Perseus, expanding population in SEQ doesn’t have a major impact on the maintenance of biodiversity in grassland ecosystems in the desert uplands. I did say “…obvious damage exerted by human numbers AND PRACTICES, both of which we all know need to be very solidly dealt with, head-on.”

Some environmental issues do not have a human population pressure component, or only a small one. Such issues include damage due to grazing, changed fire regimes, weeds and feral animals. However, in more heavily populated areas, the number of people and extent of humanised environment does affect these factors much moreso than right out in the sticks.

Incidentally, there are practically no grassland ecosystems in the Desert Uplands, and those that do exist on the western side are effectively outliers of the adjacent Mitchell Grass Downs bioregion.

The point remains: addressing overall environmentalism without dealing very strongly with human population size and growth is just wonky stuff.

This article and these comments make me think that the idea of sustainability is being pursued in the wrong way. It seems like the only people who are concerned about sustainability are scientists and people that are technically trained. Scientist types can see that you can’t just keep taking and taking and taking from the earth without putting something back or pretty soon bad things happen to the organisms (including humans) who depend on the earth’s ecosystems. Most year 11 science students would see it as obvious. The first half of the article lays it out quite eloquently.

Then we get a quick blurb “Assuming we get our population policy right . . . . “ and then it is on to the latest techno miracle that might sort out one aspect, of one part, of the overall problem.

Scientists understand that the most critical environmental issue is population. They understand that high population makes every environmental problem harder to solve. But scientists are unable to offer solutions to that critical issue because population stabilisation goes outside their expertise. Population stabilisation seems to be seen by most scientists as the domain of the economist, the politician and the businessman. All who see the world in a shorter time frame than the scientists. That leaves the scientists to go back to their areas of expertise and develop solutions for the little problems within problems just as Dr. Keto does with Wireless Sensor Network technology.

Until scientists start saying “Look we could implement WSN and other technologies and it might have a minor impact, but lets face it, unless we get population policy right it won’t make much difference.” To give Dr. Keto credit she almost says it in the last sentence. “But in the end, WSN is just a technology: respect for the earth and a passion to heal it is fundamental.”

Now if we can just get Dr. Keto and other scientists working on the more critical problem instead of working around the edges of it.

Whenever I see a post rabbiting on about scientists I reach for my shovel. For bull$hit will be soon to follow. The way you population fetishists have swooped on this particular deposit like blowies suggests you must have had your AGM and a good rev-up for the cause.

Keto is no scientist. She is the wife of a senior bureaucrat and personal friend of the premier who has had real, dedicated and professional departmental scientists jumping to attention to her every whim because Beattie is the kind of boorish goon who would allow personal friends to exploit their relationship. A crony by any other name would still offend the sinuses.

Sorry Perseus let me us try to better understand your arguments.

I agree there are mistakes in Dr. Keto’s calculations. I estimate that for $100 Billion you could revegetate over 10% of all of Queensland (18 million hectares) without even considering native regrowth. Ten million hectares would be hundreds of times the area you would need to restore the “habitat needed for viability and on-going evolution of Queensland’s unique flora and fauna.”

I am willing to trust you that there have been mistakes in the Queensland government's management of the State Forests and in the general management of regrowth in Queensland rural areas.

Are you then saying that high population does not put a strain on ecosystems? Are you saying that five million more people in Australia in the next 20 years, won’t put more pressure on farming and grazing land in Queensland? Are you saying that the environment in rural Queensland will be better off if we have significantly more people in Australia?

Not in absolute terms, Eric. An extra 5 million people under the existing system would only add to Sydney, Melbourne, SEQ and Perth's footprint with minimal direct impact on regional Australia. They would have an indirect impact in that it would add another 25% more voters who have zero knowledge of the bush and who would believe everything they read and hear about the bush in the mainstream media.

And it is a fact, confirmed to both me and others by news editors, that the "truth" (the perspective from the bush itself) is not "newsworthy" enough to get a mention. So a large portion of the extra voters will be capable of handing an ignorant, even fraudulent, mandate to governments elected by urban majorities.

A lot of regional infrastructure is undermaintained because populations are static and no longer justify the higher cost of replacement infrastructure. And this has adverse environmental impacts. A good example is the road to cape york. It is a bog for much of its length and, especially at creek crossings, is a known source of erosion and stream turbidity. A higher population in that region would both demand and justify a sealed road with bridges with greatly reduced erosion and sedimentation.

The CRC for catchment hydrology found that an unmaintained gravel road will produce 100 times more sedimentation than an equal area of clearfelled forest.

This is not to say that a population increase in the bush will have no impact but in terms of character, scale and intensity of impacts, a doubling of the bush population would have only a fraction of the environmental impact of a similar population increase in the city.

My thought is that city people eat the food and use the fibre grown in the bush.
• If there are more city people, they demand more food and fibre from the bush and the bush responds by trying to produce more. Investors put more pigs and cattle into the feedlots, more cattle and sheep on the land.
• Land that is not as well suited to farming or grazing gets developed because there is high demand and there is money to be made.
• Good quality farming land near the cities gets purchased for residential and commercial use and that food must be grown further into the bush.
• Catchments that once were earmarked for grazing and farming land are now set aside for city dwellers meaning that rural water users must look elsewhere to find water to grow an increasing amount of food.
• City dwellers demand that food prices be low, but also that the rivers have sufficient “environmental” flows. More people means farmers may have to produce food with less water.
• City dwellers demand that farmers manage their land sustainably but won’t compensate farmers who leave paddocks fallow or revegetate areas that are sensitive, even if the cost benefit over time is positive.

Do these things happen as demand increases or is this just city dweller economic theory gone awry? If there are 100 million hectares of good farming and grazing land in Australia isn’t it easier for farmers to sustainably supply the needs of 20 million people using that 100 million hectares than 30 million people? On the same tack there is only a certain amount of water. Coal, oil and gas are not renewable. Doesn’t more people make the farmers job harder?

An increase in population in a rural area may not have the impact that an increase in the city would have, but why must we try so hard to have an increase in both the city and the bush?