The guy has obviously spent the past two decades with his head in a paper bag. He claims, "We are witnessing widespread deforestation, loss of native vegetation and biodiversity, increased soil erosion and reduced water quality, reduction in the numbers of large predators and loss of coral reefs and coastal ecosystems."

Fact. The loudly claimed 150,000ha annual clearing rate in NSW, that was used to demonise farmers and justify clearing controls, was shown by the detailed satellite scans to be only in the order of 8,000ha to 12,000ha INCLUDING CLEARING OF REGROWTH.

Fact. The total area of invasive woody plant growth onto remnant grassland ecosystems in NSW alone is in excess of 14 million hectares but the ABC has never carried a prime time mention of this essential element of the vegetation equation.

Fact. The 500,000ha of land in Qld that was detected by satellite scans as removal of woody vegetation, and assumed to be forest destruction, has always comprised of more than 50% non-forest landscapes (Tussocky and Tufted Grassland etc).

Fact. Approximately 50% of Qld clearing is on land mapped as remnant vegetation but no mention is ever made of the fact that regrowth can return to "remnant" status when it grows to only 70% of "normal" height. Which can take place after less than 20 years from a past clearing event.

Fact. The majority of mulga land clearing is mapped as remnant but is on land that has been pulled over as drought fodder on continuous 15 to 25 year rotations since the 1890's.

Fact. Some 75% of salinity impacted land in Qld (about 7000ha in total) has been in that condition since prior to european settlement, and was officially mapped as "Remnant Ecosystem" throughout all the time the public was being told that farmers and their clearing was producing widespread salinity based degradation.

None of this information has ever made it into a so-called "State of the Environment Report". Notice how the Author has avoided any specific data to support his vacuous scaremongering?

And, do tell, which coral reefs have we actually lost?

Bravo.
I wonder who has their head in a paper bag?
I read an article recently which pointed out that what each generation considers as the "normal" landscape is completely different.
As time goes by the lanscape becomes more and more modified and less natural and more of a cultivated industrialized artifact with hardly anything truly natural left.
This amazing series tells the story in very stark terms. Although it is about America the lesson still applies here in Oz.

1. http://www.zubeworld.com/crumbmuseum/history1.html

Meanwhile some people are rightly pointing out that we are now paving over our most productive horticultural and agricultural land with urban sprawl, hobby farms, golf course etc etc.

Perseus, I don't think you realise that Peter Harris is talking globally and Australia represents only a small fraction of the world population, although what he says applies equally to us. I suggest that you might like to read "The population Bomb" written 30 years ago by Paul Erlick. Virtually everything he forecast in his book is coming to pass and I think we are living in a dream world on a finite planet. Every government in every country is committed to expansion and it is just unsustainable. The sooner everyone understands this the sooner we may save our planet.

Graham, thank you for some sensible comments on this issue, or issues rather.

There is nothing more ignorant than these know alls postulating solutions to something we know virtually nothing about.

I recall one K Beasley saying he could "fix global warming". How ignorant can you be? Of course he could have blocked out the sun himself but...

On the other extreme we have Howard saying "What problem?".

As a race human beings actually have developed very litle since we started walking upright. Evidence of that is the still dominant belief there is a God. Despite there being 400,000 (may have underestimated here!) religions all claiming the one, true God.

One thing that has not changed one iota is that whatever is today's so called knowledge is claimed to be the end of knowledge on any given subject. The Earth was flat for millions of years wasn't it? Until some fool found it wasn't. Ruined all those books didn't he?

We can't even cure the common cold yet but somehow we are going to reverse a climate.

One of your last lines is, to me, the killer line. "Market mechanisms will not suffice". 100% agree. How on earth will setting a price on anything fix a change in climate? The focus on money is killing this planet. The funny thing here is that money doesn't exist. It's a creation of man. I bet women didn't dream it up.

Markets are for making money, not changing climate. They are for making a small group rich and the majority poor. These markets have nothing to do with the problems at all.

Current governments cannot see beyond the next tax intake can they? They will push oil and coal until there's only 3 cars left world wide and then scream for someone to invent a bicycle. Which we would have melted down by then for fuel.

I've never understood this "I have the answer" rubbish. Perseus typifies that approach. He knows it all. And where did he get all this so called info? The internet of course, the authority on nothing.

Shame! Shame! Fancy mentioning the problem of human overpopulation! Don't you know that the only thing that the Bush administration, the Vatican, and the muslim world are in agreement on, is that NOTHING must be done to reduce human population.

The only authorised agents for reducing population are the ones designated in the Bible. They are the four horsemen of the apocalypse (War, Famine, Pestilence and Death).

Roll on the 21st Century!

Oh, really. In 1968 Erlich predicted that India would descend into mass famine, starvation and chaos within a decade. Four decades later and the Indian middle class is ten times the population of Australia.

The only thing "Sleepwalking into danger" got right was the suggestion that we (ie the author) doesn't have a clue about what is going on. Dude vomits up the usual litany of adverse impacts but neglects to point out that one can actually catch fish in the Thames, again.

The old Eastern Block made it very clear that the absence of markets was the worst thing for environmental values. Any readers who still doubt this fact should take a visit to North Korea.

And I got my facts on Australian vegetation from my position on the steering committee overseeing the satellite scans. It is not just Australia where forests are now expanding. Vegetation thickening is a phenomena found throughout the worlds savanna landscapes. And even the Amazon has only been 13% cleared with about 7% reclaimed by regrowth.

But don't let me or the facts get in the way of your little wallow in dark forebodings.

Still no word on which coral reefs we supposedly have already lost? Funny how a second rate mind is unable to distinguish between an extrapolated "scarenario" and an established fact.

Quite a few "second rate minds" are chewing the fat in Canberra at the moment.
From yesterday's sessions of the Coral Reef Futures Forum, lots of concern was reported, including from the Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (Townsville).
But, they all could be wrong - who can say with certainty it has been a good day until the day is completely over?

Perseus,

Paul Ehrlich was wrong about famines in the 1970s because he could not anticipate the success of the Green Revolution. The agronomist William Paddock was also predicting famines in the 1970s, so it is hard to see how an entomologist like Ehrlich could have done better. People make predictions on the best evidence available at the time.

You see the future as rosy, so lets just look at one area - grain production. My figures are from the Earth Policy Institute, but Julian Cribb was saying much the same in an article in last Wednesday's Australian.

http://www.earth-policy.org/Indicators/Grain/2006.htm

World grain production per person peaked in 1984 (much as oil discoveries peaked in 1965). Demand for grain has exceeded supply for 6 of the past 7 years, and grain stocks are lower (in terms of days of supply) than at any time in the past 34 years.

About 60% of the grain harvest is consumed directly by humans, 36% is used as animal feed and 3% is used as fuel. The fuel fraction is expanding at 20% a year, and demand for meat is also up because of economic growth in places like China. Current grain production in many places is heavily dependent on oil and gas, which are also running out. There is "record growth in demand for grain at a time when the backlog of technology to raise grain yields is shrinking..."
Aquifers under major grain growing regions are being pumped dry, and water shortages are already causing yields to fall in China and other places. Climate change is likely to be another problem.

Ehrlich may have just gotten the timing wrong.