KAEP
I agree it was rather rude of me not to acknowledge you directly, and for that I apologise. However, I really think you need to get a grip and lighten up a bit.
The Malthusian ideas of resource shortage and exponential population growth have already been proven wrong; as people become more prosperous, they tend to have smaller families. This is quite apart from the methods used in China to limit population growth.
The UN estimates that world population will stabilise at about 9 billion in 2050, but some commentators say that the UN is underestimating the worldwide decline in fertility.
http://www.rirdc.gov.au/reports/GLC/04-041sum.html

You said: “On the other hand, the following article may indicate that future survivors all end up learning Chinese”
I seriously doubt your logic here. What has the content of that article got to do with the “survivors” having to learn Chinese?
I may well be an “idiot”, but I don’t think I’m insane.
I well remember that as a young person, I was very idealistic and passionately “left-wing”. However, when I grew up and saw how the world really works, I changed my views.
As I said before, get a grip and lighten up.

The chances of Germans eventually having to learn Chinese are becoming increasingly remote. According to The Economist newspaper last week:

QUOTE
ALARMING as it might sound, it is hardly news that Germany is becoming the world's nursing home. No other rich country has a lower birth rate... Last year, the number of births hit a post-war low of 680,000 — half the combined number for both parts of Germany 40 years ago. The total population has now been shrinking for three years in a row...

... at least a low birth rate is good news for animals. As humans withdraw, wildlife is returning, notably near the eastern border. The lynx can be found again. The Lausitz, part of Saxony, is now home to two packs of wolves. Some even expect bears to come back one day. Their reappearance might be the ultimate sign that Germans really are a dying breed.
END QUOTE

Froggie,

While you're at it tell the people of Innisfail to lighten up. Tell US gulf state citizens to lighten up as the June-2006-hurricanes start to roll. While you're at it tell people in Darwin too, because sea-levels around the mining-towns-of-Weipa-and-Nhulumbuy are getting bumpy on my satellite-maps. That is a sign that atmospheric disturbances are in progress and that cyclonic activity could occur soon.

If you say often enough that you are worldly some people will eventually belive it, I am not fooled.

Case in point. The China article showed in 30 years China has done what the west has done in 100 years in large part due to one child policy. That means china is potentially, economically 3.3 times more sustainable and influential than western economies as we move into 21C. To make matters worse we are immigrating 140,000 of some of the world's most fractious and aggressive people under the guise of skills while Howard penalises local residents if they want to go out and learn new skills. Howard thinks this is smart budgeting but instead it is overcrowding capital cities and their hinterlands with gridlocked services, social division, resentment, and mistrust. In 10 years when the crunch comes our economy will be lucky to be in the black, let alone capable of interracting favourably with a burgeoning China.

I will lighten up. When a tax is placed on people like you who through downright shortsightedness see the dollar bill as more important than human values and community spirit. Things which may not ring your cash register but nontheless provide sustainability and national strength and unity for the times of crisis ahead.

Unfortunately for your stale paradigm of pyramid wealth schemes, history shows that dollar bills and citizenships of convenience become rather flaky when the heat is on.

As an aside I remember back in the late 80's when a telephone operator in our company was operating a pyramid scheme from our building. One day as I entered the lift, to my surprise, this individual was being FROG-marched out onto the street by our General-Manager. That-lightened-me-up!

KAEP. It may have escaped your notice, but the reason the Chinese economy is “burgeoning” is due to the fact that there are markets for their products in the West.
They are also rather dependent on imports of raw materials from Australia and other resource rich countries.
Therefore, they are as dependent on us, as we are on them.
Why do you think they fight so hard against protectionism in the West, particularly in Europe?
They need our prosperous markets for their own economy to improve.
I will ignore your insults, and straw men arguments...
Immigration policy in Australia is another matter, and I would certainly agree that immigration should be limited to a number and quality of people that can be easily absorbed by Australia, and of benefit to Australia.
There also seems to be a logical fallacy in your thinking. On the one hand, you advocate a smaller world population, but when I point out that prosperity has the side effect of causing a reduction in family size, amply illustrated by the statistics, you say that this prosperity is unsustainable.
The question of resource limits has been proven time and again not to be a constraint. Witness the famous bet between Paul Ehrlich and Julian Simon.
http://www.overpopulation.com/faq/People/julian_simon.html

