PM
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So, Malcolm is not a Catholic, and his family does not have a vested interest in endless population growth. Malcolm says that he is in "labour strategy and the media."

Come again? Is that a euphemism for "Public Relations officer for the growth industries?" Perish the thought that you could have any self interest in this topic. But Ummmm, who is paying your wages?

Of course, you do have to feel admiration for Malcolm. Trying to convince people that endless population growth is good for you is a hard sell. He had to think up something, anything. And I suppose that hinting darkly that anyone who opposed endless population growth is a racist eugenicist, was all that was left?

Well, if it was, could I award you 10 out of 10 for effort. And 10 out of 10 for cheek. First class spin doctoring job you did there, Malcolm. Saatchi and Saatchi, or Mojo, will head hunt you, for sure.
Posted by LEGO, Thursday, 4 July 2013 6:55:26 PM
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King himself appears devoid of ethics and honesty.

The social engineering he promotes to the benefit of property speculators and those groups which base their business model on endless
population growth, is totally discredited.

Ralph
Posted by Ralph Bennett, Thursday, 4 July 2013 6:58:30 PM
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Poirot
That’s not a meaningful comparison. India’s population is 1.24 billion. Australia’s is 22.9 million.

In a rich country like Australia, what happens long before this is that science identifies the problem and at best, proper regulation addresses it, or otherwise, alternatives sources are found are developed.

Geoff
Word real per capita GDP has risen by 84% since 1970, according to UNCTAD. In developing countries, it has risen by 250%.
http://unctadstat.unctad.org/TableViewer/tableView.aspx

We’re still waiting for evidence that Malthus was right.

This article is about population growth in developed countries, specifically Australia. Australia’s fertility rate is below the replacement rate, as is true for most developed countries. Our population continues to grow due to a combination of demographic momentum, which will taper out in a few years, and migration. Migration does not add to global population, it merely rearranges it. So most of the argument in this thread that rely on the purported effects of global population growth are irrelevant to the question of Australia’s population growth, which in policy terms is almost entirely a question about migration.
Posted by Rhian, Thursday, 4 July 2013 7:29:37 PM
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Rhian,

Re: your comment "That's not a meaningful comparison."

My link was in reply to your response to Geoff:

"You also say "a planet of nine or 10 billion looks like a nightmare." Not to me it doesn't."

I think highlighting depleted groundwater reserves stemming from human activity is a pertinent point - especially when discussing high-density population needs.
Posted by Poirot, Thursday, 4 July 2013 7:50:21 PM
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Poirot
You’re right, water constraints may in principle be more of an issue for global population growth than for Australia.

In practice, though, I think India’s groundwater problems are due more to poor management and regulation than sheer weight of numbers. Most of the literature I have seen points to subsidised electricity for pumping and free water allocations as the main causes of over-consumption in India – a problem that any economist could have predicted. I have only looked at these papers briefly, but they seem consistent with the analysis I found when looking at this issue in a bit more detail a few years ago:

http://ejournal.icrisat.org/agroecosystem/v2i1/v2i1irrigation.pdf

http://www.sigmaxi.org/programs/issues/Tancig_Jawitz.pdf

If our governments declared that there are no bag limits on taking crayfish, took no licence fees for fishing and provided subsidies to fishermen, we’d quickly over-exploit that resource. India's governments took that path with water, with predictable results.
Posted by Rhian, Thursday, 4 July 2013 8:17:36 PM
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Rhian,

Of course, you are right. India's government decreed such things.

I believe they were also pressured by such entities as the World Bank, IMF and WTO with "structural adjustments" and such like, to achieve ends which may not have been sustainable.
Posted by Poirot, Thursday, 4 July 2013 8:55:41 PM
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Rhian,

I will write it again, just to clarify what I wrote the first time.

'you don’t get it.'

It's that simple, you just don't get it.

You have a preoccupation in believing in the growth mantra. Malthus was obviously early in his estimations, just like the Club of Rome and some others in the 1960s and 70s.

Unfortunately the clock is running down, not just in literal minutes, but also energy, biodiversity, top-soil, agricultural output etc etc.

There is pretty much no point going on. As I said, you just don't get it
Posted by Geoff of Perth, Thursday, 4 July 2013 10:26:35 PM
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"the green shoots of Orwell's totalitarian future are emerging in Australia"?

It's already a forest.
And it's called Progressivism (this article being a prime example of it).

Why are so many people getting their knickers in a twist about a party that's achieved nothing?

Because Progressives *are* the Totalitarians-they-warn-us-about.
They cannot tolerate dissent. Ever!

Maybe the environmental and heritage groups are the real villains here.
Why *haven't* they been protesting mass immigration, the number one threat to their beloved causes?
Posted by Shockadelic, Friday, 5 July 2013 1:03:34 AM
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I would like to answer Shaockadelic's question.

Because, Shocky, the people who once advocated a sustainable environment, have sold out to the idea of wanting to remain in government for the perks and lurks.

The Greens grew out of the Australian ZPG Party, which was primarily composed of what we would call today "tree huggers" and "world savers". But the ZPG was a bit advanced for it's day in a low population density country like Australia. But what astounded the world was the electoral success of the Greens party in Germany.

Clever people like Bob Brown, who knew how to manipulate the idealistic and mollycoddled middle class youth of an ever growing prosperous society, saw the opportunity to create a new party based upon this demographic group. The Greens swept upon the political landscape with all the force of a Southern Baptist evangelical revival meeting.

