Adapting to climate change: From an email about living on the edge.
Jenny; I added a footnote for you.

The first problem for greater populations, product a warmer climate of recent times is our silly concept of fixed assets. Who actually owns the fresh water that falls on our land is about the last legal frame work to be put in place in Australia after Europeans fenced off much of the most fertile blocks of country all over. Let’s say these fences are quite arbitrary from any natural history point of view.

Bushfire mitigation both sides of a real-estate boundary has been the subject of much policy development over a decade or so but are we all satisfied? No, few folk are protected in reality in this sunburnt country by any modern administrative framework.

Some notes about my home region: Civilised people established their family cultures here some 30-40 thousand years ago and as far south as the ice caps and glaciers allowed in the Franklin River region of Tasmania. About 15,000 years ago the ice age extremities started to melt and for some time the sea level rose. Eventually the oceans flooded the great ancient rift valley that is now Bass Strait and drove the hapless local populations north and south. The sea lapped the cliffs and old volcanic plugs at the edge of the rift and created the Island of Tasmania as we know it.

But not everybody notices the double coast lines formed at the edge of the cliffs when the big rise of 80m ebbed. The polar caps had settled and the sea tides fell back a metre or so. Wind blown sands from the new bays accumulated at the margin. Aborigines concentrated south side recalled their rout and remained back in fresh caves on the high line. Gathering shell fish from the stripped landscape became their main occupation.

How fragile are the main dunes that protect our sea change lifestyle?

Adapting continued: When considering magnitudes, maximums and rates of change at their peaks I suspect that 8000 years ago was the time our eucalypts flourished and dominated the cool climate “rain” forests. Southern parts of Australia were still covered by dense eucalypt forests at the time Europeans discovered the continent. Tasmania in particular certainly was and aborigines were busy burning off scrub everywhere eucalypts did not have a foothold.
Open game country was limited to certain types of poorer soils but the early white settlers took a while to discover that their first choice of grazing country was in fact a bad one.
Timber millers eventually opened the bush and that process goes on today.

In summer the warmed shallow waters of Bass Strait become the heating for bizarre and furious atmospheric spin offs from the main events, regular patterns of highs and lows, anti cyclones and cyclones before the roaring forties. Recollections after witnessing some freak storms still defy my imagination. Bass Strait is littered with ship wrecks too. I was not the only one.

How cool is the next climate change? That is a question best answered in the short term by another question, how good is your real estate investment? Let’s put this question again to the same punters in say 25 years time.

A footnote added re another email today: See our Woolnorth Wind Farm here –

http://reslab.com.au/resfiles/wind/text.html

Your Kidding,

Doomsdayers at it beating the drum again.

How can you say that in a country with the vast land area we have, and with the marvels of modern engineering, we could not sustain growth as a nation.

By your reasoning, half the countries on this earth should already be starved to death, when in reality it is not this percentage.

It comes down to A. Need B. Solution C. Demand for that solution. As things crunch or look like crunching, governments can enact a myriad of solutions.

One such solution is pumping sea water from South Australia to the red centre, creating a micro climate and combined with global warming we will see marginal land improve to greater production levels. Crops can be grown hydroponically and by stopping evaporation and recycling water water required is singificantly less.

Once there is a real need, there will be enough money involved to find a solution. Humans have come a long way, we are in the golden age of medicine as one example, you must realise that we can adapt to an ever changing planet, thats what separates us from the Monkeys

We have been talking about this for years. While we have been talking, our population has continued growing – thanks to dumb, high-growth politicians. During this do-nothing period, we have created another problem for ourselves: not only have we continued with high immigration, but we have also taken on Third World immigration. The birth rate of educated, white Australians of European descent has reduced dramatically, but we are bringing in people who are culturally incompatible and who certainly do not understand what Jennie Goldie or Sustainable Population Australia are on about – if they have heard of them. And they never will. They will continue with the same practices inherent in the countries they came from, and eventually turn Australia into something similar, aided by cultural relativists and pathetic governments who see things only in terms of dollars.

I agree with Jennie Goldie. Anyone who advocates a lower, sustainable population for Australia is a friend of mine. But I’m afraid the complacency of Australians and the dangerous dimwits of all shades in Canberra have pretty much ensured that things will continue the way they are.

The ‘Death of the West’ is well under way.

"Thirty million? Forget it."

Yes we should be aiming for 50 or 60 at least.

I think discouraging green/left loonies from breeding is a very good idea and needs to be encouraged. And one would have to say that this forum is an excellent place to put such promotional material. And one should certainly hope that Ms Goldie has had the courage of her convictions and refrained from reproduction.

But as for the rest of us? A can't think of any real life problem, any bushfire, natural disaster, famine or flood, where those of us tasked with finding practical solutions have had pause to suggest, "what we really need now is a population cap, or maybe even a population nutter". Naagght! Just can't see it.

Putting support for current migration levels in the same basket as supporting people to have more children ignores the rather basic fact that migration doesn't increase population levels by a single person - all it does is determine whereabouts on the planet a person resides.

The statement that "even at current levels of fertility and migration, Australia’s population will pass 30 million by mid-century" is not supported by Australian Bureau of Statistics projections. It also ignores the fact that our fertility rate is trending down, despite a brief pause in the last couple of years, and there's no particular reason why it won't continue to do so, given trends in other western developed countries.

When migration intake is as high as the current level is, it is relatively easy to taper from one year to the next by 10 000 or so, as the peaks are driven by the skilled and business demands. The current year's intake is quite high by historical standards, so to assume it will be consistently at that level for the next 50 or 100 years is unlikely to be accurate.

As for Leigh's bemoaning of the decline of white Australia, I will only say that it can't be reversed, so we're better off looking at how to make it work best (multiculturalism seems to be doing bast at that, but that's another debate). The evidence shows that, regardless of whether a migrant comes from so-called "white European stock" or something else, the vast majority adapt to Australians levels in regard to the number of children they have within a generation or two, so that should please everyone who wants to see global population growth decline (as I do).

Here's a thought, Leigh. You wrote:

>>We have been talking about this for years. While we have been talking, our population has continued growing – thanks to dumb, high-growth politicians.<<

You don't actually select a period that covers "for years", but here's a challenge:

Name any period, from the past to today, and tell me a) whether the population of Australia has increased over that period, and b) whether the people of Australia at the end of that period are better or worse off than at the beginning.

Start with economics, if you like, then work through quality of life and so on. However you look at it, Australians are better off today than at any point in history.

A statistician would probably detect a high correlation between population and prosperity.

Until and unless there are specific examples of roadblocks - hinted at in the article, but none actually proven - this state of affairs is likely to continue.

And as Realist points out (hi!) there has yet to be an end to human ingenuity with which to address the problems as they arise.

Suicide by immigration, yay, welcome to the world of economics. Yippee, less white people are having babies so Aussie won't be white anymore. Yay. Import everything we need, since the world belongs to us, the white man y'know. No doctors? Get them from Kenya. There are more Kenyan doctors in London than Kenya. Declining population? Get 'em from countries with an even more severe declining population like Croatia.

No water? Get the water from some third world country, we need it more yknow.

Kenny who are you to advocate a higher population, are'nt you gay? Oh, you are all for suicide by immigration.

Realist, I love the idea of digging a channel up through SA to fill Lake Eyre with sea water. (I used to watch a lot of Sci-Fi.) But when are we going to do this massive engineering feat, and with what energy? Because we had better start soon! With your over optimistic scenarios, you have obviously missed the most startling report to the US Department of energy EVER, the “Hirsch report.” In it he states…

"The world has never faced a problem like this. Without massive mitigation more than a decade before the fact, the problem will be pervasive and will not be temporary. Previous energy transitions (wood to coal and coal to oil) were gradual and evolutionary; oil peaking will be abrupt and revolutionary."
From the Summary, page 64.
I wrote to Robert Hirsch and asked for a summary of his 91 page report. This is what he said…

"No one knows with certainty when the world production of conventional oil will peak, but a number of experts think it will happen in the next 5-15 years. Our work illustrates that the oil peaking problem can be mitigated with available technologies, but the time required for implementation is measured on a 15-20 year time line, at best.

The character of the oil peaking problem is like none other; without timely mitigation, the impacts will be dire, worldwide, and long-lasting. Prudent risk management dictates serious attention and massive action soon, which is difficult for most people and many decision-makers, who tend to wait until a problem is obvious before taking action."

Realist please note: Hirsch now saying that his report was too optimistic! Oil production may have peaked this year, we really should have been preparing for 40 years! He is genuinely scared.
http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/interviews/615

"This problem is truly frightening. This problem is like nothing that I have ever seen in my lifetime, and the more you think about it and the more you look at the numbers, the more uneasy any observer gets. It's so easy to sound alarmist, and I fear that part of what I'm saying may sound alarmist, but there simply is no question that the risks here are beyond anything that any of us have ever dealt with. And the risks to our economies and our civilization are enormous."

If you think Hirsch is some nutter, check Wikipedia. Don't trust wiki... go to the various government biographies and links to learn more about Hirsch. He is no nutter. He is very cluey. He is scared!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirsch_report

Peak oil might not mean Mad Max — but it’s going to be close! Just google “Eating Fossil Fuels” if you want to learn more about the relationship between oil and food. The basics were given in the outline article above.

“Realist”, try reading the Hirsch report before posting with that username again. Thanks

Andrew Bartlett

You have attempted to discredit Jenny Goldie’s article by alleging that the Australian Bureau of Statistics projections do not support her statement that "even at current levels of fertility and migration, Australia’s population will pass 30 million by mid-century".

If you are referring to the same ABS that we can all check at www.abs.gov.au, I’m sorry but the ABS projections DO support her statement. In November last year, the ABS forecast that with net overseas migration of 110,000 and a fertility rate of 1.7 Australia’s population in 2050 would rise to 28.2 million.

The net overseas migration is now running at at least 110,000, but as you say yourself, the fertility rate is higher. According to an ABS release in December last year, the fertility rate rose to 1.8 in the year ended June 2005, the highest rate for 10 years.

With the combination of 110,000 and 1.8, the population will in fact reach 30 million by 2050. Your suggestion that the rise in fertility rate may only be temporary is an assumption that is built into the ABS projection – they do not assume that it will remain at that level until 2050. So your accusation that Jenny’s statement “ignores the fact that our fertility rate is trending down, despite a brief pause in the last couple of years, and there's no particular reason why it won't continue to do so, given trends in other western developed countries” is groundless.

Andrew you are wrong. Jenny’s statement is perfectly consistent with the ABS projections. You really should face facts - the population could easily rise to 30 million within the next 44 years.

The ABS goes to considerable lengths to warn that the projections are not intended as rock-solid forecasts, but are “illustrations of growth and change that would occur if assumptions made about future demographic trends were to prevail over the projection period. It says there is no certainty that the assumptions WILL or WILL NOT be realised. That is why alternative projections are provided, to provide users with a range of options”.

The world increases it's population by 80 million pa.To justify our possession of this land,we are now locked into both a population and economic growth expansion or run the risk of eventually being invaded.

Indonesia will soon be past the 300 million mark and is eyeing off Papua New Guinea already.China and India are already over the billion mark and they too would like relief from pop pressures.

Just as we had the arms race and MAD[Mutual Assured Destruction],we are to degree locked into a population race as a means to a balance of power both in both an economic sense and military sense.We cannot rely on the US forever.We will soon be on our own if they get into serious trouble and many think that their Global influence is on the wan anyway.

I don't think we have much of a choice.Australia has lots of water,it just falls in selected coastal regions.It is all just about harvesting it and recycling it.

Do we want to maintain our liberal democratic way of life,or suffer invasion from one of the totalitarian regimes that surround us?If this happens,debate over maintaining populations at their present levels won't even be academic.

Andrew Bartlett (2)

In fact there are powerful forces at work trying to make sure that Australia ends up in the same boat as the rest of the world - overcrowded, weighed down with a mass of people, with their environments and resource consumption stretched to the limit.

For example, Steve Vizard, Richard Pratt, Malcolm Fraser, Malcolm Turnbull, Peter Beattie and Steve Bracks and organisations like the Housing Industry Association and the Property Development Council are all pushing for ACCELERATED growth.

People like David Attenborough and Al Bartlett and Australia’s Frank Fenner (who led the UN program to eradicate smallpox) and Ian Lowe are advocating no more growth.

Heaven help us if the former pack of ratbags, rogues and gougers get their way. If Australia continues its growth rate of 1.2% unabated the mathematics are quite straightforward: the doubling time is 70 divided by 1.2, which equals 58 years. That means that Australia could have 41 million, double its present population, by 2064. Within the liftimes of our children. Can you imagine how stuffed Sydney, Melbourne and South East Queensland will be with twice their present populations? Especially trying to grapple with the dual impacts of global warming and peak oil.

Andrew get with the program. Australia really needs some counterweight to the vested interests now driving the government and opposition. They are vested interests motivated by property-fuelled super profits and little else.

By the way, the ABS has 1.2 per cent growth rate for Australia, and the following for other countries: Canada 0.9, China 0.6, Germany 0.0, Hong Kong 0.6, India 1.4, Indonesia 1.5, Japan 0.1, Malaysia 1.8, New Zealand 1.0, Papua New Guinea 2.3, Singapore 1.6, Thailand 0.7, UK 0.3 and USA 0.9.

Hey Realist and Perseus keep stickin' it to the doomsayers!

I've just been watching some old archive footage of Plowshare, the U.S. atomic agency's now defunct program of "The Peaceful Atom". The idea was to use nuclear explosions to achieve engineering outcomes that would be too costly and time consuming otherwise. I can't imagine why such brilliant use of human knowledge was shelved, must of been those enviro nuts and lefties...

I heard a story that the late Kerry Packer was keen on the idea... we could simply and easily (using our unending ingenuity) nuke ourselves a channel from the cost, filling lake Eyre and creating a marvelous inland sea! Think of the opportunities! New coastal real estate to sell! Hell if done correctly, we could kick up enough particulate into the atmosphere to mitigate global warming! Fall-out schmall out, what we waiting for!? (Very similar to Realists suggestion, though much, much more economic.)

Leigh, hell, we could even put all those over breeding "multi-culturals" to work in the irradiated countryside, that'll fix their bloody high fertility rate!

Correct me if I’m wrong, but the evidence so far indicates that animal populations (including the human variety) – when it comes to limiting distribution and abundance – are reactive not proactive. Population size is a response to a variety of factors (living space, food, water, conflict and disease; acting separately or in concert) and increases or decreases in population size always occur after limiting factors express themselves: never before. It is unlikely humans will be an exception to the rule.

However, Leigh may have a proactive solution. Leigh claims, “We have been talking about this for years. While we have been talking, our population has continued growing – thanks to dumb, high-growth politicians.” If Leigh’s claim is true, then the solution to Australia’s, and indeed most of globe’s overpopulation problem is to neuter overly productive politicians. Or at least keep them away from your men, women and sheep.

Perseus asks whether I (Jenny Goldie) have the courage of my convictions and refrained from having children. Well, my convictions would lead me to have one or two children (rather than none)given that I don't want the human race to die out entirely. I, in fact, had one, then after reading Paul Ehrlich's 'Population Bomb'in 1970 I decided to adopt the rest so I have three adopted and one long-term foster son. They're all adults now.

Andrew Bartlett says he cannot equate a migrant with an extra child because the migrant is already born. True, though the ecological footprint of that migrant tends to go up when he/she arrives in Australia so the global ecological footprint is worse. (This is not to say I approve of the disparity between Australia and the rest of the world - Australia's clearly has to come down until we achieve some kind of equity in the middle.)

But my article was about Australia for which we as Australians have stewardship. My view is that we have already passed the carrying capacity of this continent though, were not climate change and peak oil looming over us, we could get down below carrying capacity with the current population but using only half the current resources and energy. My basic argument, however, is that Australia's already limited carrying capacity will be even further reduced by both climate change and peak oil. Had we adopted an aggressive campaign to move away from fossil fuels 15 years ago when the first warning bells were clanging, we might have been able to mitigate the effects of these converging catastrophes. But we haven't.

A number of analysts are saying that the world can only support 1.5 to 2 billion people sustainably, that is, a quarter of what we have now. If we extrapolate that to Australia it means 5 million people. But if Tim Flannery is right and Australian agriculture goes to the wall with a three degree rise in temperature, then can we feed even five million?

Jenny Goldie

Jenny; to put it simply recent global warming has meant things grow better including people. More warming means more lush in the short term, however some of us will be falling off the edges soon. Mind your patch well while you can

Jenny Goldie, humans are no different than any of the non-human creatures roaming the earth: survival depends upon the ability to seek pleasure and avoid pain. Controlling population numbers through conscious effort (in a time frame that has any relevance to the pending resource crisis) means a whole lot of folks will suffer. No one, not Australian, American, Russian nor Asian will willingly trade pain for pleasure. And, given the fact our basic survival mechanism opposes such behaviour, self-regulation is not in the cards.

Andrew Bartlett keeps telling us that migration doesn't affect the global population because people just move from one place to another. However, the existence of liberal immigration policies does influence decisions to have children. This is because people who expect some of their children to emigrate tend to have more of them. There are a number of references on this subject in Virginia Abernethy's "Population Politics" (Perseus, 2001), some showing comparisons between Welsh villages and Caribbean islands in the past that did and didn't have high emigration.

Migrant fertility also tends to go up in the host country because the migrants now believe that they can afford the very large family sizes idealised by their culture. The 2003 Mexican fertility rate was 2.53 children per woman (CIA World Fact Book (on the Web)). The fertility rate of Mexican migrants in California at the same time was 3.3 children per woman (see C.A. Davis and J.J. Brown, Californian Journal of Health Promotion 1 (2003) 78).

Then there is the effect on Third World governments who think that they don't have to encourage family planning and reform their bad economic policies because the West will let them export their dissidents and their surplus population.

Jenny Goldie has tied the overriding issue of population growth into two of the most ominous resource issues that we face; water and oil.

Spot-on.

.
“How can you say that in a country with the vast land area we have, and with the marvels of modern engineering, we could not sustain growth as a nation.”

Why Realist would you want to “sustain” growth? Why wouldn’t your “solution C” be to work towards a stable population? Surely that would be the most sensible solution. Any other supposed solution would simply allow the population to grow a whole lot bigger and hence require more ‘solutions’.

You seem to just innately want continued growth. You don’t give even a hint of why.

.
Kenny, how about an explanation.

.
Andrew, you haven’t addressed the much called-for desire on a different thread to know why you want 30 million Australians? With your views, it seems that you should be chasing 100 million or more. I am not the only who still completely fails to understand where you are coming from.

“…. migration doesn't increase population levels by a single person - all it does is determine whereabouts on the planet a person resides.”

Andrew, you keep repeating this sort of statement. It indicates one thing to me – that you don’t give a hoot about population levels in Australia. How can you only think of population levels on one level – the global level? As I have said before, I always thought the Democrats supported the concept of ‘think globally act locally’. You are not acting locally, nor thinking globally, pertaining to population.

Xist, many scientific organizations are concerned by the impacts of global warming on agriculture. Throw in an imminent oil peak and you have the ingredients for a real crisis! Worldwide grain production has already peaked and appears to be in decline due to a variety of other factors such as an increase in urbanisation (the concreting over of our agricultural areas). Try the CSIRO sustainability network Update 56:-
http://www.bml.csiro.au/SNnewsletters.htm

Or Lester Brown on falling grain production.
http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/Update28.htm

Water loss is impacting on agriculture.
http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/2005/Update47.htm

World food security now in doubt.
http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/Update40.htm

And without a doubt, you must read “Eating fossil fuels”.
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100303_eating_oil.html

So unless you have any sources backing your claim that global warming will be good for agriculture, can you have a look at my sources? Many scientists are asking how we are going to feed the current world population after peak oil, let alone doubling it!

David Lankshear
eclipsenow.org — Welcome to the end of the oil age!

David Lankshear, I think your comments are probably in response to the statements put forward by commentator Taz. I think you and I are reading from the same page when it comes to the effects of climate change and resource scarcity – hydrocarbon energy sources in particular – on human lifestyles.

However, I’m more than pessimistic when it comes to any society consciously, and successfully choosing to limit population growth – whether it results from curbing immigration or limiting indigenous growth – which seems to be Jenny Goldie’s thesis. If it happens, it won’t be the result of a change in political or social will, and it will be painful.

