Relax, Dave, you've "won" the argument, and the tired and repetitive misuse of Ehrlich as a straw man is totally unnecessary.

If you want to support the fiction that environmental degradation (logging, land clearing, habitat loss, species extinctions, water crises, pandemics) is unconnected to unchecked population growth, you are in very powerful company.

Global and UN policy agrees that the mere mention of the p-word is unacceptably racist. Environmentally speaking, "climate change" has become the only show in town, especially among the younger generation. This works for the corporate sector, works for the religious sector. Again, you "won", chill out.

As with every lie, there is a thread of the truth inside.

Michael Moore comes up with some highly entertaining stuff. But wouldn't the world be a better place without massive human populations? Of course it would, we all agree I'm sure.

But on a more relevant note, Moores obesity. Hasn't he learned, eating fast food in huge quantities is destructive to humans. Surely there are better ways of living Michael.

Dan

They used to say " nothing worse than a woman scorned.+.. these days its "nothing worse than an environmental cultist scorned". Like hi or loath him, Michael Moore is always challenging the accepted view and polictically correct world.

But when he points out something against then climate change cultists ( yes the CCC'ers) and their love of silicon rich solar panels and rare earth metal packed batteries and all the associated resource extraction and lifecycle cost... boy not then the scorn is red hot and in the case of Diver Dan here, 'fattist". Like all good socialist, when they can't accept other viewpoints they turn personal and nasty and demean the messenger. Pathetic behaviour.

Like the aauthor, I watched the whole 1h 40min and have persuaded others to do so. Some of it is tenuous, a lot of it is truly eye-opening for those CCCers and environmentalist who love solar (well that's what they are taught at school and Uni and by the likes of the ABC,BBC, Al Gore, Guardian, CNN etc. BUT the important thing he does as he has with the previous (much praised by the left) he asks questions and raise issues, the mainstream media/luvies of Hollywood won't touch.

Ignore reviews ( no offense to author meant) Watch it yourself and make your own mind up, think for yourself and if you query the material, go to the library, Dr Google, Wikipedia…. and do some work yourself, rather than be led like sheep by others.

I don't think this will have much effect on the climate nutters, who always manage to rationalise (in their minds at least) anything said against their lunacy. They'll be back with vengeance as soon as the China virus is gone. Of course, Moore's mind might have finally popped, as it has been threatening to do for years, and he has slipped up. He's getting on remember.

Surely no one is stupid and arrogrant enough to still think they can predict rainfall, temperatures and snowfalls after 50 years of totally dud predictions from the experts. The Barrier Reef has died 20 times since the 1970's. Just follow the money trail. Ask Turnbull, Gore, Hewston and others who have made a killing out of massive electricity prices hikes for the average person in Australia. Oh sorry and don't forget Greta you evil people who have stolen her future.

Every time I meet a person who blames human over-population for our woes, I recommend they read the book "Empty Planet: The Shock of Global Population Decline" by Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson. It presents entirely plausible statistics to suggest that the planet's human population will peak by about 2030, sooner than estimated by the UN, and then reduce significantly as is happening already in japan, Italy and China (even without taking the Covid 19 impacts into account).

It doesn't then take much imagination to accept that, given another 30 to 50 years of economic development, the vast majority of the world's population will have reached a level of affluence sufficient to meet all their more than reasonable needs, such that consumption of natural resources including fossil fuels will plateau and then fall. Mix into this scenario the high likelihood of significant technological innovation and, in my estimation, by the turn of the century, global CO2 emissions will be on their way down without the need to spend trillions of dollars to decarbonise the world's economy.

Hi Bernie Masters,

What do you understand to be the sustainable human population limit for the planet?

Hi Mr Opinion. In theory, there is no sustainable human population limit provided we are prepared to accept more impacts on the environment and a reduction in our standard of living. If everyone was happy to live with the same wealth and standard of living as the poorest African, for example, the world would easily sustain 20 billion people or more.

In practice, however, people aspire to a much higher standard of living, similar to what most western Europeans currently enjoy. On this basis, the world probably could not sustain more than 10 billion people, possibly more with greater environmental damage or possibly less if we were serious about looking after the world we live on.

The book Empty Planet suggests global population will peak at about 9 billion and then decrease significantly over the following decades. Birth rates are dropping right around the world and this trend is unstoppable.

