It’s easy to agree and disagree with Ted Trainer at the same time. The steady-state or shrinking economy will arrive, certainly in regard to population numbers, because that’s what happens with increasing prosperity. And it is true that we do not seem to cope too well whenever the economy slows down even a little, mainly because the change in growth rate is not distributed evenly among the population and some lose their incomes completely. That does need to be fixed somehow.

But a “transition to mostly small, highly self-sufficient and cooperative local communities and communities which run their own economies to meet local needs from local resources... with ….. provision of security and a high quality of life for all via frugal, non-material lifestyles”? Nothing to stop people living like that right now, and some choose to do just that, usually when they are young and fit. So what’s Ted on about? Oh, he wants everyone to live like that. And how does he propose to bring that about? I guess it’s all in the book. Something like the forced agrarianisation of society perhaps? Well, it might sound nice but let’s first remind ourselves that it has been tried a few times and didn’t work out all that well. Pretty badly, actually, if you start counting skulls.

Ted needs to remember that the two things he really seems to hate, ‘capitalism’ and ‘consumerism’, are merely what happens when all the other ‘isms’ get out of the way. They are the natural consequences of freedom and prosperity. They may not offer Arcadian bliss but they sure beat the competition.

I agree with Ted that I cannot see how capitalism is compatible with a steady state economy. Any economy of fixed size in which interest is payed by one to another must mean acumulation of wealth with the latter.

Tombee makes the error of assuming that we will have a choice over whether to become more frugal or not. Declining resources mean that there will be no choice - unless Tombee means the choice by a few powerful to accumlate the declining resources for themselves at the cost of putting the rest of us into even more severe poverty.

"They must have the sense to focus on the provision of security and a high quality of life for all via frugal, non-material lifestyles."

I agree with most of what Ted had to say, but I take issue with the part quoted. The resources will not be available for a high quality of life. In the longer term, a vastly reduced population, even in Australia, will have no alternative but to live a very frugal lifestyle indeed as Michael has just said.

The planet cannot sustain even a steady state economy at our present rate of consumption.

David

Every economic down turn throws up 'theorists' like Ted. After the Great Depression, they became spies for Soviet Russia. The clue to this article is Ted's use of the term 'growth maniacs'. That is to say, anyone who disagrees with Ted is a maniac. Excellent, a bit of personal abuse - exactly the right way to persuade people to your point of view.

I believe in economic growth and the economic construct espoused by Adam Smith. It has, in its 20th and 21st century manifestations delivered more people from abject poverty than at any time in human history.

Unfortunately, it is going to deliver an even greater number of people back into poverty, even if not into oblivion. Fortunately, you and I may not be around to see it.

David

< Dick Smith on growth; emphatically yes...and no >

I disagree.

Emphatically yes….and yes!

Ted I agree with your praise of Dick Smith, but I strongly disagree with your criticisms.

<< Growth is not like a faulty air conditioning unit on a house, which can be replaced or removed while the house goes on functioning more or less as before. It is so integrated into so many structures that if it is dumped those structures will have to be scrapped and replaced. >>

But we wouldn't be dumping growth! With a so-called zero-growth economy, we would still have growth, but just not enormous expansionism.

There seems to be a big inherent fault in your argument; you have lumped good growth and bad growth together, with no differentiation.

The sort of growth that we need to get away from is expansionism. That is: just more and more of the same, just increasing the scale, increasing demand, increasing resource exploitation, increasing waste production, increasing pressure on the environment and life-support systems….without increasing the average per-capita gains or quality of life.

The sort of growth that we need to continue with is technological advancement, improved efficiencies, renewable alternatives to currently non-renewable resources, etc. All of this would add up to a substantial continuation of growth and wealth-creation….and average per-capita gains, once the population-expansion part of the equation has been halted or greatly reduced….which is something that could so easily be done in Australia.

continued

<< The present economy is driven by the quest to get richer. This motive is what gets options searched for, risks taken, construction and development underway, etc. The most obvious alternative is for these actions to be come from a collective working out of what society needs, and organising to produce and develop those things cooperatively, but this would involve an utterly different world view and driving mechanism. >>

Yes this motive is all-powerful. But it would be just as powerful in a steady-state society. In fact, probably more so, because instead of big business moguls leaning on government and giving them big ‘donations’, to secure very high immigration and other favours and thus constantly increasing markets and profits, they’d have to be a bit more innovative about it all… which is exactly what the country needs – more capitalistic effort being put into things that are conducive to a sustainable society instead of being at great odds with it.

I think that Dick is right when he says that << a zero-growth economy is no threat to capitalism >>. Except that we should find a better term than ‘zero growth’.

Trainer's article is welcome in one respect in that he recognises the total impossibility of much of what Dick Smith wants. To get off the growth cycle, which Trainer and others so despise, we would have to get rid of the market economy, change our political system and, oh yes, change human nature.

It would be easier to wait for the collapse. Trainer and others should get busy and forecast just when this collapse will occur, so we can see the economic system ignore the forecast.

Ludwig,I would be intrigued to know you easy solution to population growth. The Chinese and Indians have been trying to do that for the past 60 years and they have only succeeded in trebling their respective populations, even without any immigration programs. Because of that your whole argument is very tenuous methinks.

