I wonder if the knives will be out for progressives when recent migration turns sour. Migrants could congregate in enclaves with those of the same country of origin, fail to to learn the language of their new country and remain welfare dependent for years. Resentment could erupt for those already doing it tough in the host countries as services are stretched and jobs are rationed. Angela Merkel could be singled out as she actually welcomed the influx before demanding that other countries she didn't consult must share the load.

Apart from population another strange blind spot of progressives is future energy needs. They assure us that we will need less in future and it doesn't have to be as reliable. Perhaps their extensive travel is not hypocrisy but getting it all done before it's stopped. Progressives impose sacrifice on everybody else so they can feel better. My solutions to these problems are to spend the migration money closer to the point of origin and to have more energy not less. I call that pragmatism.

I lost count of the number of times the word "progressives" was used in this article. Left-wing wackos describe themselves as progressive, but they are anything but progressive: they want to put the brakes on everything until we end up living in caves again.

It's one thing for idiots to give themselves totally inappropriate and false monikers; but it is quite absurd for for normal people to describe these wreckers of society as progressives.

The political 'Progressives' aka Fabians aka International Socialists do fly below the radar, which is not surprising given the 'progressive' agenda of the ABC and some other media outlets.

It is simply astonishing how many ex-Labor PMs are professed Fabians and are forever using the 'progressive' word with deep meaning (it must be their secret handshake apparently) but retired wealthy international jet-setters themselves (despite their more humble family origins).

By way of example, Hawke - speech to the Fabian Society in Melbourne on the 8th May 1984
“I gladly acknowledge the debt of my own government to Fabianism”. He also said in that speech, “The Fabian Society acknowledges the principal tenet of Marxism, the abolition of private property, in this case to own land. They then align themselves with the non-violent arm of Marxism by accepting the non-violent road of patient gradualism to total government.”

To take another example to underline the Fabians mission of collectivism and abolishing private property (hypocritically despite their own ownership of expensive property assets) ex-Paul Keating is still going on about removing the main residence exemption from CGT for your home. Imagine the effect of that on retirees, or workers forced to move for their employment. 'Progressives' love new taxes though.

There is no surprise that 'Progressives' are not progressive but regressive and that they have compartmentalised minds. It is because they are Marxists, just as ex-PM Hawke says they are and he should know.

Regarding population, the 'Progressives' faux concern for sustainability and environmental issues is displaced by their stated goal of a One World Order of International Socialism.

The 'Progressives' are all, "Do as we say, not do as we do".

Some conservatives don't get population, and you (Simon Ross) appears to be among them! What he fails to grasp is that in most of the world the population issue is already being adequately addressed, and it is only continuing to rise because people are living longer.

The exceptions to that are where there's a perception of underpopulation, where women are disempowered (which you acknowledge that the progressives are concerned about), where there are religious objections to contraception (mainly from the Catholics; fortunately the new Pope seems to be taking a less dogmatic stance) and where people can't be confident their children will survive long enough to have children of their own. That last reason is why population growth rates are higher where there's extreme poverty, and it's also why popultation growth rates are higher around conflict zones.

It's true that boostinng the population in already developed areas puts a strain on the infrastructure, but it is also true that having a higher population can be used to fund infrastructure improvements that benefit existing residents as well as incomers.

Population is not the limiting factor you assume it to be.

I don’t much care for the label “progressive”, because it is used as a self-description by people with such radically differing views that it’s not very good at indicating what a person believes, or why – as the gap between Aidan and Simon attests.

Global population growth is slowing. It’s already below replacement in many developed economies, and declining in most developing ones. Average living standards are rising despite population growth, because production is rising faster than population. Global poverty rates are falling.

We need to find ways to produce more sustainably, but challenge will not be affected materially by population policies.

Population alarmists from Malthus to Ehrlich have been proven wrong. If we really want to sustain progress, we should focus our efforts elsewhere.

An extremely well written and argued article by Simon Ross. It is refreshing to see that the concept of unrestricted population growth is once more being examined. It seems that it had become a non issue among environmentalists and "social regressives" for too long. Those of us who have been around for a long time, may remember that today's Green Party was a product of the old ZPG (Zero Population Growth) party. The "Greens" opposition to immigration did an about face when they realised that "refugees" and poverty stricken new immigrant groups would be an additional source of votes that would gain them political power.

