This is sensational – a creative suggestion to solve our environmental problems. I particularly like the ingenuity in getting people who haven’t arrived here yet to fix the problem for us.

Still, I think this approach misses an opportunity. According to the Australia Institute, http://www.tai.org.au/WhatsNew_Files/WhatsNew/Percapita.htm the industrialised world’s thriftiest people with greenhouse gases are the Latvians.

What we need to do is import a few dozen shiploads of Latvians, because they will really lower our average greenhouse gas production. No doubt they’ll be good cheap labour as well, and even better, they’re educated, so we can go on running our air conditioners full blast, while the Balts staff our nursing homes and security firms.

Hey, it’s a no-brainer. Everybody wins (except the environment of course, but at least the numbers will look good).

Davo - Regarding refugees.

"Will you accept that many of these will be unskilled, working class types? Unskilled working class refugees are crime prone just like unskilled working class whites. Basic sociology."

No, I won't accept either of these assumptions.

Some refugees are unskilled but the majority are not. Many have professional qualifications and many are qualified in the areas in which we're facing skills shortages. Besides, refugees who are given a chance at building a new life are grateful and most are prepared to work in rural areas and in the fields a lot of Australians don't want to.

It is also incorrect to assume that "unskilled working class refugees" are likely to commit crime. This group you've referred to would include farmers, women, young adults and others who for one reason or another may not have readily marketable skills but who are highly principled nonetheless and most unlikely to ever become criminals.

Bronwyn, our responsibilities are to the planetary ship called earth, which has a finite capacity to support human life to the detrimental of all other life forms. What you term as “our global human rights responsibilities” is a recipe for environmental collapse of the planet.

Reducing immigration to zero can't be seen as a white Australia policy, but as a sensible approach to overpopulation and environmental degradation. Bronwyn its easy to see you haven't been in the jails of the country, nor looked at the figures relating to immigrant/refugee and their dependents on welfare. The growing ghetto's of immigrants and their constant demands for acceptance and superiority of their religious cultures. You may also note the growing complaints against immigrant medical workers because they lack understanding of our culture and medical standards.

Add the take over of our political system by ethnic immigrants and those with allegiances to other countries and cultures. The only outcome from bringing these people here, who always bring their despotic approaches to life with them and impose them on us, is to stop them coming and concentrate on sustaining our country.

Our country owes no one anything, we've sacrificed ourselves for other countries since our inception. We had a culture that grew from hardship and helping each other, now its being taken over by whining wimps who don't have the capacity to see beyond the mirror in their heads, let alone look after themselves.

For some strange reason, the vast majority of people are slaves to stupidity and even though their current material standing gives them a sense of intellect, safety and superiority. The reality is they live in a fools world and grovel in their fools gold.

Unless we embrace alternative approaches to every aspect of our society, particularly energy and consumption now, its over for the cities and unprepared of the world. When the electrical switch is turned of for whatever reason, cities cease to exist except for the violence of its decay.

Forget the causes for climate and enviromental change, its here, get used to it or become its victim.

What a bunch of dreamers. The pace of technological change means that the threshold population needed to justify a local auto manufacturing plant, for example, grows by 1-2% each year. It is the same for a host of other manufacturing industries. So an end to immigration will produce a stagnating economy as entire core industries shift off shore.

And it is no good tossing in the chestnut about moving to a knowledge based economy because the critical portion of a knowledge based economy is the part dealing with knowledge of manufacturing processes. And if the decision makers of manufacturing entities are no longer located here then the so-called knowledge providers are at a very significant competitive and cost disadvantage.

The problem with our immigration program is that we have had a strong bias towards attracting people from other cities and they, surprise, surprise, have opted to live in SydMelBane. And gee wiz, this concentration is now causing congestion based diseconomies of scale.

We have had an enduring undersupply of farm workers and rural trades and service providers for decades now and a corresponding under-utilisation of regional infrastructure. But our metrocentric decisionmakers have continued supplying us with metroclones that need a whole new set of ever more expensive infrastructure.

Reducing immigration to net zero or absolute zero or somewhere in between has got nothing to do with white Australia policy, nor anything to do with our responsibilities to refugees and humanitarian issues on the world stage.

I have often advocated that our refugee intake should be increased within a vastly reduced immigration intake. I have called for net zero immigration, which is about 30 000 per annum, and for the refugee component to be increased from the current approximate 12 000 to about 25 000, within that 30 000.

However, I am inclined to agree the Alchemist that the position is now so serious that we should be declaring a moratorium on immigration until we get our sustainability strategy worked out and have made sure that it is working.

As far as humanitarian assistance goes, Australia needs to have a healthy society and economy to be able to keep contributing to international aid. Our international aid, which has declined badly under Howard, is far more important than the handful of refugees that we bring here through our offshore refugee programs, or even a doubling or quadrupling of that number.

Anyway, no matter which way you look at it, the overriding concern is very clearly sustainability.

P-e-r-c-y, oh P-e-e-e-r-r-r-c-c-y

With all due respect, Perseus, we will pick up today on just one of your unfounded assertions and try to correct it. So, you reckon Australia with its 21 million people will lose its capacity for auto manufacturing unless it continues to stuff people inside its borders at the rate of another million every 7-8 years, on top of the million every 8 years through natural increase?

How about little Sweden which manages to produce Volvos, Saabs, Scania trucks and Saab aircraft with only 9 million people? I refer you to the website http://www.sweden.se/templates/cs/BasicFactsheet____3701.aspx, which begins as follows:

The motor vehicle industry plays a central role in the Swedish economy. Swedish automotive manufacturers, including suppliers to the industry, employ about 140,000 people. The automobile industry accounted for one-fifth of the total machine and inventory investments by Swedish industry in 2003. In 2003, exports of motor vehicles and automotive parts amounted to about SEK 125 billion (bn) or 15% of total Swedish exports, which makes the automotive industry the most important single exporting sector. Nine out of every ten vehicles are sold in the export market. In an international perspective, Swedish automotive manufacturers produce relatively few passenger cars, accounting for only 1% of world production. In terms of heavy vehicles over 16 metric tons, however, Swedish manufacturers are among the largest in the world. One fifth of the heavy trucks produced in the world during 2003 were manufactured by either Volvo or Scania.

The facts, Percy, are staring you in the face. Australia could (if it wasn’t a branch office of the US) run a very successful auto industry with its present population and with very low continued population growth. Please admit you were wrong on this one