David

"It would be easier to wait for the collapse. Trainer and others should get busy and forecast just when this collapse will occur, so we can see the economic system ignore the forecast."

Curmy, you are probably right, although it should not take too much of a brain and some available resources for some PhD student to make his/her mark and calculate what sort of a time frame we are looking at.

David

The easy way for consumption to be slowed, is to stop the principle of regulating up wages as the cost of scarce resources goes up. This is a labour/green/left wing policy, the very people who make a lot of noise about the environment.
The other side is, how is the agriculture sector, a sector of the economy that is totally exposed to the world market for income going to be able to continue much longer paying non world market prices for the resources it needs to produce food and fibre?
These domestic prices are now several times the market price on the world . This makes it possible for the domestic protected consumers in the urban areas to consume huge amounts of resources.

Ted may be a little constrained in his approach to this problem, and i think misses the gist of what Dick is arguing. Obviously the steady state economy cannot be achieved overnight, and necessary preconditions must be underway to allow for transition.

Firstly, and vitally, the need to stabilise, and even reduce global population growth to below replacement level will remove the most significant driver of consumption growth and resource depletion. This will entail a recognition that we must finally deal with unacceptable levels of poverty in developing nations, largely achieved by a transfer of wealth from the West. This will not be voluntary, but wil eventually be seen as a necessary requirement to ensure our species' survival.

Secondly, we will need to transition our economy from the wasteful use of finite resources to one entirely based on renewable source, industrial scale recycling and recovery of everything that can, within energy constraints, be resused. As around 200 corporations are responsible for around 80% of global output, it is feasible to legislate for a total-recycle economy.

Once we in the process of population reduction and living within resourse restraints then productivity gains, technological advance and 'good growth' in intelectual and social pursuits will allow a profit motive to drive change--it's just that we will measure 'profit' by different metrics. Monetary gain alone will no longer be the driver...recreational time, health and psychological benefits, desirable social outcomes etc will become the new currency.

Of course this sounds utopian now, but soon enough the alternative will be self-destruction. As a species we will respond accordingly,

I always laugh when people start claiming that humanity is doomed because the world will soon have 10 billion people and that's more than it can supply for. They miss the pure stupidity of this argument that even my 10 year old niece understands: ie, you can only get to 10 billion if there is enough food to feed them in the first place.
The population doesn't increase by itself, if can only increase in response to available food- so if we ever get to have 10 billion people on the planet than it means that we have more-or-less enough food to feed those 10 billion.
Now before you claim that this is wrong otherwise people would never starve I encourage to research the proportion of starving people with-respect-to the total global population of even the worst cases of famine. Since industrialization the portion is very small and for those who live in a capitalist society it is basically non-existent (with the exception of Ireland: the famines were caused by a English oppression and potato blight- but not by free market economy).
All cases of shortages in food have been due to non-free markets events- such as poor distribution due to political events- eg: war or local whether events such as flooding /drought or an economic system with bad/non-existent price signals used to determine the amount to grow eg:communism or plant disease. These causes are mitigated by modern democratic free market society: eg-capitalism provides large scale irrigation schemes and research into disease and stable democratic societies have reduced losses caused by conflict and allow for long term planning.

VK3AUU - actually they have been setting time frames for decades, and this or that limit, only for the forecasts to be proven completedly wrong by events.

Back in the 1960s a science fiction writer Harry Harrison, after considerable research, projected the trends of the time to come up with a nightmare world of a crowded New York where you travelled by boat and food was scare. The book "Make Room! Make Room!" was made into the 1970s film Soylent Green. This nightmare world was set in the then impossibly distant time of 1999.

Just a science fiction writer I hear you say? Then why don't we look at the career and many failed predictions of Paul R. Ehrlich, an otherwise distinquished professor of population studies who forecast 100s of millions of deaths from starvation in the 1970s.

Those are just two example. This sort of thing has been going on so long now that it has become a byword for nonsense. Time to move on.

Curmudgeon,

I'd offer the Indian experience as a pertinent example of the limits of unsustainable practice.

Do you agree that the Green Revolution in that country and the ensuing soil degradation and water table depletion is something that will rebound on the fortunes of that country in the near future?

Just because something works for a time in an unsustainable fashion, doesn't mean it has no limit.

I was always taught that the more affluent a population becomes and particularly the more educated the women folk become the less babies they want to have.

So I don't see an issue for the future of the west as it's numbers should decrease, while being propped up by the rest of the world, until the rest of the world reach a similar standard of living the west has enjoyed for quite a while, and then they will start to enjoy single and 2 child families.

Maybe cultural norms to do with large families will continue for a while but I doubt it once they take on consumerist values, and I can only see Africa remaining poor and their kids still dying of starvation and disease.

' Nothing to stop people living like that right now, and some choose to do just that, usually when they are young and fit.'

Agreed. I always laugh at all this warbling about the evils of consumerism. The very people most scared about it are the very people who aren't living in a commune saving rare species of bird and having group hugs every morning and giving all their worldly possessions to the poor.

If it's all so much fun, you have perfect opportunity to deny yourself all the wonders of capitalist consumerism you want while you're self-flagellating. Oh, I hear you, you want others to do it with you. Well, you first. I'll be right behind you, I promise.