Old "Social progressives" are lunatics like Corbyn, and that moron who is running Greece at the moment. They may be well educated, but they lack the common sense street smarts of the average, mature working class person. Most "progressives" are young and they will eventually grow out of their shallow idealism and start thinking straight. But young people have high ideals for making a better world for themselves, and while they are young they fall easy victims to a left wing ideology which promise a quick and easy fix for everything, Especially when their egos are being preened by continually being bombarded through publically funded left wing media, that those who advocate the social progressive line are morally and intellectually superior people.

This is why it is so difficult to deprogram them. Their entire self esteem comes from defending a left wing ideology which, if they ever bothered to think about it, makes no sense. Socialists want money to pay for social programs that will buy them votes, then attack every proposal for development which will make money. They want to save the environment but support endless immigration. They want an end to fossil fuels but refuse to consider nuclear power which just happens to be the only viable and affordable alternative. They want world peace but can not understand that population pressure and the fight to gain resources that will ensure the survival of particular groups, is the leading cause of human conflict.

Rhian,

Globally, we are doing serious damage to our environment and life support systems even with the existing population, facing shortages of losses of arable land, fresh water, forests, fish stocks, biodiversity, cheap fossil fuels and minerals that are vital for our agriculture and other technology (because most of the low-hanging fruit has already been picked), and capacity of the environment to safely absorb wastes. Anyone who reads Science or Nature, probably our most respected science journals, or follows the science news magazines and websites is aware of these problems. This article from Nature looks at the overall picture

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7263/full/461472a.html
open version: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol14/iss2/art32/

Yes, over the top consumption and plain stupidity are part of it, but from the last Global Footprint Network atlas (2010), the top billion people in the richest countries are responsible for only about 38% of the consumption. People have to consume in order to survive, and they have to consume a lot more to have anything like a decent quality of life. This graph plots environmental footprint (consumption) against rank on the UN Human Development Index. It looks like 1-2 billion people to sustainably keep everyone in modest comfort.

http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/blog/human_development_and_the_ecological_footprint

We are only getting by now because so many of us are very poor and because we are consuming our environmental capital. Ehrlich et al. got at least the timing wrong because they couldn't predict the success of the Green Revolution, but might have the last laugh yet.

Yes, in most of the world people have brought down their fertility rates, but we would still be in for billions more people just due to demographic momentum, even if all countries had done this. Fast population growth leaves you with a pyramid-shaped age distribution, with the births in the huge young adult generation and most of the deaths in the relatively tiny elderly generation. Population growth can go on for up to another 70 years, even if the young people are having small families on average.

(cont'd)

(cont'd)

There are still a significant number of countries, mostly but not exclusively in Africa and the Islamic world where fertility has remained high, essentially because the local culture is pronatalist and objects to contraception, or objects to education, equal rights and economic opportunities for women, or has problems with the public health and sanitary measures needed for better child survival. We can't just ignore them. They are why the UN has had to keep increasing its medium population projection to close to 11 billion by 2100. They are also places where people are dealing with overpopulation in the traditional human way, by trying to drive out or kill their neighbours to get enough resources for themselves. They are also the main source of the world's refugee flows. Syria has more than quadrupled its population since 1960 and people were spending around half their income on food, on average.

Frankly, I see very little difference between people like you and Aidan and the anti-vaxers, Holocaust deniers, or folks like Runner who deny evolution. You either accept the science or believe that there is some vast global conspiracy of the world's scientific community to lie to us. LEGO is making a lot more sense here than you.

Divergence

I’d support measures that ensure that all parents, and, especially women, are able to control their fertility. But even if policies influence fertility rates, there is precious little that governments can do to halt demographic momentum unless they take draconian measures. And those policies that might be effective can have severe unintended consequences, and risk overshoot – look at problems caused by China’s artificially rapid aging population, and Japan’s declining population.

Are you seriously suggesting that the main cause of Syria’s civil war was population pressures? Nothing to do with ethnic and sectarian conflict, a brutally oppressive government that is willing to gas its own citizens, interference by foreign powers; an influx of lunatic foreign jihadists….

Rhian,

There is never just one factor involved, but there is a clear relationship between food prices and social unrest. Religious and ethnic differences make good pretexts for violence and good rallying points when people are joining up sides, but you can't just assume away conflict over resources. Why is it, say, that the Syrians could coexist with their Christian and other minorities for centuries, but not now. What has changed? Curious isn't it that the land and other resources that these refugees couldn't carry with them now belong to someone else? If you are one of the new owners and have been spending half your income or more on food, these extra resources might make a real difference.

