I just don't *omit* race/culture like they do.
Shockadelic,
On the other hand it would be a good start if one didn't make a distinction.

Rhian,

This graph shows the population growth of Norway since 1960

http://www.google.com.au/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=sp_pop_grow&idim=country:NOR&dl=en&hl=en&q=population%20growth%20norway

I don't understand the discrepancy with the CIA World Factbook, but let's accept that this graph is right. Apart from 2008 and 2009, when it was Iceland, Norway has been top of the pops on the HDI since 2001 when its population growth rate was 0.5%, less than a third of our current 1.6%. In any case, I don't think that small differences in HDI rank between countries mean that much. Does it really matter for quality of life whether you live in Denmark or Sweden? I suspect that Cheryl doesn't like international comparisons because she doesn't want people to know that a country can have a small population, lots of old people, and very low or even negative population growth, but still perform well economically and give its people a very good quality of life. Australia also performs very well in comparison to many other countries, apart from environmental management, and some of us would like to keep it that way.

I agree that an environmental collapse is extremely unlikely in the next few years, but it is not impossible in our children's or grandchildren's time. Many other societies have collapsed. Why do you think that we are immune? How much population growth matters depends on when there is danger of collapse. 1.6% growth will double our population in 43 years. It might not matter next year, but it might make an enormous difference whether we have 26 million or 45 million people.

Divergence,

You need to look up how the Flexicurity system in Denmark works before you go further. Population plays almost no role in the social, economic and political framework of the Scandanavian counties. You really must look further afield than the silly preoccupation with population. Boffins use international comparisons to look at labour market policy initiatives but even that can be highly problematic. See my Keats and Baudelaire quote in most recent post.

Who wrote this? Top of the class.

- We cannot find enough skilled and unskilled workers to do the jobs that are needed (yes there are unemployed, but they don’t seem willing to move where the work is).
- We have one of the lowest population densities on earth.
- A diverse society is more interesting, stimulating and rewarding to live in than a monoculture
- Migrants bring skills and knowledge which we may not have
- In Australia, population growth is positively correlated with economic growth (States and regions with the fastest population growth have the fastest per capita economic growth)
- A larger population allows us to benefit from economies of scale in sharing infrastructure costs and gives critical mass for services that need large population bases to be viable, like high-quality orchestras and expensive state-of-the-art medical equipment

You really have been cherry-picking, Cheryl. Of course the distribution of people matters, but there is a lot more to the problem than that. From the submission:

"The total length of urbanised coastline has increased by a third from 1980 to 2004 – an increase which corresponds tightly with the increase in population over the same timeframe. (Beeton et al 2006, indicator CD-30) The 'sea change' phenomenon is driven in part by perceived decline in amenity of urban life as our cities grow ever-larger, and so can be seen as an indirect function of urban growth."

"Of particular relevance to this nomination, the report [Foran & Poldy, "Future Dilemmas"] found that land use, water use, energy use, and pressure on fisheries would all be higher under high growth scenarios as a direct population effect. The problems of land degradation and biodiversity loss, however, are more strongly linked to indirect population effects, particularly the need to produce agricultural and resource exports to pay for imports."

In mallee woodland, with little urbanisation: "Land clearance for cereal cropping and sheep grazing, algae blooms, overextraction
of water for irrigation, and salinisation have combined to reduce and degrade mallee woodland habitats. These developments occurred primarily to meet the agricultural needs of a growing domestic urban population, and a desire to generate export income for Australia to pay for the increasing demand for imported goods by a growing population."

I hope that people will look at the submission themselves to see why Australia ranks at the bottom of the developed world for environmental management and to see what the growthists are doing to wipe out other species and trash their children's and grandchildren's future.

http://www.acfonline.org.au/sites/default/files/resources/EPBC_nomination_22-3-10.pdf

I actually had some respect for the ACF but after reading that unadulterated poppy-cock, Divergence, I will bid them adieu as just another tax funded political organisation spewing out terms such as 'neo-maltusian' and post modernist conceptions of the economy. What? Huh? Was the person who wrote that off medication?

Now I may be wrong but the type of anti-pop spin in that article had former ACF President Ian Lowe's finger prints all over it. See below about what I and the Spectator reviewer think of Lowe.

http://www.spectator.co.uk/australia/7809008/people-management/

Now it just so happens that Lowe is also the patron of Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) - Kanck's mob. Convenient or what? I mean, can the anti-pops not resort to backyard citations for their pitch to slash immigration and meddle with female conception rights?

Just one small thing before I go - how is it that the SPA claim tax deductivity as an environmental lobby group when they (a) are emphatically a population reduction group who (b) are actively supporting and promoting the Stop Population Growth Now party in Adelaide? Two words only required here: tax department.