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Tim Flannery is well and truly on the right track with his comments on population in Australia.

But given that he thinks that our ideal population is somewhere between six and twelve million, I would have thought that his comments would be considerably stronger and more frequent.

He hardly ever mentions the population factor! And yet it can be brought into practically every aspect of our environmental and economic problems.

For example, in an interview he gave on Australia Day, he had all the opportunity in the world to tie in the continuously increasing population and hence pressure on resources and environment into the subjects being discussed. But he just didn’t.

I don’t get it.

Crikey, if we are that far over the ideal population level (and I believe we are), then it needs to be shouted from the rooftops. And who better to do it than our new Australian of the Year.

Populate and Our Environment Will Perish

By Paul Collins
02-Feb-2007

Listening to John Howard and the state premiers discussing the drought, the Murray-Darling basin and water policy is increasingly difficult, especially if you've ever given the natural world more than a passing thought. The sight of any Australian government claiming 'green credentials' leaves me gobsmacked, especially given the liberties taken with our natural environment in the last decade.

Actually, I think the premiers are worse than Howard, although his environmental credentials are hardly stellar. They talk endlessly about water shortages, citizens are harangued about saving the precious liquid, and quotas imposed and then, literally in the next sentence, the same premiers are talking about "the need to increase population," as though more people won't need more water.

Take Victoria's Steve Bracks: in one breath he talks about water shortages and dam levels being dangerously low, and in the next says Melbourne needs a million more people by 2025. Or Jon Stanhope of the ACT: he preaches jeremiads on Canberra's dire water shortage, and then announces four new Canberra suburbs full of Mac-mansions ...

One of the unmentionable (and nowadays politically incorrect) questions in Australia is how many people the continent can sustain while retaining some respect for the integrity of the landscape. Political parties, including the Greens, scamper for cover the moment population policy is mentioned. But Australia is not infinite; there is a limit to our productive capacity, and we may well have already exceeded it ...

I'll begin to take John Howard's water policies and 'new environmentalism' seriously when his government, and the premiers, begin to take some of these interconnected issues into account.

... what is most important? Is it sustaining the natural world and giving it a chance to recover, or the illusion of endless economic growth in which the environment is treated merely as a resource? You can't have it both ways.

http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=2193