Betty and SOW didn’t really want 50 more people moving in to the area. It was hard enough finding a park outside the local butchers and bottle shop as it was. SOW shored up their argument by using information supplied to them by the Stable People Party, which said Australia was ‘bursting at the seams’ with people. Stopping the development now took on the form of a MISSION.

Betty’s experience in heritage research now came in handy. She spent a couple of days at the local library and found back in 1931, a famous pianist had written a moderately renowned concerto there when it was a men’s boarding house. So now the building had ‘cultural value’ and should be preserved. She also noticed in 1975, a small extension had been built which she was sure was asbestos.

That was all that Betty and the SOW needed. They lodged an objection to Council, got a petition signed by 200 locals (what am I signing?), and got a big conflict story in the local media. The environmental line was two fold: probable asbestos and the local infrastructure couldn’t take more people. It was ‘populations’ fault.

Tina and Paul drove past the old mansion one Saturday morning and saw 20 people in their 60s and 70s picketing the building. Their banner out the front said Save Our World. Tina and Paul went home disconsolate, their dreams up in smoke.

end of story - but not for Tina and Paul.

The real reactionaries, Rhian, are the folk who believe that we can go on growing the population and using up more and more stuff indefinitely. Business as usual, forever and ever. Never mind the past societies that collapsed because they drove their environment into the ground or just let their safety margins get too thin. Never mind the Dust Bowl or the destruction of the Aral Sea, or the brown cloud over Asia.

All the scientists who are warning us climate change, ocean acidification, depleted aquifers, land degradation, extinctions, collapse of fisheries, etc. are either fools or are liars and part of some global conspiracy, just like the people who faked the moon landings, assassinated Princess Diana, secretly brought down the World Trade Center for the US government, or are hiding those alien bodies in Area 51.

The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF( has nominated human population growth in Australia as a Key Threatening Process under the Environmental Protection Act but don't be alarmed.

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

ACF are just reactionaries with a romantic, sentimental view of nature, and there is no substance to what they are saying. No decent person could imagine that more people could ever be anything more than an unalloyed good.

Cheryl,

Your little scenario is nicer than your wild, unsubstantiated allegations, but you overlook a few things. As Joske pointed out, people of all ages object to crowding, not just baby boomers. High density is particularly bad for young families. The demographer Joel Kotkin has called high density a more effective means of bringing down fertility rates than China's one-child policy, and it is also bad for children's physical and social development.

http://www.news.com.au/money/property/sydneys-dense-housing-a-threat-to-fertility-rates-warns-joel-kotkin/story-e6frfmd0-1226135327168#ixzz1ZVHq6pDO

http://www.be.unsw.edu.au/sites/default/files/upload/research/centres/cf/publications/cfprojectreports/childreninthecompactcity.pdf

Bob and Betty and their friends might have reasons besides racism and property values for resisting development: More congestion, forcing people to waste time and money on traffic delays and hunts for parking. Less greenery and open space, and more crowding of what is left. Overstretched infrastructure that was never intended to accommodate so many people. Higher taxes and charges to upgrade the infrastructure and restore the same or a lesser level of service. More noise and pollution. Less privacy. Overshadowing of windows, gardens, and solar panels. More conflict with neighbours as people are squeezed together. More rules and restrictions to deal with the conflict and shortages of resources...

It is the politicians, not the NIMBYs, who are responsible for Tina's and Paul's problems, as it was the politicians who decided to boost the population and concentrate nearly all the development in a few big cities. Australia's fertility rate has been slightly below replacement level since 1976. 60% of our population growth (1.7% per year) is from immigration, and about a third of the natural increase is from births to migrant mothers.

(contd)

(cont'd)

Moreover, the NIMBYs are not being hypocritical, unlike situations where a neighbourhood is resisting taking its fair share of facilities that are needed for the whole community, the NIMBYs included. Bob and Betty probably don't benefit economically from the population growth, as explained in the Productivity Commission 2010/2011 Annual Report (p. 6)

"An understanding of the economic impacts of immigration is sometimes clouded by misperception. Two benefits that are sometimes attributed to immigration, despite mixed or poor evidence to support them, are that:
*immigration is an important driver of per capita economic growth
*immigration could alleviate the problem of population ageing."

What is really going on here is that Cheryl/Malcolm King is most likely a person who does benefit from population growth. Bob and Betty are throwing a spanner in the works by refusing to wear the externalities.

Indeed, as Divergence stated, there is nothing sinister about older people seeking peace and quiet.

The idea that older people want property-prices to increase is absurd. The more expensive properties are, the more prohibitively-expensive it is to move due to the increased stamp-duty and usually also the land-agent's fixed percentage. That means that one is likely to be, for financial reasons, stuck forever with bad neighbours or in a house which no longer suits one's changed lifestyle.

" Bob and Betty are throwing a spanner in the works by refusing to wear the externalities." That sums up the Stable Population Party's philosophy and yours too Divergence. People are not pollution or externalities. You have sided with a movement that is anti-humanist and which is closer related to Pol Pot's Kampuchea than a liberal democracy.

So far as quoting the Productivity Commission to me - you and your boss at the ACF don't even believe in productivity. You don't even believe in capitalism. Indeed, you and the ACF have no idea about participation or productivity or the faintest notion of how a modern economy works. You've just focused on population.

If a cat's stuck up a tree, it's populations fault. Flat tyre? Population. Dandruff? Population. Population is one of about 30 drivers that contribute to Australia's economy - try Luvox - it will fix that obsession you have.

The ACF became irrelevant 20 years ago when it nose dived into politics and used its tax funded status to become a defacto lobby group.

Not only have Betty and Bob benefited from 30 years of population growth, but they have benefited by 30 years of property price inflation. Now they have pulled up the drawbridge and are using environmental slogans to bar entry of younger Australians in to their suburbs. Why? Profit.

The world must be a terrible place for you Divergence.