So, for global warming Australia should make a symbolic effort with it's 1% emissions, but the individual anti-consumerist is still waiting for 'society' to change before they do. Lead the way with your wonderful radical spirit to save the world, and reduce your consumption to barely nutritious food, shelter and 1 set of clothes. Do you really even need electricity at all? Talk is cheap.

It all seems very... worthy, doesn't it, to stand on a soap-box and preach at us about limiting growth. I have asked many times, without success, how anybody believes that population reduction can be brought about in a free society. But that doesn't stop the endless sanctimony about how we are betraying our children, or whatever the current mantra might be.

thinkabit offers a simple remedy for the the shrinkists, which will ease their paranoia:

>>The population doesn't increase by itself, if can only increase in response to available food<<

But still we get the oddest of claims. Ludwig takes today's prize:

>>With a so-called zero-growth economy, we would still have growth<<

An interesting concept. How does it work?

Apparently there is "good growth" and "bad growth". Which is fine in theory, but unfortunately relies upon zero population growth to be achieved first...

>>... once the population-expansion part of the equation has been halted or greatly reduced<<

Without labouring the point Ludwig, you have placed the cart well and truly before the horse. After all, the "technological advancement, improved efficiencies" that are prerequisites for your model, will happen anyway.

In fact, they are far more likely to occur in a situation where increasing population is the driving force.

If you are able to fill in the missing piece - how we actually achieve "stable population" without trashing our economy and/or eliminating personal freedoms - I'm all ears.

Nothing about AGW for a change? Still, the argument is the same: steady as she goes, or cripple our economy NOW and drive millions of people NOW into poverty and hopeless despair, because of something that MIGHT otherwise happen at some unspecified time in the future -- when many of us will be dead and past caring, and the rest will quite likely have worked out a way to deal with it.

Move along; nothing new to see here.

A good summary Jon J

Poirot
your comment on India is a closer shot but I still won't pay it. If any of our brave forecasters had declared that we will have a green revolution but there will be increasing pressure on our agricultural system then I would have been much more impressed.

Sure you can say that the Indian land and water table are under pressure, just as you can say that about Aus, but what does that mean for future agricultural productivity? You could have said exactly the same thing 20-30 years ago, and declared that this cannot possibly go on, only to find that it did go on.

If you want a cause for concern, check out the recent slowdown in the agricultural productivity stats on the ABARES site (at least, I think that's where they are..). Distinct slow down in the past decade. May be just temporary but you never know..

As the capitalist system is entirely dependent on capital accumulation( in the Marxist sense),this renders most of the diagnosis and comment wishful thinking. Leslie

Pericles, many people have offered ways of limiting population in a free society.

They have been:

- increase the wellbeing of developing nations including access to education and a welfare safety net
- don't introduce policies that drive population growth such as Peter Costello's 'one child for each parent and one for the economy' approach
- don't introduce baby bonuses or similar middle class welfare schemes (this can be done in well managed economies without negatively impacting the poor)
- better planned and staged immigration processes with flexibility to adapt to changing requirements

Increasing the population of Australia in large numbers in which 90% of the land is arid and moving billions of people from one land mass to another that cannot hope to cope with the burden is not the solution.

The idea of open borders (worldwide) would only work if there were a uniformity of government and governance.

I know it is not that simple but in the broader global picture, the key is to reduce the dominance of Western influence over world economics and allow developing nations to modernise and share in the spoils. Population growth will take care of itself as a natural consequence of democracy and stability. How to achieve that is not an easy answer.

One of the best books ever written about poverty/population was 'How the Other Half Dies' by Susan George. An oldie but still very relevant today.

Ted Trainer's manna from heaven for me. It goes against the grain for me to agree with anyone 100%, but Ted's dead right. The only thing I'm disappointed about is he's pre-empted me--plagiarised me before I got the chance to write it down!
Capitalism without growth is not capitalism--it cannot be reformed and it cannot be sustained. Capitalism is doomed, though I think a neo-feudalism is more likely than a peaceful transition to socialism. As Marx insisted, revolution always proceeds by its bad side, and the capitalists are not going to throw open the doors voluntarily.
These days power is not only constituted in wealth and castle walls, but also in the power to act pre-emptively. The world's governments will continue on as if there's no tomorrow and the planet's resources are infinite, and their eager constituents will hold-on devoutly too, but the various exigencies--peak oil, economic meltdown, food, water and refugee crises etc.--will quickly erode their confidence and the hegemony the system has relied upon hitherto.
Capitalism was at a similar crisis between the wars (it was fascism then too, btw, and not communism that was the threat), but it was averted by Keynesianism. Since then generations (in the West) have grown up thinking everything's honky-dory, everything's just as God intended. Which is why most people simply cannot take dudes like Ted seriously. He's challenging the only kind of life and world-view they can imagine--sanctioned by God (he's a very partisan God). Anything else is unthinkable. I call it the "Paris Hilton syndrome", though admittedly it's mostly more modest than that.
Modern western hybrid humanity just cannot conceive of life outside the hothouse, without drip-feed. Not their fault, it's all they've ever known. But as Ted points out, that's the future (unless the powers that be opt for a "humane cull", so better toughen up.
Dick Smith can go off and fantasise with Tim Flannery and the other orchids!

