If developed countries don’t set an example and therefore encourage undeveloped countries to control population growth, it has to be said that the developed countries are grossly irresponsible and have no business even discussing ‘solutions’ to climate change.

Offering baby bonuses in Australia, for example, borders on the lunatic. Australia should be looking at reducing its population via birth control and the complete cessation of immigration for all but the absolutely necessary.

We need to start demanding that Australian politicians implement a population policy as the very first step in coming to grips with climate change. Without population control, everything else is a complete waste of time.

Thank you Valerie Yule for such a straight-forward and clear presentation of the perilous human condition.
I am unable to imagine what intelligent argument can be made against any aspect of it.
Hopefully, it will be widely read. Perhaps it will even help to precipitate appropriate action. I dream perhaps, but I certainly wish.

Excellent article on one of the world’s most important issues, Valerie.

I just hope to goodness that a fundamental level of commonsense will prevail in the near future. I’m reasonably optimistic that it will, given how rapidly things have moved forward on the climate change issue in the last twelve months. Hopefully this new-found global concern can progress to the next step, to that of concern about overall sustainability, of which population size and growth rate are fundamental components.

Here’s hoping very hard indeed.

.
“Offering baby bonuses in Australia … borders on the lunatic.”

Absolutely right Leigh. It is really is beyond my comprehension as to how something so woeful and directly anti-commonsensical could have got up in the first place and then been allowed to become entrenched.

Exactly the opposite is needed; a regime of incentives to lower our birthrate, along with a reduction in immigration to at least net zero.

hear, hear!

but not much chance of action. stabilty of population is anathema to corporations, and any attempt to reduce or stabilize by elected governments will result in economic pressure to replace that government.

another reason to need citizen initiative.

Who'd ever think that talking in numbers could be a thing of beauty, but this is!

At last we get to the nub of the issue. The problem is not the carbon enrichment of our environment, that is but a symptom.

The problem IS overpopulation.

The baby bonus was moderately justified when first introduced, given how low the fertility rate had dropped at that point. There would now seem to be a good case for gradually phasing it out, and restricting it to the first two children. But without a commitment to gradually lowering immigration levels too, it won't achieve much.

The "Elephant in the Room" at the Bali talkfest was "population control".

Nothing will change until this issue is dealt with.

Carbon emmissions, deforestation, over-fishing and many other blights upon the sustainability of the planet come down to this issue.

I would note, the inventive genius and imagination of the developed world to counter the effects of population growth, with more effiecient food production including GM crops and improved techniques is being overrun by the profligate breeding habits of the underdeveloped world.

This is not going to go away.

Global warming and Climate change will not abate because the deveopled world imposes restraints upon their commercial potential with carbon taxes.

Global warming and climate change, due to human activities, will only go away or stabalize when the burgeoning populations and over-breeding habits of underdeveloped and ill-equipped nations is halted.

We will eventually reach the point where the conditions tied to economic subsistence (world bank funds etc) will be tied to accepting the introduction of contraceptives into a nations water supply.

Better underdeveloped nations grasp the nettle and do something to help themselves and the rest of us, before such measures become mandatory.

Never thought I'd say this, but agree with everyone's posts including; sputter, choke, sputter Leigh AND Col Rouge. Incredible.

Well if consensus can occur on the pages of OLO, then perhaps our world leaders can work something out as well. Will they put population on the agenda? If not, why not?

Thanks for posting an interesting article. You have made evident that population growth is part of a constellation, a web of interrelated issues that are becoming rapidly more urgent.

I expect that although critical population densities of humans was not an explicit issue on the Bali Climate Conference Agenda, it nevertheless was atalking point in the halls and hotels.

Population was one of the five factors modeled and reported upon in "The Limits to Growth", by Meadows, Meadows, Randers and Behrens, back in 1972.

The authors state on page 21:

"Our world model was built specifically to investigate five major trends of global concern - accelerating industrialization, rapid population growth, widespread malnutrition, depletion of nonrenewable resources, and a deteriorating environment."

Their report was a lightning rod for global interests that actively in accelerate industrialisation, deplete resources and are careless of the environment. Dismissals of "The Limits to Growth" can still be found on the internet. Its authors have found their place with Darwin and Freud, in giving the world some ideas to worry about.

