Rick, I secretly think you'd like to be knee deep in your own excreta.

Anti-life? I'm not the one advocating Oz's population drop to 7M. I'm not the one saying we should push the refugees back out to sea. I'm not the one who's prime intellectual prism in this debate is instrumentalism.

By the way, I like writing to the anti-pops. It's like shooting fish in a barrell. 'Oh no' Rick says, 'Now he's shooting fish!'

"It’s sad that the fall of clubs and societies around the western world means that single, childless men have to participate in these lonely masturbatory fantasies about ridding the world of people.

You need a hobby. I would suggest women but that’s too close to what you allege is the problem."

Hmm, 4 children and 6 grandshildren. Yep, I'm childless.

If you think there is no over population problem, then I must ask you, at what level of population do you think this planet can have and all live comfortably?

If you think that Africa is not over populated (I guess you know better than the authors of that report), then maybe you need to pay a visit to Kenia, Etheopia, Congo, Nigeria, etc, etc. Then come back here and with a straight face say we are not over populated.

"We saw this here in 2007, when a combination of drought with more and more extraction of water for human purposes caused a threat to Ramsar listed wetlands".

Shite, what do you think happened on a reasonably regular basis prior to humans (god forbid) installing dams and weirs along the river systems. Its human intervention that has stopped the wetlands drying up years ago (like in the first year of the drought). Its convenient to forget that though.

The anti-pops are like winos wandering around a railway yard at night. They can see the lights and they just want to say hullo.

Lets talk about finite resources. The anti-pops love this one. It underlines everything they think. They're not talking about food as we're knee deep in food. What they're talking about is mining commodities - the hard stuff: iron, copper, zinc, etc.

This is going to come as a terrible shock to them but once the world runs out of iron ore in 800 years time (even with 9B people - which is only a projection), then that's it. Geez, you don't need to be Einstein. We'll recycle, make synthetics, find new processes, etc but once it's gone, it's gone.

Now if you're going to base your whole argument on 'final causes' you need to look not at state control of fertility but invest it new technological processes. But the anti-pops hate technology. It's capitalism in action - which for them is part of the problem.

It's not hard to see why they are called Bearded Gnomes. They have boxed themselves in to a corner.

Charyl, your grasp of the problem is seriously flawed. We are not talking about mineral resources (though many of them are in terminal decline), we are talking about ENERGY. Oil is at or nearly at terminal decline. We cannot feed 6.5 billion without oil. Do you even understand the concept of carrying capacity?

Did you even read this report (one of many on the subject).

http://www.theoildrum.com/files/Tipping%20Point.pdf

Before you post again, please read this.

And oh, I love technology. I write software for a living.

BTW, your continued attempt to belittle and insult us just shows you cannot defend your position. It is not possible to have an intelligent conversation with people like you.

Country girl,

Before 1788, a bad, long drought could have made wetlands dry out some years, but humans are taking the equivalent of 1/3 of the natural outflow at the Murray mouth in an average year, more in a dry year, according to the Murray Darling Basin Commission website. This has to make a difference.

Cheryl,

So we are "knee deep in food". It is a pity that the World Bank doesn't agree with you.

http://econ.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTDEC/0,,contentMDK:21665883~pagePK:64165401~piPK:64165026~theSitePK:469372,00.html

So far as Australia is concerned, we have enough now, but we consume about 80% (by value) of our own agricultural production

http://www.agmates.com/blog/2008/01/01/report-into-ag-production-export-discrepancies/

We export about half the grain we grow in an average year and much less in a drought. Now imagine a long, severe drought plus twice as many people and a world market that is short of food.

"No population problem, just First World consumption." Sources please? This is patently ridiculous because people have to consume to live. If there are enough people, it doesn't matter if per capita consumption is low. This is obvious from my last post. The global average consumption level is on the poverty line, but we are still having a serious impact on our global life support systems. See

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7263/full/461472a.html

Africa - You may be right about some countries. Overpopulation is not always the main problem. However, Rwanda is definitely a case where you are wrong and Andrew Wakefield is right. See

http://website1.wider.unu.edu/conference/conference-2004-1/conference%202004-1-papers/Ansoms-Marysse-1905.pdf