Thinkabit,

I hope you're not teaching the children you claim can reason out fatal flaw in the theory of social collapse--i.e. that we cannot grow to 10 million if there is not the food to sustain such a population. I;m afraid that both history and science show numerous cases where in fact this is not the case. History is littered with civilisations that have been at their most numerous and powerful at the moment directly before their collapse. (try reading jared Diamond for evidence) Studies in biology also show that the high point of a colony is reached immediately before precipitous extinction

Now consider that our entire agro-food complex is entirely based on access to petro-chemicals at every stage of production and distribution. We effectively eat oil. There will be more oil for 40 years or so, allowing us to reach UN projected populations of around 10 billion. After that however, no one can be sure just how calamatous the inevitable collapse may be. Do some research and see if you remain so sanguine about our prospects.

VK3UU and Curmudgeon,

Try googling Iran birthrates and see what you find.

I understand they reduced their birts from 6.5 per woman to less than 2 per woman. Done through education with support of religion.

That seems to me to be a good step in the right direction.

Here is a wikipedia link and there are other docs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_planning_in_Iran

<< Ludwig, I would be intrigued to know you easy solution to population growth. >>

VK3AUU, it is just so blitheringly easy in Australia. Get rid of high immigration and the baby bonus … and Bob’s your uncle!

But yes, it’d be a whole lot harder in India or Africa or for the whole planet.

We’ve got a global effort to address climate change. So why on Earth isn’t there a global effort to stop population growth and properly address sustainability? This makes no sense to me.

If we put our minds to it, I reckon we could easily come up with policies that would encourage significantly lower birthrates and immigration rates in developed countries and assist third world countries with contraception, education for women, and all the other things that go towards improving quality of life and reducing birthrates.

Banjo gives a great example of what can be achieved in countries in which many of us would have thought there’d be no chance of significantly reducing population growth. We just need a concerted effort to expand these concepts globally.

But then, it would take a whole lot of effort on the global scale… and by far the easier thing to do would be to just wait for the collapse, as Curmy says, and then pick up the pieces, and perhaps learn from the disaster that we need to live sustainably. That’s a real option. In fact, it is about 99.9% certain to happen.

<the "technological advancement, improved efficiencies" that are prerequisites for your model, will happen anyway.

In fact, they are far more likely to occur in a situation where increasing population is the driving force.>

If this were true, Pericles, you would see it in parts of the world with higher population growth. Unfortunately, what you often encounter are cesspits of misery and deprivation. The limiting fact is that a life requires a physical infrastructure, and that infrastructure costs money. Grow the population too quickly and you face the prospect of degrading living standards and incurring debt. Even Australia's recent high population growth is a case in point.

The world's population would stabilise if contraception were made available to those people who wanted it. This will only happen when those in power consider the benefits from a stable population to outweigh the value of slaves and cannon fodder which come from rapidly growth.

<< But still we get the oddest of claims. Ludwig takes today's prize: >>

Yay!

To repeat my prize-winning statement: With a so-called zero-growth economy, we would still have growth.

<< Apparently there is "good growth" and "bad growth" >>

YES, Pericles! And you know perfectly well what I mean. Obviously, growth which is made up of the continuous expansion of population and of economic turnover needed to supply goods and services to that population, to the extent that we just have ever more of the same, with no average gains for all of society, is BAD growth!

If we do away with this, we’d still have the good growth, which is as you quote: technological advancement, improved efficiencies, etc.

The only thing that is misleading is the term; ‘zero-growth economy’. We don’t want that. We want a zero population growth society with a growing economy, which can actually provide an improvement in per-capita income and quality of life.

With a zero population growth society, we could have an economy that is growing at a much lesser rate than at present but which would provide much more benefit to the community.

This is all very basic.

<< In fact, they [technological advancement and improved efficiencies] are far more likely to occur in a situation where increasing population is the driving force. >>

Yes, where increasing population pressure is driving the need for them. That is; where the ever-greater strains that population pressure is placing on our society, environment and resource base is driving the need for better ways of dealing with it. In other words, technological advancement and improved efficiencies would basically be chasing the tail of population growth and trying to reduce its negative effects.

Obviously it would be far more preferable to stop this absurd regime of continuously increasing pressure and use our technological abilities to actually produce real improvements rather than competing with the negative pressures and trying (and failing) to maintain the status quo.

So um, why did I win that prize again?

I am not convinced that the fundamentals of the economic system would have to totally change.

Let's remember that the vast majority of Australians are not getting signficantly wealthier, and any wage rises are simply maintaining their current wealth. It is only a minority of already wealthy individuals that are getting significantly wealthier from continued growth. The biggest shock due to a steady state economy will be for the wealthiest individuals while significant pressure will be taken off the vast majority of Australians.

No interest payments......well I doubt that there will be many Australians complaining about that.

One thing is clear how ever. A steady state economy would be capable of sustaining far fewer people. So steady state economy and population decline would go hand in hand until a stable configuration is reached. We have been there before in historical times.

In fact the way our modern economy has evolved 'wealth' for a minority is conjured from generation of debt for all the 'serfs'.

In fact I would argue that we are already in a zero net growth economy.