As far as the impacts of global warming on agriculture are concerned, there likely will be regional short-term gains in productivity as some of the land in the more temperate areas become more hospitable. But, like you say, other factors will probably restrict access to that increase, and in the end we will see no net gain.

Tim flannery has spent his entire life looking backwards. And there is no way I'll put my kids on a bus to the future when the driver has his seat facing the other way. It is well worth the wait for another bus.

And as for poor Ms Goldie, she was flogging this stuff back in 1985. And each time she has tried to hook it onto the prevailing issue as a surrogate for actually fixing the problem at hand. This time it is water and we are only a third of the way up the water learning curve. By simply ensuring that every house diverts its used shower water to flushing the toilet we will save 25% of urban use. Put the rest of the grey water onto the garden and save another 8%. And that 33% improvement will support another 10 million people without a single extra dam.

Limiting population will never buy us time because it also closes off options that rely on scale. And new technology constantly lifts the population threshholds for many of those options. And right now there are loads of projects that are on hold in regional Australia because we have an immigration program that is biased towards urban migrants.

What we actually need is a system of guest worker visas so we can import a portion of cheap labour to maintain jobs in threatened industries. So instead of watching a whole factory with 200 local jobs get shipped overseas, why not bring in 50 lower cost temporaries so at least 150 of the local jobs remain viable?

If Perseus thinks that someone as progressive in his thinking as Tim Flannery has “spent his entire life looking backwards”, then prey tell whom does he think is forward-looking?

It seems that he just wants to completely block out the looming crises and continue in just the same manner that led us to the brink of such crises as peak oil, climate change, water stress, pandemic, terrorism and massive civil strife, chronic environmental and resource-base damage, etc.

Jenny Goldie has been lobbying on population issues for many years. She ought to be heartily commended. My 18 years is nothing compared to her effort. It has been a long hard road, but those who are devoted keep at it.

I find that ordinary people can nearly always appreciate the absurdity of continued high population growth, not least rural people who don’t experience crowding or population pressures directly. It is interesting that these are the people to whom Perseus most strongly associates himself. Governments, state or federal, lib or lab, continue to be chronically out of touch with this predominating mindset.

But it is just a matter of time before commonsense prevails and those in favour of endless human expansion, or populations 50 or 100% larger than they are now, fall by the wayside and get recognised for what they are – either ecologically clueless or self-centred and greedy, or both. It was an amazing thing to discover so many like-minded people on OLO.

Perseus says “33% improvement will support another 10 million people without a single extra dam”. Yes….and it is not that far beyond possibility to actually improve water-use efficiency by 33%. But the thing is, we will have gained precisely nothing by the time we add 10 million people, which is in a pretty short timeframe at current growth rates.

So what is he really saying? That he wants us all to be much more frugal so that we can squeeze in another 10 million? Sounds like it. And then of course growth will continue just the same if he has his way.

Continued

We also would have to be 33% more efficient with every other single resource in order to just remain at the same state that we are now, a state in which we are clearly consuming a lot of resources unsustainably.

“Limiting population will never buy us time because it also closes off options that rely on scale.”

You can’t look at economies of scale without considering diseconomies of scale. Many things will worsen as they exert more demand pressure on resources. Diseconomies of scale associated with continued population growth are now much more significant than scale advantages. We broke even somewhere back in the early seventies or very probably a lot earlier, given the very long delayed-action factors associated with much of the damage that we have inflicted.

“And new technology constantly lifts the population thresholds”

Again, he considers this in isolation from the other side of the coin; our constantly worsening resource base. In all probability new technologies are battling to keep pace with the ever-declining aspects of population pressure and thus are not lifting population thresholds at all. Besides, shouldn’t new technologies be geared towards improving quality of life rather than facilitating ever-more people?

It is a pleasure to uphold some sensible debate with Perseus. I sincerely hope he sees fits to respond to all or most of the points that I have raised here, and not pick out one or two in isolation and not level any personal slander.

Please.

Hi Xist,
I’m encouraged that you and many others here seem aware of the many converging crisis about to impact on our way of life. As to our ability to limit population growth, surely one day the crisis will become so apparent that the many scientists raising the alarm now will finally be recognized? Surely there is some hope that we will be able to provide some kind of economic incentive to have smaller families, or even legislate a response?

To the others here that are in denial — we are rapidly approaching the limits to growth of this finite planet, if we have not overshot them already (by using our fossil fuel inheritance as an artificial “growth medium”). Just like bacteria breeding in a Petri dish, we have increased our population according to the laws of arithmetic progression.

For example, if it takes 24 hours of bacteria doubling every hour, when is the bottle half full? At 11pm! Nothing significant seems to happen until 10pm when the dish is suddenly a quarter full. Then it doubles again, and by 11pm it is half full. At 12 midnight the dish is full, the growth medium is overloaded and consumed, and dieoff occurs. (See www.dieoff.com.)

We are not bacteria. We are sentient beings with the capacity to understand our environments and respond accordingly. However it does appear that we are ignoring the ecologists we placed in charge to watch this trend. They are telling us that it is 11.59 pm. 11pm may have been back in 1957 when our population was about 3 billion. If we had put the breaks on then, we may have had the resources to maintain industrial civilization with a decent lifestyle. After all, it’s a simple equation. (Continued....)

Resources / population = lifestyle!

I was quite alarmed to see posts here arguing that if we use efficiencies to thwart Liebig’s law on one issue, then we could increase our population by 10 million without considering the other limiting factors! Liebig’s Law maintains that of the many critical resources that support life, it is the lowest that sets the population. EG: It does not matter how much food you have if water is limited.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebig%27s_Law

Some here seem to want to bloat our populations and test Liebig’s Law on every front simultaneously. They throw out the common sense “Precautionary Principle”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle

They argue that we will achieve more with greater economies of scale!? Huh? Did they not read the UN sponsored “Millennium Assemnet report” written by some 1200 expert scientists? In summary, it says…

“A landmark study released today reveals that approximately 60 percent of the ecosystem services that support life on Earth – such as fresh water, capture fisheries, air and water regulation, and the regulation of regional climate, natural hazards and pests – are being degraded or used unsustainably. Scientists warn that the harmful consequences of this degradation could grow significantly worse in the next 50 years”
http://www.maweb.org/en/Article.aspx?id=58

What is it Perseus wants to achieve in such a hurry? We are destroying the planet just fine with our current populations, thank you very much!

Resources / population = lifestyle! Go figure.

Perseus wrote: "What we actually need is a system of guest worker visas so we can import a portion of cheap labour to maintain jobs in threatened industries. So instead of watching a whole factory with 200 local jobs get shipped overseas, why not bring in 50 lower cost temporaries so at least 150 of the local jobs remain viable?"

The reason factories get shipped overseas is that the saving in labour costs outweighs the expense of moving the business. By that logic, you arrive at: Why not bring in 200 'lower-cost-temporaries' and save the expense of moving the factory overseas?

Homo-Sapiens is the only species that can change it's behaviour proactively. Infinite growth in a finite environment is impossible. Either we (as a species) take the steps necessary to keep our population at a level where it has a sustainable ecological footprint, or nature will do it for us.

Why not bring in 50 lower cost temporaries so at least 150 of the local jobs remain viable?

Because its the thin end of the wedge to lowering Australian living and working standards to Asian norms. It is not a bootstrap to economic preeminence. Economic preeminence comes as it always has through history, to nations that invest in education and technology. Nations in contemporary terms such as Sth Korea.

The moral of the history lesson here is that Howard must be forced to retract all HECS fees on higher education that leads to upgrading skills in a very competetive and fast changing jobs market. He must also be pushed into a massive redirection of funds away from useless surpluses and tax cut, carrot and stick bribes to a massive investment in R&D centered around a CSIRO based on Sth Korean excellence and a strong and rewarded public involvement and imagining in all the sciences. It does little good to bring migrants with skills to our shores to find that in 5 years they end up on the dole because they, like the rest of us can't afford educational upgrades.

It may be Howard's way to lower our standards to increase his chances. But it is history's way that this leads to decline and bitterness and the absorbtion of Australia into Asia on THEIR terms and NOT OURS.

KAEP

Was that the 'Yellow Peril' terror or the 'Commies under the bed" fear you just let slip out?

The reality is we will eventually all have to live together, and more importantly, we will have to live with the rest of the earth's species, so that humans can continue to live at all.

The only argument for continued population growth is economic. However the earth doesn't give a pinch for such concepts. The earth works in practical realities, like the carbon cycle. And if you break the laws governing the carbon cycle, the consequences are far more dramatic than any man-made judgements.

To those who refuse to see apparent long term trends: Wake. Take a longer view, appreciate complex systems and see for yourself the inevitable outcomes we face.

Congratulations Jennie. Keep that flag flying

KAEP, you obviously haven't seen a whole town die when a factory goes down the gurgler. In most cases it takes place in a cyclical downturn and all they needed was 12 months grace and the factory would be profitable again. That is what guest workers could do.

So a town has only 50 people on the dole for 12-18 months and then back to full emplyment when the upturn kicks in. Without it, both the factory and the town never recover. And if our own unions are too incompetent to ensure that the scheme is only used for its intended purpose then who is to blame?

The fact is, we compete against US farmers who get Mexican farm workers at US$3.60 an hour. Our cities compete to attract corporate head offices here against competitive rents from Singapore where the buildings were constructed by Indonesian labourers.

I have a hillside full of Lantana that could be growing trees for timber but the cost of removing the Lantana, and keeping it out, is so high using machinery that the Lantana will still be there in 30 yearstime. With a couple of guest workers we could have trees on that hill in 3 months and be thinning out poles in 15 years. A pity for me and a pity for the environment.

If David Hasselgrove ever ventured beyond his own nose he would know that the biggest concern in all the western Queensland communities was the impact of stagnating or declining population on the viability of local businesses, services and infrastructure.

A family moves out, 3 kids leave the school and it falls below the quota for 4 teachers, so one teacher gets transfered and a house is left empty with no rent. The house is owned by the guy at the local garage so he has lost a years rental income and a years worth of petrol sales. And so it goes.

And it seems that all the people who think they can get by unscathed from a stagnating population policy are very well insulated from reality. Drop into any western town and see for yourself.

Brisbane and Perseus,

The carrying capacity of Australia is around 23 million people very nearly all in the capital cities and hinterlands. For that is where the big banks and their flunkies and pocket politicians can MAXIMISE profits. They orchestrate where and when lives and businesses will prevail. Foreclosures on country interests are at a record level as banks seek to shift their portfolios into city goldmines like funnel tunnel operations.

When peak oil hits and we start to kill each other for the last gallon of gas in the resulting big crowded cities, made that way by greedy entrepreneurs like you, I can assure you that country towns will still be in their death throes. As practising greedy entrepreneurial hopefuls I expect you like the big banks will have done the risk analysis on this and KNOW I am correct. But don't let that get in the way of your mendacity, please. Once the global trend for coastal urban migration began some 20 years ago country towns were well and truly written off, not just in Australia but world over.

And another thing. The first casualties in the coming changes from peak oil will be entrepreneurs like you. You will have the double whammy of losing your investments by not realising how they are all so closely knit with cheap oil, and you will be hounded into the ground by the rank and file who will be looking for scapegoats to blame.

Personally, I can't wait. Where's my knitting?

A bit more detail please, eclipse.

>>Resources / population = lifestyle! Go figure<<

I can certainly understand the logic behind the equation. It seems so simple that it has to be true, doesn't it?

But does it hold water historically? Did the inhabitants enjoy a better lifestyle when Australia had a population of only ten million? Five? Two? Half a million?

According to your equation, they must have. But empirical evidence would tend to contradict you, so your theory just went out of the window.

It is also axiomatic that at the other end of the scale, a population that tends towards infinity will have some major problems to overcome along the way, but I still would hesitate to simplify it into "less people good, more people bad".

That's just lazy thinking.

Pericles

You idiot

When Australia's population was only 5 million, it had the highest standard of living IN THE WORLD.

Check it out. It's a fact.

The more our population has grown, the lower we have gone on the standard of living ladder. True.

You check it out and tell us if if that's wrong.

Dear Peakro

Love your work!

Particularly the idea that peope who argue against population growth are "doomsayers". Yes - only a pessimist would argue that the world has environmental limits.

Optimistic persons, such as Barry Jones, former Science Minister, would argue that we need more people to have a more intelletually "vibrant" community (sorry Plato, Aristotle, Sophocles, you came from too small a population base). What a whacko. If BJ is an example of a "public intellectual" (he estimated we only had a couple of dozen in Australia) then we are fortunate.

You're perfectly right, of course, a few nuclear explosions would solve everything. Just open up the water courses, and let the water flow into the parched interiors. You sure got a persuasive way of looking at things. Why goddam it let's re-engineer the entire globe, what's stopping us? The good old naked ape is invincible and not actually subject to any laws of physics or thermodynamics or anything.

Good ol' Kerry Packer, I wouldn't be surprised that he was in favour of an inland sea in Lake Eyre.

Jesus. We don't stand a chance. As Bucko has said, forget about save the planet - the planet is OK, just this particular life form that is on the way out.

Seriously though, there are two arguments going on here. Sustainable population and population distribution. I would suggest that the dwindling rural population issue is a completely separate one.

What's wrong with migrant workers? I think its a great idea. Do you guys realise the amount of fruit crops that are wasted every year because of lack of labour. A proportion of this kind of work is already done by defacto migrant workers, they just happen to be mostly european and on holiday. The victims are usually small farmers...

Why, thank you Thermoman for your beautifully balanced response to my question.

>>Pericles

You idiot

When Australia's population was only 5 million, it had the highest standard of living IN THE WORLD.<<

Not only an insult, but with those paranoid capital letters, too.

Nice.

Thermoman, has it ever occurred to you that a stopped watch tells the correct time twice, every single day?

Using your logic, this "proves" that a watch that is stopped is just as accurate as an atomic clock.

Is the absurdity of your statement starting to get through?

My point was that an equation as simple as yours - "Resources / population = lifestyle!" - even with the exclamation mark, tells us absolutely nothing.

The fact that at one point in history, our country enjoyed the highest standard of living in the world, is as meaningless as the stopped watch.

There is another particularly egregious nonsense (amongst the many) in your ultra-simplistic view.

Since when, pray, does "lifestyle" equate with GDP per capita?

You may have noticed that Equatorial Guinea currently has a per capita GDP some 13% greater than ours. Does this encapsulate its "lifestyle"? Would their "lifestyle" improve with a larger or smaller population? Are you even now booking a flight to Equatorial Guinea for you and your kinfolk, in order to bask in the warm glow of their prosperity?

Thermoman, there is no need to apologise for the rudeness of your post, I have been insulted by people far more intelligent than you.

But a word of advice would not go astray.

Think before you write. It is better to say nothing and have people think you are a fool, than to open your mouth and prove it.

Hi Pericles and Thermoman,
Please calm down a little… this subject is too important to have sides typecast by the cliché insults of opposing camps. This subject is for real.

The simplistic formula was mine. Maybe I should have added,
“All other things being equal, Resources / population = lifestyle!”

In other words, if the technology is the same and the environmental resources are the same and the climate is the same and we are talking about the same historical period in a similar governmental structure, if you double a {{{large}}} population like ours to be even {{{larger}}} they have half the resources each. Example: Does Sydney have a water crisis or a people crisis? We built the infrastructure 40 years ago and guess what… the Water Board back then predicted that it would meet our water needs till just about now, based on population growth. More people = less water per person. It’s simple maths.

The impact of our numbers on the planet is best measured by ecologists. What do they say?

“David Pimentel, a professor of ecology and agricultural sciences at Cornell University, predicts that population outcomes for the 22nd century range from 2 billion people (characterised as thriving in harmony with the environment), to 12 billion people (characterised as miserable and suffering a difficult life with limited resources and widespread famine). [8]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overpopulation
http://www.utne.com/web_special/web_specials_archives/articles/799-1.html

World Scientists’ Warming to Humanity
“The earth is finite. It’s ability to provide for growing numbers of people is finite. Current economic practices which damage the environment, in both developed and underdeveloped nations, cannot be continued without the risk that vital global systems will be damaged beyond repair. Pressures resulting from unrestrained population growth put demands on the natural world that can overwhelm any effort to achieve a sustainable future.”

—From World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), written and signed in 1993 by more than 600 of the world’s most distinguished scientists, including a majority of the living Nobel laureates in the sciences.
http://www.ucsusa.org/

All other things being equal, Resources / population = lifestyle.
It's simply true.

Hello eclipse.

I’ve been a neoMalthusian/Paul Erlich follower for many decades (since the early sixties), and I do believe humanity is on a collision course with an ever-expanding black hole of diminishing life-sustaining resources. And, that rather than taking our foot off the accelerator (despite libraries full of scientific warnings and prima facie evidence), we are increasing momentum. I realize Malthus and others were way off the mark in their timing but, like Marx, they were simply not able to see the entire picture, including the numerous temporary gains allowed by technological change. Marx’s worker revolt hasn’t happen because he was unable to foresee the impact of an ever-expanding middle class (although that’s one safety net that is slowly beginning to unravel, and the upper class is starting to recognize the dilemma they face) and techno abetted globalization.

I liken humanity’s dilemma to a basic chemistry test where we try to determine unknown concentrations via redox or chemical titration. The change in color that occurs when the ‘titrant’ equals the unknown (environmental collapse) is imperceptible until it’s too late.

I wish I wasn’t such a pessimist but I’ve seen no evidence that would encourage me to believe otherwise. I doubt that a handful of like-minded individuals can persuade the power brokers to reduce speed and change course: The immediate effect is simply too painful for too many folk … particularly the ones that are accustomed to the affluence provided by cheap energy.

And therein lies the key to understanding why we continue to rape and pillage global resources: To do otherwise means someone will have to trade pleasure for pain.

So I ask, who will be the first to cut back and take a hit? I mean seriously cut back.

Pericles said, that "less people good, more people bad" is too simplistic and “just lazy thinking.” In part he is correct. But it should read … less people pleasure more people pain. To confuse good and bad with pain and pleasure isn’t lazy it’s simply distortional thinking.

Sorry for getting so far off topic.

Pericles

I apologise for calling you names. I will try to avoid personal remarks, and stick with the argument.

You asked I whether the inhabitants of Australia enjoyed a better lifestyle when the country had a population of “ten million? Five? Two? Half a million”?

You then went on to remark that acccording to my equation, they must have – but “empirical evidence would tend to contradict you, so your theory just went out of the window”.

Unfortunately you did not respond to my challenge to actually check the facts.

The facts are that relative to the rest of the world, Australia was better off when its population was smaller. If you would only check the facts you would see that our standard of living has actually declined compared with the rest of the world as our population has grown.

Of course, we didn’t have mobile phones, Toyota Land Cruisers, international jet travel, TV, radio, penicillin, jet skis, computers blah blah … but please be aware that all of these things are the result of technology, not population growth.

Progress is possible without stuffing the country so full of people that it is quickly succumbing to all the problems of the rest of the world – degraded land, water shortages, depleted fish stocks, loss of biodiversity, pollution of air and water, overcrowding, high density living, public transport that is always inadequate, urban sprawl, constant need for new infrastructure, crowded and incompetent education, etc. etc.

Australia today would be far better off with a smaller population than 20.5 million.

I am impressed that you concede that “a population that tends towards infinity will have some major problems to overcome along the way” – stay with that thought and you will realise that the further towards “infinity” the population goes the greater become the problems

Pericles 2

It is not at all lazy thinking to simplify this into “more people = bad”. In fact it is lazy thinking to just accept the status quo and give up and accept business as usual. Business as usual is what has got us into the environmental and social mess we are in now and is what will aggravate the problems into the future.

Stable population is an entirely new paradigm that will take a huge amount of careful adjustment to wean off current practices onto a more sustainable model. Lazy thinking is to keep going and leave the problems to future generations to work out. Sooner or later the population music has got to stop – it can’t keep growing forever. So when? Now, or just leave it till later? Put it in the too hard basket?

I would humbly urge you to think carefully about these issues – and also check your facts before saying the stable population argument is “out the window” because the facts actually don’t bear your argument out.

