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!"