Curmudgeon,

Take a look at the UN Food and Agricultural World Food Price Index. Food prices went up sharply in 2007 and have stayed high ever since/

http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/wfs-home/foodpricesindex/en/

“When food prices hit a certain critical level, Marco Lagi, Karla Z. Bertrand, and Yaneer Bar-Yam show, people tend to turn to violence–because their desperation hits a level at which they have nothing left to lose.”

http://au.businessinsider.com/food-prices-and-social-unrest-chart-2012-11

See also this article from the Conversation, where it is noted that growth in grain productivity is not keeping up with population growth in a number of countries.

http://theconversation.com/crop-crisis-why-global-grain-demand-will-outstrip-supply-15298?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+21+June+2013&utm_content=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+21+June+2013+CID_1e54548cd2f1fa21bee7d2fc788df73f&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=Crop%20crisis%20Why%20global%20grain%20demand%20will%20outstrip%20supply

Another issue is increasing affluence in several large countries. India has doubled its milk production over the past 15 years due to extra demand from the middle class, and grain is fed to dairy cows. Meat consumption in China is now twice as high as in the United States, and the Chinese now consume more pork than Americans on a per capita basis. The grain will go to the people who can pay for it, not Yemeni slum dwellers and the like, regardless of whether it will be fed to people or animals.

Thanks Peter, a very good reply and summary of where we sit in the broader sense of the word.

There is little point trying to put your point across to Curmudgeon (Mark Lawson), he is in the growth camp, and yes he sometimes does understand the basics of reality, but he does not really have a great grasp of the bigger picture, no malice intended Mark!

ABARE are about as useful as t.ts on a bull, they have a very, very bad record of accuracy against their litany of forecasting.

The irony in all of this is the reality that consumption, no matter the population nor the level of affluence or poverty, per capita, is still steering us toward a disaster of epic proportions.

I salute you for running for your party of choice, unfortunately the masses will drown you out no matter what, our innate desire is to hear the 'white noise' despite the reality surrounding us.

I am sure the skid-mark status of the Kardashian sisters is of more importance to many in our community, rather than the bigger issues that stare us in the face, and yet we deny them at every turn.

We humans are an interesting animal, such a pity we will fail to understand the failings and drivers of our own demise.

Good luck to you Sir.

Regards, Geoff

I miss all the fun by working late.

Cheer up Geoff, if the end of the world is coming, at least you're in Perth and will get two more hours from EST to enjoy it.

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/memory-of-100-in-the-backyard-at-mums-starts-to-fade-20130707-2pkb6.html#ixzz2YOwTvxWp

How about this comment on the Stable Population Party Facebook page today referring to Associate Professor Carolyn Whitzman from Melb Uni (as quoted above) being in the clutches of developers.

"Her position appears to be funded by the high rise property development industry to spruik propaganda. They are in cahoot$ with some institutions, via the almighty dollar, with uni's etc under pressure from decreased Gov funding." said the SPP. Any comment?

Have you got any factual evidence that ABARE stats are shonky? I was interested as that would make a compelling news story as its figures are used by Caucus and policy makers.

Peter Strachant -- <a multi-pronged, complex problem. I am not prepared to sit by, sniping from the sidelines and watch it happen, even if it seems to be inevitable. This is why I am standing for the WA Senate for the Stable Population Party (www.populatonparty.org.au)to create awareness & give people who are concerned about environmental overshoot, caused by population growth and over-consumption, to show their concern and vote for policies designed to avoid the worst impacts of population growth.>

Peter, I admire your can do attitude. However, I did wonder where you stand on immigration, given that I read that they are currently bringing in about 130,000 people a year(maybe somebody has the figures on this). This is like bringing a whole big regional town full of people in every year.
Given that politicians get elected on the strength of the economy and the economy feeds off more and more customers to buy homes, goods, services, retail etc. would you as a politician be able to stand by your stated population growth mission to reduce population once elected and earning a lovely huge politicians salary.

Anglo-saxon people really don’t have a problem with keeping their child bearing limited, it is the Immigrants coming in to white countries causing the increases in family size and population.
They run from war-torn, resource poor, over-populated countries and expect us to pick up the mess of their failing to stop breeding, until there is standing room only in the countries they flee from.

I hope you would focus more on this than on bashing white mothers, economically, and making it tough for them when it is not they who are the problem. That would be taking the easy way out and ignoring the real problem. Also you may require all those lovely votes from
those immigrants to hang on to your 6figure salary.

I hope you would stay true to your mission.

Gee Cherful, you and Geoff out to get together, you'd be great as a standup act.

It's a but rough accusing the SPP candidate of revelling in his $160K salary when he hasn't got the job yet.

It's about 220,000 temp migrants including 80,000 international students and about 100,000 permanents per year. Have to keep in mind it's a two way street with people leaving all the time as well as arriving - ie, it's not a static phenomena

Cherful

You need to check out the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) figures if you don't know how many people are coming into the country. Latest figures are for the year ending December 2012. <http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/3101.0> "[N]et overseas migration recorded for the year ended 31 December 2012 (235,900 people) was 17.0%, or 34,400 people, higher than the net overseas migration recorded for the year ended 31 December 2011 (201,600 people)". Assuming an emigration rate of over 70,000, it means total immigration was over 300,000. (Canberra's population is not all that much more than that - 370,000 or so). And that's on top of natural increase of 158,300. Overall growth rate 1.8% - Third world stuff.

But returning to Engelman. Perhaps Curmudgeon didn't really read the article but the latest figures are higher than predicted (9.6 billion by mid-century) because fertility has stalled or even reversed in many countries, not least in Sub-Saharan Africa. A quadrupling of Nigeria's population, of course, is not going to happen. Water and food scarcity will put paid to that if disease doesn't get in first.