I have checked out Equatorial Guinea and you are right – I am not busting to go there. However I think that country is probably better off with 500,000 population than it would be with 5 million. Your point is essentially vexatious however as there are plenty of examples where runaway population growth is causing abject misery and environmental destruction at unprecedented levels. Please try to see the big picture. 25,000 people a day are dying of starvation. Clearly, world population growth has not led to any kind of improvement since the population was 2.5 billion in 1950 and it’s pretty safe to assume this trend will continue as it races towards 9 billion by 2050

It’s always amusing to read “discussion“ about climate change and population control in this forum. As a scientist who has spent his entire working life, figuring out how to feed more people for less input I am amazed at the ignorance of those that think continued population growth is OK?? A human can physically occupy about half a square meter standing. When you have filled the world with so many people that the last half a square meter has been taken were do you think you are going to put the next person?? It makes no logical sense to actively grow a population indefinitely. In fact that has never happened, there is always the inevitable population crash. Australia has a carrying capacity no matter what the argument is. There is only so much water, food, clothing and shelter that can be found or produced. Technology has been fixing our problems for some time….or have they? Go and spend some time on Google Earth and see the mind bending destruction of our human footprint! Technology has allowed us to buy time and our planet’s biosphere is paying for it. We should commit to being 2 billion people globally. We can achieve this if we start now and it can be done by simply educating people. This in the western societies has had the affect of lowing birth rates. Even the looniest of Jenny Goldie’s critics must have noticed the growing discomforts of commuter traffic, water restrictions, increasing food prices, increasing average temperatures, increasing intolerance and crime, loss of green space and air, water and ground pollutions?? Hello people the technology fixes can happen but what are you going to do for energy?

Thermoman, don't think for a moment that humility lets you off the hook.

However much you protest, "more people = bad" is lazy thinking in its purest form.

Let's put this statement under some pressure and see what happens.

At one end of the argument, (presumable “zero people = best”) there is no population, and therefore there is no economy. Increase that number by two, and you have a massive amount of resource shared by two people. Are they well off? Hardly. They are unlikely to have the means to exploit the tiniest fraction of their riches.

Increase by several orders of magnitude, and you start to see the emergence of an economy that can take advantage of the resources... and so on, until - when?

Start at the other end of the scale, and envisage an infinite number of people. You cannot divide anything by infinity, so once again you have a situation where there is no recognizable life as we know it, and no economy either. Back off a little, and we will eventually arrive at a point where the available resources are insufficient to be divisible into the population. This is clearly where “this number of people = bad”, but it is still not identifiable.

Simply comparing Australia's position relative to other developed economies over a short period of time doesn't prove anything either. To see the logic of this, look again at your argument:

>>our standard of living has actually declined compared with the rest of the world as our population has grown<<

Well riddle me this: has the population of the countries against which you make the comparison a) grown, b) declined or c) remained static?

If a), how does this affect your argument?

If the population of the comparable countries has risen over the same period, once again your argument crumbles into dust. Population simply isn't the only determining factor.

As I said. Lazy thinking.

One more point. What evidence have you that the world was “better off” when its population was only 2.5 billion?

Pericles,
I asked for some calm and Thermoman complied.
You have not answered Thermoman's arguments, and instead throw dust into the air discussing populations of zero or infinity.

In case you hadn't noticed, we already have a functioning first world economy here in Australia. What do you think we would achieve better with more people? Do you acknowledge any of the posts above? A scientist just responded to your arguments.
I've quoted forums of 600 scientists (the Union of Concerned Scientists) and 1200 scientists (the UN sponsored MA report) and you insist on raving about 2 people not forming an economy!

Thermoman, you may again take of the gloves.
The previous post really seems like so much noise with so little engaging of the facts or content of arguments.

In other words, it's trolling.
Pericles, look out, you're creating a new name for yourself.

Where do we put them? asks woodyblues. We find a big saltpan out Cunnamulla way and dig down to make a nice big salt water lake. We stock it it full of fish, and add canals and jetty's for a waterfront housing estate where the sun shines almost every day. You see, you don't need to water a back yard if it is already full of water. And we could borrow some of Cubby Station's water for drinking and washing and then send it back to them with nutrients added.

And when that one is complete we'll find another salt pan. It should keep us busy for a couple of centuries at least. For some people life is a problem while for others, life is an opprtunity.

eclipse, I responded to Thermoman's rudeness, but as it was your trite and meaning-free statement "Resources / population = lifestyle!" that started this particular exchange, it is only fair that I ask you - again - to justify it. So instead of lecturing me about "not answer[ing] Thermoman's arguments", how about you do me the courtesy of a response?

"Resources / population = lifestyle!" is merely a slogan, and provides absolutely no insight into the problem, or any solution. I pointed this out by taking the population variable in your equation, and observing that it cannot possibly be true for all values of population, therefore as a contribution to the debate it is meaningless.

As a slogan too, it can be challenged. Whatever Thermoman says, Australia's standard of living, however you choose to measure it, has improved steadily over the past fifty years, along with the growth in population. For this timeframe, the facts directly contradict the statement.

The observation that we have done less well than other countries over that period – whose population has also increased steadily – adds another dimension to the argument. It is even possible to argue that our performance might have been impacted by too slow a growth in our numbers.

But the bottom line is that at some point, there will occur a marginal decrease in prosperity with each additional head. Neither you nor I can determine, from any genuine statistics, whether this point has been reached. Pretending it has, and painting doomsday scenarios from it, does the cause a disservice, and drains credibility.

What the discussion does not need is high-school sloganism and spurious logic.

Thermoman, you expose an interesting paradox when you say, “Please try to see the big picture. 25,000 people a day are dying of starvation.”

The assumption, if I read you correctly, is that those deaths are unnecessary and a direct result of too many folks competing for too few resources, and it follows that we should be concerned and upset about the fact so many are dying of starvation. And you might be right; it can readily be demonstrated that food supplies are a limiting factor.

But isn’t that what is supposed to happen? Is anyone surprised? In fact, wouldn’t those folks who are seriously concerned about a planet presently hosting 6 billion, and who recommend a global population ceiling of 2.5 billion, say that given the predictions of rapid resource depletion, a death rate of 25k per day is perhaps far too low?

But, in order to reach the desired population level, who will volunteer to apply limits to population distribution and abundance? Who will determine optimum numbers? Based on what measure? Birth rate? Death rate? On military needs? On available water supplies? On locally grown food supplies? On available land mass? On the rate of technological change? The evolution of a proactive political will that will introduce serious economic incentives or legislations, suggested by eclipse, that are aimed at encouraging smaller families in order to reach the optimum number, is extremely unlikely. It's my guess that the reason we haven't seen the evolution of proactive political will, in democratic societies, is that the voters will not elect a politician that suggests placing community values above those of the individual because it means individuals, especially those with large families, will have to suffer and sacrifice personal gain, and that’s not an easy concept to corral.

Pericles,
I have already responded to you — but you cannot be bothered engaging arguments that do not suit your case. Instead, you avoid my many source documents and ecological authorities and try to appeal to a sense of vagueness about the current situation.

You said: “Neither you nor I can determine, from any genuine statistics, whether this point has been reached.” Your statement that there are “no statistics” by which to judge this issue is exactly correct but also entirely misleading!

• It is correct because the upper population limit is determined by vagaries such as exactly what kind of lifestyle we are prepared to put up with, how much energy we can harness in a post-oil world to facilitate agriculture, water, and the many other resources we need to survive, and how much damage we are prepared to inflict on natural eco-systems by the sheer size of our agricultural requirements. We already harness 36% of the land surface of the earth for agriculture. Jared Diamond has estimated that we use 70% of all available {{{arable land}}} in what he calls the “photosynthesis ceiling” — and that includes all the rainforests on earth! Do you really want to clear the Amazon to grow crops?

It is precisely because of the vagaries of the upper limit that we must practice caution. Part of that is beginning a public debate, which we are doing here. The fact that there are uncertainties is the very reason for this important debate, and yet you try to scold us over this fact!

The dangers of overpopulation are so great that we must practice the “Precautionary principle” or risk testing Liebig’s Law on multiple fronts simultaneously. As Pulitzer-prize winner Jared Diamond has indicated in his book, “Collapse”, civilizations implode when their ecological foundations are eroded beyond repair.

Your statement correctly confirms the need for a public campaign based on this formula because you have just demonstrated its truth. As Xist demonstrates, there are many complex variables within the equation, but as Xist also believes, the need for an effective policy has never been more urgent.

Xist, are you really suggesting that voters will not elect politicians who see the problems stemming from ever-increasing population? That would be based on a wild and poorly tested assumption.
Currently for Australian voters, no choice is available.
In Victoria, at next Federal election, the Labor Party will be offering the population-boosting Bill Shorten. It wasn't because every mumma's little baby in that electoral branch of the party loved how Shorten was bred. The safe labor electorate was dictated to.
And the good burghers of the safest of Liberal seats in Sydney did not have a better go of things when their current representative, no-shinking-violet Turnbull, squashed his opposition under a steamroller of cash.
Voters mightn't really want the show to be run by Tony Abbott with his religious-cyclops vision, Peter Costello of fast-breeder fame, or others of similar persuasion. They have no choice when it comes to population (or any other ) growth. Sure, they weren't too keen when offered Bomber Beazley as captain - he having decreed that Australia's population should match Java's, pronto!
And so it is for much of the rest of the world where population is increasing. Visiting medical practitioners to southern Pacific communities tell of women walking miles over mountains to their clinics on the possibility of accessing contraceptives. In China fifty years ago, stories are told of women denuding the countryside of tadpoles following the rumor that swallowing them live prevented pregnancy.
More than ten years ago it was recognised that women of the world needed education and choice in the matter of their own fertility. A glimmer of opportunity; then, largely, denial. Responsibility for such denial lies heavily on the shoulders of the Vatican, the Bush administration's liasion with US Christian fundamentalists, and the likes of Australia's Tony Abbott.
Xist, you infer coercion in the matter of human fertility. It does indeed have a most unappealing presence - the opposite to what have inferred.

I have raised the idea in the other 'population growth' thread, that there is a strong link between the farming of livestock and water usage.

Here are some facts that should speak for themselves:

- Human population of Australia: 20 million
- Number of humans that can be fed by the grain and soybeans eaten by Australian livestock: 93 million
- Percentage of corn grown in Australia eaten by livestock: 75%
- Percentage of corn eaten by humans: 15%
- Percentage of oats and wheat grown in Australia eaten by livestock: 85%
- Percentage of protein wasted by cycling grain through livestock: 90%
- Percentage of carbohydrate wasted by cycling grain through livestock: 99%
- Percentage of dietry fibre wasted by cycling grain through livestock: 100%
- How frequently a child dies of starvation: Every 2 seconds
- Amount of potatoes that can be grown on 1 hectare: 12000 Kilos
- Amount of beef that can be grown on 1 hectare: 85 kilos
- Percentage of Australian agricultural land used to produce beef: 49%
- Amount of grain and soybeans needed to produce 1 kilogram of beef: 7.1 kg
- Amount of protein fed to chickens to produce 1 kilogram of protein as chicken flesh: 2.3 kilos
- Amount of protein fed to pigs to produce 1 kilogram of protein as pig flesh: 3.4 kg
- Number of children who starve to death every day: 40,000
- Number of pure vegetarians who can be fed on the amount of land needed to feed 1 person consuming meat-based diet: 20
- Number of people who will starve to death this year: 60000000
- Number of people who could be adequately fed by the grain saved if Australians reduced their intake of meat by 10%: 60000000

Perseus,
Your arrogance knows no bounds "green/lefties should not reproduce" maybe if the opponents of green lefties did not reproduce the problem may have already been solved.

The article suggests a move North? I live in Townsville, North Queensland, there is no stock up here, Brisbane is in short supply, and our national government with $17 billion in the bank has done nothing. Maybe it is the old adage, if you do nothing, you can't make mistakes theory, if the AWB scandal is anything to go by.

• Part 2 to Pericles: your statement
“Neither you nor I can determine, from any genuine statistics, whether this point has been reached” is also entirely misleading because it avoids engaging the many credible sources I have quoted that are now raising the alarm over our population trajectory. I will repeat the references here.

Professor of ecology David Pimentel:-
2 billion = high lifestyle
12 billion = poor lifestyle with much starvation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overpopulation
http://www.utne.com/web_special/web_specials_archives/articles/799-1.html

Warning to Humanity
“The earth is finite. It’s ability to provide for growing numbers of people is finite. Current economic practices which damage the environment, in both developed and underdeveloped nations, cannot be continued without the risk that vital global systems will be damaged beyond repair. Pressures resulting from unrestrained population growth put demands on the natural world that can overwhelm any effort to achieve a sustainable future.”
—From World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), written and signed in 1993 by more than 600 of the world’s most distinguished scientists, including a majority of the living Nobel laureates in the sciences.
http://www.ucsusa.org/

The exact upper limit is vague, but it is better to be safe than sorry!

The more people we have, the more changes we will have to make.
Tubley has posted that we could all become vegetarians to cram more people in. While I agree with limiting meat intake and changing grazing practices, the fact is I have spoken to people who would like to be vegetarian but just medically cannot absorb enough iron on a vegetarian diet. (Tubley do you have any sources for those statistics?)

The greater problem is… where do we find enough fresh water for all these people, how do we give them homes, what energy will they require, what is their first world footprint going to be, how much Co2 per person would be released, etc?

It’s not just food — it’s also the broader resource constraints that make the following equation so pertinent.

“All things being equal, Resources / Population = Lifestyle.
Pericles, it’s just plain true! Deal with it!

eclipse, one last try.

Presenting a catchy slogan, "Resources / population = lifestyle!" as an accepted fact, when it is patently false, is lazy thinking, and progresses the discussion not at all.

However much evidence you present, however trustworthy your sources, however convincing your arguments may be, hanging your hat on a silly slogan diminishes your credibility, at a stroke.

I find it puzzling that you cannot see this.

What makes it critical is that when we need to ask the population to make the sacrifices necessary to maintain life on earth into the future, we are going to need every ounce of credibility available. Trite, empty and eminently disprovable slogans are not going to help. They will hinder.

You provide another example of woolly-headedness with:

>>The exact upper limit is vague, but it is better to be safe than sorry!<<

Try to imagine a situation where you need to persuade a fat and lazy population that it needs (for example) to become vegetarian, in order for the human species to survive. Or where you need to introduce a “one child” policy. Or where you need to dissuade the health service from keeping people alive artificially to stop them being a drain on the economy or the environment. How convincing will you be, telling them that you don't really know what you are talking about (“the exact upper limit is vague”), but you'd like them to make the sacrifices anyway (“better to be safe than sorry!”).

Let us postulate for a moment that your David Pimentel is correct, and that to survive in comfort we need to target a maximum population of 2 billion. What can bring about this change? Strong leadership? Cogent, well-researched arguments? Far more likely is a purely Darwinian process where the weak go to the wall, upsetting as that may be.

One thing is for absolute certain. Marching along with placards saying “Resources / population = lifestyle!” or “better safe than sorry!”, complete with their pathetic little exclamation marks, is designed to build resistance to your theories, not understanding.

The tubley table indicates that production of flesh for human consumption involves handling a lot more water than if grass and such-like were to be ingested directly.
Fair enough, but there are well-documented problems associated with monocultures pushed to the limit continuously. That applies to wheat, and to people: we are not God's chosen species - just a unique development of spare parts accumulated over a few billion years of biological associations.
During the last two million years we adjusted our dentures, and gut's microflora, to handle on average a diet of about a third each of fruit, meat, and vegetable matter. It is naive arrogance to demand an immediate change towards a diet paralleling that of our cousin the Gorilla with the big fermentation tank of a belly. Yes, humans are adaptable; can even be a Murray Rose if there is sufficient dedication, and unlimited access to the best that vegetarianism offers. But leading our species towards the ege of its developmental niche is a leap of blind faith into the fog of future uncertainties.
Australia's water-guzzling population increases by a million in 4 years, and is pressured to increase while degradation remains unchecked for water supplies, agricultural land, and city society. Given a chance, enhancing biodiversity in our soils would be of great assistance - but flogging them with monocultures of potatoes, wheat etc. to their limit continuously is crazy. And for what purpose - a great experiment to see how many battery-chicken human lifestyles can be crammed, briefly, into the country?
"A child dies of starvation every 2 seconds". And "people who will starve to death this year: 60 million". Yes, terrible. But will world vegetarianism enable their survival, and if so what is the outcome? At present world population increases by 80 million a year; under a vegetarian rescue plan, perhaps it would be 140 and continuing to increase indefinitely.
There are no better prospects for humanity's tenure than that of wheat in a paddock while the hazards of monocultures and forcing the limits of production are ignored.

Well said Colin!

Now, Pericles, you are not making sense.
Take a deep breath.
Count to 10.

Now look at your arguments.

One minute my formula is “patently false”, and the next minute I am “quoting evidence”, “trustworthy sources”, “convincing arguments”.

You even appear to have agreed that continually growing the population will one-day demand significant changes. You mention Pimentel, and while I know you disagree with the 2 billion figure, you do admit the need for a campaign whenever we do hit the final limits to growth. You are hung up on the semantics of the formula, even though you have basically admitted it is true.

I am not that worried how it is said, but I will fight vigorously to defend the truth it represents. We can abandon a dry (but true) formula easily for another image if you really wish. How hard is it to visualize sardines?

You seem to want to argue both that we cannot proceed with a campaign until we have a scientifically certain final figure, and yet want to argue about all the vagaries and options with that final figure. You cannot have it both ways. You’ve basically illustrated the truth of my formula for me! “How many people” depends on “how we want to live”. I don’t care how it is expressed, as long as you acknowledge that truth.

You hate the slogan “It is better to be safe than sorry” and yet want to cram as many people onto this planet as possible. Let’s clarify something… I wasn’t writing a campaign slogan, I was just rephrasing the “Precautionary Principle” in case you did not get that either. You apparently didn’t.

So tell me Pericles, as the hottest new copywriter for our population campaign, how would you market it? ;-)

We live in an entertainment-induced hypnosis. We need a strong advertising campaign to smash through this “consensus trance” that {{{everything is fine, consume like there is no tomorrow}}}. Because with peak oil imminent, if we continue on our current trajectory there may not be one!

Try Andrew McNamara, Labor MP.
http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/people/andrew_mcnamara

Hi Colinsett. You are correct; voters don't have much choice. But, though you may disagree with my view, I don’t think it is based on "a wild and poorly tested assumption". Recognition of the multitude of statistically supported outcomes (inflation, unemployment, higher housing costs, lower quality of life, energy shortages, degraded environment, lower crop yields, loss of agricultural land, more pollution, ad nauseam) stemming from a too-rapid expansion of population numbers, is a fact. It has been around for many decades.

And though there has been countless fireside chats and political posturing to go along with scientific studies on population dynamics, politicians are reluctant to discuss the topic. The reason is simple: politicians are little more than a buffer between the public and the corporate world. They are corporate middlemen and the corporate and public worlds won’t tolerate a political will that might run interference in the marketplace and profits.

If political will had somehow managed to escape corporate and public censorship you would think it would be possible to point to a case where a reduction in the rate of population growth, as a response to political legislation and incentive, has actually worked. So far the evidence to support the notion of political will is lacking: and the null hypothesis is verified.

I would like to think Reverend Malthus was wrong when he claimed humanity is doomed to procreate itself into destitution, but in the last two centuries there’s been little change in human behaviour and thinking to alter his claim.

I am getting the strong impression that you are a politician, eclipse. You have a politician's ability to draw dubious conclusions from unrelated facts, and generally dissemble.

That isn't a compliment, by the way.

>>One minute my formula is “patently false”, and the next minute I am “quoting evidence”, “trustworthy sources”, “convincing arguments”.<<

Both are reasonable positions. The formula – or slogan – is patently false. I have laid out the proof, and you have cannot refute it.

That in no way contradicts my recognition of the evidence that you do present. To pretend otherwise is being wilfully obtuse. Which makes your admonition "Now, Pericles, you are not making sense" snide and patronizing.

Sophistry, eclipse, and deliberately mendacious sophistry at that.

Wait, there's more.

>>You hate the slogan “It is better to be safe than sorry” and yet want to cram as many people onto this planet as possible.<<

Where, pray did I say that I am pro-cramming? Polly-speak again, attributing a patently untenable position to another, then scoffing at it.

>>We need a strong advertising campaign to smash through this “consensus trance”<<

Only a politician would imagine for a moment that advertising is part of the solution. If advertising worked at the level that you need it to work, there would be no AIDS in Africa. But it doesn't, and there is.

Population control cannot be achieved through a warm and fuzzy education programme, conducted by a bunch of well-meaning tree-huggers.

