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The Forum > Article Comments > Time to stop all this growth > Comments

Time to stop all this growth : Comments

By Jenny Goldie, published 23/2/2006

Population growth in Australia is unsustainable in the face of water shortages, climate change and rising fuel prices.

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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.
Posted by Arjay, Thursday, 23 February 2006 10:47:11 PM
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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.
Posted by Thermoman, Thursday, 23 February 2006 11:16:05 PM
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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!
Posted by peakro, Friday, 24 February 2006 9:10:27 AM
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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.
Posted by xist, Friday, 24 February 2006 10:32:30 AM
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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
Posted by popandperish, Friday, 24 February 2006 11:31:10 AM
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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
Posted by Taz, Friday, 24 February 2006 11:53:04 AM
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