A measured response Pericles. Thanks.

@Pericles: At which point "nature will take its course". I.e., a lot of people will die.

Which I take means you acknowledge the possibility of Malthus running riot in a few places on the planet, just not here in Oz. So we are closer than I thought.

@Pericles: The vast majority of the references are merely the cited opinions of like-minded folk.

Granted it is a majority. But that is as you would expect. You would hope most of the stuff she is aware of supports her position. Nonetheless even in the references I quoted she presents, references and critiques the strongest pro-growth arguments.

@Pericles: But it [growing population] does [grow GDP per capita], doesn't it. Factually speaking, that is.

Given the simplistic way the question is put I'm inclined to say all of you are wrong, factually speaking. Or at the very least deliberately distorting the true picture.

There is no doubt in my mind there is a virtuous cycle of greater population leading to greater rate of technological advancement, leading to increased productivity which means greater GDP per capita. So yeah, in some sense you are right.

But you are only right when certain conditions are met. It hasn't worked so well yet in Africa or Australian Aboriginals because they haven't these preconditions. Things like that big population being well educated, with lots of well staffed, stable institutions, and having both disposable income and lots of infrastructure at their disposal. Infrastructure such as houses, roads, hospitals, banks, electricity, dams, water, sewage and.... When you try to write it down it is a very long list. More to the point it is dammed expensive to build. My wild guestimate would be one working Australia's lifetime is needed to build the infrastructure they and their dependants use.

(cont'd...)

(...cont'd)

So if you grow the population instantaneously by 10%, the first thing that happens is everybody's living standard drops by 10% because they have to share that infrastructure. If you don't know what that feels like, I suggest asking someone in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne or Perth. Or perhaps take a peek at your last electricity bill. So in that sense "A Sustainable Population Strategy for Australia" is right. Expanding population lowers per capita GDP for a decade or two.

But this "you are both right" answer hides a greater truth. That population / technology / gdp feedback loop you are relying on to be right - there is one minor point you overlooked. You are using it to justify population growth in Australia, but the benefits we experience from it has very little to do with our population growth.

All those wonderful new technologies we keep getting - mobile phones, cheaper PV solar, high efficiency diesel cars, ipads, the internet, microwaves, LCD TV's, electric bikes - they didn't come from us. Yes, they have come about because of a rising world population forcing the pace of technological development, but our contribution to this was minuscule. We are riding on the coattails of the rest of the world. I am not saying we don't do our bit, just that our bit is commensurate with what you'd expect from 22 million in a world of 2 billion or so well educated people.

To put it another way, ask yourself what would Australia look like now it we had frozen our population when I was young, at 12 million. Would we not have microwaves, dryers, eftpos, laser guided tractors, computers, traffic lights, CNC machines - all the things our productivity has risen on the back of, and that have allowed us to put women back into the workforce? Of course we would.

(cont'd...)

(...cont'd)

So what would what effect would freezing out population have on standard of living in 50 years time? My guess is stuff all. It's the anti carbon tax argument in reverse. Just as whatever Australia does energy wise will have little effect on world CO2 output, whatever we do growth wise will have little effect on now technology advances and thus our GDP per capita. Ask Luxembourg. Their population growth 1960..2009 was 58%, ours 112%. Their GDP per capita in that period rose 451%, ours 170%. (Figures from: http://www.google.com/publicdata/overview?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_ & adjusted for inflation.)

I've just had to split this post into 3 posts, and whew, there is no need to point it out Pericles; I have spent far too many words explaining a point that could and perhaps should have been in Fiona's ebook. My excuse is I am trying to keep the score line tidy: successful rebuttals by Pericles to factual points made by Fiona: 0.

That was indeed the report from which I quoted, Jane Grey.

>>There is no association between population growth and per capita economic growth.<<

I didn't claim that there was. I was simply pointing out that the claim "[population growth] does not make Australian residents significantly better off as measured by GDP per capita" was plainly in error. As the (presumably factual) statistics show, Australia has simultaneously a) increased its population and b) increased its per capita GDP.