You recall the damage the Club of Rome inflicted on the cause with “Limits to Growth”? They were so smugly certain that there models were right, that they allowed their opponents a massive advantage when they proved wrong.

One of the criticisms levelled at the time by Hermann Kahn, was that interfering with the growth process would disadvantage the poorest in society. This still applies today.

Intervention on the scale you advocate would be a highly political act, the most likely outcome of which would be another world conflict, this time between the haves and have-nots. Effective in population reduction, but messy.

Pericles

I am not saying that you are an idiot.

But if you cannot see that the world would in all probability be better off if its population had stabilised in the 1950s at 2.5 billion, then you are as thick as two planks and any further correspondence is not warranted.

Think about it. Global warming and peak oil might at least have been postponed for a few more decades. The huge juggernaut of resource depletion gulping up everything from fish stocks to forests and minerals might not be crashing ahead so fast, the mountains of rubbish, pollution and sewage would probably be smaller, the aquifers would probably not be being sucked up so quickly, nor the topsoil be being stripped off at such a rate, there would not be such galloping loss of biodiversity, the soil degradation and salinity would not be so serious and there would probably not be 25,000 people a day dying of starvation and 2 billion living in absolute poverty (not in a world of only 2.5 billion!), and there might have been some chance of sustainability, i.e. a global population living with modern technology and leaving some hope for future generations. AND there would not be all this mullarkey about water shortages and how we will have to drink our own piss so that more high rises can be built. The Club of Rome was essentially right even if not in some details and only people in total denial can maintain otherwise.

One thing is absolutely certain - Surfer's Paradise was a much better place in 1955, with a few fibro shacks, than it is today. Pericles it is clear that you, like the property developers who are running this country and most of the western world, want to see all the places which today consist of only a few fibro shacks turned into new Surfers Paradises ... to what purpose, may I inquire?

AND ANOTHER THING, PERICLES ...

The massive environmental problems piling up will probably lead to collapse of the human race - at least those problems could be just a bit easier to manage if population growth is slowed down as much as possible, right now. Every billion counts, in fact every million less will be a help. Optimists hope that the sense of this will be seen in time. Pessimists believe that vapid arguments like yours will prevail.

If you insist on equating quantity with quality it is a waste of time trying to change your mind.

Thermoman said, "The Club of Rome was essentially right even if not in some details and only people in total denial can maintain otherwise". The club of Rome was wrong in just about every detail, and Thermoman has the gall to suggest that this is an indicator of being "essentially correct". He then claims that anyone who is unable to ignore all the detailed errors, and see it his way, is in 'total denial'.

Thermoman, I'll bet a hundred bucks that you had a serious hooch habit in your teenage years and that your MRI scans would reveal the brain patterns of a schizophrenic. Don't waste your time, Pericles, this guy's third eye is in the back of his pants.

Now now Perseus, play nice.
The Club of Rome was a quite large group, with some that made more outlandish claims than others. The “Limits To Growth” book received a lot of justified flak for not releasing the methodology of their predictions until 2 years after the book was released. However, that does not disprove their thesis. They ran a variety of models, some of which did not turn out exactly as they predicted, and neither does that disprove their main thesis!

Let’s look at oil. They did the math quite well with the information they had at the time. Sure, they could not know about a few extra discoveries, or the coming political oil crisis that would slow oil demand through a crushing recession. Sure they were out a bit on the oil figures — but does that prove the basic concept that more people using more oil will bring on a crisis earlier?

And let’s LOOK at oil discoveries! Some facts from ABC’s Catalyst.
“The most oil ever discovered was back in 1965.”
“The last year we discovered more oil than we consumed was back in 1981.” “We now burn 2 barrels of oil for every barrel discovered.”
Consumption is catching discovery, and yet hardly anyone cares.
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/

Perseus, would you try and debunk the idea of asteroids EVER hitting the earth just because some concerned scientist thought he saw reason for concern with one comet, but made a slight mathematical error and it went sailing by the earth? Would you then go on to argue that no comets will ever hit the earth again?

Scientists before the 70's oil crisis predicted we would run out of oil about now. It did not happen, therefore it will never happen. “Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc”!

Can I suggest that before you embarrass yourself any further, that you watch ABC’s Catalyst online and get your head around peak oil? Increasing supplies of "cheap oil" are about to become dwindling supplies of vastly more expensive oil. If LTG was "basically" right on oil, what about the other resources Thermoman discussed?

The Club of Rome, Paul Ehrlich, the Paddock brothers, and others who were predicting disaster in the 1960's were being reasonable given the information they had at the time. Ehrlich was spot on about emerging diseases long before AIDS. However, they could not anticipate the success of the Green Revolution. According to an article by Fred Pearce in last week's New Scientist (on the sucking dry of acquifers), we now grow twice as much food as then, but use three times as much water to do it.

Some of you seem to think that if technology has saved us in the past it always will in the future. Unfortunately there are plenty of ruins around the world of past societies where human ingenuity didn't save the day and collapse occurred. (See Jared Diamond's "Collapse" and archaeologist Ronald Wright's "Short History of Progress".) How lucky do you feel?

The ratio is now 6.5 barrels of oil for every one found

http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/2/28/21235/1491

Deffeyes now believes Peak Oil has occured. Watch the monthly production figures and see.

Prof. Jared Diamond is carving out his own niche as the 'Jubilation T Cornpone' of the suburban badlands. He starts with a bit of hot (global warming ) gospel, with fire and damnation upon the wages of ecological sin and the pending reckoning of the lost and wayward. All reinforced with a good book bargain (his own) and a little bottle of his patented special remedy, never to be confused, yo hear, with any of that snake oil, and worth every penny.

His grasp of Australian conditions is so rudimentary and illinformed that the reporting of him by the ABC et al borders on treason.

What an excellent response from Perseus.

So full of substance. Addresses all points that previous correspondents have put to him or picked him up on.

His previous response is just as brilliant.

Not only chockers with useful info, but so polite and respectful, in this case towards Jared Diamond and Thermoman, but the list of those that he proffers happy loving responses to grows by the day.

(sigh)

Perseus is single-handedly significantly lowering the quality of this forum.

.
Divergence writes; “Some of you seem to think that if technology has saved us in the past it always will in the future. Unfortunately there are plenty of ruins around the world of past societies where human ingenuity didn't save the day and collapse occurred.”

It is a simple as this. Perseus would be very well advised to heed Jared Diamond’s message.

Not only have the technofix worshippers demonstrated no ecological nous nor basic economic nous in terms the impossibility of ever-increasing demand and supply, but they fail to realise that technological advances have led us into the current debacle by way of facilitation of massive population increase.

Let’s have technological advances by all means but let’s address the continuous growth factor just as vigorously.

We would all love to know what Perseus’ plan for out future is, beyond some bizarre and incredibly vague notion of a separate state for farmers.

So at the risk of prompting another fully offensive response from him, I ask; what is his answer to continuous population growth and the concomitant continuously increasing demand for just about everything?

Even if we are incredibly successful in developing technological advances that reduce per-capita consumption of just about everything by say 33% and the population grows by 50%, we will have gained precisely nothing, so how can he possibly espouse technofixes without also espousing population stabilisation??

I attempted to entertain sensible debate with Persy on this thread on 26 Feb (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=4163#33357). I received no response. There are some questions there awaiting a reply….. in the interests of good proper worthwhile debate. Is Perseus capable of addressing them?

Perseus – it seems you are unaware of what the Club of Rome said in its first report in 1972.

If you are even the slightest bit interested in finding out, why not go the Club of Rome website, and download the synopsis of that report which is available at http://www.clubofrome.org/archive/reports.php. Many other of the reports it has made over the past 35 years can be ordered on that page through Amazon.

You will see from this source that the Club of Rome’s Limits to Growth report’s fundamental finding was “if the present growth trends in world population, industrialization, pollution, food production, and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this planet will be reached sometime within the next one hundred years. The most probable result will be a rather sudden and uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity”.

Also, I suggest you take 15 minutes out to read an article on the Club of Rome published in 2000 in the Energy Bulletin, at http://www.energybulletin.net/1512.html. This was written by Houston-based oil industry expert Matthew R. Simmons whose company is the world’s largest investment banking practice serving the energy industry.

Mr Simmons’s conclusion is that after 30 years “the Club of Rome got the whole picture right. It was the rest of us who missed the mark.” He says “So far, not a single observed trend has emerged to allay the worries and concerns laid out by the Club of Rome”. He asks “Why was the book greeted with such a firestorm of criticism, instead of invoking the thoughtful debate which the authors so hoped would occur?”, and attempts some explanations of this mass state of denial.

I would be interested to read your response if you can be bothered informing yourself. If not, I would strongly urge you to stop writing ill-informed and puerile attacks on other posters, as contributions like your last one do nothing to advance discussion on this all-important topic.

Thermoman and Ludwig, if the club of Rome are correct then the population will decline to a point where population equals capacity. But the problem for you guys is that you keep refering to totally discredited sources like Jared Diamond. His grasp of the facts in Australia would be laughable but for the fact that so many of the gullible take him seriously. see Michel Duffy's piece in the SMH yesterday http://smh.com.au/news/opinion/no-facts-in-the-bags-of-green-pretenders/2006/03/03/1141191845939.html .

And none of these doomsday scenarios EVER factor in any contribution from improved technology. Get this clear, life has improved as population has increased. People no longer regard the death of two or three siblings before the age of 21 as normal. You keep saying that it will not solve "the problem" so if you are that pessimistic and that convinced that humanity itself is some sort of disease then why piss about? Top yourself and save yourself and all around you the angst and misery. I suggest this as an honest piece of advice, not as an insult, either choose life or choose the alternative.

“Top yourself and save yourself and all around you the angst and misery. I suggest this as an honest piece of advice…”

Yes well, we need say no more. Complete whacko status has been revealed.

“Get this clear, life has improved as population has increased.”

You’d have to completely one-eyed and simple-minded to believe this. You’d have to see only the technological advances and totally ignore the multitude of negative things that have increased in recent decades - that are strongly related to population increase and a decline in the easy and cheap access to resources that are necessary to maintain the same quality of life.

Perseus has written a bit about economies of scale, but he apparently doesn’t even know what diseconomies of scale are

Go Ludwig ..
Let me begin by making some definitions:

Immigrant: A virtual Australian, one who gets inordinate government support over and above real Australians as an inducement to vote for the incumbent government and or to help boost a failing REALWORLD economy. This even though they have not yet filled out an application form.
Immigration: A legal, delocalised electoral gerrymander.

Diseconomies of scale:
Its when this time next year Howard has stuffed another 140,000 go-getter-rage-prone-after-the-quick-buck migrants into Australia. 100,000 of these will find their way to Sydney despite all promises to the contrary giving rise to unprecedented gridlock, state government evasion of responsibilities, road and supermarket rage and inevitable flare ups of racial rioting.
These diseconomies will begin to bite every citizen of Sydney over the coming year. Hopefully the inevitable backlash will put an end to Howard's newfound love for mercantile migrants or perhaps an end to Howard himself in the 2008 election. And perhaps an end to the Perseus F-you-i'm-alright-Jack mentality once and for all.

The real Population Growth limit:
In every politician's delusional dreams of grandeur a little reality must eventually fall. If Howard wants to be king of a desert island he had better come to grips with that reality, stop legislating benefits for virtual Australians and show some genuine respect for the real Australians who elected him. If he is lonely because of unpopular, scrooged up cost cutting budgets to education and family services in return for pissant tax cuts, he should put a message-in-the-bottle like other desert island kings. One thing for sure, if you put two people on a desert island, you've got a crowd ... and someone will eventually have to go for a looong swim

Perseus said: <<if the club of Rome are correct then the population will decline to a point where population equals capacity.>>

Ummmm, that’s exactly our point! You say this like it’s not a problem. “Don’t worry, be happy, population will balance itself out one way or other.”

Our argument is that if we avoid this scientific discussion at a societal and political level, and if we avoid applying the “Precautionary Principle” to population, then we will march headlong into disaster. We will act as blindly as the proverbial bacteria in a Petri dish, doubling and doubling again until nature forces us to <<decline to appoint where population equals capacity.>>

We have a choice. We can humanely begin to apply family planning laws through the UN and other international bodies and correct overpopulation ourselves, or we can let nature “correct” the situation for us. Perseus, I do not think you have the slightest inkling of the horrors that befall all your family and friends if that should happen. Try spending some time at www.dieoff.com !

Right now, overpopulation and peak oil present a terribly complex challenge.
American taxpayers paid Robert Hirsch to present solutions to peak oil to the US DOE. He basically concluded that at a 2% decline rate, we should have been preparing for peak oil for 20 years now… massively ramping up the coal to liquids programs! www.hirschreport.com We have already left it too late, and oil decline rates could be a lot worse than 2% annually!

It is precisely because we are sentient human beings with some compassion for our fellow citizens that we are discussing this with you and others on this list Perseus.

Someone has to raise the alarm. But all you can say is “Go top yourself”.
Perseus, you are acting like just like so many other forum trolls I have encountered. Please engage the topic and stop the name calling, or I will start a petition asking the moderators to ban you from this list!

Thought I'd better get back into the debate that I started...

Xist claimed that there is little political will to enforce smaller family sizes because those with large families will suffer. You certainly don't want a child to suffer because he/she has been born into a large family, but there should be plenty of incentives around (carrots rather than sticks) for people not to have those large families in the first place eg. in Vietnam, you can't get a government job if you have more than two children.

Tubley suggests we can have more people if we go vegetarian, or at least cut down on meat. This is partly true though it has to be kept in mind that a lot of animals in Australia are grass and not grain fed and a lot of that rangeland is not suitable for cropping. And it may be that in the future a lot of cropland may have to produce crops for ethanol, not food, as the world runs steadily out of conventional oil. We'll then be grateful for the lamb or kangaroo that graze on steep hillsides.

Herman Kahn apparently claimed the poor would be hurt most if we interfere in the growth process. The opposite is true if it means population growth. And population growth is not necessary for economic growth, if that's what you want. Most of the countries ahead of us on the wealth table (GDP per capita) are small nations with stable populations - the exceptions being the US and Canada.

And Jared Diamond has been discredited? By whom? Michael Duffy? Don't make me laugh. One should be judged by one's peers and Duffy is no peer of Diamond. Diamond's only shortcoming as far as I'm concerned is that he seemed to backtrack on ABC radio recently on his statements on Australia. And that he barely touched on Peak Oil in Collapse. But surely this guy is one of the great minds of the age - a true polymath who has expertise across a whole range of disciplines

So Jared Diamond got all his facts right and Michael Duffy isn't a peer of Diamond's? Something Michael would be very pleased and reassured to hear. Jennifer Marohasy has had a detailed look at Diamonds fantasy world, outlined at;
www.jennifermarohasy.com/articles41.html

Or does your pathological pessimism rule out any chance of you retaining any of this material?

Whatever the merits of his views on Australia, it should be remembered that Jared Diamond is not an archaeologist. When he wrote about Easter Island, the Greenland Vikings, etc. he was merely reporting on the work of others, which appeared in the scientific literature long before he wrote 'Collapse'. Does Perseus think that all the archaeologists Diamond refers to who spent big chunks of their lives studying these places are uniformly fools and liars? Where is his evidence that collapses never occur?

Perseus

You may or may not be right about Diamond's section on Australia containing some howlers, I haven't read it. Morhasy's piece was certainly not a "detailed look" as you described it, more of a quick hit and giggle - but I should know by now that what you call a "detailed look" probably involves about 3 nanoseconds of attention from your attention-deficient brain. If Diamond did say our agriculture is poor he is wrong - anyone who is even vaguely informed knows that Australia produces more than enough food for 60 million people, albeit while leaning pretty heavily on the environment - that is not the point. The point is that globablly 2 billion people are living in a state of chronic malnourishment and you don't give a fig. This has happened while population has undergone a huge growth, from 2.5 billion to 6.3 billion in just half a century. ALL countries must stabilise their populations, EVERYWHERE on the planet, if we are ever going to seriously tackle the problem of 25,000 people a day starving to death. You seem to imagine that everyone in the world lives in a state of material ease like yourself and there is therefore nothing to worry about. This brings me to the stupid point you made about us being "opposed to life" - it's actually exactly the opposite and brain-dead clowns like you who have a death wish by wanting to see the numbers multiply to bust

AND FURTHERMORE

I ALWAYS mistrust people who accuse me of NEVER doing anything - you reckon we NEVER take into account technology well you are dead wrong ... technology is going to be vital to get us out of the mess we are in (I call 2 billion people living on less than $2 a day a mess.

But as a previous poster has put it, simply but well, if technology can reduce the environmental impact of all our activities by 33 per cent (which is a big ask, but maybe it can) and our population goes from 6-9 billion, we are in the same place we were before.

Perseus you had nothing to say about Club of Rome, I presume because it showed up just how wrong you were. We NEVER hear an acknolwedgement from you when you have been proved wrong, becuase you are pathalogically incapable of reasoned thought. Please start taking your medication again.

Although my views on the topic of population dynamics are heavily slanted towards the pessimistic I keep hoping I’ll come across the occasional “Ah ha” insight, the light bulb will flicker and some of my pessimism will “see the light”.

The questions: What to do about ever-expanding human populations? or Is human population growth self limiing; and at what cost? are extremely interesting because they draw together the entire spectrum of human constructs: politics, economics, religion, sociology, etc, etc. I have enjoyed and benefited from the varied and opposing views expressed on this list, and others.

Unfortunately, like most of the ‘on-line’ discussions I’ve followed, there always seems to be a tendency to degenerate into using ad hominem attacks as a method of highlighting propositions: it is an extremely discouraging and unnecessary argumentative technique. I suppose it merely points out that the hurdles, to be overcome when delving into questions that are minefields of confusing value judgments and emotion, are complex structures, and sadly, it reinforces pessimism.

Nicely put, xist.

There is a tendency on most threads for barrow-pushers to become overheated whenever anyone questions their deep insights and profound wisdom. This is no exception.

There must be some kind of warm glow that comes from regurgitating tired and trite slogans of the utmost generality. I suppose it does allow them to ignore any form of practical reality.

Occasionally there is a brief dip below the surface. I liked Thermoman's contribution:

>>you, like the property developers who are running this country and most of the western world, want to see all the places which today consist of only a few fibro shacks turned into new Surfers Paradises<<

It is difficult to actually discern any form of logic, but he gives a clue with...

>>Surfer's Paradise was a much better place in 1955, with a few fibro shacks, than it is today<<

This is the solution, apparently. What isn't even attempted is the "how". How are we supposed to persuade the 90% plus of the Australian population that they need to tear down their McMansions, and put up fibro shacks?

And become vegetarian at the same time, according to tubley.

Sounds fun.

But even if we could stretch our imagination to this point, how do we persuade China, India, Indonesia etc. that they should follow our example?

Wouldn't they all simply say "goody", and send a few million or so of their people to settle here? If we're all living in fibro shacks, we wouldn't put up much of a fight, I suspect.

There simply ain't a lot we can do about it. Talk of “humanely apply[ing] family planning laws through the UN ” (thank you, eclipse) is pure dope-thinking . Sounds great when you're high, but has as much basis in reality as Superman and Green Lantern.

In the final analysis, the world will balance its population to a point where it is sustainable. Whether this includes the survival of the human race is frankly doubtful.

It might just be the evidence needed to finally prove Darwin right. Intelligently design your way out of this, God.

Fibro shacks had Asbestos, don't tell me we haven't improved. The Club of Rome didn't even release their calculations until 2 years after their beat up (I wonder what they were hiding?). Paul Erlich predicted complete collapse in India within e few years, not a century.

And Ludwig is on record of discouraging innovation for the express purpose of bringing the population "day of reckoning" closer. He would sacrifice a positive contribution on the alter of his ideology. Eclipse just wants to petition disident views off the blog and none of you seem too reluctant to dump abuse on an opposing view.

And as your soulmate, Mugabe has demonstrated in Zimbabwe, once again, the primary cause of starvation and poverty is bad government with zero respect for law, democracy or the rights and liberties of their own people.

The starvation in Darfur is not caused by excess population but by rogue governance. The starvation in North Korea is not caused by excess population but by by an extraordinary perversion of the notion of egalitarianism, with a huge dose of executive narcissism. Zimbabwe was once the bread bowl of Africa but is now a basket case as a direct result of tyranny, abuse of power and destruction of property rights.

