The growthists who airily assume that technology will solve all our problems might sober up a bit if they went back and read the popular science articles and science fiction of the 1950s to see what they were predicting for us.

Where are Cheryl's flying car and robot servant? Where is our nuclear power that was going to be too cheap to meter? Where are our bases, let alone colonies, on the Moon and Mars? We were promised so much leisure that we wouldn't know what to do with it. Why don't we have it? Why haven't human translators been completely replaced by computers? Why can't we regrow amputated limbs? Why are people still dying of cancer? The list could go on.

Two things, a fixed future only comes from a fixed past, anyone who says they can see into the future is lying.
Secondly, if Chicken little is running around saying the sky is falling it usually means we're doing fine, when people stop talking about what a mess we're in it's time to panic because it means no one is paying attention.
The flaw in the global population debate is the assumption that non White people will behave like White people if given equal technology and resources, they won't, because they're not White.
They may come up with surprising new uses for our inventions but Kibera will never look like New York.

If we give Asia the technological know how to produce Green energy they'll use it, improve it's efficiency and maintain the standard of quality in service delivery. But will their population come down? History says no.
If we give Africans the same technology they'll grab the machinery take it apart and use it for something more practical, like shelter or agriculture, or sell it to buy something else they need. As long as we keep donating the parts they'll keep finding alternate uses for them.
Will their population go down? History tells us no.

Africans don't need Plasma TV's, if they did they'd have invented them, before they met us they had everything they needed to be Africans, whatever we give them will be used in an African way not a White way.

I am annoyed that Dick Smith has limited the Wilberforce award to people under 30 - its not only ageist, but really stupid if he actually wants the issues widely addressed. It may well be that an under 30 yo wins, but I can't see any benefit in excluding so many people who could make a useful contribution.

Dick has opened up the debate.
Here is an exercise for anyone who thinks there is no problem.
Plot oil consumption and world population on the same graph.
Frankly considering we are facing energy depletion what the graph
reveals is frightening. Population tracks energy usage exactly and if
it is projected forward with depletion rates it shows some billions will die.

Andrew Whitby is a cornucopian and believes that something will turn up.
Well something did turn up and it was called coal and oil.
Now they have done their dash and it will be back to square one.

I'm right behind you Jay. 'Africans don't need Plasma TV's, if they did they'd have invented them ...'

We didn't need Dick Smith, but as a 'growthist', he could see our penchant for all things electronic could make him big bucks. And it did. Did it make Dick happy? You bet.

See Dick fly his plane. See Dick go on new adventures. See Dick fund anti-capitalist/anti-people propaganda. Where's Nip and Dora in all of this because that's about the level of debate so far.

It's great to be sitting back in white Australia slagging off at the Africans and Asians who are breeding and waiting, cunning in their plans to invade us with their food and oil consuming babies. They come at night you know. Hard to see.

Well, so far we have about 400 years of coal in Oz, 100 years of oil, and we haven't even gone below the 1km mark for mineral and oil extraction. One day in the next 500 years or so, we'll run out of everything - and do you know who'll we'll blame? The hungry Asian/African hordes.

Andrew you are a young and naive fool in the image of your baby boomer parents.

You place a great deal of confidence in technology.

The bible thumpers say "God will always provide".

The economists say "Technology will always provide".

Both ideologies are fatally flawed.

The ability of humans to invent new technolgies my indeed by arguably infinite.

But all technologies require considerable resources to implement them on a large scale.

And all resources are finite and we have chewed through a very large proportion of them already with previous rounds of technological innovations.

We are at or very close to peak oil for starters.