Greg Cameron,
Your point is well made. But tell me, on what environmental grounds is the federal government against the widespread use of rainwater tanks?

Ludwig,
Population will look after itself if we get the fundamentals right. Indeed, empower women and give them a good standard of living, and they will stop having lots of babies. Scientific America had a feature on population in its September (2005) issue. Prof Joel Cohen wrotes that

"... the dramatic fall since 1970 of the global population growth rate to 1.1 or 1.2 percent a year today resulted primarily from choices by billions of couples around the world to limit the number of people born. Global human populations growth rates have probably risen and fallen numerous times in the past. The great plagues and wars of the 14th century, for example, reduced not only the growth rate but also the absolute size of global population both largely involuntary changes. Never before the 20th century has a fall in the global population growth rates been voluntary."

Jennifer,

“Population will look after itself if we get the fundamentals right.”

But isn’t the most fundamental objective to achieve sustainability? How can we achieve sustainability with a pretty rapidly increasing number of consumers and polluters? Doesn’t this work diametrically against all the technological improvements we are struggling to develop that are designed specifically to reduce consumption of stressed resources and reduce waste production?

How can population stabilisation not be one of the most fundamental elements?

“….empower women and give them a good standard of living, and they will stop having lots of babies.”

We’ve done that pretty effectively in Australia, and our moderate birthrate reflects it. But the birthrate is not the main population issue. Immigration is. We can’t hope to significantly lower our birthrate further, but we can easily lower immigration. Every true environmentalist should be calling for much lower immigration levels.

This issue is critically connected to the subject of this thread. So can I ask again;

‘Given the critical nature of urban water supplies across the country and of drought and overallocation of water in many rural areas, and the need to pull right back on our activities in much of rural Australia, how on earth can you not be strongly in favour of stabilising our population….and quickly?’

I have read for weeks about this problem and this is what it seems most experts (Scientists, Engineers etc.) are saying:

- Help farmers improve their water efficiency as 80% of Australias water use is for irrigation. Investment in R&D is needed. Even a small 2-3% increase in overall efficiency would be great. Alot of water is simply evaporated through irrigation.

- Increase stormwater recapture. Each city should be aim for 10-20% or so.

- Build more water recycling plants.

- Fix up aging pipeline infrastructure where much water is simply leaking.

- Slowly start increasing the price of water consumption as there are increases in efficiency in order to make sure greater efficiency doesn't result in greater use(Which sometimes happens with efficiency improvements).

This needs a joint effort between the states and the federal government. Billions of dollars will be needed for such a scheme. Hopefully, they will bypass the federal-state pissing competition they have had with every other federal-state issue.

Thanks for your responses.

You are right about “women stopping having lots of babies” if they are empowered and have a good standard of living. This has happened in Australia, but Ludwig is spot on in pointing to immigration as a major environmental problem here.

There are certain industries, in particular construction and real estate, that depend on high immigration for making super profits. Not just ordinary profits, but outrageous profits arising from the con trick of turning one little plot of land into hundreds of apartments stacked on top of each other.

These industries have a stranglehold on the democratic process so that Liberal, Labor, Democrats and even the Greens will not publicly debate Australia’s doubling of net immigration from 60,000 to 120,000 a year since 1996. The economic growth that comes from that is easy, but not necessarily good for this country now or in the future.

Australia is 90 per cent arid, with a small “fertile crescent” along the east coast and another patch in the south west. The so-called fertile parts have topsoil measured in centimetres, not metres as in Europe. Our total flow of fresh water is equivalent to half the Mississippi. Our climate is highly variable, with droughts and floods occurring more severely than elsewhere thanks to El Nino.

Countries such as Sweden, Denmark and even Japan have proved that you can have prosperity without high population growth.

The single most effective environmental measure we could take would be to cut our net immigration (i.e. the numbers permanently arriving minus the numbers permanently leaving) down to around 40,000 a year. That way, we could still bring in large numbers of genuine refugees, but stop raiding countries such as Bangla Desh for their highly qualified people - and our population would stabilise around 2040.

There are lots of other ways of reducing environmental impact, maybe rain water tanks, maybe recycled sewerage, but any overall improvements they bring about will just be eroded if our population keeps growing.

As Sam Kekovich used to say in his raves in The Fat, “you know if makes sense”!

Actually I can read a rainfall chart but more importantly, living on the land, I have seen first hand what the rainfall chart tells me.

Anyway, any further interest in what Jennifer has to say about the subject is negated by the fact that there seems to be a strong vested interest in her views on the subject.

I think Liam has hit the spot with his comments about IPA. Do a google search and all will be revealed.

Cheers

Philby 2

In reply to Jennifer’s question (above), the Federal Government is against the use of rainwater tanks by every building in Australia because they “might impact significantly on the integrated water cycle”.

Does government own the rights to rainwater from a roof?

The National Water Commissioner wrote to me on 25 August, as follows:

“I refer to your email of Friday 2 June.

“You asked "who owns water collected from roofs for rainwater tanks in each State and Territory”?

“There is no straightforward answer to this question and I have to say that I am not convinced that ownership or who owns the water in the rainwater tank should be an issue as I will explain below.

“Legally, all water in Australia is vested in governments. Governments however, allow others to access and use water for a variety of purposes including for irrigation, industrial, mining, urban and rural communities and amenity value. These entitlements to use (not own) water are issued on the basis of legislation in each jurisdiction. Entitlements are generally issued for classes of water that are in demand and deemed to be in need management by legislation. Regulations are also traditionally applied in regard to wastewater and stormwater that needs to be managed in terms of its impacts rather than its use (usually under Health, Building or Planning Acts). From time to time particular uses that may have been largely unregulated may be assessed as a risk or as potentially having an impact on entitlements issued to others (eg. interception from farm dams) and even though the rainwater falls from the sky and is captured on private land, the water stored in the farm dam may then require an entitlement to be issued or purchased on the market (as applies in Victoria). This is not so different from the capture of rainwater on a private roof or stormwater on a large car park or other surface for which there is currently no specific entitlement regime. Currently the priority of governments is to ensure that water captured in rainwater tanks is safe for consumption.”

(continued below)