The message presented to their supporters by their Elmer Gantry leaders was simple and clear. YOU are the smart ones who know what must be done to create Salvation. YOU are the self sacrificing morally pure who stand in stark contrast to self interested sinners who are killing holy mother Gaia.

But there was a few thing s wrong with the Greens business model. To begin with, if you oppose everything which makes a buck, then you are getting away from the Socialist business model of screwing the productive to buy the votes of the unproductive. And you are going to run out of money to buy votes. Especially if somebody is stupid enough to buy your ideas like "wind farms" and "renewable energy." And strutting around in a state of feigned moral outrage, like Fred Nile walking around a Kings Cross's brothel, will only work for a while.

So, what the Greens needed was a new demographic to vote for them. Voila! Along comes the Muslims and the illegal immigrants. So the Greens new line is, "Vote for the Greens, and we will let everyone from your home country come to Australia and get on the dole."
Posted by LEGO, Friday, 5 July 2013 5:36:14 AM
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Progressives for Immigration Reform (whose events Labor MP Kelvin Thompson has attended) has been described as a vehicle to influence liberals and progressives with the anti population growth and anti immigration message.

According to the Anti Defamation League "New Images Reveal Racists Attended Progressives for Immigration Reform Conference" http://blog.adl.org/civil-rights/new-images-reveal-racists-attended-progressives-for-immigration-reform-conference

Leah Durant also helps develop the image of PFIR, much like the "Toorak Times" of Melbourne did with it's unpalatable racial views in the 1970s and 80s, the 'Babette Francis' strategy to legitimise their message......

Imagine 2050 state that Phil Cafaro has been described by a colleague (+ a commenter here) as "liberal environmentalist" but many sincere environmentalists avoid him including authors he cites such as Ian Angus who describe PFIR as "racism in a fancy green wrapper". http://imagine2050.newcomm.org/2013/03/07/cis-head-defends-fringe-population-control-leader/

Cafaro also blogged for NumbersUSA, another Tanton network organisation, whose head Roy Beck visited Australia earlier in 2013 to meet with the Irwins at Australian Zoo. Numbers USA has also come under the microscope for it's connection to John Tanton but when questioned by Congressman Cannon (Rep - Utah) some ducking and weaving, goes on, from the Southern Povery Law Center:

" Congressman Chris Cannon of Utah was bearing down. He'd questioned Roy Beck, head of the immigration-restriction group NumbersUSA, three years earlier, and he hadn't felt that he got straight answers then. Now, in the March 24, 2004, hearing before the immigration subcommittee of the House Committee on the Judiciary, Cannon was trying once again to pin down Beck's relationship to John Tanton, the racist founder of many of the nation's key nativist groups."

http://www.splcenter.org/publications/the-nativist-lobby-three-faces-of-intolerance/numbersusa-the-grassroots-organizer

This suggests that the public message and face of these groups may be different to the inner message or philosophy which can be very opaque. It's not to say their members do not care about the environment, but many may not realise the background and inner workings like cults where the "truth" is only known by the inner circles
Posted by Andras Smith, Friday, 5 July 2013 7:00:05 AM
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Poirot
The usual accusation levelled at the IMF, World Bank is of heartless neoliberalism. I doubt they’d ever press for a program of economic development that relies on subsidies and handouts.

Geoff
“'you don’t get it” isn’t an argument; it’s not worth responding to.

Malthus, on the other hand, proposed an entirely logical argument that is properly scientific – it is testable against the evidence, and falsifiable. It has been tested against the evidence, and falsified. He assumed that any increase in the capacity to produce food would be matched by an increase in population, so sustained improvement in living standards are not possible:

“Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. A slight acquaintance with numbers will shew the immensity of the first power in comparison of the second. By that law of our nature which makes food necessary to the life of man, the effects of these two unequal powers must be kept equal. This implies a strong and constantly operating check on population from the difficulty of subsistence. This difficulty must fall somewhere and must necessarily be severely felt by a large portion of mankind”

- Malthus Essay on the Principle of Population

In the more than 200 years since he published his Essay, population has expanded but food production has risen faster still. Malthus wasn’t ahead of his time, he was just wrong. I focus on food production and living standards because that what Malthus proposed, and I quoted real per capita GDP because you said real living standards stopped rising in about 1970. To call me a preoccupied with growth for providing the evidence to refute an argument that you raised is a bit rich.
Posted by Rhian, Friday, 5 July 2013 11:19:42 AM
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Thank you, Andras Smith. Now we know where Malcolm got his spin doctoring idea from.

But you have got a problem, mate. Because nearly everyone in Australia can appreciate the dangers of overpopulation, and if people like you accuse us racists of being the only ones who are doing anything about it, then you are giving us a lot of prestige among our own people.

Keep it up.

And thank you again for supporting the racist position.
Posted by LEGO, Friday, 5 July 2013 12:11:15 PM
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Rhian,

Geoff of Perth was referring to environmental overshoot, discussed here

http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/ecological_footprint_atlas_2010

Environmental overshoot is when renewable resources are being used up faster than they can be replenished (essentially what the Indians are doing with their ground water). It is just like running through an inheritance or lottery winnings. Eventually the money is gone, and the spendthrift has to face reality. Societies can be locked into overshoot because addressing the problem requires cutting back on production and past population growth has seen to it that people will starve if that happens - essentially what caused collapse of the Sumerian city states and may be why the Indian government doesn't intervene in the ground water situation.

