runner the anti growthists are not advocating killing humans and being concerned about animal welfare does not not imply that it is okay to kill human beings. One does not follow from the other. Just because you are a Christian does not mean I think you still believe in burning women at the stake for nothing more than disobedience. For goodness sake, where does your logic come from? Or don't you care about the validity and integrity of what you write.

Cheryl
That is so untrue. Have you not been reading the same threads over the past few months in which the following ideas have been floated in regards to managing population growth:

- no baby bonus or middle class welfare in relation to raising children or a means test to ascertain need
- reduce immigration depending on resource management/skills issues
- increase social welfare structures and education in developing countries which is shown to reduce the size of families
- reduce global economic inequities
- aid in the short term to provide education and practical help for improved agricultural practices
etc.

How many times does one need to stress these points.

No-one in the anti-unfettered growth movement is subscribing to inhumane measures - you are the only one raising these options. It makes me suspicious of what vested interest you have in unfettered population growth which is in itself anti-human and causes much suffering and hardship.

At least try and see the rationale in an opposing view before people like you and runner jump to the most irrational conclusions.

It does wear a bit thin.

Laws of Sustainability ( Dr. A Bartlett )

First Law: (a) A population growth rate less than or equal to zero and declining rates of consumption of resources are a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for a sustainable society

(e) Persons who advocate population growth and/ or growth in the rates of consumption of resources are advocating unsustainability

(h) The term "Sustainable Growth" is an oxymoron

Well Pelican, I have been reading the posts from the anti-pops and I do find them interesting as they consistently fail to discern the difference between people and consumption. People are people; consumption is a process.

I rather liked some of your 'solutions'. Actually, aiding the developing world isn't high on the anti-pop agenda. Pulling back aid is and cutting them adrift is their normative policy. The Muslim 'darkies' are part of the problem (apparently). Chuck in re-erecting high trade barriers too.

How do you propose in real terms to measure hard resources against people?

Also, do you subscribe to the comments of the previous poster that:

"A population growth rate less than or equal to zero and declining rates of consumption of resources are a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for a sustainable society"

I have no particular barrow to push except to expose poppycock and cant.

Is it just me or do others find it an incredible hypocrisy that we have a party who is against population but who are willing to use pictures of kids to promote their aims?

http://candobetter.org/node/1988

Cheryl,

You ignore all of the times in history and prehistory when collapses did occur. A good account can be found in the book "Constant Battles" by Prof. Steven LeBlanc (Archaeology, Harvard), and some specific cases are also discussed in Jared Diamond's "Collapse". Some of LeBlanc's ideas are also discussed here in the popular science magazine Discover

http://discovermagazine.com/2003/may/featwar

Basically, people outbreed their resources and overexploit their environment, so living conditions tend to get worse with time. There are occasional countertrends towards peace and prosperity, when new crops or new technology have expanded the carrying capacity, or when some disaster has drastically reduced the population, but the good times never last, because they just lead to more and more mouths to restore the accustomed level of misery. Before development, it was this way all over the world.

When people become desperate enough, they try to kill or drive off their neighbours to take what they have, although the conflict or persecutions are frequently blamed on religious or ethnic differences. After all, religion and ethnicity make good rallying points when people are joining up sides, although they can easily find something else. In Rwanda, Hutus killed other Hutus in districts where there weren't any Tutsis. Rwanda's former Agriculture Minister, James Gasana, wrote an article on the genocide for Worldwatch Magazine

http://www.worldwatch.org/system/files/EP155B.pdf

It includes a table showing the correlation between massacres and calories per person per day. Gasana writes, "First, rapid population growth is the major driving force behind the vicious circle of environmental scarcities and rural poverty."

Since Cheryl is deeply concerned about children, it is worth noting that whole families in Rwanda, including babies, were hacked to death with machetes, and some have suggested that the reason this was done was to prevent anyone from coming forward in the future to reclaim the stolen land.

We want to prevent collapse, where children are likely to suffer the most, and to ensure that everyone, not just the elite, can have (and keep) a good, free life in a healthy environment. Cheryl and her friends are in willful denial.

Engineers understand the idea of systems going "non-linear". Any system pushed to extremes will begin to behave in a non-linear fashion - where change in one factor no longer leads to a continuously proportionate change in another factor (i.e. the proportionate change you might expect for a linear relationship
between cause and effect). You see this when driving a car - when you put your foot down there is an optimal range of engine response for any gear and outside that range the response becomes more sluggish. You feel it when drinking -additional alcohol can be fun until it makes you sick and you are throwing up or blacking out. You see it in plant growth - they grow faster as it gets warmer until the temperature gets too extreme. You see it in cricket where the energy
delivered to the ball by the bat is optimal at a certain position down the length of the bat - the "sweet spot".

The people who promote population growth want you to believe that more people can only ever be better. In other words, they are trying to make you believe that population growth and economic growth/development/human happiness/lifestyle are related in a linear fashion no matter how many people there are. Of course,this is simply impossible. In the early phase of growth more people CAN make a
community more functional for all but after a certain size the lack of
additional resources (e.g. water) and the problems of transport (travel time/congestion/parking) no longer allow a linear response. By this measure Australia is already beyond its "sweet spot" in terms of size and any additional people can only make things worse. Increased energy inputs (e.g.desalination/building highways) can relieve this partially but that will not be possible much longer. (Actually it is no longer possible now.)
So when Bourke says continued population growth is bad for business he is merely stating that we are beyond the "sweet spot"