Malcolm, Yeh OK, it’s just that you are about 30 years too late. Whilst those of us who can read, research and assess the UN related pontifications, get slam dunked as heretics, you sit on he sidelines until it is “safe” to offer an opinion.

Statement from IPCC official Ottmar Edenhofer before Cancun :
“… we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore...”

The term "sustainable development" was popularized in 1987 by the World Commission on Environment and Development. It refers to a systematic approach to achieving human development in a way that sustains planetary resources, based on the recognition that human consumption is occurring at a rate that is beyond Earth's capacity to support it. Population growth and the developmental pressures spawned by an unequal distribution of wealth are two major driving forces that are altering the planet in ways that threaten the long-term health of humans and other species on the planet.

As a result we see the Chinese demonized recently for their persecution of dissident Chen Guangcheng for opposing the forced sterilization of Chinese people. Yet we, the western democracies, participate in Agenda 21 dictates to support and pay for the precise opposite.

<< Tens of millions of pounds of UK aid money have been spent on a programme that has forcibly sterilised Indian women and men, the Observer has learned. The Department for International Development in 2010 cited the need to fight climate change as one of the key reasons for pressing ahead with such programmes. The document argued that reducing population numbers would cut greenhouse gases, although it warned that there were "complex human rights and ethical issues" involved in forced population control. --Gethin Chamberlain, The Observer, 15 April 2012 >>

And the hypocrisy is where? In the bloody box as normal!

@Squeers first time I have been labelled a right winger - but you raise a key problem with engaging in any meaningful discussion about population growth:

the way neo nazis in Europe have tended to use it as a trojan horse for their exnophobic rants.

@Rhiann we do have a population problem here - we are effectively living in a desert enjoying a lifestyle with an ecological footprint that takes aprox 6 earths to sustain it.

It is true that natural replacement rate is below zpg but we have a government that continues to use migration as a means of boosting population.

SPGN is opposed to migration but not to migrants. Migration is a policy that is pursued by governments - if our government iisues an invitation for people to come here then we can hardly hold migrants responsible for accepting that invitation.

Likewise SPGN is opposed to our refugee policy - both parties are more than happy to bring in migrants but are opposed to so-called 'boat people' If we limit our migrant intake to refugees regardless of how they get here we will still slow down our population growth.

SPGN is about challenging the conventional paradigm that economic and population growth is necessarily a good thing. Judging by the comments to the extraordinary rant in the article the majoirty of respondents share our concern. In an ideal world there would be a biparisan agreement that we need to stop population growth and live within our means. Until that happens there will be a need for parties like SPA and SPGN to offer an alternative point of view.

Baygon,
I didn't label you anything. I was referring to the title of the piece and this kind of thing: <I am more concerned with the right wing ideology buried within their systems thinking. Their instrumentalism heralds the rise of a right wing green theocracy.>

Usually it's a "communist" menace. I can't get my head around a "right wing" green "theocracy"?

Long time reader, first time poster.

King's article is a first class demolition job on those who favour cutting the population. I worked with him in the early 90s.

He worked for Kernot, Keating and Bracks in the mid 90s. Too long ago now to stick him with the ALP tag. He just doesn't like you.

Be sure that this article will go viral in the next week or so. It's his style. It will hang around the necks of the 'pop cutters' right up until election day.

Remember the killer from No Country From Old Men? That's King. Apart from that, quite a nice chap.

Australia does not have an over population problem.We have the lowest density of any continent on the planet.

These eco-facists support Agenda 21. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzEEgtOFFlM

Objectives;
*End to national sovereignty.
*Abolition of private property.
*Restructuring of the family unit.
*Limit/restrict mobility and individual opportunity.
*Expand national parks and put more people in stacked housing.

Listings of what is not sustainable.
*Private property
*fossil fuels
*golf courses and ski lodges
*consumerism
*irrigation
*paved roads
*commercial agriculture
*herbicides and pesticides
*farmlands and pastures
*family unit

This is all about a fascist one world Govt to give absolute power to the few over the many.Their agenda is massive depopulation under a single totalitarian Govt.

Ever heard of peak oil?
It is a forgone conclusion that the world population will tumble as peak oil increases but it will be very painful for those that are not in a position to have a “soft” landing, such as those we see on TV, starving in Africa.
The people who are in denial about the fact that humans are not all powerful and able to break natural laws are also the ones that are condemning the unfortunates who will starve to death, to a painful end, instead of working towards a “soft” solution.