And the longer and louder that ill-informed under performers in the developed countries provide these failed administrations with the big population excuse, the longer they remain in power and the worse their abuses become.

You people are nothing more than a distraction to the body of intellectual discourse. And your distraction is actively killing people, and causing incredible suffering, right now, all over the world. Shame on you.

So now Pericles believes that humanity is in trouble if we keep population growth… thank you for that Pericles. Welcome to the club. As to possible solutions, your pessimism may or may not be justified. It is true that we have never seen international co-operation on this scale — but there is always a first time. And Australia can make laws that at least protect our continent from overpopulation by tackling immigration quotas and letting our economic disincentives take their natural course.

Perseus — I know sidetracking into irrelevancies can appear like a good way to fill up a page with words, but really… go back to high school and do English 101. You need to learn how to answer the question if you are going to pass the exam! This essay was not regarding the corruption and stupidity of tin pot dictators but, surprise surprise, actually concerns the inevitable dilemmas of worldwide overpopulation. Try using a few comprehension skills if you ever care to actually join this conversation.

“And Ludwig is on record of discouraging innovation for the express purpose of bringing the population "day of reckoning" closer.”

Perseus, produce the evidence that is ‘on the record’. Quote whatever it is that has led you to this absurd conclusion.

Come on, let’s get down to the nitty gritty of who is really the “distraction to the body of intellectual discourse” on this forum.

eclipse, if you had actually read any of my posts instead of skimming over them and making half-baked assumptions, you will notice that I have never disagreed with the fact that the earth can only sustain a finite number of people.

My disagreement with your position is that you claim to know what that number is, and that instead of evidence, you present slogans.

Unfortunately, your reaction is always to deflect, rather than respond, and the points you make are those of a high school debating team - all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to change the world.

"It is true that we have never seen international co-operation on this scale — but there is always a first time"

This is a classic example. If a tenth grade debater put this forward, they would be laughed off the dais. If the only hope you have of achieving something is because it has never been achieved before, you are lost before you have begun.

What incentives do you consider would be helpful in persuading i) the USA ii) Iraq iii) Nigeria iv) Indonesia and v) China to join your programme? What would be your fallback position if some, or none, came to the party? Do you believe that i) bribery or ii) threats would be more effective in getting your message across?

But wait. I suspect there is a far simpler objective here.

>>And Australia can make laws that at least protect our continent from overpopulation by tackling immigration quotas<<

Cards on the table. You aren't that concerned about the rest of the world, are you? You just want those nasty foreigners to stop coming here so that we can go back to nature..

Ok, at least we can now be honest with each other. But my question still remains, albeit on a smaller scale.

What laws do you propose the government brings in to realize your dream of an Australia that contains a limited number of people? What is that number, how would you propose to reach it, and what would you recommend we do with those who dissent?

Peri-cleese,

...."What laws do you propose the government brings in to realize your dream of an Australia that contains a limited number of people? What is that number, how would you propose to reach it, and what would you recommend we do with those who dissent?"

Australia is a desert Island with a maximum population of about 23 million. Nearly all of them will be stuffed into the major capital cities and their hinterlands because immigration policy favours a kind of capitalism that will not tolerate being stuck in country town backwaters. The overcrowding problems of gridlock, rage and lack of services plus the impossibility of kickstarting expensive infrastructures is already starting to show in immigration central (Sydney) where inveterate problems like, falling house prices, tunnel funnels, hospital bungles and desal debacles are on a steep increase.
Morris Dilemma backflips on critical growth issues for Sydney highlight this trend succinctly enough.

All up, the government won't have to pass any laws to stop overcrowding. Immigrants, essentially investors, are already shunning Sydney as seen in falling house prices and citizens are clearly against low class migrants, the ghettos proposed to house them and the worsening load they place on city services.

This problem is also evident in the other capitals and will worsen in them as well.

So, you don't have to do anything with dissenters. They will have to invest in their feet and move somewhere where their money can get maximum returns. I can assure you that at a population of 23 million, that will be nowhere in desert island Australia. There will be no capital untouched by overcrowding and social strife left to go to. Except for the mining sector and the odd tourist location that hasn't been destroyed by congestion and pollution, there will be better opportunities in neighbouring countries like NZ for example which has a carrying capacity of about 60 million in line with other islands like Japan and Britain in similar latitudes.

What a breathtaking bit of ignorance KAEP. Australia already provides the food for 80 million people, the clothing for over 300 million and the electricity for more than a billion people so your estimated population limit of 23 million is looking like roadkill.

Our biggest problem is that only 20 million of all the people we support actually pay GST and other taxes. So we are unable to pass the costs of environmental management and sustainable agriculture on to the people who's needs created those costs.

And your theories on New Zealand being able to carrying 60 million are probably correct but you forget that Victoria is only a bit smaller than NZ. New Zealand also has a desert in the middle of the north Island and snow covered mountains over much of the South Island. So how come Victoria couldn't support 40 million but NZ can support 60 million. Please explain.

By world standards, our population is overly concentrated (85%)in our state capitals and this is producing needless congestion problems. The cost of creating new state capitals is only a fraction of the congestion costs of continued growth in the existing capitals.

Optimum population obviously depends on technology and culture, as well as on how rich and forgiving the environment is. It may not be possible to specify it in advance, but there is clearly a tipping point between Pericles' little band of pioneers who are too few to make effective use of the resources they have and a Malthusian hellhole where every additional person makes life that much worse for everyone else. If a country really is underpopulated then it should be possible to show that additional people are making life better for the average existing resident. (I don't dispute that some people at the top are getting very rich out of land speculation.)

On the world scale, the world average environmental footprint (a rough measure of consumption) is 2.13 hectares according to the Redefining Progress Calculator, and the sustainable capacity per person is 1.89. Once you get much below the European average of 4.5 then human well-being starts to suffer. Just compare the footprints with ranks on the UN Human Development Index.

The draft Productivity Commission report on immigration shows no significant per capita economic benefit from mass migration, even if you don't consider extra pressure on the environment, more crowding, and other non-economic negatives. This is in line with 'The New Americans', the 1997 report of the US National Academy of Sciences. (See refs. to this and other reports at www.cis.org). For US men under 35 the median wage is 19% less than in 1970 in real terms, and the minimum wage is worth less than in 1960.

Pers,

Over beers with the boss when I was transferring to the UK to work, I asked if it really rained every day in England. He promptly replied, "Nothing could be further from the truth, we have 3 or 4 sunny days every year". UK has plenty of water and plenty of heat, courtesy of the US originated Gulf Stream. It is currently around 65 million people and when I drove around the country all you ever saw off the motorways were farms and desolate hillsides. Everyone is crammed into big cities, but they do have water to spare.

NZ does not have a desert. Shame on you! The Nth Island has a central geothermal zone, with lakes and lots of fresh water. The snow cover in the Sth is Water when it melts in the summer months and that translates into more PEOPLE. The heat source is principally geothermal but NZ does have ocean current warming systems like Britain as well.

Victoria like the rest of East Australia is experiencing DROUGHT. Get the message: Water equals population. Drought equals deserted.

Australia has abundant heat from internal deserts but not sufficient water for more than 23 million. How do I know this? Because Morris Dilemma has told me so from his actions in Sydney. And how does he know? Because the market in and the electors of Sydney have bloody told him so in no uncertain terms. All other capitals are converging to the same overcrowded positiion and so are all small country towns, so there is nowhere to make your magical new big cities. To build them you would have to buy water and you can't buy the water if it isn't there to buy. You can't use desal as we don't have enough power stations NOW, can't build any more due to Kyoto and can't use nuclear because Australia's population isn't and NEVER will be enough to justify one single plant at current plant 'cradle to grave' costings.

Well blow my mind…..Perseus has actually used the S word…. “sustainable”!! I never thought I’d see the day.

“So we are unable to pass the costs of environmental management and sustainable agriculture on to the people who's needs created those costs.”

He acknowledges that there are costs of environmental damage. Yahoo!

But he considers sustainable agriculture to be a cost compared to …business-as-usual unsustainable agriculture. He still has a log way to go to get his head around this sustainability business, apparently.

Of course we aren’t able to pass the costs on. We are fully in charge of these resources, not those to whom we sell them. Gee whiz, what a revelation!

Overseas markets have not created the cost of environmental management in Australia. Those costs have been created entirely by us, through mismanagement and over-pandering to the profit motive generated by huge overseas markets.

We have pandered to these markets entirely for our own gain. The fact that we provide food, clothing, minerals and power for millions overseas is incidental, from the point of view of the Australian government, farmers, graziers, miners and the vast majority of citizens.

The combined ecological footprint in Australia is based on 20.5 million, not on 80 million or whatever the number is when considering all those that Australia provides stuff for around the world.

Thus, if we continue to increase our population, we will continue to increase the footprint or suffer a continuous decline in standard of living or most probably both, which will continue to exacerbate the already highly obvious decline in the health of our overall resource base.

For as long as we have rapid pop growth, technological advances will always be chasing the tail of ever-bigger domestic demand for product and export income and an ever-worsening supply capability.

The last thing to do under such circumstances is to continue with rapid population increase, especially when the rate of increase can easily be greatly reduced.

Creating new cities or “state capitals” or ‘boosting’ regional towns in order to relieve congestion is just dumb for as long as rapid pop growth continues.

Ludwig has inadvertently highlighted the fundamental flaw in the so-called 'ecological footprint' theory. He, and many others simply cannot get their heads around the fact that the people who live in other countries, but import our products to do so, are actually importing part of their ecological footprint from us as well.

It is an inescapable fact that this country supports 80 million people and to divide the total ecological footprint of the country by 20.5 million and allocate that area to each Australian is a gross distortion. And it is most unfair to then blame Australians for having too big a footprint.

So when two people arrive from overseas they not only bring home the two footprints that we have exported in the past, they also bring an average of one new job with them as well. They will need a house but they usually move into someone elses house while the past owner has traded up to a new house. And that new house, if it has a decent water tank, will supply all the water that is needed by the people who live in it. It is all going down the storm drain at present anyway.

I thank Perseus for taking me up on a reasonable point of debate.

The issue of ecological footprints can be seen in two ways. Firstly, as I elucidated in my last post, it can in Australia be seen as the footprint of 20.5 million people, given the fact that all of our resource exploitation has been undertaken for the benefit of the domestic population.

It can also be seen as the impact of many millions more, who have benefited from our exports. Which is correct? Both are, depending on definitions.

The fact remains; as far as Australians are concerned, our impact on our environment and resource base is that of 20.5 million people, and the extra 60 or whatever million overseas is incidental. We are in charge of our resource base, so we are make up the numbers that count.

As our population increases, so does the ecological footprint, for as long as we continue to operate in the same manner. And technological innovations, improvements in efficiency, etc, just don’t cut it for as long as we have this absurdly rapid population growth. This is what really counts.

Perseus has ignored the fact that as we increase the Australian population, the overseas population we can support decreases accordingly.

1200 scientists wrote the report summarized as...

"A landmark study released today reveals that approximately 60 percent of the ecosystem services that support life on Earth – such as fresh water, capture fisheries, air and water regulation, and the regulation of regional climate, natural hazards and pests – are being degraded or used unsustainably. Scientists warn that the harmful consequences of this degradation could grow significantly worse in the next 50 years."
http://www.millenniumassessment.org/en/about.overview.aspx

Perseus, you can grow the population here, arguing that we already support X million people over "there". It does not matter. Try to think globally as you act locally.

A little growth here and a little growth there... and you have arithmetic progression with the deadly doubling time. We are in the last doubling period the earth can sustain. The proverbial 24 hour bacterial bottle is somewhere between 50% and 100% full. It's after 11pm — and we are still growing.

Do we want to leave addressing this right up until "midnight?"

Excellent posts by Ludwig, Eclipse, Thermoman, et al, and thank you, also, Jenny for your excellent article which ties together the looming threats of enrgy shortages, global warming and population growth.

Just one small bone of contention to pick with Ludwig, where he wrote (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=4163#34608):

"Creating new cities or 'state capitals' or ‘boosting’ regional towns in order to relieve congestion is just dumb for as long as rapid pop growth continues."

You are, of course, correct, but a strategy to deal with the terrible mess, already created by the population boosters, particularly in South East Queensland, the Sydney Basin and Melbourne will be needed once Australia adopts a long overdue policy of population stability.

We will need to utilise space in regional and outback Australia in order to relieve the horrible congestion in the major urban areas.

In the longer term, it will be essential that people live closer to where food and other necessities can be grown, when oil shortages make it impossible to sustain our current energy-inefficent system of food production, storage and distribution. When it occurs, those now cramped (sorry, 'consolidated') into the ghastly high rises of the major capital cities will neither be able to obtain food from their local supermarkets nor be able to grow it for themselves.

Instead of waiting for the inevitable crisis which will condemn many of our fellow citizens to death by starvation, we need to begin now the task of reorganising our society to become sustainable. That reorgainisation will have two facets :

(1) Where there is still adequate land in suburbs which have not been 'consolidated', retrofitting those suburbs so that adequate food can be grown to feed their inhabitants as advocated by David Holmgren (http://www.energybulletin.net/5104.html), and

(2) Decentralisation to allow people, now in crowded areas of the cities, to move to somewhere on our largely dry and infertile continent where, hopefully, it may still be possible to establish sustainable agriculture as a basis for self-sufficient communities.

Of course, the necessary precondition to this is an immediate cessation to the relentless Government-driven growth in our population.

Daggett, I don’t have any disagreement with that.

As you say, significant decentralisation should only occur upon the necessary precondition of a halt to the continuous growth paradigm and the implementation of a population policy based on sustainability.

It seems to me that you have totally agreed with my statement; "Creating new cities or 'state capitals' or ‘boosting’ regional towns in order to relieve congestion is just dumb for as long as rapid pop growth continues."

Cheers.

.
Perseus, oh Perrrrseaars, I am still waiting for you to produce the evidence that is ‘on the record’, re: your statement; “And Ludwig is on record of discouraging innovation for the express purpose of bringing the population "day of reckoning" closer.”

>>Perseus, oh Perrrrseaars, I am still waiting for you to produce the evidence that is ‘on the record’, re: your statement; “And Ludwig is on record of discouraging innovation for the express purpose of bringing the population "day of reckoning" closer.” <<

LOL!
Ahhh, Ludwig... I needed that laugh.
It's been a very disappointing and very hard day.

Now, I note that neither Perseus or Pericles have responded to the 600 scientists from the "Union of Concerned Scientists" yet or the 1200 scientists of the MA. Maybe one day they will try a substantive engagement with the facts.

Ludwig made it perfectly clear in the trail from "More Crops per drop" by David Tribe that he regarded any effort at improving yields to be wasted if population were allowed to increase.

He said, "how people can put their life’s work into more efficient and higher productivity while never putting the slightest bit of effort towards stopping the demand from continuously increasing", and, "I maintain that it would be an enormously better idea for us to put most of our efforts into stabilising the demand on our resource base rather forever trying to increase the supply rate".

And this can only be interpreted as Ludwig urging a person working on practical means to improve the lot of ordinary people to down tools and become an anti-population blog zealot. And lets face it, that is all you do, put words in space with zero impact on anything beyond wasting other people's time.

You are the classic ideologue who, when confronted by the fact that no-one listens to you, starts seeking out scapegoats amongst those making a positive contribution to mankind, to censure them for insulating people from the pain that you think they need to be put through to agree with your gonzo logic.

And as Candide rather politely put it, "that is all very well but there is work to be done in the garden".

My goodness, eclipse, aren't you the cheeky one!

>>I note that neither Perseus or Pericles have responded to the 600 scientists from the "Union of Concerned Scientists" yet or the 1200 scientists of the MA. Maybe one day they will try a substantive engagement with the facts.<<

I fully support their right to hold their opinions. They all seem to agree that at some point, we will have to seriously consider the impact of our lifestyles on the ability of the world to sustain us. I have no problem with that, as I have said on any number of occasions.

What you, however, have failed to respond to is the need to think through the practical implications.

I asked:

"What incentives do you consider would be helpful in persuading i) the USA ii) Iraq iii) Nigeria iv) Indonesia and v) China to join your programme? What would be your fallback position if some, or none, came to the party? Do you believe that i) bribery or ii) threats would be more effective in getting your message across?"

It is utterly pointless to moan and bitch that "someone should really, really do something" if you don't have a plan. That simply puts you in the category of background noise, marching up and down with your simplistic slogans and holier-than-thou posturing, firmly believing that by spending your entire life whingeing about something you can do absolutely nothing about, you are actually being virtuous.

I suppose that if it makes you feel somehow useful, I shouldn't knock it too much.

I Thank Perseus. Had to wring it out of him though. Why on earth didn’t he quote this first up, or upon the first request?

Now it is patently obvious to all readers that this quote is not within a million miles of his assertion that “Ludwig is on record of discouraging innovation for the express purpose of bringing the population "day of reckoning" closer.”

Obviously what he has quoted indicates that I think it is pointless to continue pandering to ever-increasing populations without putting a good deal of effort into stabilising populations. This is a perfectly logical, fair and reasonable position, and does not in any way indicate a discouragement of innovation….does it Persy.

Nothing I have ever written indicates a discouragement of innovation. I am on about achieving sustainability so that we don’t have to face a ‘day of reckoning’.

Can’t Perseus see that this sort of thing amounts to direct defamation? Asserting that people hold views that they patently do not is defamation. He does this with almost pathological regularity. Asserting that someone is on the record as expressing views that they patently do not hold, is completely overstepping the line. This is evidently all too easy for some, while hiding behind a pseudonym.

It is time for Perseus to admit that his quotes of mine do not in any way indicate a discouragement of innovation and that he has lied to the forum in saying that they do. An apology please. If not, I think it is time he was booted off this forum.

I think the moderators should be willing to enter lines of discussion for the express purpose of requesting justification of statements from posters. There has got to be accountability here. We cannot have this sort of completely spurious stuff on this high-quality forum.

Yawn, Ludwig, Yawn. Well said Pericles.

Perhaps we could all get back to a bit of science. As Divergence said, the average ecological footprint is almost 2.2 hectares per person (hpp) but the world can only sustain 1.8 hpp if the population is (from memory) 6.2 billion. We're up to 6.5 billion so that 1.8 figure drops as population rises. Australia's ecological footprint is 7.7 hpp, in other words, four times what it should be on a per capita basis. So let's say we each cut our footprint down to 1.8 h but the population (national and global) keeps rising by another 50%. It means our individual footprints will have to be cut by a further third, to 1.2 h. Now that's pretty borderline in terms of delivering needs - 1.8h was bad enough.

The basic lesson is: if the pie is the same size (though it's probably lessening as climate change and rising oil prices are starting to bite)then there's less per capita if populations grow. The world is not a magic pudding - natural systems are only so big and can only supply so much. Wackernagel and his team back in 2002 determined that we passed global biocapacity back in 1979 and we are exceeding it by one percent more every year. That is, we are now 26% over the carrying capacity of the Earth. Expressing it in another way, the 2.2 hpp ecological footprint is approximately 26% over the 1.8 hpp biocapacity figure mentioned above. (I say approximately - haven't got the figures to two decimal places in my head).

You can extrapolate back to Australia - this big but fragile place. Remember we won't be feeding or clothing nearly as many as oil prices and temperatures rise. Dr Mary E White, author and paleoenvironmentalist, says we won't be feeding even our domestic population within a generation.

"It is utterly pointless to moan and bitch that "someone should really, really do something" if you don't have a plan. That simply puts you in the category of background noise."

Every bankrobber, rapist, and criminal you can mention has said that very same thing to themselves before committing heinous crimes.

To now this attitude in Politicians, CEOs and puny capitalist aspirants has been a necessary, venal crime in order to stimulate global progress.

Now on a planet of 6.5 billion people with climate change, environmental catastrophe, peak oil and terrorism all escalating and mankind in the throes of internecine conflicts across all social spectra from tweens to baby boomers, such million dollar a day CEO criminality is attracting an accountability that is going to shock the very core of the global economy.

The background noise mentioned is the democratic majority voice and politicians, CEOs and aspirant flunkies had better learn to respect it lest they too fall foul of its wrath as demonstrated in NSW recently.

O dear, Pretentious needs a good lie down.

He must have exhausted himself trying to think of a better response than “Yawn, Ludwig, Yawn”.

.
Jenny

Australia provides at least one major resource to a couple of hundred million people overseas, which is the equivalent of providing a complete livelihood for perhaps double our own population. Allowing for some decline in soil fertility, increase in salinity, etc, etc, as well as continued improvements in yields and general efficiency, we should be able to sustain this sort of output, should we not?