I agree with Moore on both counts; mandated and subsidised renewable energy isn't that great at reducing emissions and that the growing world population will lead to a crisis. In Australia's case we've had a renewable energy target for nearly 20 years yet emissions in key sectors are essentially unchanged. We need a different approach I suggest nuclear power.

The corollary of this is that green high priests will lose their cred so they should tread carefully. A worst of both worlds scenario is persistent emissions and extreme weather coupled with a lacklustre economy. That seems to be the track we are on.

Bernie Masters,

I'm sorry to be the one to bring you the sad news but the sustainable human population limit is 5.6 billion and that was reached in 1986.

Mr Opinion. Where do you get the 5.6 billion number from please?

Bernie Masters,

I'm citing Jared Diamond from his book 'Collapse'.

Mr Opinion, Thanks for advising where the number came from. I've read that book and, while it's an interesting and challenging read, I don't accept that the number - any number - can be accepted without qualifications. As I wrote earlier, the planet can sustain 20 billion people if we accept a standard of living similar to the typical African or Indian level or 3 billion if we all aspire to the level enjoyed by the richest country in the world.

Bottom line however is that, regardless of whatever number experts agree upon as sustainable, national governments are going to strive to help their citizens get wealthier because that's the only way they'll get re-elected. So those of us living in the developed countries need to find the technologies that we can give to developing countries to help them lift their standards of living without doing the damage to the planet that we've done as we've reached our current high standards of living.

Dear Bernie Masters,

It's not quite that simple nor economistic as your description implies.

I see no reason to question the figure given by Diamond and from my perspective it seems to make sense.

The assertion by the Author, there is no such thing as green energy is demonstrably false!

And made because he believes? That the energy Moore was referring to was renewables?

I believe he wasn't! I believe he was referring to thorium and as a consequence of a long conversation with at least one proponent of this, green energy!? As any thinking investigator with a sound rational head on his shoulders, would!

That this Author couldn't see or know that? Speaks volumes!

Just 8 grams of thorium contains enough deliverable energy to power your house and car, plus provide all your durables for 100 years and given the mining and refining cost pertaining to 8 grams, is around $100.00?

For just one dollar a year as the supply-side cost? And without adding a single gram of carbon to the atmosphere! Even a 3 cents PKWH, there's huge profits to be made here.

Graphite cored undersea cables could carry the Green energy to any customer who could pay or it in cash or kind, anywhere!

Given we just had the intelligence and testicular fortitude, to prefer this energy source, enable a huge economic windfall and for decades!

See Thomas Jam Petersen's U tube presentation for verification of the projected numbers and Thorium V greens to see the referred, Michael Moore interview/discussion? TBC.

Take care and stay safe.
Alan B.

Mr Opinion, Really … quoting Jared Diamonds, a best selling writer of airport paperbacks that offer little other than conjecture... I would have expected more from you.

Try reading some real hard science, as opposed to "tabloid" entertainment designed to distract the minds of international flight long-distance travellers.

Diamonds ideas may be interesting and sell books... but its not hard well researched scientific endeavour and if you think it is.... " so long and thanks for all the fish" mate!

Meanwhile some perceptive writers have been making the same criticisms of the mainstream environmental movement.
Namely the ever marvelous John Steppling - see his essays featured on the Global Research and Counterpunch websites.
And Cory Morningstar via the Wrong Kind of Green website.

I see that David believes that there should be a strong connection between the church and the state.
Some/all of the Christian true believers featured on this site http://www.nobeliefs.com/nazis.htm more of less believed and promoted the same thing.
A strong leader was deemed necessary to deal with the obvious cultural disintegration of the times. Someone who was prepared to decisively deal with the communist,bolsheviks, bohemians, "deviants", free thinkers and non-conformists, gypsies and of course the "problem" of the Jews.

David also claims or pretends that he, along with other true believers, are working to help manifest "god's" and/or "jesus's" plan for humankind.

The arrogance and all-the-way-down-the-line hubris of such a claim is extraordinary.
Even to begin to do so one would have to have an all-inclusive god's-eye view of Cosmic existence, the nature of the World Process. And every possible dimension of what we are as human beings.
One would quite literally have to take all of the paradoxes of space-time history into account, past present and future.

And why does everything have to turn out to be christian? Check out the List of Deities reference on Wikipedia.

