no probs on natural growth Divergence. Subtracting immigration, it's moderately low at 1.9.

Agree with you that on the maths the initial conditions for natural growth are pretty much set until 2030.

Do you therefore say that in Australia at least, we should therefore limit the number of immigrants or is that problematic because those that are here now must necessarily be included in any equation which involves a population projection?

I suppose what I'm getting at is that much of the anti-populationist rhetoric targets immigration, and I understand why (although disagree with it). But the whole argument is moot if population growth is an immutable fact until 2030.

Are you saying we educate kids now to limit numbers beyond 2030?

I am only a simple accountant, so perhaps I am missing something about Mr Elliot's no doubt learned article . In particular, I must be missing something about his concerns with coping with an aging population if we stop population growth.

Perhaps Mr Elliot would like to answer some simple questions.

Can Australia's population grow forever? Obvious answer is NO.

When it does inevitably have to stop growing, will we (more accurately, our children and grandchildren) have to adapt to an aging population. Obvious answer is YES.

Will it be easier to adapt to an aging population now when we have about 22 million, or when it is 35, 50, 100, 150 million? I suggest the obvious answer is YES.

Is it therefore the correct course of action for our nation to stop population growth now and work out now how we are going to cope with the aging population, and get on with it? Again, the answer is obvious (but then, I am only a simple accountant).

Coping with an aging population is nowhere near the problem Mr Elliot and his ilk seem to think, but as sure as hell, it will be harder to deal with later, rather than sooner.

And, of course, I could go on and discuss the problems population growth is bringing us like pressure on water supplies, food security in an age of peak oil, losses of flora and fauna, housing affordability, clogged roads etc etc. In due course, I would like to hear what Mr Elliot has to say about those matters, in particular, how a bigger population is going to help.


Bob Couch
Convenor
Stop Population Growth Now (Inc)

__._,_.___

Some commonsense from Bob Couch.With population growth we risk it all.

Bob Couch you have hit the nail on the head.
A breath of reason after all the waffle about technical fixes and just plain head in the sand.
Now if anyone is interested in the real truth about where we are and where we are going, may I suggest that you beg, borrow or even buy a copy of a book by Paul Gilding called “The great Disruption”.
Pay particular attention to chapter 3 with an open mind.

It is sad to see some of the comments on this thread sinking to cheap abuse. Xenophobe, half baked cranks, or Enoch Powell add nothing to the discussion. Neither is it right to assume that everyone who is concerned about population numbers is dumb. I know of no evidence to support that view. I shall try in two comments to illustrate the great gulf in thinking that exists between my (conservationists) view and that of the arch population group, the business community, led by Heather Ridout.
The JES Submission to the government's Inquiry into population that I referred to earlier stated clearly the geographic/geological and climatic characteristics assumptions it made with reference to Australia. They were:
The land has not been glaciated and very little of the land is of volcanic origin. As a consequence the vast majority of the soils are both poor and thin.
The rainfall is generally low and wildly variable. Even in the one of the wettest catchments, the Johnstone, there are years when the smaller streams are severely stressed. That is a source of huge friction between irrigators and conservationists.
The majority of the continent is very flat. Hence there are few, sometimes no, places suitable for river damming. That is notable in respect of the big rivers flowing into the Gulf.
There are large areas in the Tropics. Consequently evaporation levels are very high indeed. That affects agricultural opportunities directly. It further exacerbates the difficulties of finding suitable water storage sites; the evaporation losses would be staggering with shallow impounding lakes.
The combination of poor soil, erratic rainfall, high evaporation and lack of storage ability are the hard realities. Any policy that does not accept them as a fact is absurd, Knut like and is doomed to fail.

The 'Productivity and Prosperity' expert panel, one of three for the government's Issues paper re population, when talking about 'Regions' and in particular possibilities in the North criticise the recent Taskforce Report that found that there were only 'opportunities for.....and mosaic agriculture'. That means no major opportunities but some little bits scattered about. Ridout doesn't like that so 'it is time to further investigate soils and water availability'. That translates to: you got it wrong, do it again and get it right this time. What a classic refusal to face reality, how ridiculous. But they get worse from there.
Under the subheading 'Plenty of water but droughts and flooding rains' Ridout et al put forward the thesis that vast areas of Australia have rainfalls that are 'comparable with much of Europe and North America.' Their Figure 7.1 shows a truly vast area of Australia a nice green colour, the same colour as Europe and parts of North America. They recognise the variation problem but simplistically sees that as just 'the greatest challenge is water management.'
There is no doubt that Ridout et al is postulating the ridiculous: that, say, an area just north of Mount Isa would be as productive as, say, East Anglia, all that is needed is water management. The most generous interpretation is that Ridout et al are staggeringly ignorant. The alternative is worse.
It is hard to think of a more clear cut difference than that which exists between Johnstone Ecological Society's assumptions and thinking as given in my previous post previous post on the one hand and that of Ridout et al on the other.
Just to cheer us all up however I am glad to report that other areas of the globe that Ridout et al show as green and hence presumably, like all of northern Australia, capable of agriculture are south east Greenland, all of Iceland, large parts of northern Siberia, south western Alaska and the Kamchatka Peninsula.