The alchemist provides a stereotype of immigrants which is laughable. They are deprived, are illiterate in English, and when they come to Australia "everything is given to them". According to alchemist "they are used to handouts" and apparently the trip and the paperwork is significant contributor to GHG's, unlike tourism.

I don't call this logic, its something else. This is the real tenor of the argument connecting immigration with greenhouse gases.

The alchemist also says "If you don't get your house in order, how can you expect anyone else to." What! Excuse me? You're not aware Australia is the world's greatest per capita producer of GHG's? Twice the amount of NZ, UK and Europe!

Response to FESTER: In our online sparing it's 9 to zero. You've tried bravado and insults, but you've not been able to dent my argument that the calculation in the article is flawed and the highest per capital producer of GHG is not in a position to give a lesson to the world. With your question about general "environmental impact", I am not changing the goalposts at this late stage. The topic is GHG and climate change.

Response to ERIC:
In the 2nd paragraph, the answers are yes. Australia's contribution to ameliorating climate change is in the context of international agreements.

In the 3rd paragraph, the answers are no. At the very least, you must analyse all drivers of population growth. You’ve singled out immigrants without sufficient reason, when you should be talking about population. Then you’ve assumed a direct link between population and GHG’s, when this is inconsistent, even in the developed world. The economy (growth and structure) matches GHG emissions far more closely. I would not support rolling back the economy either.

Why? As you have argued in another article, it’s the developed world, which has the need for, most of the responsibility for and has the capacity to resolve climate change. That insightful viewpoint, sadly got less attention as this immigration article.

I’ve more to say on the rest of Eric’s post later.

Wonderful post Kang. I passionately share just the same sorts of concerns.

Now, the organisation you are looking for that deals with population matters, purely in terms of sustainability, and strictly without any racial aspect, is ‘Sustainable Population Australia Inc. http://www.population.org.au/

You are right – so many of us are against the “overpopulation disease”, and yet our pollies don’t acknowledge that. This is a major perversion of democracy – the pandering by governments to the business community, and the consequent upholding of the continuous growth paradigm. It’s a classic case of ‘he who pays the piper calls the tune’.

However I think the groundswell is reaching critical mass, whereby a political force will be able to harness that concern and direct Australian politics away from the mindless absurdity of continued rapid expansion and towards genuine sustainability. I reckon Labor could do this now if they put their minds to it. http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=4681#47790

Further response to Eric's post (continued from my last post):

Per capita metrics are comparitive in nature. We don't reduce GHG on a per capita basis, but on a project/program basis. As LastWord pointed out, Australia has improved most in land clearing. Per capita may help answer what it is about Australia that we emit at twice that of Europe. Is it mechanised agriculture? abundant coal reserves? transport and distance? Tackle the sources of the problem.

Developing countries have higher population growth rates than Australia. Perhaps world population would be exacerbated by halting immigration to developed countries?

Desalination? Europe recycles its water and we can learn to do the same.

Is it easier with a small or large population? Australia has a small population with a large geographic area. So we drive and fly, and our excellent primary industry products are sold cheaply. So in many ways, it's a curse.

I note, Fester has tried to box me in, by treating my critique not as such. My most important criticisms are the methodology and the "lesson" to the world. You ask govt to change policy, but it only has superfical appeal to anti-imigrationists. I believe Australia should and will adopt Kyoto and it will meet the targets with direct action.

What recommendations do I have for reducing GHGs in Australia/the world?

Kyoto is essential and a first step. It is IMPERITIVE to get America on this bus, otherwise we should start building a seven meter dyke along the coastline.

Governments need to support innovation, so the Asia Pacific Partnership and other programs help on that. Most innovation can be exported. Innovation is a force multiplier.

Under market economics, polluting the atmosphere should carry a price (rather than a penalty). Let's replace some silly taxes, like payroll taxes, with a carbon tax. Every economics student is taught about externalities. Any economy which does this will adopt efficient practices (good for business) and become more sustainable (good for the environment) and make renewable energy viable (good for both).

With international agreement on this, how could we fail to save ourselves?

David Latimer

My criticism was of the logical construction of your argument, which you have corrected. Note that your initial outline of the argument only suggested EC's calculation to be wrong because it did not consider the would be migrants' GHG emissions elsewhere. By the way, I only questioned the reasoning of your argument in four posts, and it was only after the fourth post that you corrected the logical error in your presented argument, specifically by claiming EC's calculation to be inaccurate for Australia. You may think your arguments to be very good, and they may well be, but a logical error is a logical error, and can only devalue them. You need to be able to distinguish between insults, bravado and valid criticism.

As to claiming that discussing the environmental impact of immigration amounts to “changing the goalposts”, I can only wonder why you think people are concerned about climate change? If there was no environmental impact from climate change then why would anyone be worried? Now, would a smaller or larger population have a greater environmental impact for a given level of consumption? And what impact does immigration have on a population? Environmental impact is a reasonable progression of the discussion, not “changing the goalposts”. My previous comment is pertinent: “ “Will immigration bring sufficient economic benefits to cope with the extra environmental damage?”. The Productivity Commission Report on immigration suggests not. And the ballooning current account deficit, brought about in large measure by high immigration, hardly gives more comfort either.”

“Is it easier with a small or large population? Australia has a small population with a large geographic area. So we drive and fly, and our excellent primary industry products are sold cheaply. So in many ways, it's a curse.”

David, you didn’t answer the question. And the answer you did give doesn’t make sense. You said: “So in many ways it’s a curse”. But what about an overall assessment?

Australia’s large geographic area has got a lot to do with our high per-capita GHG emissions, mostly because of very much longer supply lines for just about all goods compared to NZ and UK. So how is having a larger population going to reduce this? It might reduce economies of scale slightly, ie: average per-capita emissions, but it would obviously increase the total emissions.

How does the population size relate to the price of our exported primary produce? How is having a ‘small’ population in any way a curse?

I agree with you that we cannot look at immigration in isolation – we have to look at the total population size and growth rate. So our fertility rate has got a lot to do with this business as well. But that doesn’t mean that immigration isn’t a very significant factor. It does afterall make up about half of our current population growth.

It is patently obvious that it is progressively harder to reduce overall GHG emissions in this country with a progressively larger population.

Response to Fester:

I have successfully made my points and feel confident I have shown why linking immigration and GHG is invalid.

Response to Ludwig:
"Primary industry products are sold cheaply": trying to say that we have such ample natural reserves that it may encourage a wasteful unconserving attitude.

If you feel I am not providing an overall assesment, that because you do not accept how the links between population and greenhouse gases are so tenuous. France, Italy, Poland, Spain and the Ukraine are examples of developed nations with far greater, less urbanised populations (than Australia) but less total GHG emissions.

Keep in mind that the word "population" is not included in the article. If this was an article about depopulation, I guess it would be far less popular and any critique would have been more complex.

My points have centred on whether it is appropriate to link immigration and GHGs. Immigration does help determine national population and that does effect the national economy. The economy (with technology) is where you can make GHGs savings. However GHG objectives must be global and whether people immigrate won't have any qualifiable effect on that objective.