Ludwig adopts the approach of King Canute who refused to accept the facts and tried to hold back the tide. Ludwig will fail just as Canute did. Maybe Ludwig will then realise that an ever-growing population is a fact of life for all communities. I do not seek to facilitate this but I do admit it brings problems. I am not so naïve as to try and “hold back the tide”. My only thought is to try and solve some of the problems. Children develop the ideas which Ludwig expresses but early in life most of them recognise that there are certain things which are built into the world and they just have to accept them. The bible tells us to “go forth and multiply” and even the proponents of a “flat earth” have had to change their views and accept the facts. Perhaps Ludwig would like to form a political party to advance his thesis, or maybe he should write to Members of Parliament so that he may get a lesson in the way the real world operates. Let’s get on with it and endeavour to find solutions to the problems we face. Putting one’s head in the sand and trying to opt out will not assist in finding solutions so let’s have some constructive ideas. No more of the dinosaur approach from codswallop spouting retards.
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Please, David - do not try to deprive us of hope.
In the 1800 years after your God urged his faithful to "Go forth and Multiply", the then 150 million loyal members of our species did just that, and multiplied to almost 1000 million.
Then they stepped up the pace, to increase by 0.6 billion in the space of just 100 years.
Then, into overdrive - increasing by 0.8 billion in just 50 years.
No slackers in their task, during the last half century they added another 4 billion to the total.
In a world designed by your God for about 150 million, it is now showing signs of stress from 6.5 billion. In a globalised world, apart from the local stresses, we can not entirely divorce ourselves from those across the planet.
If our environment would permit it, and we carried on business as usual with present population increase at 1.3 per cent each year, our 6.5 billion would double to 13 billion in about 54 years, and continue rising to about 2000 billion in 500 years.
Contemplating continuous increase as a necessity is a philosophy without hope for our future.
But I have hope. It springs from the possibility that we will take notice of that other parable, "God helps those who helps themselves, and take whatever civilised steps are needed to limit populations.
A cool wash of reality is needed to prevent evaporation of hope by the heat of unsound dreams - for human society in general as much as for its need for water.

Colinsett I admire your display of erudition(?) in the figures you dredge up. But so what? Going on your data, it seems the population has been growing steadily for far more than 2000 years. Seems to be well entrenched in our system. (In passing SHE is not my God. I grew out of that years ago). But how do you propose to reverse the system? Do a King Canute and command the tide to turn back? I am not interested in your feeble, juvenile, ir-relevant bleating and prefer to accept reality. There is no way the trend can be reversed and we all have to endeavour to find ways and means of using our intelligence and solving the problems which results from the inevitable increasing population. How about a practical, sensible, contribution rather than spouting ir-relevant statistics. A positive rather than a negative approach would be welcomed but your bigoted attitude seems to blot out any possible ideas of a sensible and practical nature to solve the inevitable problems. Even your statistics show your argument is fallacious almost before you display them. King Canute learnt this lesson and he didn’t have those ir-relevant statistics to rely upon.

David the crux of your dilemma seems to be that you do not seek to facilitate an ever-growing population, but that this is exactly what you are doing. And the more successful you are with your huge water-provision schemes, cloud-seeding and other ideas, the more you will be doing it.

You say that population growth brings problems and that you don’t particularly want to encourage it…… but you are doing just that, by addressing one side of the equation only, and dismissing the other side as completely uninfluencable.

Some of your ideas have some merit, and you must be commended for getting on this forum and expressing them. But for goodness sake, you fall down terribly in your complete intolerance of those who are concerned about the other side of the equation. This makes for a very unbalanced approach.

Surely you can appreciate the magnitude of population size and rate of increase, and rate of acceleration through the twentieth century – and the enormous part that this plays in all sorts of resource-supply issues. Surely you have got be able to see that the population issue is the most important one of all that we need to address.

As far as political action on population growth in Australia – it has been about as successful as improving our water woes. There has been absolutely minimal achievement. However, the voices of discontent are murmuring away, in an ever-stronger manner, especially in relation to the rapid population growth in southeast Queensland and Sydney while they have worsening water crises. There is as much chance of political action ensuing on population growth mitigation as there is on really significant water-conservation and provision measures. Both are needed, and it is completely nonsensical to do only one or the other. Premier Beatty for one knows this and does express concern from time to time. And ex-premier Carr was not at all shy in expressing concern about population growth in Sydney.

The issue is politically unpalatable at the moment. But the time for political realisation and significant action draws near.

David Gothard believes that all regions, nations, everywhere are constantly increasing their populations.

In fact only the English speaking states of the first world are increasing their populations. In western Continental Europe population natural increase spontaneously reduced and immigration was reduced by government policy in all states of the EEC in 1973-4. (Reaction ot first Oil Shock) European rates of population growth are in the region of 0.3 and lower. Australia's growth rate is the world average at 2.1.

Continental Europe could rein back demographic growth when it saw that resources were getting tight because they are not ruled by the housing lobby as Australia, the USA and Canada are (along with Britain, which is the seat of private property and land speculation.)

Mr Gothard, you have been brainwashed. People used to talk that way about slavery, saying it just had to be; it was negative to talk about stopping it.

I would like to know where you learned to believe that we had to put up with endless growth. It is my life-long quest to understand why Australians not only put up with this demographic dictatorship but that they actually advocate their own oppression.

Ludwig, Collinset, Kanga and Glen Writer still follow the King Canute approach by advocating a reversal of the inevitable growth of population which has been a consistent feature for well over 2000 years and will continue for another 2000 years. There is little point in trying to convince such codswallop spouting retards of the facts of life. I can only suggest these mid-guided individuals should form a political party and see how much support they get. I am minded to recall the individual who campaigned in Canberra many years ago with a policy of grazing goats and putting beehives on Black Mountain so as to make the A.C.T. into a land of milk and honey. The party scored just two votes and lost their deposit. The King Canute party would do just as well. I refuse to waste my time and debate further with such bigoted and biased individuals. There are none so blind as those who will not see. When the Canutians appreciate the need to use their intelligence (?) to solve the problems increasing population brings, then it will be the time to work together for the good of Australia. Q.E.D.