One other thing ... others must find it equally offensive that millionaire Dick Smith, whose business empire traded entirely on volume of cheap technological goods, now comes out and says he wants less people and less growth. Give me a break. Pull the other one.

And he has called it the Wilberforce Prize? LOL. Malthus Award is about right - and Malthus couldn't even do maths. Had the vision of a dingbat.

One poster drew an incredible long bow and said the slavery of the pro-population side was akin to the slavery Wilberforce fought against. Ha ha ha ha. Here's a secret. There is no pro-population side. The war is in your delusional head.

*But I take considerable satisfaction that if we all go together when we go, we'll take you with us.*

Ah Cheryl, you are a wonderful example of the reality that people
need pain to learn, for they learn the hard way. So be it.

Meantime I take considerable satisfaction from knowing that you
are unable to give a good reason why people should keep popping out
babies that they don't want in the first place.

Your affiliations with the Catholic Church are hardly an excuse
and you have come up with no other good reason

The funny thing about growth advocates' mockery of Malthus is the claim that Australia's economy would collapse without high immigration is based upon a Malthusian understanding of demographics and wages.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Robert_Malthus#Demographics_and_wages

"Malthus saw poverty as a positive check to population growth, believing people without means less likely to have children whom they could not support.[36] Similarly, as wages increased, the birth-rate could be expected to increase while the death-rate decreased. Consequently, wage increases caused populations to grow. Malthus believed that this inevitably led to economic oscillations between relative prosperity and distress, though the oscillations were not always apparent:"

The difficulty nowadays is that contraception is available in developed nations, so the growthists believe that immigration is required to balance things.

"do something positive instead of trying to sterlize the Indian, Asian and African people"

Why portray efforts to provide contraception to people in developing countries on a voluntary basis in such perverted terms? Would you consider GPs in Australia who provide patients with contraceptive scripts as genocidal practitioners? What do you find so wrong about providing a service in developing nations that is so readily available in developed countries?

"Had the vision of a dingbat."

Better vision than some of his unwitting followers I think.

If anyone is "Malthusian", it'd surely be Whitby. His lack of concern for the masses, should ecological damage that only begins with global warming, let alone soils, water and a population too large for the resources currently arrayed against enviro degradation and mass poverty be not amenable to his as yet unindentified techno fixes, becomes pure cold Gradgrind.
Cornucopian in only the way that the privileged can be.
A lazy essay reprising for a Tory think tank; watch your back Chris Berg..

Cheryl,
I don't know where to start.
First you question Dick's sincerity. Well I know Dick rather better
than you do and from way back when, he was always an enthusiast for
whatever he was interested in.
That he is able to change his mind when confronted with different facts
is a good thing.
Do you change your mind with new facts ?

Re capitalism in a zero growth regime it will have to either disappear
or adapt. To repay debt requires growth to repay the capital and
interest. There may be a way to do it but I do not see how.

A reduction in the amount of food available below a certain level
will result in lower fertility, but not starvation.
That requires an even lower level of food supply.
So the world's population could reach a point where birth rates fall
and just enough food is available to avoid famine.
It will all depend on how fast we adapt to a new farming regime.

We, in this case does mean the whole world but as transport between
continents will become much more expensive conditions could be quite
different in Australia than elsewhere.

Gee Yabby, that's a bit rough what with the Catholic Church and all.

I could retort that the Sustainable People Australia group are crypto-fascists in league with the National Front. About the same IQ. You're right as they do paste over some of my articles as do the Greens when they agree with me, rather me agreeing with them.

The anti-pop rhetoric has a school marmish quality about it. Finger waving. There must be some old Democrats there. Hang on. Their President is Sandra Kanck. I rest my case.

Bazz, did you really know Dick from way back when? When exactly? Did Dick buy airtime way back when to drop a load of cobblers on the Australian people. I admire people who change their mind when confronted with the facts. So what's he doing ranting on about population?