Rehctub,
"liquefied natural gas mining is one answer"

Much of what you are suggesting depends on an energy equation.

How much energy would be used to pump the water, and where would the energy come from.

It is similar to ethanol production from sugar cane. To increase ethanol production, it would require large amounts of energy expenditure in the form of burning diesel to build dams, irrigationa projects, rail lines and also clear more land for extra sugar cane production.

Eventually it becomes uneconomic to increase ethanol production because too much energy has to be used to get any energy back.

With the looming peak oil and a decline in our own oil and natural gas reserves, it is near stupidity to want to vastly increase our population. We simply won’t have the resources to maintain that population.

Rechtub, over-use of underground water is living off our capital. The Great Artesian Basin was first punctured by a bore in 1878. By 1912, when the first Interstate Conference on Artesian Water was held, it had become evident that the maximum rate of extraction had probably been reached the previous year (As noted by Qld Geologist F. Whitehouse in 1954).
Capping of bores has been a project in the basin for some years. The Great Artesian Basin Coordinating Committee has concern for the drawdown of water in the Basin, and its effect upon natural communities dependent upon the natural discharge of water where it occurs (or did at one time).
Eventually, and hopefully, the rate of water extraction from the Artesian Basin might be decreased to equal the rate of rain-replacement through the intake beds in the exposed strata to the east: those within which the open-cut-mined coal seams occur. Re-charge of the Artesian Basin is a slow affair - perhaps taking 3 million years for water to reach the western extremity.

In 1878, Australia’s population stood at approximately 2.1 million; 1911, 4.6 million. The rise to today’s 22.5 million has been enabled, to a greater extent than any other, by more effective means of diminishing our capital resources - be they soils, fisheries, minerals etc..

Destroying those resources at increasing rates, rather than matching rate of replacement, for the sole purpose of squeezing more people onto the landscape, is hardly rational. Yet the lobby groups having the Governments’ ears are voicing concern over any lessening of a population growth rate of the present 1.8% - one which will produce 45 million by 2050, with no end to the rate of increase. Squeezing more water out of the basin just to please them does not please me.

Cheryl,

It is ludicrous to suggest that Australia's population is in free fall. It is growing at 1.8%, implying that it will double in 38 and a half years if this rate is continued.

As Vanna and some of the others have been trying to tell you, the economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment. Globally, we are experiencing losses or shortages of arable land, fresh water, biodiversity, fish stocks, fossil fuels and minerals that are vital for our agriculture and other technology, and capacity of the environment to safely absorb wastes. A well known paper from Nature talks about these issues in terms of 9 thresholds

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

It says that we have already exceeded 3 of the thresholds, relating to climate change, loss of biodiversity, and interference with the nitrogen cycle, so that we are no longer in a "safe operating space for humanity". We are rapidly approaching 4 more thresholds. This is Nature, probably the world's most respected peer reviewed science journal. You are arguing with the mainstream scientific community, not just a few Deep Green people-haters. Some of these problems will impact on us directly and others through their effects on other countries, much as the Great Depression spread around the world. Why should we believe that you know more about any of these fields than a pig understands about opera, much less that you understand more about all of them than the scientists who have been studying them for decades?

Of course it matters when the "stuff" runs out. The more quickly resources are used up on supporting enormous populations at subsistence level, the less time and resources that we will have to do the research and development to come up with alternatives, such as getting access to space resources. Nor do technological solutions come along to order just because they are needed. After all, 14th century Europeans desperately needed antibiotics that would kill the plague bacillus, and the Irish in 1848 desperately needed potato varieties that would resist the late blight.

Rhian,

The GCI is a measure of good management of a country's economy. Among the top 10 countries on the UN Human Development Index, 5 are among the top 10 on the GCI, and another 3 are among the top 20. The point is that the mass media and the government, most recently with the Treasury Red Book, have been trying to convince us that population growth is essential for good economic management, but if this is so, why is there no correlation internationally?

Of course infrastructure is related to population. From my earlier Ross Gittins link:

"Why doesn't immigration lead to higher living standards? To shortcut the explanation, because each extra immigrant family requires more capital investment to put them at the same standard as the rest of us: homes to live in, machines to work with, hospitals and schools, public transport and so forth.

Little of that extra physical capital and infrastructure is paid for by the immigrants themselves. The rest is paid for by businesses and, particularly, governments. When the infrastructure is provided, taxes and public debt levels rise. When it isn't provided, the result is declining standards, rising house prices, overcrowding and congestion."

Infrastructure Partnerships Australia says:

"It is now an accepted fact that Australia faces a substantial infrastructure deficit, most recently estimated at some $770 billion over a decade which, if not addressed, will impact on the nation’s future economic growth and productivity, and have severe detrimental effects on quality of life for all Australians."

http://www.treasury.gov.au/documents/1862/PDF/Infrastructure_Partnerships_Australia.pdf

I sometimes wonder where this streak of Milton Freedman supply side economics comes from with Divergence and the anti-people lobby. Immigrants are suddenly not OK because we build houses for them? How about all those we housed from post war years to now? Are they suddenly disenfranchised because they're 'alien consumers'?

Divergence makes an elementary mistake by confusing industrial first world consumption of raw materials with what you and I consume. Its astounding to think that we can blame the poorest of the poor in India and Africa who consume bugger all with the industrial consumption of North America. There is no comparison.

It's equally ridiculous to equate individual consumption with the energy consumption required, for example, to make steel. That's where the anti-pops pigs are squelling. Why aren't they talking about new forms of energy?

It's because they are fixated on reducing the raw number of people. They are basically functionalists who want to turn us in to measurable units, much like ants, to create a sociobiological paradise. How are they going to reduce the number of people?

Ah, reducing the number of people. Four legs good. Two legs bad.

LNG is real and is already happening, in fact, it has been tipped to be the next 'gold rush' in this country.

Also, the water is also already there as it comes up with the gas and, by laws of the EPA, it must be treated. So, why not treat it and place in reserves.

As for pumping it, well, that's also simple, just use the natural gas to power the generators that can power the pumps.

The pumps that pump the gas up are already fired by natural gas and it costs next to nothing.

Now there is some fairly good land around these arid areas, mostly along the flats of dried river beds. Now if these flats were provided with a regular supply of water, who knows.

Now as for anti population, this really is not a viable option as who will be there to fund the taxes we need to continue life as we know it if we don't continue to at least replace those who perish.

I still feel populating the bush is an option worth consideration.