As we speak politicians of all persuasions want to cram more people into Australia. Also as we speak swathes of sequestered carbon are being sent back to the atmosphere via burning. It seem odd for CSIRO to come up with this Boys Own report when previously (Turner et al) they have argued Limits to Growth predictions were vindicated.

It's also noteworthy that we fail to shut down the biggest coal fired power stations or drive millions of electric cars when it is all supposed to be so easy. I think things will go sour before 2030 with shortages of cheap energy and what amounts to rationing of food, housing and electricity. Perhaps CSIRO's conservative masters will then order a report which discusses the least worst path not wishful thinking

The author of this report is living in a world of his own, carefully selecting what he reads and cites to reinforce existing beliefs. He cites overwhelming evidence that resources are running out. No they are not, and only a handful at the fringes of the debate are claiming that they are. Its a hard-line green belief.

The rest of us know that resource prices have collapsed across the board. There was some talk of an oil peak during the last oil price spike but its been largely dropped. What's happening at the moment is the lower cost producers in coal and oil (OPEC) are trying to force the higher cost guys out of the market, and so grab more market share, by keeping up production. Probably also happening in iron ore.

Sorry greens but it aint' happening

Curmudgeon (Mark Lawson) you have a vested interest in spruiking the optimistic side of things noting your on-going employment/financial interest in maintaining the status quo, and supporting the corporate media and its advertising cash cow agenda.

Conventional oil peaked in 2005, no if's no but's.

Unconventional oil is a different story, we now face peak capacity and storage, the US is now contemplating underground storage in old geological areas.

Tanker shipping storage is at capacity, affecting new production storage and transportation issues.

What Curmudgeon fails to grasp is we are also at Peak Debt, this is driving lower capacity, lower demand and lower prices in energy and other markets.

The fracking US market (oil and gas) is in a debt trap, oil prices will continue to fall, probably into the low $30's making profit at these levels unobtainable, guaranteeing collapse at some point.

Good luck with maintaining any semblance of BAU growth in the economy when the fallout from this occurs.

Sustainable growth is an oxymoron.

Australian growth models by the CSIRO and the MSM are a joke, prepare for peak debt, falling house, commodity and general economic prices, our debt binge is coming home to roost. Poorer and less secure is our future due to ridiculous economic policies enacted since the end of WW2.

"Given these kinds of multiples, a 35% reduction in materials demand (i.e., only 25% per capita given that the analysis envisages a 37 million population in 2050) would not get us far towards a global consumption rate that is sustainable and possible for all."

You could start with reducing your own levels of consumption to those you advocate for people generally. Have you done so yet?

"Our "Simpler Way" vision (http://thesimplerway.info) would be easily and quickly achieved, if that was what people wanted to do."

I don't. And I'm pretty sure you're chances of getting most of the world to agree are Buckleys and none. They're busy trying to get themselves into Voluntary Complication, not Voluntary Simplicity.

Good to see Geoff of Perth commenting again.

Thanks Daffy, been home a couple of months after breaking C5 in my neck and spending nearly a year in hospital. Driving an elec wheelchair now, but all is good.

Cheers Geoff

How depressing.
Its like a plague of mice or locusts. We all know what happens to them when the food runs out.

What will it be for us? Famine? War? Disease? Drought? Flood? Fire?
All of the above?

Sadly my money is on war! We humans just cant help ourselves.

"Look" shouts the alarmist. The world's temperature has been going up since 1850 and that obviously isn't going to stop. We're all gunna die.

"Look" shouts the alarmist. Sure, world food production, both in absolute terms and calories per capita, has been going up since 1850 and that obviously is gunna stop next Tuesday week, We're all gunna die.

Chicken Little lives.

'Limits to Growth' ideas, systems, beliefs etc. are just that, it's not a tested theory whatever it is, it seems suspiciously convenient for those who thought it up....

Further, one can see significant contradictions e.g. just because one assumes economic growth is bad (and adhering to Ricardian/Malthusian solid state ideas of inputs/outputs based again on beliefs, without understanding future technologies, globalisation, service economy etc.), does not mean negative growth is good.

The only people who would benefit are the already wealthy elites, while everybody else are told they will be better off (according to elites) in a steady state nation state with an autarkist economy, monocultural society, no immigration and 'zero population growth'.

Question which wealthy industrialists sponsored the 'steady state' ideas via the Club of Rome's 'thinkers', with an interest in fossil fuels, phamaceuticals and banking? Those hippy socialist progressives the Rockefellers.

mikk

"Sadly my money is on war! We humans just cant help ourselves"

Speak for yourself. Man has a program for peace and a program for war. We can choose which we activate.

Every time you advocate a state solution to anything - except perhaps defence against unprovoked aggression - you advocate using unprovoked aggression against your fellow man.

You actively advocate war all the time. Every single post that you have ever posted in here, that I have disagreed with, that has been the issue. And it has always been you advocating violent aggression.

The fact that you may not have understood this, owing to your brainwashing by the State - is no excuse, because I have explained it to you, and you choose to persist in error.

Its not my choice JKJ.
It is a logical inference from looking at the history of humankind.

I have never advocated war or violence. I am against war.

You are the one advocating the idiotic idea that taxation is violence and anything that stops you and your ilk making more money is akin to declaring war on you. It is you and your weird persecution complex that sees violence where none exists. Taxation and enforcement of laws is not violence. No one agrees with you and you just look like one of those stupid rednecks living in the mountains hiding from the "revenuers".

Its just greed and spitefulness. Not wanting to help those less fortunate than you.
Would you walk away from a drowning child? Would you be upset if people derided you for doing so? Expecting you to do the decent thing and save the kid? Or would that be violence against you as well?

I switched off when the 2degree temperature increase was raised as a problem. Where did this 2C come from? It assumes that the current temperature scenario is somehow ideal, when we know from history that climatic warm periods (Medieval, Roman, Minoan etc.) during which temperatures exceeded this target and were periods of improved human welfare. Also none of the dire consequences so often associated with a higher temperature by AGW doom mongers were evident.

Note here that the starting point from which the 2C temperature rise target is measured is the period following the 'Little Ice Age'. It would be astounding if there were no natural increase in temperature when the planet was coming out of this cold period. The question is then, given natural climate factors, how can we limit nature to a 2C limit when history clearly shows natural increase can exceed this man-made limit.