Birth rates are dropping right around the world and this trend is unstoppable.
Bernie Masters,
I hope you're right particularly among those who depend too much on others ! Life should be lived as a Symbiosis not as Parasitism ! The below from Wiki sounds eerily similar to Bureaucracy !

Like predation, parasitism is a type of consumer-resource interaction, but unlike predators, parasites, with the exception of parasitoids, are typically much smaller than their hosts, do not kill them, and often live in or on their hosts for an extended period. Parasites of animals are highly specialised, and reproduce at a faster rate than their hosts

Life's too short to make a detailed criticism of the article. Pellowe doesn't like abortion and most people who are concerned about the impacts of the world's population think abortion is okay.

Bernie Masters referred to "Empty Planet" in another post and I responded then. I won't repeat that, except to say that the title is a dead giveaway that it is a promotional piece (with world population increasing by 80 million a year) not the scientific study Bernie implies.
This is a better review than I could do anyway:
https://overpopulation-project.com/review-of-empty-planet-the-shock-of-global-population-decline-by-darrell-bricker-and-john-ibbitson-part-1/

Second, Bernie didn't read Empty Planet very carefully. Bernie says the peak will be in 2030. Empty Planet says between 2040 and 2060.

And besides that, does anybody think that even with the rosiest of forecasts, the earth with 9 billion is going to be all happiness and sunshine? The standard economic logic is that humans get smarter and smarter every year and therefore learn how to make things better and cheaper every year. Since 2000, except in times of profound recessions, the price of food, energy, building materials and almost every commodity has gone up. It is unlikely that we are getting dumber, so that probably means that demand is increasing faster than supply on our finite planet.

Does anybody think that with 9 billion people demand is going to decrease? That means we’ve got to start getting smarter than we have been for the past 20 years. Is that likely to happen? What would change to make it happen? Which one of the new incredible technological fixes doesn’t work even better when the population is stable? Does anybody think that there will be less destruction of the natural environment while we try to find food, energy and building materials to meet the demands of the rosy forecast of 9 billion? Is destruction of the natural environment a good idea? What about the likely destruction with United Nations median forecast of 10.8 billion?

Many commentators have noted that population growth rates are decreasing and then said "see, problem solved." Of course, the question is, are rates decreasing fast enough to limit suffering and maintain lifestyles. Currently, population stabilization is a kooky nutty outlier theory regarding protection of the environment.

In 1854 there was a cholera outbreak around the Broad Street well in London. A local doctor, John Snow studied the area and came up with a kooky nutty outlier theory that mothers washing soiled nappies in the well was putting the disease into the wells drinking water. He convinced the local authorities to remove the handle from the well. When the well was no longer used, the cholera epidemic was quickly extinguished in that area. About a year later the authorities put the handle back on the well, because they didn’t believe Snow’s kooky nutty germ theory of disease. The germ theory of disease had been hypothesized for centuries in many parts of the world prior to John Snow, but was always considered too kooky and nutty for general acceptance. The theory slowly gained acceptance over the next 40 years due primarily to the work of Pasteur, Lister and Koch, but on the way millions died.

We can be the society that put the handle back on the pump or we can be the society that just left the handle off. We can slow population growth now without much hassle (net zero immigration, no government benefits for more than 2 kids) or we can hope that birth rates slow down while millions that we will never see, die.

Population pressure and poverty go hand in hand! And that poverty is not addressed by climate change desertification and the refugees that creates.

Now all you obsessed idealogues can argue until the sun goes nova? About causes and cures, i.e., a cull by covid-19 or its more virulent big brother?

That won't solve much until and unless we reverse desertification/turn uninhabitable deserts into productive gardens that if done on a large enough scale by retasking current aid dollars?

Allowed the disenfranchised to go home or to a new productive one as new settlers on formerly worthless arid desert land!

And there are no technical difficulties, just nuisance humans who see cheap clean energy and almost free desalinated water as a threat to their current robber baron business models?

If we would reduce the population curve and nake it go the other way? Then we need to liberate enslaved women folk from sexual and domestic slavery!

As educated females suddenly realise they are not property or domestic slaves, but have rights and dreams of their own, including choice abut marriage to whomsoever they do or do not choose.

Two-thirds of the world are domiciled in hovels with no washing machine! Therefore, the resident females, never the lazy layabout men, do all the family's washing by hand!

Put AFFORDABLE POWER INTO THOSE HOMES THEN CLEAN RUNNING WATER.

