SPQR,

Space resources are going to be essential to the long-term survival of our civilisation, but even if we had unlimited space solar power satellites built from space resources, there would still be a limit to how much energy we could use on earth due to the waste heat.

It is good that Pericles, unlike, say, Julian Simon, believes that population and energy consumption can't grow without limit, but he refuses to recognise that there are limits to what can be done with efficiency. See this dialogue between Tom Murphy and an economist.

http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist/

If Pericles had done a science degree instead of an accounting degree, he would realise that Nature is one tough mother, and that technologies don't always come along to order. What would the starving Irish during the Potato Famine have given for a potato variety that could resist the late blight or the Europeans back in 1348 for an antibiotic that could kill the plague bacillus? In the 1950s, people in responsible positions, such as the Chairman of the US Atomic Energy Commission, were telling people that their children would have electric power too cheap to meter (if only!), and there were confident statements about future cures for cancer and how people would have so much leisure that they wouldn't know what to do with it.

Pericles is like a teenager who is encouraging his friends to dive into a pool without checking the depth of the water. Just go on with business as usual growth and the technologies to keep everything going will magically appear.

He shows little interest in all the environmental warnings coming not from fringe Greenies, but from respected scientists who publish in Science and Nature. He also ignores the damage that the high immigration/population growth policy that he supports is doing to our security, social cohesion, personal freedom, and general quality of life, except for the rich, all for no real benefit to the average person even in narrowly economic terms.

Golly, this IS fun!

Three in a row, telling me variously that i) I have a "great love of population growth", ii) I should "understand that our population is growing as quickly as it is because of population targets set by the Lib/Labs?", and ii) I am "like a teenager who is encouraging his friends to dive into a pool without checking the depth of the water".

Ludwig, I have no "great love" for population growth. But as an immigrant to this country myself, I do have a fundamental dislike of the fortress Australia stance, so prevalent on this forum, on immigration. Largely because I have found it to be based on a deep-rooted dog-in-the-manger attitude: we were here first, go away. The mutterings about sustainable population are a mere smokescreen.

Matt Moran, of course the intake of immigrants is managed by the government. It is continually changing, however, and I expect it to be adjusted to meet our economic needs as a country, rather than the whims of the anti-immigration brigade. And a rise in GDP per capita is a rise in GDP per capita, whichever way you look at it. Suggesting that it is something else is to ignore reality.

And Divergence, it is pure fantasy to speculate "If Pericles had done a science degree instead of an accounting degree". For one thing, you haven't the faintest clue what sort of degree I have, and for another, when it comes to assessing the economic realities of living in Australia, I know which of the two you mention has greater credibility.

I don't "encourage" anyone to either procreate, or to immigrate, so your pool-diving simile is wasted, I'm afraid. I do however support a government that understands our need to optimize the resources we have, so that we can maintain the lifestyle to which we have become accustomed. My view is that reducing our population numbers will quite quickly put that lifestyle in jeopardy.

Suggesting that we can continue to move forward while standing still is to deny logic. As a scientist, you should be able to see that.

Pericles, not anti-immigration - for it, just at the right levels - we are not served economically by growing our population through immigration period - it will always outstrip the tax base - but nor do I support fortress Australia and that's not what I stand for or advocate - if you read what I wrote, at ho point did I suggest that. If you read my comment I talked about GDP and GDP per capita - GDP is tracking population, GDP per capita has stagnated. Perhaps Read it again ??

<< I do have a fundamental dislike of the fortress Australia stance >>

Pericles, what do you consider a fortress Australia stance to be?

Does net zero immigration, where immigration would simply not exceed the emigration rate but would still be substantial, fall under this banner?

This is what I advocate.... and I’d hardly call it a fortress Australia mentality.

Or do you want a considerably higher than net zero level of immigration and if so, up to what point. Or do you want it to be just open-ended, so that we have a growing population forever?

After several years of debating this stuff with you, I find that I still need to go right back to the basics every so often in order re-establish just exactly where you are coming from!

<< The mutterings about sustainable population are a mere smokescreen. >>

Well, you’d know categorically that this is not the case with me. My concern about population is always directly and genuinely connected to my desire for a sustainable society. So whatever you may read into other posters’ comment, you can’t use this sustainable-population-is-a-smokescreen BS with old Ludwig!

continued

I keep saying to you that your comments don’t add up. And this is so at the most fundamental level.

You advocate minimalist government. You think that we’d be at our best if we had minimum laws, minimum policing and minimum government intervention in our lives.

Well, just think about the scenario in which that would exist. It would exist where everyone was happy, healthy, had a high quality of life and lived well within the means of the environment to maintain it in an ongoing manner. That is, within a sustainable society. In this situation we’d see minimal need for restrictive government policies and minimal crime.

But in a society that is stressed by population pressure, with a government that continues to add to this pressure, we need a strong rule of law, strong government policies and strong regulation thereof.

So Pericles, if your first love is a society with minimalised government ‘interference’, then you should surely be on the same side as Ludwig, Matt Moran, Divergence and quite a few others on this forum, and be calling for an end to large-scale immigration, the achievement of a stable population at a level only a little bit higher than the current level and the implementation of a genuine sustainability strategy.

But as it stands, your desire for minimum government intervention and your constant criticism of those who desire an end to population growth seem to be in stark contradiction.

Apologies, Matt Moran, I must have missed something.

>> If you read my comment I talked about GDP and GDP per capita - GDP is tracking population, GDP per capita has stagnated. Perhaps Read it again ??<<

I thought you said...

>>yet since around 2006 GDP per capita has flat-lined<<

Oh, right. You did say that.

But according to the IMF, our GDP per capita has been powering along.

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/australia/gdp-per-capita-at-current-prices-in-us-dollars-imf-data.html

And your other key point...

>>as such, people generally have less disposable income...<<

...doesn't hold up under scrutiny either.

"During the decade 2000-01 to 2010-11, Australia's real net national disposable income grew from $38,500 per person to $49,100 per person in 2009-10 dollars. Year-on-year growth of around 2-3% was consistent for most of the decade, until real net national disposable income peaked in 2008-09 at $47,400 per person. This was followed by a 1.3% decline in 2009-10. Australia's real net national disposable income per capita has since recovered, with growth of 4.8% between 2009-10 and 2010-11."

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/1370.0.55.001~2012~Main%20Features~National%20income~16

It is always useful to append at least one factual reference to go alongside an opinion.