Couldn’t Australia then support 40 or 50 million people on this continent… sustainably?

KAEP, this is a bit of a stretch, even for you:

>>Every bankrobber, rapist, and criminal you can mention has said that very same thing to themselves before committing heinous crimes<<

You might need to explain a little bit more clearly what that has to do with my observation "It is utterly pointless to moan and bitch that 'someone should really, really do something' if you don't have a plan. That simply puts you in the category of background noise."

Simply muttering threats under your breath doesn't help either

>>politicians, CEOs and aspirant flunkies had better learn to respect it lest they too fall foul of its wrath<<

(I particularly enjoyed the "lest", for some reason.)

Let's do a quick recap. Blind Freddie can see that at some point consumption will exceed production. That is a mathematical certainty. There is also evidence that the "Y" chromosome is in a process of decay from generation to generation, and will cease to exist in a few million years. We also have the inevitability of the death of the universe as we know it in ten to twenty billion years time.

The point is not to spend time bickering about the obvious, but to come up with coherent and workable plans to combat it. This has been the history of useful human endeavour - doing, not talking.

What to do about the death of the universe? Not a lot, there's a kind of inevitability about it that prevents meaningful activity.

What to do about the degeneration of the Y chromosome? There's a bunch of scientists working on it right now. But that's pretty easy, because there are already laboratories, scientists and governments to fund them.

What to do about population growth? Not so easy. We are dealing with human beings and the societies they live in, not thermodynamics or genetic engineering.

Surprisingly, there is a difference.

And the problem will not be easier to solve if we all march around carrying stupid, meaningless and ultimately inaccurate slogans. It will become more difficult.

Pericles, how turbulent and shifting are your ways!

For the majority of this thread you have been arguing:-
>>Presenting a catchy slogan, "Resources / population = lifestyle!" as an accepted fact, when it is patently false, is lazy thinking, and progresses the discussion not at all.<<

Now your argument has shifted to:-

>>Blind Freddie can see that at some point consumption will exceed production.<<

This statement is entirely consistent with my previous “slogan” that you had so much difficulty with. Thanks for writing my new placard for me! ;-) It also allows a variety of interesting images. I’m just confused as to how you hold “patently false” and “obvious” together in the one brain?

Now, as to our strategy — peak oil and overpopulation campaigning has been largely internet driven, and has very quickly informed many citizens and politicians of the risks to civilization itself by sharing scientifically valid information on the net!

The internet is a very powerful tool, storing data in all it’s glorious and frightening truth, and does this amazing thing… it informs people. Imagine that? Sharing scientific truth can actually change {{{some}}} people’s minds — “who wooda thunk it?”

Politicians then read it, and we’ve changed the world.

EG: Roscoe Bartlett became a hard corps peak oil campaigner after reading www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net — he has quoted that site in Congress many times. There is now a Roscoe driven US inquiry.
http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/people/roscoe_bartlett

Andrew McNamara of Queensland Labor has nearly finished a Queensland state inquiry.
http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/people/andrew_mcnamara
The internet can change the world. Don’t bag it till you’ve tried it, unless you are now my campaign manager as well as my copywriter? ;-)

Finally we come to policy. What are we to DO about it?
Well, apart from all your philosophical ranting about how hard this is, there are measures governments can take to mitigate population growth. EG: Kerala district in India now has a stable population by providing women with education and career opportunities, family planning services, and security in retirement so that children are not viewed as “superannuation”.

Policy documents — right hand column under media releases.
http://www.population.org.au/

eclipse, now you are simply being obtuse.

I made it very clear, so that blind Freddie could also understand it, that the puerile slogan "Resources / population = lifestyle!" - complete with its pathetic plea for attention, the exclamation mark - is unsupportable in logic. There is no direct correlation between the elements that can be sustained under any examination, since both ends of the spectrum are impossible, i.e. when you substitute 1 or infinity for the population variable, the equation collapses.

So you are left with a meaningless slogan. Empty. Proving nothing.

If you go into battle with a banner that simply says "I'm right, follow me", your troops will start deserting you as soon as the going gets tough.

There is absolutely no contradiction in my position on this, which is the logical and supportable statement that at some point in time, we will run out of resources. This is actually consistent with a change in either major variable, population or resources.

Now, instead of lecturing me on generalizations about the internet, answer the question that I now place in front of you for the third time:

"What incentives do you consider would be helpful in persuading i) the USA ii) Iraq iii) Nigeria iv) Indonesia and v) China to join your programme? What would be your fallback position if some, or none, came to the party? Do you believe that i) bribery or ii) threats would be more effective in getting your message across?"

Peri-cleese,

Australia's population capacity is 23 million, if we get all the environmental sustainability factors right.

In the meantime we are approaching a palpable populational nexus as evidenced in Sydney. It is irrelevant whether you even notice this or the subsequent outcomes as this year unfolds, because 5 million people in Sydney WILL. And mate, they have power that you clearly do not have a clue about .... background noise indeed! The Desals gone and the Funnel is soon to follow. That is a kick in your guts and you haven't even noticed. Brain dead?

So take a pill, keep watching ..... and mop up that foam around your mouth! You are developing a definite Y chromosome there somewhere.

Now Pericles,
FORMULA
You’re a very naughty boy. I’m not that attached to my formula, I’m really not — but you’re being deliberately obtuse. You don’t actually read the posts on this forum do you? I’ve already explained in great depth the criteria for the formula, “all things being equal”. Remember that? No-one is talking about plugging in 1 or infinity. You’re being pedantic and silly, and failing basic comprehension. If you want to use that formula outside it’s criteria, that neither disproves the concept or adds credibility to your semantic games.

You wouldn’t apply the hypotenuse rule to a circle, would you?

INTERNATIONAL POLICIES
As to me, a mere campaigner solving all the world’s problems at once… well I’ve already asked you to download the SPA policy statement at www.population.org.au but you will not. (Sigh).

Now I can see your agenda — get me to focus on Australian solutions and then equate me with a racist. You have no evidence of this, and no right to call me one until such time as I give grounds for this! But here goes, opening up for your “devastating blow” to my case. (Laughs).

After peak oil, globalisation will collapse and economies will have to become far more local. So will population solutions. It’s as simple as this — the nations that comply with population policy apply it — giving financial incentives for smaller families and whatever else develops domestically. Internationally, those complying nations then limit immigration from nations that do not comply. If those nations want to test Liebig’s law, they can do so in their own backyard! We should not enable catastrophe. This is neither racist nor nationalistic, just common sense.

Not all nations will sign up to population policy, and so those that do not can live with the consequences of their own foolishness. It sounds harsh, but if we are to avert a worldwide calamity we must do so by staying ‘intact’ ourselves. We cannot help others if we have collapsed ourselves

It isn't quite that simple, eclipse.

Your claim that your slogan works "all things being equal" is a nonsense when the supposed result of the equation is "lifestyle". If you gave it more than a millisecond of thought, you would realize this.

But I now see that you claim to be "not that attached to my formula, I’m really not". Sensible move.

But to continue to claim that its patent fallibility "neither disproves the concept or adds credibility to your semantic games" is itself a good illustration of your refusal to accept the blindingly obvious.

>>Now I can see your agenda — get me to focus on Australian solutions and then equate me with a racist.<<

Your words, not mine.

What you now appear to be saying - and feel free to correct me if I have misinterpreted - is that in default of being able to save the world from ecological disaster, we (Australia) need to "[stay] ‘intact’ ourselves".

OK, so if it isn't racism, it is a blinkered version of extreme parochialism. Have you given one second of thought to the implications of cutting Australia off from the rest of the world in this fashion?

But you don't ever think in terms of consequences, do you?

If it doesn't make a simple-minded slogan to fit on a placard, you don't want to know.

Two points from recent posts.

Pericles* "Have you given one second of thought to the implications of cutting Australia off from the rest of the world in this fashion?"

Keeping Australia to an ecologically sustainable 23 million population would strengthen it above and beyond what would be achievable with greater populations. This is because of the social instabilities and resource shortages inflicted by overcrowding in an overpopulated scenario.
Australia would be able to defend its self better and EXCHANGE people, ideas and trade across the globe far better as an ecologically sustainable entity than as a teetering economic powerhouse full of tensions and subverted ALP style loyalties.
This would in NO WAY shut us off from the rest of the world in any meaningful sense.

Eclipse* "We cannot help others if we have collapsed ourselves "

Actually we can at least in a short term sense. A phoenix scenario exists where in a peak oil collapse of law and order, Australia is subsumed by stronger and fitter nations or individuals. Its collapse will then certainly help others in a short term sense. Not pretty but worth noting as an antibody against those who want to overcrowd our cities with ensuing dissent, weakness, disloyalty and division.

All the more reason to develop the most robust, ecologically sustainable posture.
Such a posture does not rule out adequate military budgets for deterence.

KAEP, sometimes this subject really gets me down. I have kids. Others here seem to think I'm a racist, or am some kind of regressive autarchy freak, or against progress. But it's exactly because I can see the potential for the Mad Max scenario's you are presenting that motivate me to keep going, despite the purile insults directed by pedants.

I in no way believe they are inevitable — but if the defeatist social mores of Perseus and Pericles have their way, we will avoid discussing peak oil and overpopulation until it is too late. People just cannot tolerate talking about population control incentives in this country — it's "grow grow grow!"

Kerala India got passed that mentality. Maybe it's because they have a far more socialist state? We are going to need that kind of authority in future.

Go ahead P&P, call me a communist — I just don't care. What I do care about is your denial and patronizing attitude to thousands of scientists. When I discussed the UCS and MA reports, the response was the sickly... "They are entitled to their opinion". That's worthy of Wormtongue from LOTR!

God help us all if Wormtongue advises our leaders during peak oil.

Eclipse,

Don't panic. You're winning.

Trust me!

The only problem now is the US.
They are close to war with Iran and are about to suffer another blitzkrieg of hurricanes in three months time.

God may be on their side but logistics ain't. This scenario promises to bring peak oil to a .. well ... head.

Levity aside, I think you understand the gravity of the situation. Small wonder we now have a new US ambassador.

Trouble here is that the new ambassador is a lawyer intent on enforcing global economy rules and regulations. That means immigrating bigger populations for exapanding markets. How screwy is that on the verge of a brewing crisis point?
It almost sounds like a US panic reaction?

Certainly this will give P&P something to reflect on over the coming months as it all unfolds. It will give us all something to reflect on.

eclipse, you are starting to sound despondent. As well you might.

>>Go ahead P&P, call me a communist — I just don't care. What I do care about is your denial and patronizing attitude to thousands of scientists.<<

You insist upon seeing everything in terms of labels and categories, which is probably the main reason why you cannot see the wood for the trees. Communism was a failure purely because human nature does not allow itself to be straitjacketed and coerced into forms of unnatural behaviour. While the tenets were - at least on the surface - very simple, the ability of a government to centrally plan every aspect of a citizen's life was a) impractical and b) offensive to the individual.

Your flirtation with communism - again, your category, not mine - as a resolution to our problems with sustainability, will come up against precisely the same barriers. Whatever the virtue or the logic, the practical implications of regulating the lives of 20 million Australians in the fashion you prescribe are literally insurmountable.

Until and unless you can formulate a workable plan, that has the willing acceptance of the population at large, you are condemned to remain on the outer fringes, railing at the dark, and inventing jejune slogans to convince yourself that you are "doing something".

Worse, you are making it more difficult for anyone who does actually have a clue to be heard above the rhubarb.

It might be best if I simply left the forum to you and that KAEP chap, who seems to think that we can exist as a nation without international trade. You make a good pair.

He shares with you a felicity with the meaningless phrase - have you fathomed out his "palpable populational nexus" yet? It sounds as though it should mean something, but when you examine it closely, it is empty.

Pretty much like "Resources / population = lifestyle!"

Pericles,

When you learn to read, people may respect your right to your incorrect opinions.

Remember this from my penultimate post?

-->"Keeping Australia to an ecologically sustainable 23 million population would strengthen it above and beyond what would be achievable with greater populations. This is because of the social instabilities and resource shortages inflicted by overcrowding in an overpopulated scenario.
Australia would be able to defend its self better and EXCHANGE people, ideas and TRADE across the globe far better as an ecologically sustainable entity than as a teetering economic powerhouse full of tensions and subverted ALP style loyalties.
This would in NO WAY shut us off from the rest of the world in any meaningful sense."

As for populational nexus, what do you call Sydney gridlocks, riots, poor hospitals, transport and police systems? The city has become overcrowded and unworkable and living standards are falling for the majority. YOU may not understand populational nexus but Morris Iemma sure does and he's doing the policy backflips to prove it.

Average Australians are too smart to have their standard of living reduced so the likes of you and John Howard can ride their backs to glory like some herd of sheep. The feeling in the Sydney community is very strong about this as shown by the Sydney litmus test. It has turned very red and very sour at the prospect of another 100,000 Howard beholden migrants again coming this year on top of all the existing gridlock and rage. If you don't like the citizenry of this country the way it is and has developed and the standards of living we expect then leave. The Majority always rules, not corporate vested interests, foreign global economy aherents, investors and their soulless hangers on.

You know, I can remember when there was a sense of community in Sydney. A lot of people want that back. There is clearly no place for community in your world.

Pericles,
communism in an authoritarian state failed, yes.

Socialism within a broader democratic society, with some strong leftish influences controlling far more than we do in Australia, is still alive and well in many parts of the world. I was not advocating Stalinism!

Oh, and I notice that all those Chinese are rebelling to the point that nothing gets done in China and it's whole economy is collapsing under the sheer weight of communism!?

Oh, and my original point here was that Kerala India HAS stabilized its population problem?

Oh, and I don't know that I spelt out ALL international trade dying, just a lot of superflous trade in the name of a "free market". We transport cheese from here to England and vice versa... this will not be economical after the end of cheap oil.

Pericles, you have some nice theories — it's a pity the laws of thermodynamics do not support them!

KAEP, you are not making sense, although it is unlikely I am the first to apprise you of this.

"palpable populational nexus"?

Do you actually know what a nexus is?

All you have done is to string three unrelated words together to form a slogan that is completely devoid of meaning.

>>what do you call Sydney gridlocks, riots, poor hospitals, transport and police systems?<<

Compared with the vast majority of major cities, we live in a veritable haven of free-flowing traffic, excellent health facilities, competent (though unremarkable) public transport and an efficient law enforcement system.

Have you ever been overseas?

Believe me, there is a huge elasticity in what people will put up with in order to live a full and fulfilled existence. We live in a seriously big country, with enormous reserves of what other countries would give their eye teeth to own.

eclipse, you are rapidly becoming incoherent.

>>We transport cheese from here to England and vice versa... this will not be economical after the end of cheap oil<<

No kidding, Einstein! Guess what: when it becomes uneconomic, it won't happen. But while it is, it will. What is it about this fact that you are unhappy with?

Let us get back to reality for a moment. Australia dipped below the natural replacement rate of 2.1 in 1975, and that number is still declining. Today, about four workers support each pensioner. In a few years, this will halve. Current extrapolations are that with a replacement rate of 1.2, the last Italian will die in 2180. The French will already have disappeared in 2107.

Does this not tell you that nature is already sorting out the problem?

In the meantime, we are going to have some very severe adjustments to make in our attitudes towards old age, work, retirement and euthanasia.

I still think that what you are really, deep down concerned about is that, with higher replacement rates, “other countries” will have more vibrant and viable economies than ours in the not too distant future. And they might take it into their heads to come here.

Pericles,

The populational nexus is that nexux or link that exists between overcrowding and loss of community and forced lowering of living standards for the majority of citizens. Hellooo anyone home? Sheesh!

Speaking of Monty Python, you remind me of the Black Knight: "Go on have yer go. Frightened of a man with no arms and no legs are ya."
And stop whinging about my Pythonisms. Paul Keating used Python to great effect in Federal Parliament. Python has political cred. If your ineptness reminds me of something from Python I will point it out.

BTW if there is elasticity in people's ability to accept lower standards for a "fuller life" why the hell is Iemma backflipping all over the place on his population-for-macbank-profit policies. I mean why has the desal plant been cancelled and why is the tunnel funnel consortium about to do the deep six?
BTW Sydneysiders are special people. We hold our living standards in high regard. We will never accept the crap you propose. If you like overseas slums fine. Don't preach to us, go find your true kismet.

BTW your comprehension's shot and you need a new vocabulary. But you ARE a true source of entertainment

Pericles,
You said
>>>It might be best if I simply left the forum to you and that KAEP chap, who seems to think that we can exist as a nation without international trade. You make a good pair.<<<

I said >>>Oh, and I don't know that I spelt out ALL international trade dying, just a lot of superfluous trade in the name of a "free market". We transport cheese from here to England and vice versa... this will not be economical after the end of cheap oil.<<<

You said >>>No kidding, Einstein! Guess what: when it becomes uneconomic, it won't happen. But while it is, it will. What is it about this fact that you are unhappy with?<<<

My response: I am unhappy that our whole society depends on cheap goods manufactured in Taiwan or China, and that these massively entrenched globalization systems will collapse after peak oil. I am unhappy that as transport becomes unbearably expensive, there is a very real risk of some areas of the world ‘collapsing’. It might not be a matter of not getting cheese from England, we might not be able to get it from Victoria to NSW!

I am unhappy that every wind turbine that has ever been built, has been built on a cheap oil economy. We just don’t know if we can run civilization on annually decreasing energy reserves, and still have the energy left over to totally rebuild civilization!

I am unhappy that our governments are pretty much in denial over the extent of this crisis, and that they are authorizing more car dependent suburbia to be constructed, more cross city tunnels, etc… when they should be upgrading
1/ Public transport
2/ New Urbanism — http://newurbanism.org/pages/416429/index.htm
3/ Local food production
4/ Renewable energy systems
5/ economic incentives for a stable — maybe even lower — population
6/ Fuel rationing to trade things that REALLY matter, like wheat to potentially starving nations!

Your statistics regarding population ignore the obvious — immigration. Pericles, it would be great if you would actually read the executive summaries of the UCS and MA reports.

eclipse, you say you are:

>>unhappy that our whole society depends on cheap goods manufactured in Taiwan or China<<

This is untrue, wherever they may be manufactured.

It is a fact that they cheap imports had a significant impact in recent years in dampening any inflationary tendencies in our economy, by enabling our household budget to stretch further. But to say that our society depends on them is drawing a very long bow indeed.

Without the "cheap goods", we would be forced to take a slight hit in our lifestyle, but only in that we might have to delay buying that new wide-screen home theatre.

What about >>these massively entrenched globalization systems [that] will collapse after peak oil<<

As far as I am aware, trade is conducted largely on a bilateral basis. You have something to sell to me, and I choose whether to buy it or not. If, after "peak oil", you choose not to sell me that something, who has lost out, you or me? Since there was never any coercion to buy in the first place, what exactly is it that has "collapsed"?

As for >>as transport becomes unbearably expensive, there is a very real risk of some areas of the world ‘collapsing’<<

...how would this actually come about? Admittedly, we might be in a position of having to knock back that new Japanese SUV and make do with the old Toyota for a while, but again - who loses, and how might it affect us? Economies are strange creatures, that have a habit of adjusting themselves around changed circumstances.

But crucially, you should take a great deal of comfort from the fact that all your stated unhappinesses are absolutely independent of population growth in Australia.

Don't worry. Be happy.

But as I said before, I suspect your real fear is expressed in the statement >>your statistics regarding population ignore the obvious — immigration<<

Of course, if we do not replace ourselves, immigration will be needed to make up the numbers. So it's Catch 22. Reduce our own population and disappear, or open the borders.

Tricky.

Pericles,
I've already quoted all the sources to you and am now sure that you are being deliberately obtuse.

1/ Oil has helped the world population reach 6.5 billion by helping assist the "Green Revolution" (check wikipedia.) (Oil has inflated the population.)

2/ Food is grown on arable land far from our cities, and then freighted to those cities by truck. (Oil has disperesed the population to normally unviable territories... EG: Las Vegas).

3/ Oil is about to peak and go into decline, affecting these "normal" economic relationships that are actually abnormal when considering the vast total of human history. Food and manufacturing were mostly provided locally. We will have to go back to this model. Everything is going to change... and the earlier we start, the better.