THEN A WASHING MACHINE AND SUDDENLY, THERE'S FREE 8 OR SO HOURS FOR STUDY AND COTTAGE INDUSTRIES THAT EARN INCREASING DOLLARS!

As this new affluence spreads with affordable power and clean water plus lighting, refrigerators, washing machines and laptops. That world feeds itself, clothes itself and educates those who are currently illiterate, and with improved national economies and improved health and education outcomes, population growth plateaus, then declines.

Moreover, the only bloodshed free way to do it! And needs to be directed at the coal face, not corrupt governments who use it to buy bullets, to slaughter their own!

With the developed world, the beneficiaries of huge new trade and wealth growth opportunities left, right and centre!
Alan B.

Apologies, ericc, you found a mistake I'd made in my original post. I'd intended to write that global population growth would cease in 30 years - by 2050 - but I wrongly wrote 2030. Everything else I wrote however remains an accurate reflection of my views. I've now read the critique of Empty Planet that you provided - thank you for that - but believe it's nit-picking and not a realistic assessment of where population growth is headed.
FYI, I worked in China in 1988 for a few weeks and my host - an American who'd lived there since 1938 - asked me what I'd noticed during our travels through coastal southern China. I said I'd seen a TV aerial in every village, not matter how small. Correct, he said, every Chinese person in the most densely populated part of China was watching Hong Kong TV programs - days of our Lives, Dallas, Dynasty, The Bold and the Beautiful, etc - and they saw the wealth on display in every one of these American programs and said to themselves 'I want that!'. Today, more than 400 million Chinese have been removed out of poverty thanks to capitalism and, for complex reasons, their birthrate is below sustainable levels.
The only question in my mind therefore is what might happen in Africa where birth rates remain far too high to stop population growth. Based upon various projects I've been involved with, education and technology will speed up wealth-creation in that continent - smart phones now replace physical banks, for example - and I'm confident that their birthrate will stop increasing by 2050.

Thanks Bernie. Well you might call it nit-picking but the Empty Planet authors have picked the lowest of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis very low forecasts and then implied that they were the well researched average forecast. Certainly you are free to believe whatever data you might find, based on all your experiences.

Second, I don't think you can compare the sub-saharan Africa population growth, where they have a culture of big families, with China where the one-child policy was instituted from 1978-1980. The one child policy was started 40 years ago and the population in China is still increasing today. That is ominous for Africa because if they do stop the growth rate by 2050 the population will increase for many years after just as it has in China. Of course the poverty and other conditions may impact the population growth rates as well.

If Australia and some other rich countries would stop aggressively trying to increase our population, it would be easier to convince the poor countries that this is a more sustainable path to prosperity. It isn't really feasible to go to Nigeria and say "We think you should limit your population growth, oh and by the way we are going to continue to try to increase our population, because obviously the world needs more Australians and less Nigerians."

Alison Jane at Page 3 posted re Jared Diamond's 'Collapse':

"Diamonds ideas may be interesting and sell books... but its not hard well researched scientific endeavour ........"

Obviously Alison Jane does not believe Diamond has any substantial credentials.

I find her comment extremely alarming given Jared Diamond's background: BA in anthropology/history from Harvard and a PhD in biophysics/physiology from Cambridge and currently professor in geography at UCLA.

His credentials look pretty impressive to me and I would consider him to be a world authority in his disciplines.

Well Alison Jane how are you situated? My understanding is that you are just an engineer. I wouldn't call that much of a credential to be criticising people like Diamond.

Misopinionated,

With your bizarre worship of certain types of credentials and not others, as if they were the be-all and end-all, you really come across as a village idiot.

Then you compound it by your almost religious adherence to some mythical magic maximum number of humans, and a magic date.

You are completely unaware of the potential of technological development to feed the world. That might explain your abhorrence of engineers, and your ivory-tower views.

Whenever I accidentally have to read one of your posts, I'm reminded of Michael Palin in 'The Life of Brian', capering around the market-place, twittering away but saying nothing. Brilliant. So I suppose there's that consolation.

Joe

LOUDmouth,

Thanks for letting me know what you think, not what you know.

LOUDmouth,

PS I see one of your pro-China buddies Andrew Forrest was pushing your side's position the other day when he got one of your comrades front stage at a government press conference. I bet that made you happy!

