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The Forum > Article Comments > Environment: don’t mention people > Comments

Environment: don’t mention people : Comments

By Melvin Bolton, published 5/2/2010

Politicians loathe being asked about population policy; in Copenhagen the impact of human numbers was officially invisible.

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Rusty seems to think studying biology is the answer to all the worlds problems even if many are made up. Any honest study will lead you to see the world's problems are caused by sin (greed, lust hate etc) rather than over population. There are quite a number who have studied biology that agree with this fact. The 'current prosperity' is not necessarily good as you say but it does demonstrate that with a little more even distribution we have plenty more to share as a nation.
Posted by runner, Saturday, 6 February 2010 12:09:41 AM
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Studying does help however, and Runner should try it.

There are reductio ad absurdum limits to human growth such as standing room only, as well as less ridiculous such as every inch either crowded like some indian cities or given to farming.

Our own will probably be when the by-products of our preferred lifestyle start impacting substantially on our lifespan. Pretending there is no limit is not helpful, runner. In an exponentially increasing population there is very little time to stabilise with or without great human misery, and we already have a lot of that, don't we, whether we remain exponential or not?

Rusty
Posted by Rusty Catheter, Saturday, 6 February 2010 1:07:15 AM
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Australia is already a net importer of food. We can't even feed the people we have here now without imports.
Posted by Leigh, Saturday, 6 February 2010 9:56:46 AM
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"The cry of xenophobia has been the stock-in-trade of the long-successful campaign against efforts to discuss population in an informed and meaningful way."

Yes it has but putting all talk of xenophobia aside, that still doesn't add up to a conclusion that there should be any policy to limit population growth, even if we concede that that's desirable. Why not? Because you're assuming that government has superior knowledge and competence to decide this.

The anti-pops are still floundering in the same fallacies as Malthus and Ehrlich. But let's cut to the chase: what are we supposed to do? Yes, agreed, we shouldn't be paying people to have babies, or subsidising parenthood either. Why should people who don't have children and don't want to have children, or don't want to pay for them, be forced to pay for others who do? But that is an argument against coerced payments rather than against population itself.

Yes there are limits to growth but that is not any justification whatsoever for government to start forcing the issue, which is all that government has to offer.

Australia has more water per capita than the United States. Why do we have water restrictions? Because the supply of water is a government monopoly, and socialism is incapable of economic calculation. When government was responsible for providing food, in the Soviet Union and China, they had food shortages. Although there is a natural scarcity of water, that's not what's causing the shortage. It's that government is intrinsically incapable of balancing human wants with environmental sustainability because, just think about it for a sec.... *how* are they going to do it? By counting up compulsory votes every three years?

It is irrational and superstitious to reason "because problem, therefore government is the solution", which seems to be the reasoning underlying the idea that we should have a population policy.
Posted by Jardine K. Jardine, Saturday, 6 February 2010 10:03:56 AM
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All those whose critical capacities are not disabled, either by primitive, mostly patriarchal, doctrines of human primacy or sheer ignorance and poverty, must be aware that our species population is way out of balance with our environmental resources. Technology has allowed us to shield ourselves from this consciousness but even that flawed god is failing. It’s rendering of Death as some evil to be eradicated and the perpetuation of life at all costs runs counter to the realities of living on a planet with finite resources. As does the perpetual growth paradigm of Capitalism.
Personally, I have been aware of this state all my adult life and, like Ulysses, tied myself to the mast of reproductive continence and resisted the hormonal siren call. I prefer the pre-Roman, Celtic-Druidic respect for nature and think it a salient point that the Romans triumphed over that pantheism by cutting down their sacred groves.
I heartily disagree with Jon J that we might redress our so-called ‘aging population’ concerns by importing excess populations from those groups less continent and suggest the only positive thing to come of such a move would be that we will might truly understand how the Australian Aborigines felt when they were overwhelmed by us. This is not xenophobic, or misanthropist, just basic common sense. If you want to start pointing moral fingers, look no further than the xenophobia of the Chinese – they still call us ‘white devils’ - and consider the scale of the environmental disasters occurring daily in China.
To be honest, I think we may have passed the population tipping point and the only thing that will save us and all the other species our depredations have endangered is some environmental cataclysm, such a pandemic plague, tectonic upheaval, or my favourite, another Ice Age. I am all too aware of the moral and ethical pitfalls of formal population controls, but promotion of more conscious breeding and concerted efforts to preserve our quality of life here and protect this fragile country from more damage are highly desirable endeavours.
Posted by Dr Merlyn, Saturday, 6 February 2010 12:44:37 PM
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Jardine K. Jardine, "It is irrational and superstitious to reason "because problem, therefore government is the solution", which seems to be the reasoning underlying the idea that we should have a population policy."

If you believe that you should be opposing the government's "Big Australia" policy to flood the country with migrants to reach a target of 35 million in 2050 from the present 22 million. Based on present record migrant numbers, 50 million is the more likely 2020 result.

Mr Rudd crashed through all of his reverse gears to cover his behind when he realised the strength of public opposition to his "Big Australia", which is not surprising because neither he nor Howard before him were ever given a mandate for large scale population increase through immigration.

http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-national/rudd-appears-cool-on-a-big-australia-20100128-n1nr.html

Sadly, public opposition to his outlook for Australia and to the policy of continually setting new records in immigration has not altered Rudd's course by a single degree and it is still all speed ahead and hang the consequences. Moreover, Rudd and the elites who advise him have gone back to the tried and true approach of damping sown any debate on immigration policy.

While on that subject, although the great weight of public opinion is firmly against large migrant numbers there remains strong support for Australian couples to be able to have the children they want, but cannot afford through high housing prices and taxes. There are similar community/voter attitudes in other western democracies, but quite obviously some governments are not listening.

The spin of big business that immigration is always 'good' has been challenged by a House of Lords (UK) report, The Economic Impact of Immigration, which among other criticisms stated that competition from immigrants has had a negative impact on the low paid and training for young UK workers, and has contributed to high house prices.

The report recommended limits to immigration - the government "should have an explicit target range" for immigration and set rules to keep within that limit. Not such an unreasonable request one would think and one that Rudd is ignoring in Australia

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7322825.stm
Posted by Cornflower, Saturday, 6 February 2010 1:27:32 PM
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