We are in a boom bust cycle and if you look at a graph economic activity over a long period you will probably find it oscillates around a fixed level. E.G. Housing boom followed by housing bust in the US and Ireland. Especially in the last few decades given that we are at or close to peak everything.

But perhaps GDP is an inadequate measure of economic activity as it is apparently very selective of what it actually captures. For example it does not take account of economic loss due to natural disasters, but only measures the increased economic activity associated with re-building.

And in such a boom bust steady state economy we are not doing that bad really. Its just that the level of economic activity around which we oscillate to be substantially reduced, along with populations.

The really big lie espoused here by Ted Trainer and Dick Smith is that Australia is over populated.Without immigration our pop would be falling.They want immigration to drive down wages and subjugate the masses.The elites like Dick Smith won't reduce their consumption of energy because they want more power.

You don't have to destroy the living standards of 95% of the planet to improve the environment.What their real objective is to bring a world totalitarian Govt in,paid for by carbon taxes and their debt money system which in fact owns our increases in GDP anyway.

The rush bring in this world Govt is spurred on by rising awareness and they fact that science in on the verge of find cheap alternate enegy sources that will make individuals freer.We also have new concepts like Bitcoin evolving which allows for the exchange of money directly between computers negating the greedy banks.

We can reduce pop by a system of rewards and punishments.With 2 children per family,pop falls due to death rates and infertility.We don't need wars of imperialism and abject poverty for all to achie pop control.There is always a better way.

This New World Order is not about freedom and democracy.It will be our worst nightmare.

Oh gawd!

Another conspiracy theorist.

What a load of crap arjay.

Why do we rely on Money as a stimulus for development and advancement surely there is other ways.
Population concerns are already showing, how many countries are revloting because the cost of living is out of control.
Will we see an escalation of this.
Is this because they dont have the resources or poor government or both.
I am a firm believer that something must be done either control population or do our best to remove ourselves from the bonds of this planet.
I dont know when it will happen but something bad will, all for the sake of the dollar,yen or mark.
I'm no expert but im worried
I hope I dont sound like a loony!

Mr Windy. Julia Gillard has signed an agreement with the UN that 10% of our carbon taxes goese them.This is not in the realm of conspiracy.Just Google New World Order and see who espouses it.

This is the thin end of the wedge and Carbon taxes are not about saving the environment.

arjay, come back when you find your brain.

David

"I am a firm believer that something must be done .......to remove ourselves from the bonds of this planet."

You are talking about space colonies etc and I have pointed out the major flaw in this strategy to others on countless occasions.

For the forseeable future any such space colonies would be critically dependant on finite Earth resources for their maintenance and construction - water, oxygen, food, replacement parts, new components,.......

So moving excess human beings into space will not reduce pressure on planet earth and is therefore no solution at all.

There is only one viable solution and that is fertility control, involuntary or voluntary, and population reduction.

Thinkabit,

Peasant farmers usually manage to survive crop failures. They tighten their belts, borrow money to buy in food until the next harvest, and hope for the best. What made the Irish Potato Famine such a hideous disaster was that a great many families were living on plots of land that were too small to feed them on anything but potatoes. (Potatoes were vastly more productive than grain under Irish conditions.) The average land holding was only 0.2 hectares. This was partly due to the British, who had commandeered large areas of the best land to grow export crops, and partly due to the Irish themselves, who had blown out their population from perhaps 1.2 million in 1600 to 8.5 million in the 1840s. The late blight kept coming back year after year, and the people had nowhere to turn. There is an account of this in "Dirt: the Erosion of Civilizations", by soil scientist David R. Montgomery.

So Mr Windy cannnot refute the reality.All we see is ad hominem and no logic or facts.

Mr windy, breaking the bonds of this planet might not mean leaving it, it could also be managing how we all live on it.
I agree totally that decreasing the overall requirements we place on ourselves as a animal species and work so that sustainability is achieved is the desired result.
Basically less people...under-developed countries have a much higher population per sq. mtr. than developed countries because we are more self-indulgent, thats why we require a high rate of immigrants or, because of their over populated state, refugees.
Auatralians are leading in de-population, only the government and business want large populations so they can continue making obscene profits,

Divergence, thank you for filling in my argument the Irish over-populated their total agri area...terrible how many died....I already believe that we, as we stand now have over populated, it already requires the world to redistribute the food supplies e.g africa in a terrible state, how many people could survive in Indonesia if their protien intake was totally stopped.

If we really want to de-populate just stop sending food out! very humanitarian NOT

Just look at the arable areas in our wonderful country great around the edges nearly bloody useless in the middle.

Ted Trainer,

Humanity is uniquely the cause of its own troubles, troubles that, paradoxically, cannot but grow in size as humanity grows in numbers.

No human can modify in any way the conditions of humanity as a whole.

What remains to us is only to wait for the inevitable or, I should say, the inexorable.

Methinks our author is just a little skew-balled.

Poirot posted: "Just because something works for a time in an unsustainable fashion, doesn't mean it has no limit." How right you are, Monsieur Poirot!

"Bitcoin"? (As Arjay has mentioned.) Money transfer between computers? The new cash economy? This, and overseas internet purchasing (avoiding GST), will either revolutionise trade - with an end to GST and VAT, etc, and with implications for income tax collection - or the powers will find a way to stop it or harness it. Interesting.