Pretty good effort from Moore and Gibbs.

Moore has a good track record of speaking truth to power and although he has a tendency to slip into some of the sensationalism of right wing media I think he hits the mark well.

SteeleRedux,

The people who don't want Michael Moore (and that dear little princess Greta) doing what they do are the same sort of people who would let the Chinese Communist Party in through the back door. Or as we have just seen through the front door if one happens to be Andrew Forrest.

What's wrong with Michael Moore? Not a god dam thing...NOW. He has just had his eyes opened up to the confidence trick that is wind & solar power & was brave enough to call it for what it is.

Now if someone could only open his eyes to the confidence trick that is blaming the minute normal warming cycle of the planet on CO2, it would be very useful.

Hasbeen,

You great big chocolate (smarty).

Andrew Forrest is one of yours isn't he?

started watching the doco last night. Lasted about 3o minutes before falling asleep. Truth is, that it has been obvious for over a decade what a fraud renewables has been and still is. Rudd, Gillard, Turnbull and even Morrison really selling out to the United Nations and big corporations making billions from the tax payers. End result simply massive increases in electricity, more environmental damage and kids totally brainwashed. Hopefully coronavirus will finish the stupidity of Government handouts for electric cars, solar panels and wind farms. When someone with the courage to pull out of the Paris fraud comes forth we might be able to regain some trust. No wonder the abc and other regressives were so desperate to get rid of Abbott.

Synthesis of credible population research, excludes ZPG and Club of Rome related Paul 'population bomb' Ehrlich, white nationalist John 'passive eugenics' Tanton and Paul 'Sea Shepherd' Watson, reaches less alarming conclusions on population.

Bricker and Ibbitson highlight how fertility rates have been dropping almost everywhere leading to a peak mid century followed by (in their analysis by continued) decline, then highlight issues with the UN Population Division's infkated fertility rates for China, India etc. (supported by The Lancet after publication).

One would add that energy sources will go green, away from fossil fuels and legacy investments,for economic reasons.

Further, population decline will aid the environment also, according to Fred Pearce's 'The Coming Population Crash and Earth's Surprising Future':

'surprisingly, it appears that the explosion is past its peak. Around the world, in developing countries as well as in rich ones, today's women are having on average 2.6 children, half the number their mothers had. Within a generation, world fertility will likely follow Europe's to below replacement levels—and by 2040, the world's population will be declining for the first time since the Black Death, almost seven hundred years ago.'

Wrong title for Pearce's book, 'planet' not 'earth', summary continued:

In The Coming Population Crash, veteran environmental writer Fred Pearce reveals the dynamics behind this dramatic shift. Charting the demographic path of our species over two hundred years, he begins by chronicling the troubling history of authoritarian efforts to contain the twentieth century's population explosion, as well as the worldwide trend toward the empowerment of women that led to lower birthrates. And then, with vivid reporting from around the globe, he dives into the environmental, social, and economic effects of our surprising demographic future.

Now is probably the last time in history that our world will hold more young people than elders. Most fear that an aging world population will put a serious drain on national resources, as a shrinking working population supports a growing number of retirees. But is this necessarily so? Might an older world population have an upside? Pearce also shows us why our demographic future holds increased migration rates, and reveals the hypocrisy at the heart of anti-immigrant rhetoric in the developed world: the simple fact is that countries with lower birthrates need workers and countries with higher birthrates need work.

And he tackles the truism that population density always leads to environmental degradation, taking us from some of the world's most densely packed urban slums to rural Africa to argue that underpopulation can sometimes be the cause of environmental woes, while cities could hold the key to sustainable living.'

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7788578-the-coming-population-crash

Andras Smith,

From what I know the world population growth is NOT declining and will continue to grow as long as there is sufficient food and associated resources available to prevent it from declining or in some cases crashing e.g. Easter Island and Rwanda.

Are you confusing population growth with rate of population growth?

May I ask what you understand to be the factor that lowers the fertility rate in modern/advanced industrialised societies?

Not sure of the relevance of your opinion Mr Opinion?

Fertility rates started declining decades ago, for now we are mostly seeing the aggregation of population due to ageing and longevity, while numbers of young remain about 2 billion (according to Prof. Hans Rosling of Gapminder), before the peak then drop....

Across both the developed and less developed world, research has shown that fertility rates decline due to improved health care, education, economic opportunities and empowerment for women.