The graph on page 21 of the Atlas that I linked to above plots the relationship between rank on the UN Human Development Index (human well-being) and environmental footprint (consumption). It would take the resources of about 3 Earths to give everyone a modest Western European standard of living on a sustainable basis with the present technology and population.

You and Malcolm King seem to be believe that while the growthist paradigm might hit limits eventually, we can ignore them for practical purposes. Growthists believe that for our purposes, resources are unlimited and the environment has an unlimited capacity to tolerate anything that we throw at it. When the scientific community tells you otherwise, they are either fools, or they are lying and part of some vast conspiracy. If there is a problem, the technology fairy will come and sprinkle her magic pixie dust, and all will be well.

Very few people with science degrees believe in the technology fairy. Nature is one tough mother. New technologies cannot be whistled up to order, no matter how badly they are needed, and when they do appear, they may bring new problems with them. It is worth pointing out that of SPP's 22 candidates so far, 10 appear to have science or engineering degrees, and most of the 10 are working actively in these fields.
Posted by Divergence, Friday, 5 July 2013 1:28:21 PM
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Rhian,

Ok you don’t like what I stated, fair enough.

Perhaps you would like to read this CSIRO paper http://www.csiro.au/files/files/plje.pdf

In particular go to the ‘Conclusion’ at the end of the document and read further about the observed trends compared to the original ‘Limits to Growth’ book written in 1972.

Any discussion in relation to per capita wealth is basically meaningless. The western world has been on a debt binge since the early 1970’s. There has been no ‘genuine’ growth in per capita wealth. Yes lots of poor people now live better lives; yes by all appearances we seem to be living better and healthier lives. Unfortunately this positive appearance has been built on the world’s largest ponzi scheme.

Our global ecosystem is being degraded more and more, there are genuine limits and we have and are pushing beyond them all the time. The GFC was a blessing, consumption dropped and pollution output moderated. There are no real green shoots anywhere.

Australia is on the cusp of joining the US, Europe and all the other nations in financial crisis. China lost the 20th Century, is now trying to enter the first world to regain its prior status, sorry not going to happen, the resources to do so do not exist.

You can have substitution, but only so far, you can increase productivity, but again only so far.

We are hitting too many planetary limits, you just won’t admit it and as such, your bias blinds you to reality.

I have no solutions, I am a realist, I just observe stupid human behaviour and acknowledge that people like yourself and Malcolm just don’t want to understand the underlying predicaments we face.

You need to realise you can solve a problem, you can’t solve a predicament.

Our predicaments are predicated on our innate human behaviour, we as a species won’t change, and therefore the end result is obvious.
Posted by Geoff of Perth, Friday, 5 July 2013 2:09:08 PM
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The environment/antipopulationist phase were are witnessing is really only the fourth phase of a historical movement to cut population going back to the 1920s and the 1930s.

Other iterations include the need to defend international stability, the need to curb global migration, the need to empower women in fertility choices (the Kerela and Africa sterilsation programs) and the need to protect the environment. In fact all of these iterations have one common denominator and that is slashing population.

It's an interesting sociological phenomena why they have chosen people as the independent variable. By isolating people, the blame for what ever x,y or z is, can be automatically shafted back to you and me. There's no doubt that at specific times and places, some people have wrought large scale environmental damage. But this is not the thrust of the SPP. By simply being human and alive one is complicit in an incredible array of damage, pollutants, consumption, etc. It's an unsubstantiated guilt trip which has no logical or empirical foundation.

The contribution and agency of people who improve their communities and who are working on large and small environmental issues and projects is not acknowledged at all. People are just mouths to feed.

We are probably far enough removed in time for current generations not to recognise the historical pathology of this kind of instrumentalist and objectivist thinking. The SPP is parasitic in that it plays on our fears and its only solution is to get rid of people. I can not remember a political party that evinced such intellectual poverty.
Posted by Malcolm 'Paddy' King, Friday, 5 July 2013 3:44:09 PM
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Malcolm Paddy' Cheryl King : "You can not remember a political party that evinced such intellectual poverty".
And political parties are such great intellectual leaders?
Posted by Robert LePage, Friday, 5 July 2013 4:27:09 PM
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Malcolm, I hesitate to accuse you of the intellectual poverty with which you accuse those of us who, for very sound reasons, are concerned that growth, both of population and per capita consumption are exhausting the limits of our finite home leaving nothing for our children, later generations or other species. I hesitate because it assumes too much for the case you attempt to make by assertion and personal attack. When I pointed out that your original article contained an assertion which was totally without any foundation your response was to attack me in relation to getting on an aircraft, something that had absolutely nothing to do with your original article or my pointing out your error.
The simple fact is that we live on a finite planet and that it is axiomatic that one cannot have infinite growth of anything in a finite space. While it is true that we have supported an increasing number of people on the planet and provided an increasing supply of food for this larger population, it is also true that we have done this at the expense of running down some critical resources such as water, phosphorus and cheap energy. There is overwhelming evidence that we cannot continue to produce more food without these elements. Technological improvements have not removed the mismatch between population and sustenance, they have simply delayed the consequences by drawing on the resources that should be fairly shared between this generation and all later generations.
Far from being selfish to promulgate knowledge of this situation, it is those of us who care deeply about later generations who are the unselfish ones.
Posted by JohnC, Friday, 5 July 2013 4:28:57 PM
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John, thank you for your post. The finite earth thesis is well known amongst systems theorists and I have used it myself when I want to impress people with the concept of limits or boundaries. There are clearly limits on the amount of oil and minerals in the earth, although we keep finding more and inventing more ways to extract them.