Full-on barter system, community banks, community veggie gardens, biomass (dung) communal electricity, home-solar and water recycling abounding - have we got it licked or what? All we need is sustainable bio-fuel to take the place of oil. What's the problem?

One good move toward equity, for all, would be to minimise (or banish) graft, corruption, warlords and repressive authoritarian regimes by mandating transparent banking - so no-one could "hide" assets. Maybe there should also be limits on private wealth, with any excess confiscated and re-distributed. How many villas, mansions and yachts does a person really need? But, will the wealthy just have more kids, so they can spread (and keep) the wealth? Hmmm.

MickC, we are not yet at the "dire" stage, and with goodwill and reasoned effort I'm reasonably confident we can avoid Armageddon. Patience, toil and pressure, and eventually the powers will get the message.

Zero-growth, growth economy? Methinks the elephant in the room is the unexpected - oil spills wrecking the marine food supply, global warming doing the same, dams and over-irrigation despoiling groundwater and rendering soils useless for agriculture, chemical production rendering the atmosphere toxic, nuclear accident (not war), or super-virus, ending overpopulation once and for all.

Let's not be hard on Arjay fellers, he has great talent for finding interesting links and tidbits, and for keeping all of us on your toes.

Mr Windy, you are a fount of sci and tech know-how, so surely you can devise an alternative sustainable boundless supply of energy? Common, you can do it! Think, think! We need you.

Wow, Saltpetre. Smiley-face. (Sorry, I promised myself to never use an emoticon)

Is there any way of satisfying everybody?

Let those advocating growth select a number they feel reasonable. 150,000?

Stop immigration for one year. During that year, Australia has to create sufficient, but NEW, sustainable infrastructure – water supply, sewage treatment, power generation, et cetera – for 150,000 people. Politics should decide whether this is one new city, three towns of 50,000 or any other combination. None of this would be permitted in capital cities.

At the end of the year we recommence immigration to the number of people we have developed a capacity to support.

We continue building new infrastructure as we are able to, immigration numbers being adjusted after the fact.

In this way growth is ALWAYS based on what we have shown we can sustain as a nation.

Guaranteed growth and guaranteed sustainability. Possible?

A new world order: Camping out under the stars, or Fibre-Internet and plasma TV's for all? Contraceptives in the water supplies, or sell the holiday home and forget that overseas trip? Decisions, decisions.

So many priorities demanding attention and action, as WmTrevor put it, "to leave the world better than we found it", and as I think Ammonite posted, "we have not inherited this earth from our Fathers, we are merely borrowing it from our Children". So, Capital "C" Capitalism, or little "c" commune-ism?

In Oz we have so much work to do already, to correct all the deficiencies in the opportunities afforded to our Indigenous Australians, to revitalise and strengthen our industry, economy and welfare, to manage immigration and the treatment of refugees, to improve education and health care, ... and so the list goes on. And yet, we have not only single-handedly to stop global warming, but to end world poverty and to save the planet? Fair suck of the sav!

To borrow from many other posters: Emotion and rationality, experience, belief, education, politics, personal philosophy, family, friendships, career, lifestyle, quality of life, etc .. - all competing to determine, shape and mold our "world-view" and our priorities. So, what is the possibility of "Oz-think", let alone "global-think"? Science has breached many boundaries, yet a "science" of rationality, of "common sense", seems far off.

The world is currently like a stampeding herd, voraciously gobbling scarce and non-renewable resources, bursting at the seams with over-population, and running out of control with abuse, starvation and poverty. A "doppelganger" of disparity, disenfranchisement and devil-may-care. At once tremendous potential, and even greater destructive capacity. How, when and where will either the denouement or the implosion be determined?

And yet, we can have our cake: if all the "Wall Streets" are made simple clearing houses for contracts, all brokers become merely deal-arrangers, and all returns are limited to matching the CPI; all Government and Private investments and deals go through the World Clearing House; all wages are set on a sustainability-contribution basis; repression and abuse outlawed; no second warnings; big, tough, love.

WmTrevor, I have a terrible habit of mixing tongue-in-cheek with the serious, just to lighten the load. Get's me in all sorts of strife.

I would dearly love for Oz Not to get any bigger, population-wise, but for us to do a lot better with what we have. We are "the Lucky Country", in ways too numerous to recount, and I would just hate to see all that go to the wall because of some overblown misplaced sense of "humanity" which demands we take all the world's refugees because we feel sorry for them or feel badly about the deprivation and abuse from which they have flown.

My view is that it is necessary to solve the problems existent in their home countries. Difficult, but not impossible. "Give a man a fish and he eats for a day; give him the means to fish, and he eats for a lifetime." Or, as my old man used to say, "I will help any man to shoulder his burden, but I will not carry it for him."

I'm afraid we need to get tough. We in the West have gotten "soft" - not that we are just going to sit back and be taken advantage of - but there is a line, and it is approaching. EU is getting tough on refugees, Roma or Gypsies moved on, racial intolerance, sovereign debt straining philanthropy, tensions mounting, middle-east boiling over. Things cannot go on this way.

