It's all about education and fairness. The remainder is twaddle.

Is it not true that fertility decreases in line with increasing education of girls and women?

Is it not also true that family size (fecundity) decreases in societies where women have a choice as to whether or not they choose to become pregnant? And where women are treated as social equals alongside men?

Those three subjects, I believe, are the only effective way achieve long term population reduction, or even reduction in the rate of growth of population.

They are thus the only true policies of the Population Party.

All else is window dressing or wishful thinking from a single policy parthy which is seeking to present itself as having all the naswers on the whole range of policy issues.

fertility decreases in line with increasing education of girls and women?
JohnBennetts,
That just goes to show that before we lecture others we should start with our own, way too many unwanted mothers & babies here to support by the rest of us..

Single issue parties,might have a very short life cycle but all parties have a short attention span and are prone to changing policy overnight.

The Earth is finite, whether you people like it or not and regardless of name-calling. Continuing economic growth at the present rate would cook us all in just a few centuries, just from the waste heat, long before we reach standing room only (659 years at Australia’s current 1.7% population growth rate or 933 years at the current1.2% global growth rate). See

http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/

Smart people bet on the laws of thermodynamics.

Past societies have done great damage to their local environments, sometimes enough to achieve permanent collapse, as with the collapse of the Sumerian city states due to salinity problems, just like those in the Murray Valley.

http://mygeologypage.ucdavis.edu/cowen/~GEL115/115CH17oldirrigation.html

http://www.smectech.com.au/ACMS/ACMS_Conferences/ACMS22/Proceedings/PDF/S7_5%20ARGA2%20Newman.pdf

People back then didn’t have the numbers or the technology to interfere with global life support systems, however. Before 1800, global population was below 1 billion people. Now it is 7 billion and rising, with 10 billion expected from the UN medium projection, nearly all of them wanting "a better life". We are facing not just problems with the food supply, as in the 1960s, which had a good technological fix, but serious environmental and resource problems in nine separate areas, according to this paper from Nature, probably the most respected peer-reviewed science journal in the world:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7263/full/461472a.html

open version: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol14/iss2/art32/

See also

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/07/earth-tipping-point-study_n_1577835.html

These are the findings of respected scientists, not opinions of misanthropic Greenies. There is also the issue that a good solution to one problem can make others worse. Cohenite has said, correctly, that making people richer will bring down fertility rates, but the necessary economic growth will make the environmental and resource problems worse.

Australia is not isolated from these global problems, and it makes sense to maintain good safety margins, just in case nasty things happen to the climate and our water supply, or to our ability to import vital resources such as phosphate rock. The Australian Academy of Sciences, back in 1994, recommended a population of 23 million as a safe upper limit.

http://www.science.org.au/events/sats/sats1994/Population2040-section8.pdf

Divergence; Steffan's paper seeking to impose limits of humanity is typical of the AGW mindset.

AGW is a failed theory:

http://joannenova.com.au/2012/10/man-made-global-warming-disproved/

Ocean acidification is NOT happening:

http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=db302137-13f6-40cc-8968-3c9aac133b16

Ozone depletion; the AGW propaganda always ignores the role of Cosmic Rays in Ozone variation:

http://www.science.uwaterloo.ca/~qblu/Lu-2009PRL.pdf

Phosphorus and Nitrogen pollution; this is an ongoing issue and certainly not resolved:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1461-0248.2007.01113.x/abstract;jsessionid=B1807F1750996588F4D866C82E162DD9.d03t03?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false

P and N pollution could certainly be alleviated by greater GM application; but the same people who oppose N and P also oppose GM; result people will starve.

Biodiversity loss; exaggerated:

http://www.co2science.org/subject/e/summaries/extinctionmodel.php

What the hell is biodiversity anyway and why is it desirable in preference to humanity.

Freshwater should not be a problem with the expansion of desal plants under the auspices of AGW.

Landuse change; bad luck; Steffan's recommendation of a limit to landuse change of 15% of potential stock is an absolute recipe for starvation.

Aerosols and chemical pollution; start with China and the manufacture of solar panels.

What has happened with AGW is a complete reorientation of the criteria for pollution from what is detrimental to humans to any encroachment of pristine nature. Preserving pristine nature is NOT correlated with the best interests of humanity to the extent Steffan recommends.

I really think Steffan should be held to account for his alarmism.

Cohenite,

There is always some scientist somewhere who will say whatever you like: alien abductions really happen, the HIV virus has nothing to do with AIDS, childhood vaccinations cause autism, etc., etc. Scientists are people too. Some of them are corrupt and willing to act as guns for hire, and others are just deluded. You need to look at the consensus of the scientific community on an issue, not just try to find someone who agrees with you. If a doctor tells you that your child has cancer, you might be wise to get a second opinion, but not to visit 50 doctors in the hope of finding one who will tell you what you want to hear. Yes, there have been cases where the maverick was right and the scientific establishment was wrong, but the odds are with the house. Most mavericks are cranks.

On ocean acidification see

http://nrc.noaa.gov/sites/nrc/Documents/SoS%20Fact%20Sheets/SoS%20Fact%20Sheet_Ocean%20Acidification%2020130306%20Final_v2.pdf

The scientific establishment is still taking it very seriously.

Biodiversity refers to all the extinctions that we humans are causing. This has direct economic importance (as well as being blasphemous) because our agricultural scientists are constantly looking to import genes from wild relatives of crop plants, genes for disease resistance, drought tolerance, etc. At the Siege of Leningrad, the scientists at the Vavilov Institute chose to starve rather than eat the seed collection.

http://ww2talk.com/forums/topic/9554-the-leningrad-seed-archive/

How much of the Earth's surface and primary production do you want humans to take?

http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0725-pnas.html

When the American Indians entered the New World, there is good reason to believe that they caused a mass extinction, directly or indirectly wiping out 35 genera of animals. They couldn't think of anything better to do with horses, elephants, etc. than eat them. You are proposing the exact same heedlessness.

Desalinated water is suitable for rich coastal cities, but it is 4 to 6 times as expensive as dam water, far too expensive for agriculture, and even more so, when you consider the energy costs of pumping it inland up a gradient. Water is heavy.

I am just suggesting that we listen to expert advice, rather than wishful thinking.