Yes Dickie, "moral and ethical responsibility" doesn't rate here any more than the community's attitude towards corruption (unless of course it's in another country and then it's bad)

I come from a similar background to Michael Paton; starting from botany and moving on to geography, geology, broad ecological concerns and sustainability issues, encompassing population, economy and quality of life.

The geological history of Australia is all-important in understanding why we have a population of 21 million while the US has 300 million on a similar area of land. The lack of volcanic and glacial activity in our fairly recent geological past has led us to have soils of vastly poorer fertility. And the current rainfall regime renders most of the continent uninhabitable or only very sparsely inhabitable.

But still we have ignorant morons in high-faluting positions that push for high immigration and a vastly higher population.

The geological history is also the main reason why Aboriginal peoples didn’t turn to agriculture and thus to a much more environmentally destructive lifestyle, and it is the main reason why they weren’t displaced by more agriculturally experienced Asian peoples, which would surely have happened thousands of years ago if northern Australia had been anywhere near as fertile as Java.

Now we have a people that despite over 200 years of often harsh experience still don’t get it when it comes to living sensibly and sustainably on this continent.

Our moral and ethical responsibilities to live sustainably and to protect our own future from large-scale decline still elude us completely as a society.

THANK GOODNESS AUSTRALIA HAS LOW AND ERRATIC RAINFALL AND POOR SOILS!

At the least the natural environment gets a chance to hang on over a large expanse of the continent, much moreso than in China, or Europe or south and southeast Asia or north and south America!

What an awesome article and replies. My dream now is that there are policy makers with as much use of intelligence, that we can make a difference in a sustainable and ethical way. In the mean time, in our region of Australia, where we are attempting to eradicate the many introduced pests from pig to cane toad, lantana to rubbervine and more, we do so need rain for New Year and probably the next 3 months. Sadly if we do, then there will be no incentive to take care of our environment, the name of 'progress'.
Balna

Do you REALLY care for our environment?

Are you sure?

Well in that case join the anti cat movement in Australia and do something about ridding Australia of its number one native fauna killer.

Dont go on about how "my cat dosent hunt either" as you are either blind or have your head in the sand.

Getting rid of cats would be a great step forward - as would the eradication of foxes. In some areas they and the destruction of habitat are combining to push a number of species of native fauna to the brink. Without a war on introduced predators (including cats) I agree that much of the revegetation and habitat reclamation work is a waste of time - but that doesn't mean we shouldn't do it.

Gryphon, there is one thing that every environmentalist must have… and that is the sustainability ethic, or the ethic of balancing all things human with all things wild/ecological/non-human, or of not continuously depleting our natural capital… or however you would like to say it.

Striving to stop our population from continuously growing with no end in sight is the major prerequisite for genuine sustainability.

If you (we) really care for the environment, THIS is the one aspect of environmentalism that you just can’t ignore…. and MUST be involved with.

No one can call themselves a genuine environmentalist if they don’t care about or don’t in some considerable way strive to stabilize our population, on the national level and global level and in most cases on the local level.