I would agree that some time in the future, unless we develop new sources of energy and begin recycling food and making new forms of fertiliser, we will have an SPA, SPGN or SSP type world. It is curious though to put forward a proposition such as a 'finite earth' because reducing the amount of people won't do much good in the long run will it? If all of the earth's resources are truly finite, then we're goners anyway. But they are not all finite and the SPP has simply reconstructed Malthuses acre of land to global oil and minerals.

I would have thought that a smart person such as yourself would not have let yourself be trapped by what is essentially a closed argument because you have to deny human agency, the societal benefits of research and education and indeed any notion of free will. John, is capitalism simply a voracious machine or does it have within it the means to generate not only itself but also reduce pollution and provide some of the problems we and future generations face? I believe it does.

The regressive policies of the SPP are not the way to go. They are antithesis of positive resolve. I wish you the best of luck.

As for Robert Le Page's comment "You can not remember a political party that evinced such intellectual poverty". And political parties are such great intellectual leaders?

A. Good point but the mainstream parties started off smart and got dumber. New parties should not start off dumb. It's such a handicap.
Posted by Malcolm 'Paddy' King, Friday, 5 July 2013 5:08:25 PM
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Talking of racists, another one this lot has been at it, Cory Bernardi's blog re. Ed Huusic and Moslems posted via another blog by Bill Muehlenberg:

http://m.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/04/blogpost-ed-husic-cory-bernardi?CMP=ema_632

No surprise here about what Bernardi's blog promotes, especially as he has links with another John Tanton network group ("the secretive") ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council:

http://www.crikey.com.au/2013/02/20/bernardi-v-fairfax-in-possible-defamation-battle/?wpmp_switcher=mobile

ALEC has a "colourful" profile according to the Daily Kos:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/07/04/1106275/-ALEC-SLLI-Bipartisan-Bigotry

No wonder the public face of those connected with Tanton are at times less than open about it less the message is not accepted (at face value) and broadcast by e.g. Australia's fearless and resourceful media .....
Posted by Andras Smith, Friday, 5 July 2013 6:34:18 PM
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You didn't answer my question, Malcolm. Who pays your wages? Do you have any vested interest in inventing this flowery "pro growth forever" tripe?

Cmon, mate. You accused the people who want to see some population control as "racists, eugenicists, and right wingers" You can't throw brickbats at your ideological opponents and then stand on your dignity when they return the compliment.

Where are you coming from? Pure altruism? Or self aggrandisement?
Posted by LEGO, Friday, 5 July 2013 8:03:15 PM
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Malcolm 'Paddy' King "its only solution is to get rid of people"

If you expect to be taken seriously don't make ridiculous provocative statements like this.
And unfortunately, I've heard it before on similar threads.

Stopping or reducing immigration is not "getting rid of" anyone.
It is simply limiting prospective future migrations across national borders.

"I would agree that some time in the future, .... we will have an SPA, SPGN or SSP type world"

Why wait until the 11th hour? Why not take action now?
If you see potential dangers down the road, you don't wait til you're about to hit them before you slow down.

LEGO "if people like you accuse us racists of being the only ones who are doing anything about it, then you are giving us a lot of prestige among our own people."

I don't know about prestige, but more and more people have heard this routine and no longer jump with fright at the accusation.
They just shrug, smile knowingly or roll their eyes.
We know it's just a shallow tactic.
Posted by Shockadelic, Saturday, 6 July 2013 1:26:45 AM
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It'd be extremely difficult to slow birthrates when you have more tha 3/4 of the population believing that having plenty children is the answer to their old age. And who can blame them ? Governments aren't looking after anyone, they just spread some taxpayers money every now and then & kidd themselves into thinking wow! aren't we good.
Medicine had the largest impact on overpopulation. If the can prolong life than surely they can find a way of curbing birth rates.
Rather than giving billions in foreign aid to some corrupt officials, pensions could be paid to the poor so they can see the benefit of curbing birth rates. Any human couple with two children could have reproductive prevention operations & in the unfortunate case of a child dying early the operation could be reversed. This would ensure a quality of life for those already here instead of masses existing in misery.
Posted by individual, Saturday, 6 July 2013 10:07:37 AM
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How on Earth can one expect the underdeveloped world take their present levels of overpopulation seriously when they've been told time and time again that any ill-fortune that befalls them is due to AGW!

Now-a-days whenever a low-lying delta (which they might have recently cleared of its protective mangroves) gets swamped by a tsunami, or marginal land fails to deliver.Everyone screams "climate change cause this!"

Breed-on, the West at the behest of the UN & IPCC will pick up the tab
Posted by SPQR, Saturday, 6 July 2013 1:14:01 PM
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Malcolm/Cheryl,

To quote you

<Every time you and the SPP make a statement on population, you can hear the laughter from the fourth floor of the DEEWR Population and Labour Strategy branch in Canberra. Oh that's right, they're growthists. Ha!>

If they do laugh, it may be because they are pig ignorant on the biophysical basis of our prosperity and, indeed, our survival. If you trash your environment, you trash your society and your economy. If people are doing such a great job of looking after the environment, and more people would look after it even better, then why have the successive State of the Environment reports been showing pretty steady deterioration? Why does Australia rank at the bottom of the developed world for environmental management?

http://www.conferenceboard.ca/hcp/details/environment.aspx#context
http://epi.yale.edu/dataexplorer/tableofmainresults

If our leaders are making bad environmental decisions, then why should their demographic decisions be any better? The usual economic arguments given for high population growth/high immigration are also very dubious.

