Saltpetre,

35M in Oz is about right. That is peak population. One major prob which infects my argument and theirs is that this is a mid line projection 40 years out from the event. Error will be large.

There are some elements to which population is important - urban design.

The reason is that our two biggest cities, Melbourne and Sydney, are not equipped to take another four million people each.

I only get terse when people play the writer and not the argument.

Wow- Peter Hume and Cheryl have both tried to imply off-topic fascism in most of their answers, I must be on the correct track!

Peter;
1- Of course those are additional exceptions- what about them? (other than sour grapes that you are paying tax and I wasn't courteous enough to cut them for you too). The other measures simply ensure quality of live to existing families and children- while the BB simply encourages people to actually make them.

2- commercials and NGO volunteers in schools to promote this things and barring people making ads and permitting school volunteers who preach a contradictory message. Much in the same way we allow multicultural groups, but do not allow people who want to warn of the "dangers of race-mixing" to put up adverts and school seminars I would imagine.

3- Poor Peter, you just couldn't resist another fascism attempt. Might have something to do with voters wanting to protect their own rights when they vote what should be allowed? But please tell me why a person would want to vote away their own rights to have children?

4- Improve workplace discrimination law regarding older employees and further requirements to substantiate reasons for the contrary in the decision to turn down an old person to a young person.

5- Funny PEter- you never actually DID mention "the issues you allegedly told me and I didn't understand them back then". This wouldn't be a lazy attempt not to actually address the points is it? How exactly am I "failing to understand" a process that most leading businesses are ALREADY DOING?

Come to think of it, reading through again you never actually did answer a single one of them.
1- angry off-topic rant
2- Nazis
3- Nazis
4- Angry off-topic rant
5- vague "it just won't work, and I'm not going to say why"

Oh well. Thankyou for your answers Peter.

Wow, Cheryl, that's quite a handful. But, fish are not finite, they are part of the very dynamic system you describe, and they only depend on the natural chain of life to survive and flourish - except, of course, for mankind's ham-fisted interference in these same natural systems - through pollution, over-fishing, and disruption of the natural balance - as by removal of predators leading to an explosion of disease, etc. Natural selection is still at work, and always will be. To ignore this is to seek to test biodiversity to its extreme limits, and can only result in self-annihilation.

Species are going extinct on this planet every minute. Why do you think this is, and why do you think this unimportant?

You seem to presume that technology and science can somehow overcome the limitations of the natural system, and thus population growth is virtually limitless. This is terribly fallible. There is only one realistic path for mankind, and that is to live within the bounds of sustainability. If something mankind did ended up destroying our oceans' phytoplankton, what system of man is going to provide sufficient oxygen to the atmosphere to facilitate man's survival? From another viewpoint - what objective could be so compelling as to justify mankind's testing of the natural balance to virtual destruction? What is therefore the point of a limitless expansion of human population? To impress God with our ingenuity? God requires no reminding of humanity's misplaced self-aggrandizement.

As for living standards, many compassionate and thoughtful people would like us to strive for a level of equity for all the earth's inhabitants, human and non-human, with an objective of minimising poverty and distress, and obviating the basis of so much of the world's conflicts and disagreements.

Blind faith in the capacities of mankind to overcome the limitations of the natural balance is, with respect, a delusion. Further, it is egotistical beyond all reason, and in the end result can serve no worthwhile purpose. So, why push the umbrella? Just because we think we can get away with it? Pride cometh before one helluva fall.

Cheryl,
congratualations on being one of the most arrogant, offensive and reductionist posters on OLO. This would be forgivable, even praiseworthy, if there was any substance to your declamations. You're clearly in the Matt Ridley, neoliberal School of mindless optimism. To be fair to you and Matt, it must require considerable arrogance to carry it off. Indeed, surely only a supreme narcissist can be dismissive of evidence, argument, ethics and even basic survival instincts in a bloody-minded refusal to back-down or, unthinkable, indulge a bit of self-reflection. No; you can't be wrong can you? It's everybody else that's wrong..

Well sorry but some of us actually do care about the environment, other species, and the quality of "all" human life. And this has nothing to do with "an infantile set of assumptions such as history is linear and unchanging, imagination and technology are our enemies, capitalism is inflexible, science is static, etc."
This is just your straw man.
Of course "history" (a human conceit) is changing; are you suggesting teleology?
Capitalism "is" inflexible in two ways; endless growth, and unfair division of material needs, prestige and power.
Who says "imagination and technology are our enemies" or "science is static"?
Imagination, science and technology can be just as readily exploited in sustainable and equitable ways.
With our population about to tip 7 billion and climbing, resources growing scarce, environment degraded, habitats and species diversity threatened, why are you in favour of population growth, if not merely for profit?
Bear in mind that I'm not advocating parochialism, like Dick Smith, while hypocritically drawing our wealth from the sale of commodities and driving growth elsewhere. The only way population growth can be managed is by managing economies.
What's to be gained, qualitatively, from continuing to drive populations up?
Why should we go on pushing the envelope if we don't have to?
The answer is because "we do have to"! Because we are slave to economic fundamentalism, as mad-dog as tele-evangelists and their followers! Population growth drives economic growth drives profit!
Do you have anything substantial to contribute, or is name-calling, all you have?

Squeers

I thought someone was rummaging around in my head.

Couldn't have said better myself.

C'mon Cheryl, Hume et al, how do you support limitless growth on finite resource?

Even humble paper fibre can only be recycled a limited number of times before the fibres become too short. Not even long enough to wipe yourself with.

Squeers, I think you go a bit too far in your criticism of Cheryl, and that's not very constructive. She has a right to her opinion, and some of us have been trying to coax her into putting some more flesh on the bones, so as to better understand her position.

I want to try a different approach, in the interest of clarification. Looking purely from an Oz point of view, it is clear that for such a large and affluent country we do have a relatively small population. So, if Cheryl is suggesting we could take quite a few more immigrants from some underprivileged 3rd world countries, then I guess we could. The only real problem I have with that is if Oz in doing so would be exacerbating current world overpopulation. Of course, any such immigrants would have to meet some appropriate standards, of education, skills, good conduct, and maybe have work sponsorship, but numbers would also have to be within limits manageable by our economy. Given such conditions, if our taking some additional immigrants could be beneficial to our workforce, and at the same time help to improve conditions in their home countries, then this could be a win-win all round.

By taking additional immigrants, and at the same time increasing targeted aid to the 3rd world, it is possible that a 1st world concerted effort could be undertaken in such a way as to improve living conditions and help reduce population growth in the 3rd world. The aim being to improve general living standards and reduce overpopulation over the long term.

As we seem to have a "immigration lottery" going on at the moment, a targeted approach would have to be an improvement.

As we know that improvements in education and living standards can lead to reduction in population growth, as well as reduction in world conflict, it may be wise for Oz to bite the bullet and try a more open approach.