“I attended the writing workshops sponsored by the Social Contract in 2010 and 2011 in Washington and while they were a bit right wing for me … they nevertheless had a lot to offer.” Popnperish, OLO July 4, 2013 - and she's the head of the SPA.

This environment/antipopulationist phase is part of a historical sociobiological movement to cut population, which goes back to the 1920s and the 1930s. Any one who has studied population dynamics recognizes these iterations have one common denominator and that is attacking the poorest of the poor. The last century was full of ‘slashing’.

There's no doubt that at specific times and places, industry has wrought large-scale environmental damage. But this is not the thrust of the SPA/SPP (same thing). They are targeting migrants but that is only the thin edge of the wedge.

According to them, by being human one is complicit in an incredible array of damage, pollutants, consumption, etc. It's an unsubstantiated guilt trip, which has no logical or empirical foundation as evidenced by Divergence and her cackling enabler Incommunicado.

I got bored with Divergence’s obsessive quoting of the 2006 PC and unfortunately had to point her nose in the unruly fact that the report was not about the economic worth of people. It also looked back at a period of time when we had high family reunions.

Think for just one moment on the kind of mentality that posits that a migrant’s worth can be measured by what they achieve solely in economic terms. Base and repulsive.

All the best at the NPC.

You didn't point me to anything, Paddy. I have never believed that a migrant's worth is solely economic, but you and others have tried to convince us that there are big economic benefits from mass migration, and this needs to be refuted. The 2006 Productivity Commission report actually modelled a doubling of the skilled migrant intake. They found a per capita benefit of less than $400, almost entirely distributed to the owners of capital and the migrants themselves. They also found that the rest of the population would be worse off due to wage depression. A number of reports from overseas have also found small benefits and negative effects on employment of existing residents from mass migration, such as the House of Lords report in the UK

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200708/ldselect/ldeconaf/82/82.pdf

The US is actually a good test case for your ideas, as it had very low immigration from 1921-1965 and high immigration afterwards, both skilled and unskilled. These graphs show that real wages for most American men are lower than in 1979

http://www.stateofworkingamerica.org/chart/swa-wages-figure-4c-change-real-hourly-wages/

Wages stopped rising with productivity in 1973

http://www.stateofworkingamerica.org/chart/swa-wages-figure-4u-change-total-economy/

Essentially all of the benefits of economic growth have gone to the folk at the top. Other aspects of globalisation apart from mass migration have had an impact, but mass migration is an important factor. See this article by Prof. George Borjas (Economics, Harvard), one of the authors of the 1997 Academy of Sciences report on immigration.

http://www.cis.org/immigration-and-the-american-worker-review-academic-literature

I don't have a problem with doing foreigners a good turn, but not if it involves walking over my fellow citizens or making environmental problems worse with a bigger population. If population doesn't matter, only per capita consumption, you need to explain why China is the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, even excluding production for export, and consumes twice as much meat as the US.

What many don't understand is that if the zero population growthers had their way, we would need to be in a totalitarian society, and Australian citizens (born and bred) like permanent residents, will need to apply for a resident return visa..... to maintain lower population levels (conversely as Australia withdraws from visa and international treaties, many Australians would be forced to return home, thus increasing population)

While Australians prefer to hear what they want to hear from the likes of SPP/SPA, Dick Smith, Graeme Turner, Bob Birrell et al vs expert panels which see the bigger picture, they are fed alarmist headline numbers.

However, i.e. it's not about how many, but it's how we manage population, and we are doing far better than the Malthus claimed we could.

One of the best centres for research into migration, population, fertility, health, education etc. internationally is the Oxford Martin School of Oxford University.

Here is the link to a panel discussion and summary "Is the Planet Full?" http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/news/201404IsThePlanetFull (there is more scientific and empirical research used in a short discussion than Birrell's CPUR, John Tanton/TSCP, FAIR, CIS, SPA/SPP etc. have ever used)

Says a lot about Australians when they, and especially mainstream media and politicians, prefer to follow subjective views and 'research' of ageing white middle class men', with some social baggage from the white Australia period apparent (as opposed to doing real research and discussing all aspects, that may ).

Even worse are younger generations whom are 'right on' e.g researchers/journalists, who although highly educated with supposed analytical skills, fall hook line and sinker for the SPP/SPA's John Tanton messages whether the Science Show, Late Night Live etc. on RN, ABC tv, MacroBusiness etc.. (while media and politics are still mostly mono cultural in Oz)

This confirms Prof Hans Roslings research on developing world fertility rates, westerners will assume the high end figure, when in fact it is already lower, what gives?

Surely even in Australia highly educated middle class liberals and progressives would not hold negative stereotypes about people in the developing world and fertilty?

Andras Smith

I did have a quite chuckle over this.

"Also key are connectivity and innovation. And the issue of short-termism is absolutely central. We must break free of our myopia both as societies and individuals."

http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/news/201404IsThePlanetFull

The panel seems to think that science will provide the answers to overpopulation, but science hasn't yet.

Many scientists are just as bad as politicians, and in fact about 50% of scientists in the world are involved in manufacturing weapons for the arms industry, and scientists also developed the power stations that are spewing out CO2, and are fully behind manufacturing all the gizmos that fill our consumerist society.

Most scientists and academics will go to wherever the research dollars are. They are some of the most short-term, self-centered and corruptible of people, and I wouldn't be relying on scientists for much at all.

There are two ways to create economic growth, “intensive growth” and “extensive growth”.

"An increase in growth caused by more efficient use of inputs is referred to as intensive growth. GDP growth caused only by increases in inputs such as capital, population or territory is called extensive growth."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_growth

Our treasurer and various economists claim that Australia had economic growth last year, but most of this was “extensive growth” by increasing the population.

It is also the most short term and unsustainable way of creating economic growth.

What else don't you know about science and research?

Preferring religious types of belief and prejudices using a facade of 'science' to prove biases, like neo cons pick up on detail, take it out of context, then extrapolate..... in attempt to discredit people with real expertise.

Glaring ignorance.

Science does not claim to be able to understand and explain everything, and is about asking questions, finding correlations, testing and replicating, ongoing..... it's often 'grey'.

This is opposed to those who think they know 'science' via their beliefs or biases whether Malthus, Ehrlich, John Tanton, Bob Birrell et al who throw around distorted, unrelated and confusing headline data showing neither correlation nor empirical evidence, which then shows 'foreigners' in a negative light, 'black and white' get it? :)

I'd suggest keeping your population religious beliefs to Andrew Bolt, ACA, Alan Jones etc. or maybe joining the Christian Scientists or Scientology.

Andras Smith

Here is a science website that uses no people.

“There is no human editor behind (e) Science News; it is powered by the (e) news engine, a fully automated artificial intelligence.”

http://esciencenews.com/

So much for science creating employment.

Here is an article where they recently asked a number of academics and economists how to create employment, and basically no one had a clue.

http://theconversation.com/employment-policy-and-job-creation-some-practical-solutions-29893

None of them mentioned sustainability or the impending “overshoot” in Australia because we are extracting resources faster than nature can replenish.

Scientists can develop some new jet fighter or plasm screen for a mobile, but can’t answer how to employ on a sustainable basis all the immigrants flooding into the country.