Here are some nice quotes for you from the 2010/2011 Productivity Commission Annual Report on the effects of high immigration: (p. 6):

p. 6: “An understanding of the economic impacts of immigration is sometimes clouded by misperception. Two benefits that are sometimes attributed to immigration, despite mixed or poor evidence to support them, are that:
• immigration is an important driver of per capita economic growth
• immigration could alleviate the problem of population ageing.”

(cont'd)
Posted by Divergence, Saturday, 6 July 2013 5:46:00 PM
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(cont'd)

p. 7: “Because immigration makes labour more abundant relative to the existing stock of capital and land, it tends to increase the returns to the latter at the expense of labour.”

p. 8: “By the same token, there are also likely to be some scale or density diseconomies. For example, Infrastructure Australia (2011) reported that the cost of providing new infrastructure is rising faster than the rate of inflation — in part, because costlier construction options such as tunnelling for new roads, now need to be adopted in the large cities.”

“’Externalities’ may arise when additional people generate adverse impacts on others, without facing the associated costs of their actions. For example, population growth may put pressure on the environmental or urban amenity of the existing population.” [Why increased density has to be rammed down people's throats rather than being greeted with glad cries.]

p. 17: “Consumption of urban water is one example where excess demand is typically managed through water restrictions and prescriptive conservation measures, at a significant cost to the community. Commission economic modelling estimated that stage 3a restrictions in Melbourne reduced community welfare by $420–$1500 million over a 10 year period, compared to a volumetric price (PC 2011c).”

“Further challenges arise when the focus is on retaining or improving the wellbeing of the existing population. Even if efficient, congestion charging does not guarantee that the existing population would not suffer from population growth or the impacts of the policy itself. Indeed, some incumbents would be worse off due to paying more for using the road (taking into account travel time) or being forced to change their travel arrangements.”

http://www.pc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0016/113407/annual-report-2010-11.pdf

SPQR,

You are right. Some Pacific Islanders are blaming deterioration of the environment and living standards on AGW, when it is really due to population growth, at least for the present.
Posted by Divergence, Saturday, 6 July 2013 5:53:36 PM
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Cheers Divergence

Good to see you on board. Your posts are always well worth a read.
Posted by SPQR, Saturday, 6 July 2013 6:33:09 PM
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Malcolm/Sheryl or whatever you call yourself. Think about this:

We are animals, we will always work toward overcoming those around us that try to do us harm or try to gain benefit, whether it be social, environmental, economic, it does not matter, we are what we are.

Do you really think the economic environment we live in is benefiting us? Wrong, the entire mantra is wrong, profit is the aim, whether it be a World Bank, the IMF or Joe Asoka who runs the local Deli, he wants something from nothing, i.e. profit, milk purchased at $1 is sold at $1.20, never mind the middle man, the farmer, the cow, the grass, the ecosystem that provides it!

Likewise, look at our global financial system, fractional reserve banking, based on debt, the need for continued credit, not that hard to work out, a Ponzi scheme.

Since the late 20th Century, early 21st Century, we have built an economic model, ecosystem functional fraction, based on oil, at the presumed price of between $10 and $20 per barrel of oil, now we are living in a world of oil based on a minimal cost of around $90 per barrel.

You do not have to be a genius, this is unsustainable. Why do you think the world economy is in free-fall.

Notwithstanding the above, we are destroying our global ecosystem at greater rate each day we reside on this planet.

We are a species, that supposedly is aware, governments will not resolve the problem, religion the same, we are an innate creature that craves the ability to screw over the next one in line. Once you work this out you will quickly realise we have no real future.

Ponzi economics, false GDP, misunderstood ecosystem functionality, finite resources, faith in technology, the mantra is the same, a delusion based on a relative biological function ingrained within us all, long before we will realise we have beyond help.

Rhian, Malcolm, the SPP is irrelevant, our species continuation is based on reality, one you both fail to understand or comprehend in the broader sense of the word.
Posted by Geoff of Perth, Saturday, 6 July 2013 8:43:13 PM
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Curious tactics used by anti immigration and anti population growthers who are very certain of their own views or beliefs to the point of arrogance, but none can provide concrete clear evidence of direct causal links between e.g. Australia's environment (+ every other issue they raise) and foreigners who are not even in the country...... the likes of Birrell etc., according to Bob Carr "Australia's best demographer", have some interesting approaches to their research, which will always be negative re. non European foreigners......

The first reaction is to attack the messenger through smear, innuendo, denigration etc., and if an expert, reduce their authority, to keep their own philosophy and preferred "information sources" from closer scrutiny (seee end of comment). This is exactly what cults do though to be fair to John Tanton et al they don't resort to litigation but continue to push their beliefs even harder (and sometimes more surreptitiously)....

Other features include grassroots actions such as flooding comments forums with fellow travellers to attack critics (while appearing to be independent of each other), setting up self referencing and commendations from each other, digressing e.g. inserting long text about something off topic, accessing mainstream media and promoting misleading or distorted e.g. immigration data (+ US flooding congressman with faxes etc.).