In the case of oil and other fossil fuels, it appears that these may become a problem in the future, but there are already alternatives. New technologies, such as nanotechnology, nuclear fusion and others are also showing great promise.
Certainly, the human race may face problems in the future, but the human race has been facing and overcoming problems with ingenuity and creativity since the beginning.
Atmospheric disturbances have been happening since the beginning of Earth, and I daresay will continue. While some scientists say that increased hurricane activity is a result of global warming (you would say Thermodynamics) others, including scientists who study them as a full time job, say there is no connection.
It appears to me that there are opposing opinions in scientific circles about these events.

Froggie, the equivalency argument fails to hold against scrutiny. Those who are claiming that GHG pollution does not have real impacts on climate lack the credibility of the scientists who have demonstrated evidence and modelling that shows significant interaction. Look at the sources of the publications that demonstrate links between GHG and climate change, e.g.(http://www.metoffice.com/research/hadleycentre/), then compare these with the publications that seek to deny greenhouse gas effects on climate.

Scepticism can be a useful tool. It is also understandable if an ideological position leads you to ask certain questions while failing to ask others. However, as has been repeated in this forum by others, there is evidence of a campaign to deny and mislead the public about the dangers/safety of GHGs. This is very different to honest scepticism The following is another source to add to the list http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11812

The campaign has been linked to unprecedented personal attacks on leading scientists, including attacks from leading Republican officials and abuse of political position in an attempt to influence scientific knowledge. http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/interference/climate-change.html

I understand your concerns about the economy, John Roskam of the IPA expressed similar concerns, which you might share. Four months ago (18th of Dec 2005) He told radio national listeners (the national interest) words to the effect of, the reason the ideological right would not accept the dangers of climate change is because that would lead to a restructuring of the economy. (I think that's a sign that the ideological schema needs attention and ajustment).

None the less, economists such as Quiggin have demonstrated it will not spell economic disaster to address the GHG pollution problems. In fact the ensuing investment in infrastructure will have marked benefits for the economy. The net result will be we’d reach similar econonimc growth rates.

KAEP, if you are going to save us all, I suggest you get published and allow the scientific process to gain access to and vet your ideas. If that is too slow then let the experts consider your ideas at http://www.realclimate.org/

Overpecking the mark on greenhouse warming.

In an issue of the journal Science focusing on global warming, climate scientist Jonathan Overpeck of the University of Arizona reported that if global trends continue, Earth could ultimately experience sea levels six meters higher than they are now.
By the end of this century, Earth would be at least 2.3C warmer than now, or about as hot as it was nearly 130,000 years ago.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/melting-warning-study/2006/03/24/1143083951520.html

Comments:

* There is NO evidence of sea level rises, otherwise low lying island groups would already have sunk.

*There is at best a .2 deg C rise in global temperature. Only a politicised scientist would project a 2.3 deg rise by 2200. Besides that, last I heard it was a 10 deg projection. Why so coy?

*Geothermal disturbances are a major factor along with Earth orbit perturbations and solar fluctuations. Overpeck refuses to look at all the likely parameters in ice melts. There is in fact evidence that over the next 100 years geothermal activity will rise slightly due to heat shrinkage of an Earth preparing for the next ICE AGE.

* The thermodynamic heat capacity of air is not a patch on that of the oceans so global air temperature rises of any description will not be driving climate changes. Climate changes are being driven by REGIONAL or ZONAL heating of well delineated coastal ocean areas of the globe and the circumpolar currents. These oceanic ZONES are heating and directly-or-indirectly causing melts. Only about 10% is due to atmospheric heat. 90% is due to human pollution of coastal seas and the resulting thermodynamc imbalances and energy shifts.

*The poles do release net heat to space by complex black body radiative transfer. NASA has had to reevaluate its AQUA satellite data because of this prospect. Overpeck would do well to wait for NASA's flyover results to be published before making his outrageous claims that make Sth Korean stem cells look positively Nobel prizeworthy.

Reado, why publish when the fallout from the next US hurricane season will get the appropriate message heard loud-and-clear.