The reality is, dictators and repressive regimes have to be overthrown, and the Third World revitalised. The gloves have got to come off - and before things get too out of hand. Libya is a test case maybe, and is not going well. Syria is even worse. Is "shock and awe" the only way to get through to some of these regimes? I don't have the answer; but an answer must be found.

As for Oz, we need to stay as self-contained as possible, or we can only bring further strife upon ourselves. Selfish? No, just practical. No point in importing more heartache.

Saltpetre said;
Things cannot go on this way.

Oh yes I am afraid they can and probably will.
What has not been mentioned by any here, haven't read all, is that it
will not be a matter of zero growth but of contraction.

At present we mostly look at an increase in energy for growth.
The real problem is can we scramble around to find enough sources of
energy to keep the steady state ?

If we cannot by means of solar, wind, nuclear, geothermal etc be
able to apply those electrical sources, then we will be in contraction.

If so then we had better start a Clydesdale draft horse breeding
program.

"The reality is, dictators and repressive regimes have to be overthrown"

Saltpeter, dictators and over population go hand in hand.

As populations out grow the regions resource base competition for them between rival groups (religious and ethnic) grow.
One of those groups win political power and coopt the greatest share of those resources for themselves.

It has happened throughout human history, is happening now and will happen for ever more.

If the current regimes in Syria etc fall then they will be replaced by a new regime representing other groups in those societies that will then oppress those groups who fomerly held power.

This vicious cycle will continue, and get worse, as long as their populations continue growing.

It will only end when their fertility and their populations fall to more sustainable levels consistent with the resoruces base of their territories.

You are absolutely right, Mr. Windy

Not even the most tyrannical dictator could stay in power if a significant proportion of the population (or a bigger foreign power) didn't support him. This is all part of an ongoing pattern where people outbreed their resources, overexploit their environment, and then fight over resources among themselves or with neighbouring groups. Religion and ethnicity make great rallying points when people are joining up sides. A large amoung of supporting evidence for this position can be found in "Constant Battles" by Prof. Steven LeBlanc (Archaeology, Harvard). See also

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

In LeBlanc's book, he talks about how shocked he was as a young archaeologist excavating in the American Southwest. Far from finding evidence of peaceful, noble Indians living in harmony with the environment and with each other, he found fortified settlements, widespread evidence of environmental degradation, collections of trophy heads, and whole villages massacred and the bodies left unburied. Judging by damage to skeletons, at least 25% of the men died violent deaths in raids or battles. There have been similar findings all over the world.

Since the real problem is now culture (since development makes it easy to stabilise population), any genuine help has to involve helping the more rational people in these societies to change attitudes and thus cultural patterns that have become dysfunctional. See these initiatives based on the work of Miguel Sabido in Mexico.

http://www.populationmedia.org/who/
http://www.alternet.org/story/147131/strange_but_true:_how_soap_operas_might_save_us_from_overpopulation?page=entire

Until we change the political systems world wide, so that equal say (not equal oportunity) is involved then nothing will change.
We in this country are now so close to being a repressed culture that I cant believe that no-one can see it.
How many politicians have you heard say "This is the ...... we need to have", how do they know I wasnt asked.
Tell me the last time you heard a company say "We can reduce the price because we have enough money now", my pockets are only so deep but theirs seem over flowing.
Most of the big money earners are in the financial system, why is this so, they produce nothing, they give no real advancement to human rights, they restrict meaningful research and development, how did MONEY become so IMPORTANT, is it because of greed, the want of ever more and more.
Big business are not much different.
All they see is that they have to gather money, more and more of it, what for, so that they can sell more shares on the stock market, another institution that does nothing for human advancement.
But they all have one idea that is sure to work, increase the population so they can make more money, like the song in the movie 'Cabaret' says "money makes the world go round" but only if you have it.
If money was cheap or not at all where would we be, better technology,better human rights even the Animal activists might be happier (if that is possible).
What are we going to leave our future generation,as slaves to the people with everything intead of being equal. The longer and larger we become as a population we must change to equality as the operating system but this will not happen with the all powerful MONEY to worship

Saltpetre, 'twas an expression of admiration for the great post I'd just read.

It was why I was prompted to offer one simple solution which might satisfy all of us.

Regards.

Who is going to rationally and deliberately plan the distribution?
Who is going to determine what society needs?
Who is going to organise to produce and develope what is needed?

They tried to do all these things in the communist system with disastrous consequences.

Yes, there is a yearning for collective action. There is a vague idea that competion as we undertand it is not sustainable, and cooperation is better.

How to achieve this without coercion,(which is unacceptable), is to redefine what it is to be human. This may have far reaching repercussions, while retaining independence of thought and action that is so vital to our existence.

Istvan, valid questions. Thank you for showing my description might imply mushrooming 'new towns' populated by 'relocated' citizens. I didn't intend that, as a libertarian wouldn't want it and as an Australian citizen I know it won't happen in our democracy. Should have said, "equivalent to a city of 150,000" and not bothered to mention anything about distribution.

I was trying to find a way of easily establishing a target for growth in population, which is near term, incremental and based on what we've shown we can support without reducing our existing 'standards of living'.