Further, in the USA, Tanton set up supposed independent groups/websites claiming to "watch the watchers", especially the Southern Poverty Legal Center SPLC who exposed the big picture, and accordingly management were smeared and attacked personally with claims of taking funds and paying themselves high salaries etc..

The SPLC which was created in an environment of segregation in the USA "Fighting Hate, Teaching Tolerance and Seeking Justice", conducted an investigation into John Tanton, The Social Contract Press, FAIR, Numbers USA etc. and finding that they were promoting hatred.
Posted by Andras Smith, Saturday, 6 July 2013 9:30:28 PM
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Some time ago Sustainable Population Australia linked Fiona Heinrichs wrote a piece "Sleepwalking to Catastrophe" that was cited by many and reviewed by TSCP (and has written here http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12288 ) .

Further, like many from the SPA who gain easy access to the ABC *, Heinrichs appeared on the ABC's Science program where Robin Williams allowed her to read out her views without any questioning or challenge..... Her thesis or rant seemed to suggest that people should listen to young people like her, don't listen to Bernard Salt because he is not a real demographer (unlike Bob Birrell who is because he submitted articles to his own journal the now defunct "People and Place"?)

* Philip Adams of the ABC a supposed sceptic and "liberal" has had the whole lot including Paul Ehrlich, Dick Smith, Mark O'Connor etc. on and gives them a free ride...... it's Australia, the media are too matey and reliant with those they should be scrutinising.

Most surprising was in 2010 Dr. Bob Birrell appeared on John Faine's ABC Melbourne radio show where Birrell was neither challenged nor closely questioned by Faine who seemed to agree with notion at face value that there is "runaway" population growth and "immigration" (using the distorted NOM data including temps). So much to right wing claims that the ABC is a biased hotbed of radical lefties.....

Dr. Bob Birrell, although not an economist (nor linguist but does not stop him giving expert opinion on English language skills of foreigners) recommended strategy for Oz was to dramatically reduce immigration, focus upon the mining industry and with jobs for all Australians, therefore immigration is not required..... and when mining declines...? Don't think a nationalist socialist economic and ideological nirvana would be acceptable to many, and it doesn't work....
Posted by Andras Smith, Saturday, 6 July 2013 9:35:36 PM
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Gee Wiz Andras Smith,

Have a Bex, or sit down or try some Yoga or whatever you need to settle your alms.

Talk about someone with a complex, 1/100 you win

Scary

G
Posted by Geoff of Perth, Saturday, 6 July 2013 9:51:40 PM
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Predictable, as explained it's about neither me nor anyone who discusses or describes the roots of the anti immigration, population, humanity etc. movement, but simply confirms what is written in previous post?

Surprised no one has offered "we're persecuted victims" card yet......

You may need a Bex if one watches Doug Stanhope, comedian who lives on the Mexican border and his take on the "immigration" issue in the USA which applies equally to Australia, and Australians:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW20EMJr6o4

Warning: Strong Language and very politically incorrect views.
Posted by Andras Smith, Saturday, 6 July 2013 11:43:41 PM
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Andras Smith "The first reaction is to attack the messenger through smear, innuendo, denigration etc... This is exactly what cults do"

It's exactly what *you* do.

Now you're claiming we're anti-"humanity"!

Yes, Geoff, this one scary!

individual, from my layman's knowledge of birth order, I would never support limiting childbirth.
Do you really want a future filled with unimaginative, spoiled first-borns?

Those middle and later children are the real movers and shakers in history.
I say either decide to have no children (get the surgery) or have at *least* 3.
Posted by Shockadelic, Sunday, 7 July 2013 1:19:38 AM
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What you have just written is complete and utter BS, Andras Smith.

Your claim that the opponents of immigration and population growth have no arguments themselves, and can only attack the messenger, ignores the fact that Malcolm King's article did exactly the same thing. His entire diatribe was one in which he examined the character and motivations of people who oppose his views. But when the blowtorch gets directed the other way, people like you scream "unfair!"

The western world is fed up of being swamped by legal and illegal immigrants from the third world. Anti immigration sentiments are now growing rapidly because of the unacceptable behaviour of too many of these immigrants, who do little except cause crime rates to rise sharply and who seem to need intergenerational welfare support.

It is pertinent to look at the motivations of people like yourself who want this unacceptable situation to continue. There are those with a religious idea that population growth is ordained by God and must never be controlled, and who see the that birth rate differentials as the key to their own religion taking over western countries. There are those who represent vested business interests, who don't give a damn who their consumers are, and who do not give a damn about whatever social problems are caused within western societies from never ending immigration.

There is the social services lobby who can see with the importation of unassimilatable and dysfunctional immigrant groups, a rich source of social strife which will need ever growing armies of social workers, police, lawyers, judges, and prison warders to combat.

Then there are the fairy land thinkers who have a compulsive psychological need to think that they are morally superior to everybody else, and who think that every race, ethnicity, religion and culture are absolutely equal in every way. These people think that the answer to all the world's problems is for George Bush, Osama bin Laden, Ivan Milat, Pol Pot, and everybody else on planet earth, to all join hands and sit around the campfire singing "Kumbaya".

Which one are you?
Posted by LEGO, Sunday, 7 July 2013 5:15:08 AM
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*Every time you and the SPP make a statement on population, you can hear the laughter from the fourth floor of the DEEWR Population and Labour Strategy branch in Canberra.*

And that Department along with many others is just another parasitical Dept that leeches onto the teat for sustenance to keep it in existence.
When we get the big crash, it will disappear along with all the others and only essential departments will survive.
So it's hilarity is not an issue to the real world.

