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