I'm no fan of the catholic church but if we had of produced a few more offspring over the last 30 years we would not have the chronic labour shortage that we have now. In WA we are bringing people from everywhere and still can't get enough. We are even allowing eastern staters in.

Yabby,

You’re preaching to the converted on the evils of the Catholic Church and Christianity in general. See my views at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6497.

But,

If you’re going to charge the pope/CC with environmental degradation, should you not also, and in fact more importantly, charge him with crimes against humanity, for involvement in the perpetuation of human poverty and the inhibiting of efforts to combat the spread of AIDS? You appear to echo the sentiment that the environment is more important than people.

Also,

The Catholic Church is only part of the problem. Indeed, people do want sex, don’t we all... But people also want babies. Large families are a practical, biological, and psychological response to poverty. People have large families in areas prone to high infant mortality, to ensure that some will survive, and perpetuate one’s own genes. Creating new life is also a natural, psychological and practical response to large, often traumatic loss of life. Therefore, conditions of poverty contribute to high population growth.

Also, would you like to blame the “dear good old Western Catholic Church” for high population growth in the Middle East? Or, were you trying not to be culturally insensitive?

Furthermore,

Africa is rife with conspiracy theories and false information about AIDS. Rumours that condoms are designed to make you impotent, and that AIDS is an acronym for “American Intentions to Destroy Sex,” are perpetuated by nut-bags like Dave Groll and “Alive and Well,” who dispute that AIDS is linked to HIV. Such groups bear some portion of responsibility for inhibiting the fight against AIDS, (they sucked in Tabo Mbeki until recently,) and indirectly feeding high population growth.

The point I make is that there is an over-population problem in the third world, but not in the West. The West, containing a very small proportion of the world’s population, has an over-consumption problem. Posters are still trying to skirt around this, because when Sheila says “the more of them and the less of us, the better for the planet,” she is effectively saying there are too many black people.

“You appear to echo the
sentiment that the environment is more important than people.”

Dozer, I’m not sure what you know about biology, but without biodiversity
you won’t have a humanity. So its in our interest to maintain an environment
that is sustainable, or it will be back to ants and cockroaches whizzing around
the sun on planet earth. Not that we or they will care, but to me anyhow it would
be a shame. Given that we only have one planet to fool around and experiment
with, if we get it wrong, there won’t be a second chance. So I think it would
be wise if we were a little bit cautious in what we do. From my own moral
perspective, I do actually believe that other species have a right to a bit of
this planet too, not just wall to wall people. But that’s my morality, so no
more then my opinion.

As to the pope, oh we could charge him with all sorts of things. My point
is that no organisation on earth has done more and lobbied more, to stop
people having access to contraception and family planning, then the Vatican.

As they have also sold the true believers a ticket to heaven if they behave,
they have undue influence over many politicians around the world.
Luckily most of the West is educated enough to see through their little
games and tell them to get lost, but in the third world people in general
are still a lot more gullible.

Many surveys have been done in the third world and work undertaken
by organisations like UNFPA show that there are plenty of women
who just cannot afford contraception. My point is that they should
have a choice, something which millions don’t have right now,
so no wonder the 80 million per year increase in population.

Islam is not one organisation and many seem to understand the
problem of overpopulation, unlike the Vatican.

http://www.islamonline.net/English/contemporary/2005/05/article03.shtml

Excellent post, Yabby

Dozer,

Reducing our environmental per capita footprint (i.e. consumption, 79 hectares in Australia) to the global per capita average of 21 hectares would make us a bit poorer than the average in Argentina (23 hectares). If we cut back to the sustainable biocapacity of 15 hectares (where we wouldn't be burning the furniture to keep warm) we would be in the same ballpark as Cuba. Somehow I don't think you would like it. I suspect that the voting public wouldn't like it either, if they were told that they had to live in pretty dire poverty because people on the other side of the world had decided to have lots and lots of babies.

Once you get below the Western European average (54 hectares) human well-being starts to fall off, in terms of the UN Human Development Index indicators, but there is no advantage to consuming more than that, so it would be a good thing if countries with higher footprints, like Australia, did do more to reduce waste and conspicuous consumption back to this level. If your country's biocapacity isn't sufficient for that, then you also need to cut population.

About 1.08 billion people out of 6.75 billion live in developed countries. The average per capita footprint for Australia, Canada, the US, and Western and Eastern Europe comes to 60 hectares. This leaves an average footprint of 14 hectares for the rest of the world. If we all cut back to 21, they would go from a Cuban to a near Argentinian level of consumption (i.e. still poor). It would take 34 years of global population growth at 1.2% to bring them back down to 14, and after that it would get progressively worse.

The idea of fixing everything by cutting developed country consumption won't work, because there are relatively few of us and because the global population continues to grow by about 80 million a year.

(Footprints are the latest from the Redefining Progress site.)

Perseus,

Foreigners can buy all the companies they like, and no one will object too much, so long as they behave as good corporate citizens. If they start throwing their weight around they are likely to be nationalised, as big oil and mining companies have found to their cost in Venezuela and Bolivia. Ultimately, taking over requires an invasion. This isn't an attractive proposition if your target has nuclear weapons.

If you were correct about a big and growing population being conducive to prosperity, this would be obvious in international comparisons and economic studies. In fact, if you look at the CIA World Fact Book, you will see that there is no correlation between population size, density, or growth rate and GNP per capita in the developed countries. There is a correlation between growth rate and prosperity in the third world, but it is negative. The current top ten countries on the World Economic Forum Competitiveness Index are the US, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Finland, Singapore, Japan, the UK, and the Netherlands. Australia doesn't rate. Apart from the US, Singapore, and (barely) the Netherlands, all have no population growth or population growth rates less than half of ours. We could easily afford to stabilise the population at a level that allows everyone to have a decent quality of life without trashing the environment or exploiting people elsewhere in the world.

If the author really is an environmental scientist, then she should revise her opening paragraph which is scientific bulldust. The claim that 'humans already use most of the land on our planet' is simply wrong. Vast regions of the Antartic, inland Australia, northern Canada and Siberia are largely devoid of human interference. Most of our marine environment is essentially unaffected by human activity, with only a few ships plying the surface and leaving the great ocean depths untouched.
If the author can't get her basic facts correct, it calls into question the whole premise on which her article is based, namely, that our impact on the planet is having a severe impact on the natural world.