That's a very strange question, Divergence.

>>Pericles, It seems pretty obvious that consumption of anything can be expressed in terms of the population times the average consumption per person. Do you dispute this?<<

Not at all. What's your point?

>>Oil consumption in the US went down despite population growth due to the economic hit from the global financial crisis.<<

What occurred here is a natural outcome of the laws of supply and demand - you will notice also that the price of oil went down recently, in order to meet the lower demand for the product. It is of course entirely possible that, when the US economy recovers further, demand will increase again, and the price will go up. Alternatively, it might occur to them to think hey, we previously managed on less, let's keep our costs down.

>>What is interesting is that crude oil prices have stayed very high in historical terms for the past 10 years... How could this be so if the world abounds in cheap oil or cheap oil substitutes?<<

You know as well as I do that the world does not "abound" in substitutes. World demand for oil - as opposed to just the US and European markets - has remained pretty high, which is why the price is still historically high also. I doubt if the price will decrease in any substantial way until such time as alternatives are brought online - they exist, of course, they are just too expensive right now.

But you also say:

>>...giving the market plenty of time to adjust. <<

Errrm... the market has "adjusted". That's why the prices are high.

>>It seems that the Cornucopians like you and Cheryl don't understand the concept of a safety margin.<<

I'm not a Cornucopian. I'm a Scorpio. Anyway, how much of a "safety margin" do you think we need? If we increase production further, prices will fall. If prices fall, farmers will stop growing the stuff. Then prices will rise again.

Supply and demand are in equilibrium at a particular price point. Even Scorpios understand that.

“Over the same period, food exports increased by 12.3 per cent to $30.5 billion, the highest they have been since 2001–02. With more than 50 per cent of Australia’s food exports going to Asia in 2011–12, we are well on our way to taking advantage of increasing opportunities. Imports also increased this year to $11.3 billion, but we still managed a very strong food trade surplus of $19.2 billion, 14.6 per cent higher than in 2010–11. This ranks Australia tenth in terms of food trade surpluses worldwide.”

http://www.daff.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/2269762/daff-foodstats-2011-12.pdf

Australia doesn’t and never had a population problem nor a food supply problem now. It has a few loonies bowing to Malthuse but that’s not a problem either. We can provide them with remedial education on how modern economies operate.

Oz’ population is about the size of greater New York at 22 million. It is neither over populated or under populated. It does have urban design and infrastructure issues in Melbourne and Sydney; the same bloody issues of poor agenda setting of priorities that have been with us since the 1970s.

A couple of years ago the President of the Sustainable Population Australia, Sandra Kanck, called on the Australian Government to implement a one-child policy in Australia and to stop all immigration. She recanted soon after when the media did a double take.

It’s factional bedfellow, Stop Population Growth Now – which hopes to be a political party in SA - wants to “Reduce Australia's rate of population growth to zero as rapidly as possible. If the resulting stable population is still environmentally unsustainable then work to reduce the size of the population until we achieve environmental sustainability.” That’s from its website.

Michael Lardelli, a geneticist, is a member of Stop Pop Growth Now and is an associate of Sandra Kanck. Are you still happy to use him as a ref?

Are these the people you want in government, Divergence? Are these your army who will save capitalism from the consumptive terror of people eating?

You clearly don't understand about secondary sources, Cheryl. They can be useful because they collect information in a convenient form, and this is often done because the author has an agenda. Their credibility depends on their primary sources, however. You can only discredit Michael Lardelli here by showing either that he has misrepresented his sources or that ABARE is wrong itself and not a credible source. You haven't done this. The dollar amount of exports is irrelevant. What matters is the proportion of food that we would need to keep back for our own needs with a much larger population. You show an inability to look at the longer term. Some of us have children and grandchildren, and we actually care about their future.

You are also unwilling to believe that we could be seriously impacted by global resource and environmental problems. For example, Australian soils are very low in phosphate and productivity can be increased 'severalfold' if it is added.

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/94713ad445ff1425ca25682000192af2/1ca94df590adff7fca2569f300250a31!OpenDocument

See this chart for how the world phosphate rock price is being bid up

http://www.infomine.com/investment/metal-prices/phosphate-rock/all/

Australia's population or population density are irrelevant. Australia is really a small to medium sized country wrapped around a big desert - useless apart from its value to the mining industry. According to the ABS, 85% of the people live within 50 km of the coast. Even you would be aware that we have some very serious environmental problems, and there are also problems related to providing enough infrastructure and public services, not because all our politicians have suddenly been hit with the stupid stick, but because the cost of the current rate of population growth makes fixing them impossible.

Sandra Kanck's opinions are her own. Australia doesn't have a problem with high fertility, and SPPA doesn't advocate a one child policy, just cutting back on the highest rate of mass migration in the developed world.