>>So yeah, in some sense you are right.<<

That would be in the sense of factual accuracy, would it not rstuart.

>>You are using it to justify population growth in Australia, but the benefits we experience from it has very little to do with our population growth<<

I'm not "justifying" population growth. I'm trying to explain that it is not the bogeyman, or the slasher hiding behind the curtain, or the evil monkey in the bedroom closet. It happens as a result of perfectly normal human beings going about their daily business, and being good and worthwhile citizens.

As far as I am concerned, we experience a reasonable standard of living in this country. In fact, compared to many others, we are living it up, big time. It personally wouldn't worry me a scrap is we trebled our population, while maintaining the same GDP-per-capita. On current trends, we'd still be ahead of most.

And this is more than a little little cheeky:

>>successful rebuttals by Pericles to factual points made by Fiona: 0<<

I just gave you the contradiction in footnotes 325 and 326. That makes it precisely one-nil, to me.

Pericles,

You haven't refuted anything by showing that both population and per capita GNP have gone up. Correlation is not causation. A number of European countries rank very high on both the World Economic Forum Competitiveness Index and the UN Human Development Index with very little or no population growth.

Globally, our standard of living is not sustainable because we are in overshoot, using up renewable resources faster than they can be replenished, quite apart from depletion of non-renewable resources. If we consumed at the global average, we would have a standard of living about like that of Romania and, without the overshoot, about like that of Ghana. Nor is this (mostly) due to greedy Westerners consuming too much. The top billion are responsible for about 38% of consumption. See

http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/ecological_footprint_atlas_2010

In Australia, we export about 60% of our grain in an average year and much less in a drought year. China and other countries are buying or leasing agricultural land overseas precisely because they are not confident that the international market will be able to supply them in the future. We already have serious conflict over water, and our cities are putting in desalination plants, even though desalinated water costs 4 to 6 times as much as dam water. With peak oil, peak phosphorus, etc., agricultural inputs are going to become scarcer and more expensive. Your idea of blithely tripling the population is incredibly irresponsible. However, I suspect that there is as much chance of convincing you otherwise as of convincing runner of evolution.

@Pericles: I was simply pointing out that the claim "[population growth] does not make Australian residents significantly better off as measured by GDP per capita" was plainly in error. As the (presumably factual) statistics show, Australia has simultaneously a) increased its population and b) increased its per capita GDP.

I am finding it difficult to believe you aren't being deliberately disingenuous. You are using a sample of 1, and assuming correlation implies causation. If you don't understand what this means Google "correlation causation", "anecdotal evidence" without the quotes. All that aside, did you bother to look at the reference Jane Grey posted? Figure 4.1 suggests if there is a relationship between population growth and a countries GDP/capita, it is the reverse of what you are suggesting. You are not debating runner or Philo here Pericles. No one is going to be convinced by convoluted reasoning or sleights of hand.

@Pericles: It personally wouldn't worry me a scrap is we trebled our population, while maintaining the same GDP-per-capita.

Nor would it worry me. But this is meaningless. This is like you saying "would you mind racing on suburb streets at 200 km/hr knowing there would be no accident?" We export roughly 50% of our food production, so if we trebled our population we would become a net food importer at a time when food prices are rising and our top agricultural scientists tell us the world is moving to a food deficit.

@Pericles: I just gave you the contradiction in footnotes 325 and 326

I missed it. Could you do me a favour and spell it out in simple terms?

@Pericles: And this is more than a little little cheeky

Maybe cheeky, but definitely accurate. You've posted 10 times here. Only one of those 10 contained a referenced rebuttal to the facts and reasoning presented by Fiona, and it was hopelessly weak. You haven't done us the common courtesy of digesting the arguments presented, and putting some thought into your replies.