In fact, davsab, stabilising population in Australia does not require a complex consideration of "health, education, culture, resources, etc." It requires only a recognition that higher population makes living sustainably more difficult and that living sustainably is a good idea. Our culture gives education and power to women. Our health system is adequate and our resources (human and natural) have provided one of the highest standards of living in the history of civilisation.

If we recognised that living sustainably was a good idea and that we were chasing our tails trying to live sustainably with an increasing population, we would scrap the baby bonus and have net zero immigration. We don't recognise that and we don't pass that message on to the rest of the world.

In many poor countries, understanding the complex issues of "health, education, culture, resources, etc" is vital to stabilising the population. When the poor countries look to the high standard of living countries (like Australia) for guidance on improving their standard of living, they see us trying to increase our population. In my view that ecourages them to continue to increase their populations.

Can we look Nigerians, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis and Ethiopians in the eye and say "you need to reduce your population to live more sustainably for the future of the planet. We in Australia, on the other hand, need more people so we can be richer in the short term than we already are."

I personally can't. John Howard, Kevin Rudd, Peter Garrett, Peter Costello and Andrew Bartlett apparently can.

Ericc

I would like to discuss the issues you raise Ericc, you will find that we do not necessarily disagree, on certain points at least. However, you obviously want a debate with me, if not antagonise me – I don’t think this is the time or the place.

I really understand where you are trying to come from, I really do (and I assume now everyone senses your passion about “population stabilisation”, even Colin) but you also now appear to want to hijack the article (remember - talk of nuclear, alternatives, GHG, etc) for your own agenda. It really is not necessary and it debases the context in which the original article was written for or was intended.

There is no moderator to this forum and with a limited number of words, and postings (mine is now taken up by responding to you), what direction do you propose to steer the subject of the article if not population stabilisation?

BTW – it is a complex issue, there are far more eminent people than you or I that are working on it – believe it or not.

Regards

Are Algae the Future of Energy & Biodiesel?

Interesting article on nuclear power and its future sustainability...

Here's an interesting article/editorial on another area of alternative energy - oil & energy from algae. The editorial is essentially questioning why more focus and research dollars are not being spent on deriving oil, biodiesel and ethanol from algae...

It is interesting because the article states that algae appear to be the most biofuels feedstock, and is far more productive in terms of yield than palm or soy - in fact it says algae as feedstock are over 100 times more productive than soy! From the info presented, it appears that algae present the most realistic chance of being able to completely replace petro-fuels with biofuels. It is also interesting to note that the fossil oil we are using today was formed mainly from algae!

An insightful article for all those interested in suatainable alternative and renewable energy.

Read the full article from here @ Oilgae.com - Oil from Algae - http://www.oilgae.com/ref/oth/oilgae_editorial.html