Andrew Whitby, as a doctoral candidate in economics - you lean towards infinity with your argument. It shows a glaring need for you to “Drop your preconceptions, and allow yourself to hear a real argument”:
Have a cup of tea, a bex, a good lie down and take a trip into the real world with the help of Professor Al Bartlett’s “Arithmetic, Population and Energy”

Nice one Andrew. Did Smith really call it the Wilberforce Award? Oh dear. That's just plain silly. About as silly as linking population with rising sea levels.

Smith bought the media to show his doco which is fair enough. It's what capitalists do but it's odd that he has gone in so hard with his anti-growth/anti-capitalism/anti-people message as his business was built on people, technology and consumerism.

Look, there's no shortage of hypocrites in the population debate - on both sides - or all sides.

Good to see engagement with the topic.
Your post ignores a number of key points. The below are a critique on the ideas, not the person.

1. In critiquing Dick Smith on Population, even if we had a stable population today, we are already exceeding ecological limits.

August 21st was Earth overshoot day (www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/earth_overshoot_day/). Taking the ecological footprint of humanity currently we have already passed our 'annual budget' and this is on average across the planet (If everyone lived as Aussies or NZers- we would need 4 planets). To ask for a stable population or a limit on population will require redesigning our economy to give back rather than take. This is not a 'technology will solve us' case.

2. To conclude by saying that "there may not be a meaningful long-term limit, but accept that sometimes we will face short-term or local hurdles on the path of growth (of which climate change is probably one), and work out how to overcome these hurdles" is really part of the problem.

Assuming growth is the point of what we are doing and that we are living all independently, instead of living sustaining, just and fulfilling lives, is really a root cause of the issue.
Systems Thinking says you can't maximise a subsystem (the economy) without detriment to the overall system (the planet). We need to ask what is the economy for, how, and how to design a subsystem that supports, not deteriorates the larger system.

Yes- the award has a strong tinge on population but Dick also acknowledges that a consumption-growth economy cannot continue (without our own demise) and encouraging rethinking of a new economic model like that being educated and promoted at steadystate.org
This requires stripping back a number of unexamined assumptions that are in your post, and that we have in ourselves (I include myself in this).

Carl
A NZ citizen grateful that these issues are coming more to the public discussion.

Aldous Huxley also studied at and graduated from Balliol College.

He wrote both Brave New World and Brave New World Revisited--which provide very accurate descriptions of the state of Civilization in 2010.

As does Mike Davis in Planet of Slums.

Welcome to the kaka-topian future.

So we have an economist trashing part of Dicks argument. We know that growth can continue if no other factors are considered, but this is not the point! The question he asked is: Is this a good idea for people's lifestyle and well being? Speaking out against rampant growth for the short term benefit of the very few is quite valid and many folks are glad that Dick has the vision and resources to raise this argument.
It seems that economists have little to say about the unstable markets, regressive policy, vested interests corrupting free markets, concentration of press ownership, parasite industries and corporate welfare, yet they like to speak out against other disciplines such as climatology and ecology. How about keeping your own house in order! The GFC came and went without any repercussions or lessons learned. It seems that economics can barely describe simple things like money supply and trading.
Can economists please now speak up about the BS economics that is the bread and butter of politicians and the media? At least get your own stuff partly right before leaping into areas you clearly only partially understand.

Dick Smith has done a wonderful thing with his ‘Population Puzzle’ documentary. He has really entrenched the issue of continuous population growth and the addiction to growth in general within the mainstream media and minds of the general public.

And isn’t it about time!!

On the Q&A program following Dick’s docco, we witnessed Bob Brown (Greens), Scott Morrison (Libs) and Tony Burke (Labs) all sounding very much in support of him.

Now that was truly amazing! From within the awfully pro-growth-with-no-end-in-sight Libs and Labs and the terribly silent Greens, we suddenly had broad agreement amongst them all!

So perhaps Andrew Whitby needs to think about why these three, all speaking on behalf of their parties, have come onside with Dick Smith and Tim Flannery and Ian Low and Kelvin Thomson and Sustainable Population Australia Inc and an ever-growing number of learned people and an ever-growing number of ordinary Australians?

I’d suggest that it is because Dick Smith and the others are spot-on with their concerns about growth and that the message is as clear as can be to all but narrowly focussed economists and business people with vested interests in maintaining high a growth rate.