4/ Hiding behind the "market mechanism" as you do applauds terrible public policy. If oil production IS about to start to decline, sending prices through the roof... the government is going to have to answer these questions in hindsight.
a/ Should we have built a Cross City tunnel, or a cross city tramline?
b/ Should we be building a Lane Cove tunnel, or upgrading rail?
c/ Should governments be scrambling to INCREASE "free trade" or supporting local enterprises that we are going to need post peak?

Basically, the marketplace cannot prepare for peak oil because it is running off the current price signals, and by the time those price signals change it could be 30 years too late! (Hirsch).

5/ Given the marketplace has created this false sense of security, how far does the disaster extend? What is the future of agriculture, given world grain production has ALREADY peaked without the effects of peak oil?

Your rubbish about trade and "who loses out?" shows your ignorance of the total energy, economic, and ecological challenge facing us. I have posted dozens of links, and could post dozens more... including the Federal Submissions to the Peak Oil Taskforce... but there would be no point. You don't read them anyway.

Dear Peri

You said: "Compared with the vast majority of major cities, we live in a veritable haven of free-flowing traffic, excellent health facilities, competent (though unremarkable) public transport and an efficient law enforcement system."

And then you asked: "Have you ever been overseas?"

Precisely! If we keep on stuffing people into Australia like there's no tomorrow, we too will be able to have all the lovely problems they have in Cairo, Calcutta, California. You beaut! Let's rush headlong into population growth as quick as we can. I can hardly wait until we have a traffic system like LA, won't we be happy little sunshines then?

For crissakes open your eyes. We don't NEED population growth. We need to invest in smart industries like little Finland (population 5 million) has done with its Nokia mobile phones. But of course that is beyond our capabilities, isn't it?

It is NOT a choice between economic decline and throwing open the borders - we can run a perfectly prosperous economy without stuffing the place up. It's just lazy greed that makes us rely so heavily on the property industry as an economic driver - and the more we rely on it, the harder it will become to get off the treadmill.

Thermoman, my eulogy to Sydney's comparatively gentle existence was in response to a rant about "Sydney gridlocks, riots, poor hospitals, transport and police systems? The city has become overcrowded and unworkable".

It is plainly stupid to pretend that is evidence that I support our becoming another Calcutta.

Why is it that you people cannot conduct a civilized, thoughtful and cogent debate without ladling on the hyperbole, frothing at the mouth with self-righteous indignation, and jabbering idealistic soundbites as if they are gems of crystalline wisdom?

Listen to yourselves for a moment.

>>We need to invest in smart industries like little Finland <<

Who, exactly, is the "we" in this context?

Does it not occur to you that Nokia could have happened anywhere in the world - there's nothing particularly Finnish about mobile phones.

Nokia started as a wood-pulp company in 1865, and dabbled in many different markets (rubber, cable) before nearly disintegrating in the nineties.

It received no government assistance. The fact that it had enough nous and business acumen to pick the market when it did, was down to individuals.

So let's try again. How do "we" create the next Nokia in Australia?

You see, it is just another example of pathetically woolly thinking.

There is a name for a human activity that makes you feel good, but doesn't actually produce anything of value.

eclipse, perhaps you can explain to me why it is that almost every prosperous country in the world is experiencing a decline in its replacement rate? It would appear that as soon as people can afford to, they don't have so many children. Europe's population is expected to peak in thirty years.

Check it out. It has happened everywhere.

This tells me that the outcome is by no means guaranteed. Sure, much will change. But by far the biggest “threat” is the one we pose ourselves, by choosing to restrict the number of children we have, once we can afford to do without them.

Paradoxical, ain't it?

Which is one reason I object to trite one-liners like "Resources / population = lifestyle!"

Pericles, we've already been right through this whole conversation!
Go back and READ IT!

No, don't bother... I know you won't. I'll have to rehash it here for you.

1/ Demographic transition in first world countries = lower birthrates.
Indeed, half the world seems to have already stabilized. The other half breeds like rabbits, making up for this 'stability'. I have already discussed the means by which this occurs, you are proving exactly nothing!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overpopulation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_transition

2/ UN stats argue that population will stabilize at 9 billion because of WORLDWIDE DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION! (IE: Worldwide wealth, peace, and stability! LOL!)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overpopulation#Population_projections

3/ Peak oil will bankrupt the first world and shatter the 3rd world.
This means there is no chance of demographic transition, the mysterious force you seem to be unable to name even though this thread has already discussed all this!

4/ Market forces will only react to peak oil price signals, and by then it is too late. (Hirsch).
Sorry Pericles, the onus seems to be back on government's to prepare for peak oil and overpopulation.

Can I suggest re-reading the links above until the terms "Demographic Transition" and "overpopulation" actually stick?

You keep exhorting me to read your sources eclipse, but I wonder whether you actually read them yourself. Wikipedia clearly states:

"Overpopulation is not merely an imbalance between the number of individuals compared to the resources they need to survive, or a ratio of population over resources."

There goes "Resources / population = lifestyle!" Exclamation mark and all.

"About half the world lives in nations with sub-replacement fertility, and population growth in those countries is due to immigration."

Poor countries are exporting their surplus to the rich countries, who are at sub-replacement levels. We seem at least to agree on this point.

You need to make up your mind at some stage whether you would like the poor countries to stop doing this, or get the rich countries to breed faster. Which is it to be?

What you cannot do, however, is to conflate the two concepts into one.

>>Peak oil will bankrupt the first world and shatter the 3rd world.<<

No, we will find alternative energy sources. That is the way it has been in the past, and will continue to be in the future. In any event, it has little or nothing to do with the first problem, which is - in your own estimation - whether we continue to allow the poorer countries to export their surplus population.

>>Market forces will only react to peak oil price signals, and by then it is too late. (Hirsch).<<

I disagree. Hirsch has made a name for himself using the same kind of emotive language that the Club of Rome employed back in the seventies. Your take on Limits to Growth was:

>>They ran a variety of models, some of which did not turn out exactly as they predicted, and neither does that disprove their main thesis!<<

(That bloody exclamation mark again.)

So let me put it to you that while Hirsch may not eventually be disproved in his main thesis (which is that the concept of peak oil needs to be addressed), his timeline, like that of the Club, is both erroneous and grossly over-dramatized.

Pericles,
Let me put it to you that you either seem to delight in obfuscation and misdirection, or you cannot read!

I make a point, you either ‘call names’ or take the conversation somewhere else and entirely dodge the question, and then call names some more. This is really repetitive and dull.

1/ You completely misquote Wikipedia!
“Overpopulation is not a function of the number or density of the individuals, but rather the number of individuals compared to the resources they need to survive. In other words, it is a ratio: population over resources. If a given environment has a population of 10, but there is food and drinking water enough for only 9 people, then that environment is overpopulated, while if the population is 100 individuals but there are food and water enough for 200, then it is not overpopulated.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overpopulation

Did you read that bit Peeeerricleeeeeeees?

IT IS A RATIO!

Let’s try your quote in context.

“Overpopulation is not merely an imbalance between the number of individuals compared to the resources they need to survive, or a ratio of population over resources. This is because such an imbalance may be caused by any other number of factors such as bad governance, war, injustice and exploitation, etc. When other such factors come into play in a certain locale, and population density cannot be shown to be the major cause, overpopulation cannot be conclusively said to occur.”

So Pericles, this quote highlights the need for an “All things being equal” clause. How is a war “equal”, Pericles? You’ve been very naughty quoting out of context, and should tell your mummy and daddy because you need a spanking. Now write this down 100 times… “I must not quote out of context”. You naughty boy! We’re all onto you.

2/ Regarding your comments on Hirsch and immigration. There’s only one answer. “Sticks and stones may break my bones”. In other words, please resist the urge to write until you have engaged your brain. Your immigration comment ignores “Liebig’s Law”, “The Precautionary Principle”, the UCS and MA.

Insults + nothing substantial = trolling

Nice try, eclipse, but unconvincing.

I stand accused of... "obfuscation and misdirection... you either ‘call names’ or take the conversation somewhere else and entirely dodge the question"

Let's take a break from all this peripheral backchat, and get to the main game.

There is now a significant backlog of direct questions that you have failed to answer.

The list so far is:

>>Let us postulate for a moment that your David Pimentel is correct, and that to survive in comfort we need to target a maximum population of 2 billion. What can bring about this change?<<

No response.

>>What incentives do you consider would be helpful in persuading i) the USA ii) Iraq iii) Nigeria iv) Indonesia and v) China to join your [depopulation] programme? What would be your fallback position if some, or none, came to the party? Do you believe that i) bribery or ii) threats would be more effective in getting your message across?<<

No response.

>>What laws do you propose the government brings in to realize your dream of an Australia that contains a limited number of people? What is that number, how would you propose to reach it, and what would you recommend we do with those who dissent?<<

No response.

>>Poor countries are exporting their surplus to the rich countries, who are at sub-replacement levels. We seem at least to agree on this point. You need to make up your mind at some stage whether you would like the poor countries to stop doing this, or get the rich countries to breed faster. Which is it to be?<<

No response.

So let's have less of this nonsense about dodging the question and calling names. To set me right, all you need to do is answer the above simple questions.

The time for scouring the net for quotes to support your position is over. You will always find some, since that is the nature of the web and the wonder of Google.

But just answer some direct questions for a change, and we can start a proper discussion.

Awww, poor wittle Pewicwees doesn’t like it when he got caught out lying.

You do not “stand accused” of anything Pericles, you were proved beyond reasonable doubt of BLATANTLY misquoting wikipedia.

As to your childish repetition of the abovementioned ‘avoidance strategy’ by accusing me of not answering your questions, I already have. You just can’t read.

This is my first request that you actually read the SPA policy document, only 4 pages long, whose 21 Recommendations answers ALL of your specific “finished white paper” style questions.

>>> INTERNATIONAL POLICIES
As to me, a mere campaigner solving all the world’s problems at once… well I’ve already asked you to download the SPA policy statement at www.population.org.au but you will not. (Sigh).<<<

In other words, Jenny Goldie's article aimed to start the public discussion that we need to DO something about overpopulation. SPA has proposed what to do, but the finer details might evolve with public debate. You seem to want ironclad details before really agreeing with the immediate need for population policy in the first place! D’uh!

Now we move onto the second time I answer your pedantic questions — just a means to distract from the actual conversation — which is the NEED for public debate on population policy.

>>> Finally we come to policy. What are we to DO about it? Well, apart from all your philosophical ranting about how hard this is, there are measures governments can take to mitigate population growth. EG: Kerala district in India now has a stable population by providing women with education and career opportunities, family planning services, and security in retirement so that children are not viewed as “superannuation”.
Policy documents — right hand column under media releases.
http://www.population.org.au/ <<<

Don’t accuse me of avoiding your questions when you will not read the answers I give you. I mean, this whole thread is in response to Jenny Goldie, the President of SPA — and you won’t even read her policy statement when asked to on a number of occasions.

Lastly, apologise to this forum for so blatantly misquoting wikipedia you troll!

China has already sucessfully implemented population control policy, Pericles. Thanks for bring it up.

China's recognition of the problem of using population growth to drive economic growth, forced it to implement the so called "one child policy". Often portrayed by western sensationalist media as a draconian evil foisted onto the chinese, the population strategy of China has been very successful. If the most populated nation on earth can do it then I'm sure the U.S.A, Indonesia etc can.

FYI, Chinese Population Policy:

Policy incentives

salary bonus (urban)
bigger land allocation (rural)
extended maternity leave
paid medical and hospital expenses
priority access to housing, employment and schooling for the child

Disobeying the policy

withdrawal of family allowance and medical benefits
fines (even against everyone in the village or town)
demotion or discharge from a government job

Exceptions to the rule

membership of a minority ethnic group (can be allowed two or even more children)
having a first child with a disability that is likely to result in inability to work
pregnancy after adopting a child
risk of 'losing the family line' without a second child (the first child being a girl)
rural families with 'real difficulties' (all children so far being girls)

http://www.asiaeducation.edu.au/china/virtual/lesson/gilligan.htm

With a history of floods and famine China is intimately aware of unchecked population growth.

A previous poster questioned implementing population control at all because we don't know what the upper limit to population is. Another way of saying, keep growing until we have problems. This a bit like saying, keep smoking until you get cancer then hope for a cure.

There are really no rational scientific arguments against the logic of stabilising, then gradually reducing human populations (there are however irrational, economic ones, even religious ones). As Pericles has pointed out, it is a question of politics. We do not have an international political/legal system that can deal with long term environmental issues.

Robert Hirsch wrote in the SAIC document, that the risks of not implementing early mitigation strategies to peak oil were asymmetrical to doing so. This applies to ALL environmental and demographic issues.

Time To STOP What?

The future of Sydney is now in the hands of the Planning Department, councils and developers, who, in the next year or so, will roll out the detailed plans of just how - and where - this city will grow.
The State Government has set out the facts and figures in its blueprint for Sydney's expansion over 25 years. The Metropolitan Strategy, released in December, tells how the city needs to cater for an extra 1.1 million people by 2031.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/nearer-thy-neighbours/2006/03/16/1142098602874.html?page=1

In an enormous logistics exercise, the Metropolitan Strategy taskforce will be fitting 1.1 million more people into limited Ghetto space, and in the coming months a lot of planning bureaucrats in the State Government and councils will devote their attention to the detail of carrying it out.

The Department of Planning would not allow the Herald to interview the strategy's executive director, Gail Connolly, or the urban renewal executive director, Chris Johnson.

It just seems like Morris Dilemma is backflipping up, up, up and over his other backflips crying "You can't see me I'm hiding behing my little finger. I WILL get my Desal plant, Frank's Botany Vegas and my post ministerial Mac-Job. The rest of you can eat road rage and I hope you get rammed by an unlicensed P-Plater"

Pity about that election next March. But Morris knows there is ALWAYS TIME for one last Backflip.

Sydney does not have to grow at all to be economically viable. In fact by placing a ban on new housing developments in the Sydney basin, developers will be forced to focus attention on country towns where new jobs to service Sydney's economy are NEEDED. And more importantly, environmental and sociological issues can be redressed in Sydney that will force clowns like Johnson and Connolly to focus on COMMUNITIES and not profit margins for Macforeign developers.

peakro, it may have escaped your notice, but this thread advocates population reduction, not simply stabilization.

This will entail somewhat more stringent "rules" than those you outline for us.

Sorry, that should read, more stringent rules than those you outline for other people.

"We", after all, are already well along the path of non-replacement.

It is becoming clearer by the day that this thread is actually all about restricting immigration. After all, if the non-immigrant population is already reproducing at a rate lower than replacement, there is no need to rave on about population stabilization in Australia, it has already arrived. As indeed it has in Europe, amongst Europeans.

Why not be more open and honest about the fact that we are talking about immigration policy, rather than pretending that we are talking about "global" population issues? But of course, "management of the planet's resources" is so much more PC than "close the borders".

KAEP, meanwhile, still seems to believe that economic management is all about governments telling you what you can and can't do, where you can and can't build, and where you can and can't set up a business.

Businesses don't just happen because a government says they must. They happen because there is a market. If you try to create new markets by force, they will quickly go bankrupt.

There is, after all, a reason why cities grow and why country towns do not, and it has to do with the fact that our primary-industry based economy has changed over the years, and doesn't need the same infrastructure as it used to. Everybody gets excited when the Bank in a small town closes - but for what reason was it put there in the first place, and does that need still exist?

And just for fun, what do you think would be the result, KAEP, of a ban on housing development in Sydney? Mass migration to country towns, where there isn't enough work for their existing inhabitants? Or simply faster price increases in the existing market?

I know which one I would bet on.

As others have said here…

Pericles, oh Peeeericleeeeeeees,
Have you read the SPA policy document yet? The questions you keep raising as ‘unanswered’ have been repeatedly answered by my repeatedly referring to that policy. I gave up waiting for you to download it yourself and emailed it to you. Have you bothered to read it, or are you truly trolling?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll

You still have not apologized for purposely misquoting Wikipedia. Also the article actually said “is a ratio: population over resources.” When are you going to admit to this?

Immigration — you attack us for not having a global solution. You said:

>>>"What incentives do you consider would be helpful in persuading i) the USA ii) Iraq iii) Nigeria iv) Indonesia and v) China to join your programme? What would be your fallback position if some, or none, came to the party? Do you believe that i) bribery or ii) threats would be more effective in getting your message across?"<<<

So if, as you suggest, it is too hard to implement a worldwide solution right now, why can’t we at least clean up our own backyard first? Why do you think the population experts, with the hardest campaign of all to sell, then risk making their campaign even MORE difficult by focusing on immigration — with the potential charges of Xenophobia?

Because it is the only thing that we have control over, at least for now.
Because we can set an example that other nations might follow.

Does not controlling domestic immigration policy answer all your objections above? Is it not the ultimate fallback position? You asked!

Pericles, once again you have demonstrated incoherent thinking. You cannot attack us for the impossibility of implementing a workable international solution, and then also attack us for proposing a domestic one! You can’t have it both ways.

So this whole list is waiting for:-
1/ An apology for deliberately misquoting Wikipedia
2/ You to read the SPA document
3/ You to concede the immigration argument
4/ You to propose your solution. (sigh)

Peri-Cleese,

If a restaurant is full, people have to queue. That is not telling anyone to go there or what to do. It is free market not autocracy. If the government builds street stalls to handle the overflow and these stalls cause disruption for local residents then that is GREED. It is an autocratic response to market conditions that gives unfair advantage to the government Mac-stall holders at the expense of the local residents.

And just for fun, what do you think would be the result, KAEP, of a ban-on-NEW-housing-developmentS in Sydney?

Well Peri-one-eye, I KNOW it would shift development to country towns and the 500,000 support jobs autocratically slated for Sydney's outer west will go to those country towns and decentralise population growth around NSW where it is NEEDED.

The problem is that you do not understand economics and foist a PRETENSE on people who do. We can only laugh, but you give us a platform with which to educate citizens. They need to understand the denigrating effects that government Macprivate-corruptionships will have on their ordinary day-to-day-lives as they have 1-million-strong new neighbours stuck in boxes near their railway-stations. These 1-million-new-residents will autocratically be denied garages and parking facilities and thus cars. This will cause boredom and frustration that will fester into rage-and-resentment of those who were here first.
And guess what? NSW LABOR will have forced unreasonable state taxes and funnelling operatives on we the existing citizens to kickstart the infrastucture needed to build these railway-station boxes in the first place. NSW LABOR will be making the rod for our own backs and to make matters worse forcing us to pay for the bloody thing. All this in order to keep Mac-profits in the black and beautiful.

NSW be warned. Morris, Bob and Frank are not your friends. They are merely proxies for profiteers who want an airtight-contract to funnel our lives into their tidy offshore bank accounts. This is what we get for blindly accepting branch stacked government in NSW and allowing politicians to do what they like with proprietry NSW State knowledge after they leave office.

Pericles, yes immigration should be reduced. Is this UN-PC? It can be spun that way but it is not. If Australia's current population is naturally falling without immigration, then we have an effective and PC way to manage a reduction in numbers. It would be impossible to implement a "one child policy" here, besides, we both know this is unnecessary.

We don't need to "close the borders", we should just reduce the amount of skilled migrants entering Australia. This group is the largest by far of people migrating to Australia. There may be no need to reduce humanitarian migration or family migration for that matter, so your hinted accusations of xenophobia or racism are unfounded.

Peak oil will drastically remake the economic landscape of Australia and the world. How bad (or if bad at all) will naturally vary between locations. Governments will need to analyze the subsidies and market distortion that will cause serious problems down the road. The obvious examples are the electricity market and logistics in Australia. Renewable energy production will need government intervention to provide a foot hold in the market.

This has been achieved with great success in Germany, (read economist Herman Scheer for details), with the creation of 160,000 jobs in the renewable energy sector since 1990. Most of the rhetoric against renewables is simply wrong, the economic arguments are against them are pure propaganda. We need to break the stranglehold fossil fuels have on this market. Rail is a no-brainer, the current state of affairs is an out right scandal but I believe this problem will be solved by economic forces as the cost of trucking rises.

The economic pressures that have driven people and work out of regional Australia may turn. We have the largest area of organic farming in the world (12.1 million hectares) this trend will intensify down the slope of peak oil and will require more rural labour.

Since I am the only one who refuses to be bullied by the single-issue fanatics on this thread, it behoves me to keep going.

eclipse, however much you squeal "look at the policy, look at the policy", it answers precisely none of my questions.