The other issue is that the push for more population including migration and fly in/ fly out is coming from big business and is simply a move to have an excess of labour to bring wages down.
Posted by Robert LePage, Sunday, 7 July 2013 9:25:45 AM
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Robert LePage,

The following excerpt is from an article by Tim Colebatch, the Economics Editor of the Melbourne Age, which is presumably part of Andras Smith’s conspiracy of racists, along with the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the Productivity Commission, and the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF), which has nominated human population growth in Australia as a Key Threatening Process under the Environmental Protection Act, and the Australian Academy of Sciences, which recommended in 1994 that we not go past 23 million.

“People born overseas have taken almost three-quarters of the net growth in full-time jobs in Australia in the past two years, even though they make up just 31 per cent of the adult population. Analysis of the Bureau of Statistics jobs data reveals that, comparing the six months to April with the same months two years earlier, Australia gained just 131,000 more full-time jobs - one new full-time job for every five new people. But in net terms, people born overseas gained 97,000 more full-time jobs, while Australian-born people gained only 34,000. The economy created only one new full-time job for every 10 more Australian-born people aged 15 and over. The figures raise doubts about employers' claims that they must hire workers from overseas because Australians are not available to do the jobs.”

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/skilled-newcomers-flood-fulltime-jobs-market-20130614-2o9vm.html#ixzz2YLJos5JE

Here is a link to the ACF submission. It explains exactly how a bigger population damages the environment.

http://www.acfonline.org.au/sites/default/files/resources/EPBC_nomination_22-3-10.pdf

Andras Smith, who I believe is a migration agent, tries to pretend that those opposing the Big Australia agenda are a tiny, unrepresentative group, but this link gives the results of a public opinion survey right after the Kevin Rudd’s Big Australia speech.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/big-australia-vision-goes-down-like-a-lead-balloon-20100803-115g7.htm
Posted by Divergence, Sunday, 7 July 2013 6:08:26 PM
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Quite right Divergence. “Andras Smith” is pretty clearly the Andrew Smith who used to post inflammatory comments on the academic website “The Conversation”, where he was accused of being a troll and much criticised. He was also forced to admit he was a migration agent, which means he had a vested interest in the arguments he was making for high immigration and rapid population growth. (Failing to draw attention to one’s vested interests is a No-No on that website.)

As Shockadelic points out, Smith relies on ad hominem arguments to cover an indifference to evidence. Smith’s modus operandi (as identifiable as a fingerprint) is to trawl through US websites for material to discredit US environmentalists and population campaigners, and then attempt to attach guilt by association to his Australian opponents. Apart from this being an invalid argument, it seems not to have occurred to Mr Smith that he could far more easily be tarred in the same way by association with prominent Australian pro-population-growth advocates, since these include a remarkable number of business persons who have been “disgraced” or pursued by the National Crimes Authority.

With Malcolm King there is an even more obvious trail of self-interest. King runs a PR business called Republic Media, which offers a service whereby he writes and places articles in the media to promote particular views. His claims of past achievements, on Linked-in, include boasts like:
“* Wrote and placed $150K news, features, op eds in local and national media and nullified major crisis media management issue and returned brand to health”.

He is guarded about his clients:but from the repetitive titles and equally repetitive contents of his published pieces, the clients clearly include (1) an organisation concerned at job discrimination against older workers, (2) another which attempts to attract OS students to Australia, seemingly for the Australian external campus of Carnegie Mellon University that operates out of the Torrens building in Adelaide, and (3) some part of the growth lobby (quite likely the Property Council) which wants an ad hominem campaign against those questioning population growth in Australia and in S.A.
Posted by Livio, Monday, 8 July 2013 1:15:31 PM
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Thank you Livio. So, I had him pegged right all along. He is a PR man for the growth industry. When he did not respond to my accusation, I figured I had nailed him. he had to keep his mouth shut to keep his cred.

His moralising simply concealed his self interest.

Naughty boy, Malcolm.
Posted by LEGO, Monday, 8 July 2013 2:16:21 PM
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Global population growth peaked in 1962.

Sorry but the reality is most likely a peak global population this century and then its decline. Half the nations now are under replacement fertility.

We are not at 1.7%, we are 22,000,000 permanent residents and 1,000,000 temp visa holders counted in our official rates. mMd as batpoo!
Posted by dempografix, Monday, 8 July 2013 5:13:38 PM
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Dempografix, all your statements about demography are either untrue or, in context, misleading. Are you a hoaxer?
Posted by Livio, Tuesday, 9 July 2013 12:00:25 AM
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Mr Malcolm King appears to be a “spoiler” and distracter. His ‘copy and paste’ actions on previous articles appear to be one of paid PR hack………. intent on wasting our time and totally disinterested in logical argument re sustainability. In fact, his intent appears malicious.

Mr King’s desperate and hysterical tactics do tell us one thing – that the sustainability advocates he attacks are achieving growing success in getting the critical issue of population back on the agenda.

Remember what Mahatma Gandhi said: First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

The real question is - who is paying this PR hack Malcolm King to ‘fight’ sustainability advocates by spreading malicious falsehoods? This will be the real story...
Posted by Ralph Bennett, Wednesday, 10 July 2013 10:08:49 PM
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Not so sure I know what you're talking about Ralph. You and the anti-populationists seem to be writing your own chapter on mental illness for the (DSM-IV).

