Cheryl. Your second sentence did make me smile.. An immage to amuse. It looks like I am a member of the " elephant in the room" cohort to which you refer, I do apologise... Yes, Africa is the population bomb I agree. I argue that with development and wealth generation these countries could have populations move into the birth rates evident in the countries you mention.
Curmudgeon, I would agree that with each prognostication of doom, gloom and catostrophic prediction of energy shortage, those damn boffins keep comming up with clever technologies to extract cost effective sources of energy.... They do muck up the doomists dont they ha ha.

AS long as humans produce biological waste and that waste can be converted to methane, we will never run out of energy. As long as waves crash into our southern shores, we will never run out of energy. As long as the sun shines and we can convert a solar thermal reaction to power a catalytically assisted cracking of the water molecule, we will never run out of energy; or, in this case, ultra cheap hydrogen, the endlessly renewable fuel of the future?
The problem is not population growth per se, but our fundamentally flawed economic reliance on it!
We we can get past that by instead concentrating on removing poverty and injustice in all its guises and forms, including mindlessly making it dearer, we will have created a far superior economic model; no longer dependant on population growth or designed obsolescence.
Making it dearer than it needs to be; only ever negatively impact the poor and or entrenches poverty; the opposite effect and outcome we want; if we truly want to actually reduce population growth; or indeed, see it humanely reversed.
The best alternative energy outcomes and the easiest transported around the world, will be the least expensive ones. Someone really needs to hammer that one into some really thick heads!
If economic improvement is the only real or conclusively proven way to reduce population growth; then it is the solution of choice we should all get behind and or target.
And a monumental improvement on mindlessly mouthed mantras like, make it dearer, make it dearer!

What LOSERS with too much Testosterone, Oestrogen (or both?) seem to selectively overlook is that INCREASING POPULATIONS never INCREASES their CHANCES.

OVERPOPULATION only EVER increases the chances of freak mutations which have the ability to supercompete with current human genetic strains.

The current genetically superior freaks are termed CEOs and they have one purpose in life: to screw LOSERS in order to DOMINATE dwindling ENERGY reserves.

Bit of PROPAGANDA here, some drugs there, fatty foods, a casino or two and a nice WAR:

Like taking CANDY from babies. And the more babies, the bigger profits we make before we set them all to killing each other while we watch and laugh.

Too easy!

Ha Ha Ha!

Its only a FINITE planet if you are a curmudgeonly genetic dead letter.

Julia Gillard's particular car industry support will go almost directly into best selling 4WD vehicles. She KNOWS! The deadly tailpipe, rubber on road and $$infrastructre overuse caused by 4WDs is an ELEPHANT that maintains a viscious class divide in Australia.

These vehicles are not people movers so much as class-warfare military weapons.

Gillard must be seen as the FRAUD she is on Climate change and Environmental issues. Charging the poor the brunt of Carbon taxes: pretending to compensate while corporations pass on bigger and bigger price rises. And when you can pay no more you will be so low as to be thankful to be sideswiped and killed by a drunken 4WD owner going to pick their kids up from kindy.

Ditch The Witch!

Cheryl:

...#.For one thing its written by someone who works and who isn't dancing half stoned in Byron Bay twirling a fire stick.#...

...Cheryl, you have a very negative view of Byron Bay! You should visit Byron Bay and see for yourself how beautiful and unpolluted it is! Huge number of people actually work there too! Another Tut, Tut, for the day!

No slight on Byron Bay, Diver Dan. Where else can a man or woman effectively retire on a disability pension for the rest of one's life and contemplate the universe on my tax dollars? More dolphin-spirit power to them.