Andras Smith,

So you are telling us that total world population is declining. Is that what you are telling us? If you look at the World Population Clock it is telling us that total population is rising NOT falling.

You obviously do not understand what the factor is that causes a lowering of the fertility rate in modern industrial societies. You seem to think that it just happens. Can you describe for us exactly how it functions?

Mr Opinion, both Andras Smith and I are saying that the global increase in human beings is declining, not the actual number of people. This will happen only when female fertility rate drops below 2.1 or 2.2 children per woman, which will happen in about 2050.

Misopinionated,

My god, what an idiot.

Of course, world population is still increasing. But the rate of population growth is declining. The number of births in China will stabilise then decline this decade, and something similar will happen in India in another generation or so. Domestic population growth in Europe, Japan, north America, perhaps Australia and NZ, is stagnant - our population grows only with immigration. Even in Africa, the rate of population growth is decreasing.

So world population will continue to grow, but more slowly, until around 2100, then very slowly decline.

In fact, populations are growing not just because of more births, but because people are living longer, i.e. not dying so early, so they are still counted in the world's population for longer.

Don't they teach you anything at TAFE ?

Joe

LOUDmouth,

What are you talking about? I just said above that world population is rising NOT the opposite. Bernie Masters and Andras Smith are the ones saying it is falling.

It's interesting to see that none of you three know how a modernising society gives rise to a lowering of the fertility rate. Well actually in LOUDmouth's case it shouldn't surprise me at all.

You need to look no further than the titles to know that both "Empty Planet" and "The Coming Crash" are not scientific studies of population. They are scare stories designed to maintain the status quo.

The status quo is high immigration and a relentless increase in the population to ensure more customers for business and lower wages for most workers. That means bigger profits for existing businesses.

Both books gloss over the next 30 years where, even in their most favourable reality, the population continues to increase to at least 9 billion. And then how long does it take to "CRASH" back to our current population of 7.8 billion (I guess only an author with no respect for his readers would call that an "EMPTY PLANET"). Well, best case, that will take another 30 years.

The environmental and human destruction during that time will be significant and, of course, even worse if the authors very low end predictions are too low. (How many pandemics are you predicting in that time?) But is that the problem of the business people promoting higher population. HELL NO. Those are externalities that are picked up by the general population through higher taxes, lower wages, more pollution, poor infrastructure and higher commodity prices.

Unfortunately, governments are designed and run to protect the interests of the property owners. It is likely then that our "Scotty from marketing" (and the next guy and the next guy) will continue to do as their told, until the average citizen gets sick of it.

Mr Opinion, wrong again. Andras Smith and I are saying the rate of growth of world population is falling, not world population.

Bernie Masters,

Sorry if I misinterpreted what you said but the way you expressed yourself was a bit ambiguous.

Can we both agree that (1) world population is increasing (2) fertility rates in modern industrial societies are declining (3) modelling shows that world population growth might peak and possibly decline.

How does that sound?

Mr Opinion. Spot on. We're in agreement. The big question then becomes how quickly will human population decline once zero population growth occurs? Japan's population is projected to fall from 127 million to 100 million by 2050 - a 20% drop - so the decline globally could be surprisingly large after 2050.

The authors cited, like others, have synthesised credible research vs. promoting beliefs and opinions promoting 'overpopulation' alarmists, sub-optimal data analysis by the UNPD and reemergence of the old WASP eugenics movement, supported by old fossil fuel oligarchs and related, under the guise of 'sustainable environment'.

Parts of the world have already started on their population decline, following decades of below replacement rate fertility and emigration i.e. Central Eastern Europe. Further many other nations, outright population will peak mid century due to their fertility/replacement rates dropping generations ago e.g. western Europe.

Australia's estimated population is inflated by the expansion of the NOM net overseas migration formula (defined by the UNPD) in 2006 including significantly more temporary residents via the 12/16+ month rule sweeping up international students, backpackers etc., which will decline markedly in the short term.

However, the elephant in the room is Australia's own permanent population (excluding temporaries), which is already flatlining, with the top end of baby boomer bubble immediately following and overlapping the last of the pre WWII oldies; the 'big die off' starting in about five years.

Following generations have lower fertility rates which can be seen starkly in the bush with fewer children and families, schools closing, need for seasonal workers and difficulty in fielding local sports teams, sustaining clubs and community.