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!