“I am a member of the Greens but, when I first took up the issue of population, I was labelled an "Ecofascist" and worse by other Greens.”

Likewise Michael. I had the same experience with the North Queensland Conservation Council and the Australian Conservation Foundation in the early nineties.

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KAEP you are absolutely right. Population and the changing economics and food-provision wrought by peak oil are the major factors. Water and other resource stresses will complicate the situation. Climate change is somewhere on the lists of horrors below these things.

I’ve said it many times on this forum: our preoccupation with climate change is a distraction from what really matters – sustainability. And sustainability necessitates addressing the population issue and adapting quick-smart to a world with much more expensive, if not harder to obtain, oil.

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Bazz asks;

“So with that in mind how else could the population be decreased without the massive starvation that will occur as reduced oil supplies reduces food production ?”

It can’t be. It is too late.

“Can the population be allowed to sag down with aging fast enough to keep it in track with the available energy ?”

No chance.

And the more Howard immigrates the sooner we run out of affordable oil.

This Propaganda article is why media monopolies and the Coonanesque rules which govern them are a COUP for Howard and a detriment to our nation.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/06/12/1181414298095.html

This opinion article in the SMH today purports to decry high immigration levels. It then points out every ECONOMIC value of immigration except for its influence on rising house prices. And even that APPEALS to Australian's greed and suupport for immigration.

But the CRUCIAL water, power and infrastructure usage, the carbon and ecological footprints and the destabilising cultural shock of some 300,000 immigrants arriving every year are blithely omitted. Hitler would have blushed!

John Howard in his lust for Menzies stature has set out to destroy the fabric both ecological and cultural of this nation. I wouldnn't be in the least bit surprised if he wrote this double talk PROPAGANDA himself!

And the best part for Howard? In 20 years when there is not enough fuel for an army to move and civil insurrection erupts in overcrowded coastal cities like Sydney an SEQ, Howard doesn't have to worry about the multicultural ethnic wars that will rip Australia to shreds. He'll be dead and buried. I can assure everyone reading this it will be every ethnic grouping for itself.
That we have criticised Fiji for digging in its heels at foreign takeovers and deculturalisation will haunt Australia within a decade as competition for energy climaxes in overcrowded Australian cities..

Overpopulation is THE global problem. With modern technology and a guaranteed mineral wealth in a world that will totally reengineer itself over the next decade we do not need a larger population and lower living standards. As erudite world citizens we can and must be selfish and demand high quality lifestyles similar to those in Scandanavian countries. Its all about Quality and not quantity. About excellence and not ghettos of lost souls in Dicken$ian squallor.

Wake up Australia! Howard doesn't have his heart in the right place nor his brain in gear.

Not happy John!

KAEP

Re the SMH article: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/06/12/1181414298095.html

Oh Dear, silly old Ross Gittins!

Right at the end he writes;

“There are drawbacks of course.”

….and spends 55 words out of 1043, very briefly mentioning a couple.

Not a thought is spared for the huge impacts that rapid population growth is having on the true economics of this country, by way of continuously increasing pressure on highly stressed water resources, over-reliance on the minerals boom, the looming oil crisis and the overall antisustainable momentum inherent in rapid expansionism.

Some the advantages for our economy that high immigration is purported to be creating might be real in the short term. But look a little further into the future and you will see just how misguided this approach is.

I reckon Howard’s legacy will be a very strongly negative perception of having taken this country diametrically away from sustainability at a time in our history when it was critical that we be steered directly towards it. After the forthcoming peak oil economic upheaval, the Australian people will see Howard as the country’s worst leader by far for having led us into the crisis, when it should have been foreseen and averted with great gusto throughout the 12 years of his reign.

Overpopulation is having the same effect than the meteorite that destroyed the dinosaurs long time ago. We are so "successful" that we are going to extinguish other species and even ourselves. Having more than two children nowadays is suicidal and saying this is politically incorrect. I won't have children for philosophical reasons too long to explain here but one of the reasons is that I don't see much future ahead for humans.
I'm too pessimistic I know.
http://saveourbushland.blogspot.com/

It is a bit politically silly to be blaming John Howard for all the present and future ills of the planet.
Some of you do tend to rave on a bit.

What on earth makes you think it will be different if labour wins the
coming election ?

Labour has has been confirmed in the new Global Warming religion
with the bald ArchBishop in place.

They cannot do anything that is different to the catecisms and it will
take as long as the euchamenical movement to reunite the churches will
take to get the Global Warming movement to realise that fossil fuel
depletion will have no effect on global warming because there will
not be enough to to push it up to the IPCC's forvast level.

michael_in_adelaide wrote:
"The value of using energy as a correlate for carbon dioxide production is that it is the number of C-C and C-H bonds in a hydrocarbon that determine its possible energy output and this is directly related to the mass of CO2 that can be produced."

Thanks Michael - although I am waiting clarification on one point from a colleague, I believe you are right. I was wrong to say that the total energy content of coal does not essentially correlate with its carbon content.

What is true, however, is that on a lifecycle analysis the less energy-dense coal will be more carbon intensive, due to the greater mass of coal that has to be processed to produce a given amount of energy, and the use of fossil fuels to provide the energy for this processing. This is the basis for the EROEI argument I outlined.

This argument still stands, but as you suggest, it does not undermine Aleklett's question regarding the total fossil fuel energy (and thus carbon) accessible to us. However, since alternatives like methane hydrates are already being tested it seems clear that we have more than sufficient ingenuity to destroy our global climate. Wisdom is still required, a lack of intelligence will not save us.