This article plots food riots on a graph of the FAO World Food Price Index

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1108.2455.pdf

"Much of the world today has the same survival problems virtually all humans had in the distant past. Land and food are in short supply, and there is continuous competition for such resources today, just as in the past. People do starve to death, and their neighbors will kill them and take their land if they get a chance." Prof. Steven LeBlanc (Archaeology, Harvard) in his book "Constant Battles"

What do this fellows want to progress towards?

Perhaps an ant-hill is their ideal model?!

Divergence

It’s true that rising food prices were seen by some commentators as a contributor to the Arab Spring. But this was not caused by population growth. Basic foodstuffs are commodities and go through marked price cycles. Over the longer term, however, there is no upward trend in real food prices that you would expect if supply growth didn’t match demand growth. The FAO’s real food price index has fallen in the past four years and is now at about the same level as its average for the past 30+ years. The recent peak in real prices did not match the earlier major cycle in the 1970s.

http://www.fao.org/statistics/en/

Combined with rising real earnings, this means that foods is becoming more affordable on average over time, not less.

Rhian,

The Syrians were no longer self-sufficient in food as they were in 1960, not surprising with more than 4 times as many people. During that period of very high food prices, some food exporting countries. Thailand and Russia, I think, stopped exporting food and were able to keep their domestic population supplied. Syria had no way to buffer its people against the very high prices on the world market. To make matters worse, the Syrians were in a the grip of a very severe drought and facing a further threat to their water from the Euphrates from the dams that Turkey, which also has a fair amount of population growth, is building upstream.

The price of food closely tracks the price of oil

http://oilprice.com/Energy/Oil-Prices/How-Oil-Prices-Affect-The-Price-Of-Food.html

The Saudis have been engaging in a price war to shut down the tight oil producers in the US and maybe make life hard for Russia and Iran. The supply of cheap, easy-lift oil is not unlimited, however, so you can expect oil prices (and food prices) to go up again.

The Syrians' own State Planning Commission estimated that the average Syrian was spending 48% of his income on food. It would be a lot more than that for the people at the bottom, so price increases that we could shrug off would be devastating for them. It is because of overpopulation that the Syrians were dependent on the world market for food and didn't have adequate safety margins.

Divergence

From 1960 to 1980 was known as the “golden age of agriculture” in Syria. Production grew strongly. This ended with a series of droughts in the 1980s.

http://www.undp.org/content/dam/undp/library/corporate/HDR/UNDP-ADCR_En-2012.pdf

This has been the main cause of Syria's food security problem - compounded now, of course, by the civil war.

An ambiguous article that uses confusing and undefined expressions 'progressive', 'conservative' etc. and others that carry negative connotations in mainstream narrative or are used as pejorative terms e.g. 'population growth', 'immigration' etc.. while not addressing the elephant in the room.

While world population growth is expected to stabilise by mid century (ex Sub-Saharan Africa) due to already lower fertility rates, the first world is dealing with ageing populations which are now becoming one of the main drivers of population growth thanks to prosperity and better health, e.g. Australia it's 30% and increasing. What is Population Matters 'solution' for this part of the equation, but population is not really the issue is it?

Further, there is a connection (neither dicussed nor highlighted) between various associates including patron Paul Ehrlich, council members William Ryerson and Jane O'Sullivan, with John Tanton's network in the USA?

In a NYT article titled 'The anti-immigration crusader':

'“He is the most influential unknown man in America,” said Linda Chavez, a former aide to President Ronald Reagan who once led a Tanton group that promoted English-only laws.

While Dr. Tanton’s influence has been extraordinary, so has his evolution — from apostle of centrist restraint to ally of angry populists and a man who increasingly saw immigration through a racial lens.

Mindful that the early-20th-century fight to reduce immigration had been marred by bigotry, Dr. Tanton initially emphasized FAIR’s identity as a “centrist group” and made arguments aimed at liberals and minorities. He allowed few local FAIR chapters, warning that a stray demagogue might “go off half-cocked and spoil the whole effort.”' http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/us/17immig.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

NYT's description is more restrained when compared to the Southern Poverty Legal Center's more direct description of John Tanton and his associates (thanks to robust freedoom of speech laws in the USA) https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/john-tanton

Rhian,

No question that Syria, like many other countries, benefited from the Green Revolution, which led to a doubling and in some cases a tripling of grain production. Nevertheless, with more than 4 times as many people since 1960, the fact remains that they were no longer self-sufficient in food, which was consuming a very large share of the average income. Droughts are far from unknown in that part of the world, so generous safety margins are required.