Everything would continue exactly as it is now with all levels of government, private enterprise, entrepreneurs, trades and businesses continuing to provide essential and other infrastructure and services. Doing whatever it is they do and however and wherever they do it. No change, no coercion.

Maybe this will describe the idea better – if in the last 12 months our population increased 1%, but the number of available hospital beds didn't, then we have a simple measure that, in terms of hospital beds, the nation is slightly worse off. Whether there were enough hospital beds in the first place is a separate issue with which government and private enterprise has to deal, however they do so now.

Applying this concept to a handful of measures – suppliable water, generated power, housing stock, schools and hospitals – would yield a percentage for population increase based on 'already' increased infrastructure. Everyone gets on with their lives unchanged. We may not be better off for such a population increase, but at least we would not be worse off in terms of water, power, housing, schools and hospitals.

Currently population growth is tinkered with at government whim. Australia has the good luck to be able to control our rate of population increase through immigration levels. The idea I'm suggesting would only be coercive on government and is limited to an annual target figure.

And, as you so clearly say, "Each of us would retain our independence of thought and action that is so vital to our existence".

Wm Trevor and Istvan,

You have both raised serious questions, in a serious response to this issue. In my previous posts, although generally of serious intent, I have been very broad-brush. I will try to do better here, though my position on this issue is rather severe - as I really think the current world situation is rapidly becoming untenable, and that urgent and stern action is required to avoid a very substantial crisis.

Although I agree with the concept of pre-preparation for future Oz immigration intakes, my position at this time is that immigration be strictly limited to essential skilled labour only, and then only when proven essential on a national interest basis, and not just on an individual industry or business basis - because, world overpopulation and world largesse are major and pressing problems of ill-appreciated magnitude, and any Oz facilitation of a continuation of these problems should therefore be seriously resisted. (This also means getting very tough on refugee status approval, unfortunately.)

I am fully satisfied that global warming, overpopulation and materialistic largesse are co-conspiratorial components of a looming resource crisis of such extent and impact that errors will almost be unavoidable, and the consequences of which could be devastating - in terms of starving millions, of unprecedented conflict on a local and possibly international scale, and of potential environmental degradation of near catastrophic and irrecoverable proportion.

Doomsday? Not if appropriate and very serious preemptive action is commenced in proper time.
TBC>

Wm Trevor and Istvan, (Continued:)

Consider: There are repressed millions surviving just short of starvation, many thousands surviving only on handouts from the
West, and thousands simply dying of starvation. At the same time, Prada is being floated on the Hong Kong exchange, and expected to be valued at $B11-13 - a manufacturer of luxury goods catering to the vanities of the rich, vain, self-centred and totally unconcerned glitterati. Where can one find justice or justification in this biploar scenario?

At this same time, the instigators of the global financial crisis are continuing to receive millions in salaries and bonuses, quite unperturbed.

In the Congo thousands are in virtual slave labour to supply diamonds to western vanity, and which enable warlords to buy weaponry by which they remain immune from intervention by their national government.

Idiots are consuming millions of shark's fins - at tremendous waste of real food, and damage to the marine ecosystem - although it has no food value, and whose consumption is probably based on a cultural tradition which probably dates from a time when it was actually difficult to catch a shark. The same probably applies to the use of ivory and rhino horn, tiger penis and bear bile. What kind of a world are we living in, and what kind of world do we want? Moreover, when are the ordinary people going to demand it? Is the revolution for justice in the middle-east going to stop there? How well is the West responding to that current crisis, and what may the future hold.

Many questions, very few simple or palatable answers. Real justice must be addressed, and if it is left to China, I dread to imagine how that would turn out. Is it time to place the real cost of vanity and largesse in proper perspective?

Could reigning in western (and Eastern) largesse provide the breathing space necessary? Who, and how, remain in question. Could the real UN please stand up!

Ahhh, Saltpetre, you have indeed pointed out the risks ahead.
You might find some of Richard Heinberg's books of interest, such as
Peak Everything.
Some writers on this subject are more optimistic in that very happy and
satisfactory lives will be possible in smaller towns and communities.
Everything will become local and globalisation will have ended.

Large cities may be unmanageable and will dissolve into groups of
smaller areas. However I will not be around to see these changes but it
is quite possible my sons will see it all.

At last you guys have found a topic upon which you can concentrate you knowledge. I am enjoying the discussion and I look forward to your finding a resolution to the problems raised.

With all the comments made and opinions expressed I have the feeling that the subject matter is close to the hearts of every contributor and is high on the ladder of significance. Most of all I am happy that the discussion has not descended into personal attack so common in these pages.

Unfortunately, the contents have only scraped the surface of the problems confronted by humanity in its pursuit of development. Nothing has been said, for example, on the 'TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS", or the nature of specialisation (two only of the many contributors to the problems espoused by Trainer and Smith).

If we do not want an 'Easter Island' event to happen to humanity this is a subject that ought be resolved. It ought be addressed in Australia by our politicians. It ought be resolved by the world's leaders. But there is mounting reason to believe that this won't happen. Is it possible that the directors of this site will find a way to open this discussion to all peoples of the whole world for in-depth discussion across the boundaries of race, religion, and discipline? Is it possible to find a social solution? Must we put all our hope in the expectation of a scientific solution? Write to me at <byrnesmill.yahoo.au>