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.