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/memory-of-100-in-the-backyard-at-mums-starts-to-fade-20130707-2pkb6.html#ixzz2YOwTvxWp

How about this comment on the Stable Population Party Facebook page today referring to Associate Professor Carolyn Whitzman from Melb Uni (as quoted above) being in the clutches of developers.

"Her position appears to be funded by the high rise property development industry to spruik propaganda. They are in cahoot$ with some institutions, via the almighty dollar, with uni's etc under pressure from decreased Gov funding." said the SPP. Any comment? She's fairly high profile.

Also one of your mob on another story said ABARE stats are shonky. Any evidence? So far anyone who disagrees with the SPP/SPA line is a mad growthist. I think you mean capitalist.

You appear to be just another version of the Family Planning movement from the 1950s who did such bloody work sterilising poor people in Africa, Kerela and Latin America. You wave the Aussie flag but really, you're just Pauline Hanson in a rented koala suit.
Posted by Malcolm 'Paddy' King, Thursday, 11 July 2013 9:33:15 AM
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Malcolm King,

There is a difference between saying that a position has been funded by property developers and saying that the person in it is "in the clutches of the developers". Funding doesn't always influence the outcome. The Koch brothers funded the physicist Richard Muller to investigate global warming, but he reversed his previous position as a climate sceptic and supported AGW after looking at the evidence.

You are wilfully misinterpreting what was said and are certainly no stranger yourself to wild accusations against various people and organisations, sometimes in direct contradiction to the policy statements on their websites. None of the organisations that you have been attacking support coercive family planning or racial discrimination in our immigration intake, for example, but you keep coming up with the same tired old "Pauline Hanson" type insults. Why are your accusations against the Australian Conservation Foundation (because they think that our population growth is damaging the environment) any more responsible than saying that ABARE is shonky?

Is your PR firm being paid to attack parties and organisations that object to Australia's Third World level of population growth (1.8%)? If so, who is paying you?
Posted by Divergence, Thursday, 11 July 2013 10:13:41 AM
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Divergence, what? No comment about Rhwanda? No comment about Guns and Steel or whoever it was? Please tell us more about your selective sampling of the Productivity Commission as (a) your economic paradigm is at war with the concept of productivity; (b) you hate the concept of GDP (c) you are clearly a stooge for the ACF.

I'm now more interested why the ACF has taken an overtly political position and is campaigning on population reduction (family planning), yet it still has it's tax deductability status. It's not a political party, although is acting like a lobby group. Curious.

If I remember rightly, a few posts ago, you called young home buyers 'pollution' because they wanted to buy a home. 'Externalities' I think you called them.

My favourite quote of yours is a few years old but here goes:

“Scroll down to the graphs in this paper, and you can see a graph of real wages for building workers and agricultural workers in Tuscany, Italy from 1370 to 1860. It is obvious that the average person was far better off in 1400 after the Black Death than in 1860, despite more than 450 years of technological progress.” Divergence, Tuesday, 28 April 2009 4:35:51 PM

... better off after the Black Death .... and you wonder why people don't take you seriously.

The SPA/SPP are a front for global family planning. Their ethics come from sociobiology and it's principle policy is anti-immigration.
Posted by Malcolm 'Paddy' King, Thursday, 11 July 2013 10:55:52 AM
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Malcolm King,

It is a lie that I called young home buyers pollution or externalities. I had just given a long list of problems that come with higher density in my previous post on that thread, such as traffic congestion, overstretched infrastructure, etc., as reasons why people might object to more density in their neighbourhood. These problems (traffic congestion, and so on) are the externalities, not the people themselves. You are simply twisting what I wrote. Nor do I have any connection with the ACF. That is a lie as well. If the Productivity Commission report says that there is no significant per capita economic benefit from immigration (and I didn't misquote them), then it is your economic paradigm, not mine, that is at war with the concept of productivity. I don't "hate the concept of GDP", although it isn't a perfect measure of human welfare.

It is a fact that living standards were very high for ordinary people after the Black Death. Even your ally Rhian admits it. Prof. Malanima, whose work I was referring to, clearly shows the inverse relationship between population and real wages in Northern Italy up to the 20th century. If you think that you know more about his field than he does, take it up with him.

What is wrong with making family planning available in poor countries to people who want it? Or with stabilising the population at a level where people can have good, free lives without trashing the environment? Do you believe in open borders, so that people have an absolute right to immigrate, regardless of the effect on the host country?

Is your PR firm being paid to attack organisations that oppose our Third World (1.8%) level of population growth? If it is, who is paying you? I am going to keep asking these questions, and I hope that others will as well, until you answer them.
Posted by Divergence, Thursday, 11 July 2013 11:46:07 AM
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Hey Paddy, what happened to Cheryl?

Well I must thank you for again raising the population growth debate. You are doing great things for the sustainability ethic.

It’s a very interesting approach – to take such a loopy position as to totally embarrass the pro-growth-forever fraternity by your association with them, and to really fire up the population stabilisers in response.

This is just what SPP needed!

It is great to see the number of sensible respondents on this thread. It has come a long way since the early days of OLO.

So the message is spreading. The message that high population growth is crazy and stable populations are essential for a healthy future is rapidly expanding, thanks in no small part to your self-sacrificing style of repeatedly raising the issue.

It won’t be long now before it becomes a powerful force in politics, in Australia and around the world.
Posted by Ludwig, Sunday, 14 July 2013 3:32:56 AM
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