You make sensible posts on other subjects, so I don't understand your attachment to population denial.

Andras Smith,

You don't have an answer to the substantive arguments, so you have to rely on insinuations of racism and referring to organisations like the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has form for trying to shut down debate by smearing political opponents as racists and "haters". We have very serious environmental problems now with 7 billion people, which are related to the sheer numbers of people as well as consumption. See my previous posts in this thread. The UN medium population projection has been raised to close to 11 billion by the end of the century. This is mostly due to demographic momentum and continuing high fertility in some countries. Even in the OECD, life expectancy at 65 has only gone up by 6 years for women and 4.8 years for men since 1960, and less in poorer countries.

http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/download/8113161ec072.pdf?expires=1444097241&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=1E17A2A39A7C7765281F846EC40F12F4

You say that population isn't a problem, but then you have a job in the immigration industry, as a so-called "education consultant" bringing foreign students to Australia with the lure of permanent residency or at least a temporary visa with working rights. Is your real objection that people like me are racists, or that at some time in the future, we might be standing between you and a big pile of money?

We know that the climate is changing. Crops no longer grow where they used to. Less rain falls where needed. Meat animals are less easy to feed. Farming is the reason for human population increases [and the decline in numbers of most other species]. Farming had to wait until Earth's climate stabilised, roughly 10,000 years ago. Before then human survival was precarious and populations stable and sustainable. The climate appears to be reverting to previous levels of severe instability and will make agriculture less productive. That will effectively reduce the human population to sustainable levels without the need for human intervention. It is quite likely that this will occur this century. If you're under forty I suggest you seriously consider whether adding another child to your responsibilities is a good idea.

Smear the messenger, don't provide any peer reviewed research evidence for claims about 'population', display sub-optimal statistical literacy etc., another tactic of neo con affiliated white nativists etc.. as documented by SPLC, ADL, Think Progress etc. in the USA.

I am not in the 'immigration industry' (and waters are muddied by too many migration agents acting as 'education agents', which universities/TAFE were and are still happy to deal with), and it is illegal for anyone except a registered MARA agent acting as sub-contractors to DIBP to provide immigration advice, although many Australians do informally e.g. enquiring on behalf of British cousins, you know, the right types :)

Maybe the govt. should be lobbied to close down the immigration dept. except for reinforcing the border protection aspects.

For a balanced expert view of world population growth see Prof. Hans Rosling's BBC doco 'This world, don't panic the truth about population' http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03h8r1j

Andras Smith,

You have previously admitted that you are

Andrew Smith, Education Consultant at Australian & International Education Centre

From the Centre's website:

"Central Europe and Turkey education & training services and consulting including market development, digital marketing & promotion, recruitment, study application, visa, migration referral, accommodation assistance and marketing services.

"Marketing services & consulting focuses upon digital channels to increase awareness, range, depth and breadth of an institution's potential market.

"AIECS's focus for market development and student recruitment is between Australia, Europe and Turkey (& Turkic Republics)."

You are very much a part of the immigration industry. While it is good to have some foreign students, our universities have been debased by the need to cater to huge numbers, often with inadequate English, who are motivated by the prospect of permanent residency, as a number of them have told me, as well as functioning as holding tanks to disguise unemployment among the domestic population. See

http://theconversation.com/australian-unis-should-take-responsibility-for-corrupt-practices-in-international-education-40380

Hans Rosling is interested in how human well-being has improved. It has, but you might also feel great while you run through an inheritance or lottery winnings. It is also true that the global population growth rate has fallen, but the growth is from a bigger base, so we are still getting 70-80 million more people a year. Rosling is not an expert on marine biology, marine chemistry, conservation biology, climatology, geohydrology, etc. That Nature article I linked to is about as peer reviewed as you can get. So far as Austalia is concerned, you might consider the conclusion of the Population Working Party in the 1994 Australian Academy of Science report, not updated since, to the best of my knowledge.

"In our view, the quality of all aspects of our children's lives will be maximised if the population of Australia by the mid-21st Century is kept to the low, stable end of the achievable range, i.e. to approximately 23 million."

You started the "smearing" with your insinuations of racism.