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The Forum > Article Comments > Red faces over the Immigration Department’s 'Red Book'. > Comments

Red faces over the Immigration Department’s 'Red Book'. : Comments

By Mark O'Connor, published 11/1/2011

Population growth isn't good and it can't go on for ever.

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Cheryl, you can still can have people moving about between countries in order to "refresh the gene pool", growth is not a pre-condition for such movement.

You also need to note that there are both economies and diseconomies of scale
see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diseconomy_of_scale
Basically beyond a certain size you actually incur more costs. Look at how infilling suburbs create extra costs by requiring upgrading of service infrastructure: water mains, sewerage lines, electricity, gas and telecommunication, storm water runoff. This is not mentioning extra cost needed to upgrade hospitals, schools, public transport, roads to cope with higher populations. Look at how expanding suburbs gobble up market gardens forcing farmers to live at a greater distance from the consumers, thereby incurring extra transport costs.
Bigness has its price
Posted by Olduvai, Tuesday, 11 January 2011 2:53:22 PM
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*There is a boat for Bangladesh waiting for you.*

Now there is a place for you, Cheryl. You could live cheek to
cheek, surrounded by human faeces. You'd love it!

Its hogwash to suggest that everone who understands the implications
of overpopulation, is against capitalism. That is just the bucket
created in your mind.

I'm hardly known as an anti capitalist poster on OLO. Yet I am
also fully aware of what can go wrong, when we think we are above
nature and not part of the bigger scheme of things.

Anyhow Cheryl, Bangaladesh sounds perfect for you, Divergence
makes a valid point
Posted by Yabby, Tuesday, 11 January 2011 2:57:07 PM
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Hi Cheryl. Looks like you're having a tough time trying to bring some balance into this discussion.

The problem is that the anti-pops don't like change. The idea that they can't simply stand still and smell the roses, fills them with dread. Hence their eagerness to fill each others' heads with doom and gloom.

Japan is facing an awkward few decades, as its population ages, and the burden of sustaining any vestige of past lifestyles becomes intolerable.

"For about 50 years after the second world war the combination of Japan’s fast-growing labour force and the rising productivity of its famously industrious workers created a growth miracle. Within two generations the number of people of working age increased by 37m and Japan went from ruins to the world’s second-largest economy. In the next 40 years that process will go into reverse. The working-age population will shrink so quickly that by 2050 it will be smaller than it was in 1950, and four out of ten Japanese will be over 65."

http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/11/japans_population

The rest of the article is behind a pay-wall, sadly, because it does shed some light on the damage to the social fabric that such demographic disasters carry with them. Something your average anti-pop hates to think about, because it gives the lie to the "happy-ever-after" scenarios that they fondly believe in.

Regrettably, the debate here has been overwhelmed by the dog-in-a-manger brigade. They don't actually give a stuff about Australia's future prosperity, so long as they themselves don't suffer in their own lifetimes.

Which is ironic, given that their mantra is "curb population now, or our children's future will be rooned".

By insisting that the debate is framed in such a negative fashion, they are able to stifle any proposal that involves any form of growth. Their argument is always that we have reached, or surpassed, the level at which our population might most profitably be stabilized. Curiously, they are never able to explain how they reached this conclusion.

Nor how any "stabilization" process might work in real life.

It's all just self-righteous rhetoric.
Posted by Pericles, Tuesday, 11 January 2011 3:02:47 PM
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Dean K wrote:
"Just one question for those who think people are a massive problem for the Australian continent. Why do you (& your family) have a right to be here? Think about that."

In all the arguments put forward by those who want to see a truly sustainable population policy, no one is talking about expulsions. We are talking about setting future parameters of immigration and getting rid of policies that pay people to have more children. We who are citizens of and live in Australia are here and for the most part will live here for the rest of our lives. We have to deal with the reality of the current population and put in place policies to maximize current and future sustainability.

Dean K wrote:
"All the ideas in Mark O'connors article are predicated on a value system that says human population and land uses are bad, while anything else is good. But where does this philosphy lead? Will we have to rid the whole planet of humans?"

Current land use practices are unsustainable, using fossil fuel to substitute for poor and thin top soils is not sustainable. Consuming fossil fuels to produce artificial fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, with generous amounts of diesel for on-farm machinery and for transport and processing is unsustainable. Setting up agricultural settlements that require levels of irrigation that cannot be supported in drought years is unsustainable.
As the saying goes, "nature bats last", no matter what you and I think, the sustainable population of Australia post-peak oil (i.e. post fossil fuel frenzy era) and with climate change will be determined by how we live, not what we wish for. Increasing our population at 2% per annum is not part of the solution but a big contributor to our current and future problems
Posted by Olduvai, Tuesday, 11 January 2011 3:13:00 PM
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"Current land use practices are unsustainable."

How do you know?

If we aren't allowed to use a resource because it's non-renewable and therefore unsustainable, then obviously any future population would be in the same position. Therefore to say we can't use non-renewable resources is in effect to say that no-one may use them, ever. I suggest you start by applying that standard to yourself first.

People use things in their order of preference. There is no reason why people shouldn't use up unrenewable resources in preference to much more expensive resources. *When* other resources are equally economical, that is the time to start using them.

The reason we have problems with infrastructure is not because we have too many people. We would laugh at the economic illiteracy of someone who said we won't have enough iPhones or socks or pizzas or buildings because there are "too many people". The reason there is a shortfall of hospitals, land for housing, and roads is because the supply of them is the responsibility of government, and they have no way of equilibrating supply and demand other than by watching the growing queues, or watching the media for critical reports.

The economic illiteracy of the Malthusians thus makes a perfect match with the economic incoherence of government, but don't expect China to sit by and watch this foolery while millions go hungry for want of resources that Australia's xenophobic socialism is unable to rationalise to people's most urgent needs.
Posted by Peter Hume, Tuesday, 11 January 2011 3:38:52 PM
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This discussion is largely irrelevant.
The word anti-pops is new to me and I think it is being used like
denier in the now redundant agw debate.

Well I am an ant-pop but I am certainly not anti capitalism.
However I am wide awake enough to realise that capitalism as it now
stands will have to change dramatically. Why ?
Well the current model depends on credit and interest payments.
When you do not have growth there is no new extra profit to pay the interest.
This will force a major modification of the capitalist structure to
enable whatever industry continues to be restructured to suit loss of
long used inputs and different product demand.

For instance a food processing company may need to make paper bags
instead of heat seal plastic packages.

The changes that will take place will affect banking and finance in
general. For instance, how do you lend money when the business will
not have increased business with which to pay the interest ?

These are the problems that we should discuss.
To get back to the subject all the above problems get worse with larger populations.
Posted by Bazz, Tuesday, 11 January 2011 3:39:18 PM
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