It is couched in the same "wouldn't it be nice if...." terms that you have used on this thread. There isn't a single specific suggestion that has a direct impact on the problems that it describes, so even if you believe the disaster scenario put forward, by the time you get to the end of the document you are no wiser as to how it might be prevented or alleviated.

Which at least explains why you haven't been able to answer either.

KAEP has his head firmly... in the sand too.

>>I KNOW it would shift development to country towns and the 500,000 support jobs autocratically slated for Sydney's outer west will go to those country towns<<

I'm afraid you need to visit some of these places and see how the most of them are slowly dying, and understand the reasons why. Perhaps you can explain why you think "autocratically slating" jobs for rural NSW is more likely to succeed than doing the same in Sydney's outer west.

peakro, one of the puzzles here is why we don't start the process very simply, by doubling or trebling the government excise on fossil fuels. Compared to Europe, we have extremely cheap petrol for our cars, and it would send the "right" message to the people.

If the situation is as dire as you say it is, then there could not be a simpler and more effective way to achieve two goals. One, to set aside funds which the government could then deploy to generate energy from alternative sources - uranium springs to mind immediately, but that is horribly non-PC too. Two, it would establish in the minds of the entire population, at a single stroke, the depth of the problems we face.

Now that's a campaign that would have some honesty.

Any volunteers?

Pericles,
I disagree with uranium, simply because it is too expensive and takes too long to implement.

Wind is already one of the cheapest sources of electricity in the world per kwh, the only problem is backup power. We can solve that. Uranium, when counted from mining, processing, and disposal of the deadly ores, is one of the most problematical energy sources available. Spend some time on my website under solutions, and learn about other energy sources before you go on about uranium.

But for once I agree with you… we should increase taxes on fuel if only to compensate for all the subsidies the coal and oil industry already gets in Australia! Libertarians often whine at me, “Just let the markets fix peak oil, the government should not be involved in picking winners in the energy market.”

Ahem… it already has. The fossil fuel markets receive billions in funding.

Now, as to the SPA policy… Who are you to dismiss it with such a cavalier attitude?
Can you do better than these suggestions?

3. ratifies the Program of Action arising out of the UN International Conference on Population and
Development (ICPD) held in Cairo in 1994.

10. adopts social and taxation policies (eg maternity allowances) that allow couples to provide adequately for their children but at the same time discourages them from having more than two children

11. through taxation and housing policies, ameliorates the present situation where land speculators reap excessive profits from population growth

13. ensures that the family planning component within ODA is at least 4 per cent, and that greater priority is given to other measures that reduce the birth rate, particularly primary health care and education of women

16. takes steps to reduce our national economic dependence on tourism recognising its vulnerability to rises in the world price of oil and the pollution caused by air and road travel

This list is STILL waiting for:-
1/ An apology for deliberately misquoting Wikipedia
2/ You to ENGAGE the SPA document
3/ You to concede the immigration argument
4/ You to propose your solution.

Nuclear electricity production has the same foibles as fossil fuels. Enormous initial investment, long lead times to implement, based on a depleting resource. It also creates waste that is dangerous for millennium. There are viable solutions to the waste problem, synrock etc, all are expensive. People tend to get very emotional and irrational about nukes, compared to coal it is a beacon of virtue (both environmentally and its safety record - yes including Chernobyl) but I think it is unnecessary and uneconomical.

If you look at the history of nuclear power production you quickly realise that no other energy source has required so much government subsidy, it is truly staggering, in a free market it would be an expensive failure. With Australia's low population density, sun, wind and bio-mass will be ample electricity providers.

Transport fuels, however are another question. Electric cars for commuting perhaps, some bio-diesel for heavy lifting, boating etc no easy answer there, expect huge changes to "lifesyle", and more bicycles, mopeds, scooters etc. People will adapt, they always do, we haven't had the luxury of cars for very long, some aspects of current motoring will be seen as a historical curiosity (or flagrant waste and environmental ruination) by future generations.

Carbon capture with coal may even become an option to create backup power if required, but this should not be pursed to as the main source of power production. If kept small scale, this industry may provide valuable chemical feed stocks as well. Storing CO2 underground could potentially be more dangerous than storing nuclear waste.

Perry - oh P-e-e-e-ry

Good on you for sticking to your silly guns. You are of course totally misguided but, well, I'm bored and this is an interesting debate.

Now, let's look at one of your posts in detail.

Let us return to the subject of the Nokia mobile phone, which is an example of the kind of product a "clever" country like Australia might develop instead of just making itself into a quarry and farm for the rest of the world, and letting its property developers run rampant and throw open the gates of a country they don't own (only three lifetimes ago it was entirely the property of the Aboriginals, who have owned it for 50,000 years).

When I said "we need to invest in smart industries like little Finland" you asked "Who, exactly, is the "we" in this context?"

Answer: we, the people who vote for governments and supposedly have some say in the way our country is run.

You asked: "Does it not occur to you that Nokia could have happened anywhere in the world - there's nothing particularly Finnish about mobile phones."

Well of course there isn't! The point is that if a tiny country like Finland can come up with a clever product and flog it around the world, a somewhat larger country like Australia ought to be able to do the same, i.e. make its money from inventions and good business skills rather than just revert to real estate, based on ever-increasing population, as the dominant domestic commercial activity.

Perry - oh P-e-e-e-ry (2)

You said "Nokia started as a wood-pulp company in 1865, and dabbled in many different markets (rubber, cable) before nearly disintegrating in the nineties. It received no government assistance. The fact that it had enough nous and business acumen to pick the market when it did, was down to individuals."

What is your point? Do we have no individuals in Australia.? In fact Nokia is an excellent example of a company that started off as a resource trader and then got smart. Oh, and did I at any stage say our companies should get government assistance? No, so why did you raise the subject?

You went on to say "let's try again. How do "we" create the next Nokia in Australia? You see, it is just another example of pathetically woolly thinking."

My friend, woolly thinking is what started this great nation of ours. Goodnight, and good luck

Thermo, you obviously understand neither business nor government, so it is a very long shot on my part whether you will be able to get your head around this post. But being the charitable and caring guy that I am, I'll give it a try.

>>When I said "we need to invest in smart industries like little Finland" you asked "Who, exactly, is the "we" in this context?"

Answer: we, the people who vote for governments and supposedly have some say in the way our country is run.<<

So, is it we, the voters, as individuals, who are going to invest in smart industries?

Or are you proposing that we should vote in a government that goes around investing in smart industries on our behalf?

I'll let you into a secret here. Getting hold of money from individual voters to back an business idea is quite difficult. You see, to be a "smart industry", you have to do something different, as did Nokia. Most people are more interested in shoving their cash into super funds and unit trusts that into untried, untested ideas. Been there, done that. Still doing it, in fact.

But if you mean "the government should invest in smart industries", you will have an even bigger shock awaiting you. The vast majority of voters would be extremely reluctant to vote for a government whose platform is "give us your taxes, let us invest it in risky business for you"

You see (and this is where you have to concentrate really, really hard) setting up a new industry, particularly of the "smart" variety, is actually quite risky.

The reality of the situation is that when we go to the polls, no matter who we vote for, we end up electing a politician.

Simply standing in a corner with a damp hanky, wishing the world were different is not at all a good look, Thermo. The fact is, there are hundreds of good ideas out there, and one day, one will work. But it won't be the result of you whimpering “someone ought to do something....”

And as for you eclipse, I doubt very much that >>this list is STILL waiting for...<< anything from me. They have all long ago seen through your little “pretend-he's-a-troll” games.

>>1/ An apology for deliberately misquoting Wikipedia<<

My quote was accurate. It was cut and paste, even.

>>2/ You to ENGAGE the SPA document<<

Surely, the point of such a document is to engage me, not vice-versa. Its fundamental problem is that it is based upon the assumption that everyone already agrees with its theories, so it doesn't need to make any effort to “engage me”

The part on global warming, for example, uses only data that are based on the assumption that the temperature increase that has occurred in recent years is entirely due to the rise in man-made carbon dioxide emissions. But this assumption somehow fails to explain the decrease in northern hemisphere temperatures between 1945 and 1965 of 0.2C.

So it may, or may not, be true. But it is shaky grounds to base statements like “increased temperatures, extreme weather events and less rainfall in the southern part of the Australian continent will reduce its capacity to sustain a large population..”

I find it difficult to “engage” with such flimsy material.

>>3/ You to concede the immigration argument<<

Which one? Of all the paragraphs in the SPA document, those dealing with immigration are the most confused.

“Recommendations... That the Federal Government... implements an integrated population policy that is based on environmental sustainability and encompasses immigrant intake, natural increase, biodiversity protection, aspirations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, tourism, foreign aid, internal migration, and education”

Simple, really. Why didn't anyone think of it before.

>>4/ You to propose your solution.<<

To do that, you need to define the problem. Since I have yet to agree with any of the problem statements you have put together, it is tough for me to provide glib slogans that have even the remotest bearing on reality.

That's your job, and you do it extremely well.

Except for the reality bit, of course.

Pericles,

1/Wikipedia you quoted out of context when you said:

>>>You keep exhorting me to read your sources eclipse, but I wonder whether you actually read them yourself. Wikipedia clearly states:

"Overpopulation is not merely an imbalance between the number of individuals compared to the resources they need to survive, or a ratio of population over resources."

There goes "Resources / population = lifestyle!" Exclamation mark and all.<<<

This is where you are playing semantic games, and picking and choosing exactly which bits you are going to post that portray only your truth… when it is actually a minor qualification within the whole text! All your Wikipedia quote does is qualify the larger themes of the passage, much like my “All things being equal” is tacked onto “Resources / population = lifestyle!”

What Wikipedia does before qualifying the concept, is actually set up the concpet itself. Imagine that? When writing Pericles, people often have a ‘big idea’ that they explain, with a few explanatory notes. And what is the main concept?

“Overpopulation is not a function of the number or density of the individuals, but rather the number of individuals compared to the resources they need to survive. In other words, it is a ratio: population over resources. If a given environment has a population of 10, but there is food and drinking water enough for only 9 people, then that environment is overpopulated, while if the population is 100 individuals but there are food and water enough for 200, then it is not overpopulated.”

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

So Pericles, how exactly does that fit in with your previous statement, “There goes "Resources / population = lifestyle!" Exclamation mark and all.”?

Quoting out of context is a High School trick. How old are you Pericles? Grow up.

2/I pointed to the SPA document for population policies, not your ignorant comments on global warming! Again you show how quickly you forget CONTEXT! What is this whole thread ABOUT Pericles! You demanded policies and they are all there.

3/ Domestic policy is necessary if global policy is impossible. Concede!

4/ Trolling again?

>>Quoting out of context is a High School trick<<

Is it my imagination eclipse, or are you running out of ideas?

You could equally describe my selection as simply a quote from the same source, but one that introduced a level of doubt, or realism, into the argument.

It is a common and understandable procedure, used by most fair-minded sources when they are dabbling in the unknown.

For example, the "Climate Change Projections for Australia" report that the SPA leans on so much for its ideas also takes a responsible approach:

"The projections are based on results from computer models that involve simplifications of real physical processes that are not fully understood. Accordingly, no responsibility will be accepted by CSIRO for the accuracy of the projections inferred from this brochure or for any person’s interpretations, deductions, conclusions or actions in reliance on this information."

Just in case you missed it, the key phrase here is "simplifications of real physical processes that are not fully understood".

Now, is that quoting in context, or out of context?

You need to employ a full "have-my-cake-and-eat-it" approach to ignore this disclaimer, while insisting that the remaining content of the report is incontrovertible.

>>I pointed to the SPA document for population policies...<

Before you conveniently forget, it was you who asked me to "engage the SPA document". You didn't say "just read the bits that support my arguments".

The SPA understands the linkage, even if you don't. They ask that

"[the Federal Government] provides incentives for energy efficiency to reduce Australia’s total greenhouse gas emissions and thus its ecological footprint"

4/10. Must try harder.

Pericles wants to avoid the real discussion because he is getting flogged.

1/ He originally attacked my formula even though it contains a truth that ecologists use daily in their equations… overpopulation is a ratio of people to resources. Pericles even admitted that overpopulation would happen at some stage — even blind “Blind Freddie” could see that. However, he then proceeded to criticise the limitations of any formula, and all he did was end up highlighting qualifications. If people starve in wartime, it’s because of the war, not overpopulation. D'uh!

Pericles then misquoted Wikipedia’s ‘qualifications’ of the ecological formula as if those qualifications somehow DISPROVED the formula.

>>>“There goes "Resources / population = lifestyle!" Exclamation mark and all.<<<”

Nice try Pericles — however you only quoted a QUALIFYING statement, not a DISPROVING statement. Use a dictionary if you’re having trouble keeping up.
Ecology is actually based on some very simple ratios.

2/ Pericles then sneered at the very idea of drawing up population policy because of the difficulty of implementing it on an international basis. He demanded that I come up with a workable position. Just raising awareness of the claims of thousands of scientists is not enough, I had to have the solutions, and have a fallback position if no other nations co-operated.

Fine. I answered by referring to the SPA document. These are policies that can be implemented now because they are work on the domestic front, while ratifying various UN population protocols.

The SPA policies are so workable that Pericles now wants to divert the conversation onto Global Warming. Why? He’s not interested in the very real answers to the objectionable questions that he posed…. he’s not here to learn, but to criticise and troll.

Your diversions are becoming pathetic Pericles.

1/ Admit that ecology deals with ratios, and that you purposely quoted wikipedia OUT OF CONTEXT.
2/ Admit that domestic policies would be better than none.
3/ Admit that there is a UN population protocol that Australia could ratify.
4/ Admit that I quote reputable links to answer your questions, but you just avoid mine.

Not even a very good try this time, eclipse.

>>He originally attacked my formula even though it contains a truth that ecologists use daily in their equations… overpopulation is a ratio of people to resources.<<

Now that's a straight-out fib, my friend.

I attacked your pet slogan "Resources / population = lifestyle!". Lifestyle, whether you like it or not, is not synonymous with overpopulation.

They are two separate constructs. Two different ideas. But you conflate them to justify your position.

But you were caught out. Sorry. It happens when you are so convinced that your view is incontrovertible that you think you can pick up and use any passing piece of whimsy.

The rest of the diatribe is beneath contempt.

You suggest that I "sneered at the very idea of drawing up population policy", when I decided to question your flimsy logic and unworkable ideas.

You say that I "demanded that [you] come up with a workable position", when I pointed out the weaknesses and flaws in your banal prescription and puerile posturing.

You now come up with the idea that I "want to divert the conversation onto Global Warming", when it was a key part of the very document you insisted that I read.

It probably never occurs to you that there are people in the world who believe that discussion on important issues (such as, for example, the survival of the human race) should be conducted with honesty and integrity. You would far prefer to ponce around, wrapped in the flag, spouting meaningless slogans.

It obviously makes you feel warm inside to think you are doing such good works, warning the world of its impending doom and closing the borders to the foreign onslaught.

Which is why you react so badly to anyone who points out to you that there is actually another view of the world apart from your own.

We are dealing here with a heap of unknowns. But as usual, there is a bunch of vested interests who want us to follow their lead, simply to validate their existence, or perhaps, more importantly, their livelihood.

List, please note that again Pericles does not answer a single point or question I raised with him. He does not like the semantics of my particular formula and has a little rant, do you feel better now Pericles? But that’s about all he does… he does not admit that the whole science of overpopulation ecology is actually based on an even SIMPLER formula….
People / resources. Well well well… it’s a simple idea, therefore it must be patently false! Just like E = MC2 …. Too simple, must be wrong.

Pericles asked me to show him POLICIES! Nah, doesn’t want to discuss them… they might prove to be workable. So now he wants to divert into Global warming.

Fine. Both the previous and current scientific advisors to the Australian and British Prime Ministers hold that there is a scientific consensus emerging that global warming is anthropogenic. Sir David King, the chief scientific advisor to Tony Blair, told Quentin Dempster on Lateline that despite the terrorism attacks on London last year… climate change is STILL a far greater threat to national security and the lives of UK citizens than terrorism.

Global warming skeptics he said

1/ Armchair critics (that’s you Pericles) who know very little about the state of climate change science.

2/ Lobbyists who are paid to promote anti science on this issue for big industry.

3/ Serious scientists who challenge the details of the scientific consensus.

He said the bottom line is that scientists have egos, and they challenge each other all the time, they want to be right. The 2000 thousand or so serious climate scientists Sir David King knows of all AGREE that global warming is man made. (Imagine you and I coming to an agreement, 2000 times!)

Of the 3rd category of sceptics, David said there were only 2 real scientists he knew of that disagreed.

He did qualify his statement that there was not a consensus as to exactly how bad global warming might become — but that we are causing it is clear.

Now, back on topic. Please admit 1 — 4 above!

Looks as thought "this list", as you call it, has finally lost patience with your witterings and has voted with its collective feet.

You have to admit, you are sounding more desperate to prove something (but what, exactly?) with every post, and becoming less and less coherent in the process.

I notice - without surprise - that you have co-opted Sir David King to your cause. Of whom the Times economic editor recently wrote "[his policy supporters] are like the medieval monks who favored self-flagellation as the road to virtue. For a Government to enshrine such thinking in policy is truly perverse."

Sounds familiar. Your pitch here has been along much the same lines. The sky is falling, says Chicken Licken, so lets take refuge with the fox. It will hurt, but it is the only way to protect ourselves from those dratted falling skies.

Sir David has even fallen out with his supporters. The Guardian recently observed "he is failing in his duties as both scientist and adviser... As if to prove that his nerve has gone, on Friday Sir David made his clearest statement yet that he sees nuclear power as the answer to climate change."

You clearly understand little about UK politics, or you would see that King is simply Blair's attack dog on the topic of nuclear power generation, which is one of the environmental "legacies" that he would like to be remembered for. Pure politics, I'm afraid.

Much like your stuff, really.

The secret of making political statements – as opposed to engaging in productive discussion – is to avoid any admission that your arguments may be debatable, denigrate your opponents (whatever they say), stay “on message” even when this is logically insupportable, and twist your opponents' arguments until they are unrecognizable – but attribute them anyway.

You have indulged in all of these tactics, which was fun for a while, but is starting to become tiresome.

Until and unless you can inject a note of realism into your posts, I'm off to have fun elswhere. I'm sure Thermo or Ludwig are ranting away somewhere.

Pericles, this was a thread about population until you decided that you could no longer discuss points 1-4, referred to repeatedly. I pleaded with you to stay on topic… to demonstrate to me that you were not just trolling.

It all started when you insulted a formula you found to be silly, when actually ecology is based on an even simpler formula! We then moved on to evidence for overpopulation. We presented the evidence and you denied it.

I knew you were an armchair critic when you said the thousands of scientists writing for the UCS and MA were just presenting their ‘opinions’, not scientific data. So be it — your “Is not!” whine is louder than scientific reason. You don’t believe in overpopulation, peak oil is decades away, global warming is natural, and the flying saucers will save us.

Then you asked to see the WHAT of population policy. I never once imagined that you agreed with the WHY. I showed you the SPA document for the POLICY, but you saw global warming and forgot that thing called “CONTEXT!” Or worse, you felt threatened by the domestic focus of SPA’s workable policies and intentionally diverted.

Indeed, I am the only one answering questions and providing source documents — you are just carping. You have not really answered points 1-4. You have not provided any source material or engaged arguments. You call people names, insult, sidetrack, avoid, and then rinse and repeat.

I wrote this last night, but did not get to post as we had visitors.

>>>“It’s boring. Most people have already left this ongoing monologue from you. As Wikipedia says, “Do not feed the trolls”. If I get another “rinse and repeat” performance again, I’ll leave you to your trolling.<<<

You have just done another Pericles “rinse and repeat”. I gave you plenty of chances to change your tune — far more than most would. This conversation is over, but if I meet you here again I’ll simply warn others not to bother attempting to ‘engage’ you in conversation because it is so pointless.

“I'm sure Thermo or Ludwig are ranting away somewhere.”

Pericles, I don’t have any truck with you, so please don’t mention my name in vain.

You put up a decent post asking some questions of me, under ‘What price recycled water?’, and I have honoured that decency in my forthcoming response.

Let’s keep it tactful and professional.

Ugly stuff, like the Pericles – Eclipse saga or the even worse Ludwig – Perseus war, just don’t work for anyone… and yes, they do become awfully tedious.

I respect your opinions.

Cheers