Dennis L Meadows, one of the authors cited above, remarks in a recent interview:

" ... we have developed a variety of economic data systems and decision support systems that implicitly take quantitative growth as a goal. So the numbers we focus on automatically lead us to physical expansion. Satisfying goals for quantitative growth can be a source of enormous profit for the organizations that advertise in the media. Satisfying qualitative goals does not offer the same potential for profit, at least over the short term. So advertisements stimulate physical growth. We are on a treadmill that spins faster and faster but leads nowhere."
http://www.euronatur.org/Interview_Dennis_Meadows.dennismeadows_en.0.html

Those decision systems ignore population growth and density at their peril.

Valerie - you have no idea - and I can't believe the responses so far. Are your heads in the sand? Overpopulation has never been an issue, and never will be an issue in this country and even globally.

Human beings account for a miniscule percentage of greenhouse gases. Climate change has little to do with how many humans inhabit this planet. Putting an undue emphasis on the environment before the need and the right for humans to reproduce is blind, selfish and bizzare.

This sounds like a Maulthusian doomsday article that can't understand that technological advancement and human capabilities have always found a way to provide for each other. The only reason why we have people starving in some countries is a gross inbalance and lack of distribution of wealth and power.

"Both the jayhawk and the man eat chickens; but the more jayhawks, the fewer chickens, while the more men, the more chickens.": American land-economist Henry George.

Valerie says, "Almost every Western country in fact has a greater population than in 1950" Once again, are you absolutely bananas? Of course population will grow. If population does not grow over 55 years, then we are a dying breed. The world's population rate has been dropping since 1963, when it was 2.19%. Some countries already have a negative population growth and those who have the highest rate are Africa and the Middle East.

There must have been a dinosaur once called Valerisaurus who came up with a theory about overpopulation...

How do you convince third world countries that over population is bad when their whole system and religion is geared around producing large families. More hands make light work is their unacknowledged belief.
And how can you convince left wing governments ,refugee activists and vested interests that encouraging poorly educated enthusiastic fertile
third worlders to swamp our immigration and welfare systems is bad for our country? They do not care.

"If population does not grow over 55 years, then we are a dying breed"

Poppycock. There's no reason human population has to change substantially over that sort of period - indeed it barely budged for 1000s of years on end for much of human existence, and at various points almost certainly went to decline for significant periods.
Anyway, all the evidence so far suggests that global population will stabilise well before the end of this century, and may well decline for some time, before efforts are taken to up the fertility rate again. We could afford several centuries of moderate population decline without any threat of "dying out".

And what is Henry George's quote supposed to prove - that the Earth has infinite capacity for supporting more and more life, so long as there are more and more humans? Economists like him and Simon never really understood the basic laws of thermodynamics that constrain all physical activity within the Earth's biosphere - which is unfortunate, because they were capable of making useful observations about human behaviour that some ecologists often overlook.

Indeed on that point, as I've said before, there's no reason we can't reduce our total level of ecological stress on the planet while maintaining or even growing our numbers - just as cars today emit less pollution than they did 30 years ago when there were far less of them. So while population growth should be a reason for concern, it's not necessarily a showstopper.

stop&think,

Do the numbers for yourself. At any given growth rate, the number of new people added is proportional to the existing population. So at 1% annual growth you would end up with 1 more person in a year if you started with 100 and 1 million more if you started with 100 million. So dP/dt = rP, with P the population, r the annual growth rate, and t the time in years, and dP/dt the change in population with time. The solution to this equation (see any textbook on differential equations) is P(t) = P(0) exp(rt), where P(0) is the population at an arbitrary starting point and t is the time in years. If you know the starting population, the rate, and the time and have a scientific calculator you can work out what the population will be at any point, assuming constant growth.

If you take figures from the CIA World Factbook, you can quickly establish that the Solomon Islands will be at standing room only in a little over 400 years. Not much potential for growth after that. If there were only 2 people 10,000 years ago and the population had been growing at 1% since then, global population would now be about 2.7 x 10^43 people. To put this in perspective, the density of human flesh is just about the same as water, 1000 kg/m^3. Assuming 50 kg per person, all of those people could just be packed into a sphere with a radius of 6.8 x 10^10 km. Pluto at its most distant is 4.4 x 10^9 km from the sun, so the sphere of people would extend more than 10 times as far if centered there. A Physics lecturer friend of mine says it is fun to calculate when the sphere starts expanding at the speed of light.

Unless you believe that God will suspend the laws of mathematics for you, population growth WILL stop. The only question is if we stop it ourselves before our environment is destroyed.

Excellent article, Valerie

Thank you Valerie. A good article and obviously appreciated by the sensible people who read it.

If there is a god may he preserve us from going down the path "stop & think" suggests we take of rampant and constant population growth.

This will lead to the inevitable conclusion where there will be nothing else on the planet except humans and what they directly require to sustain themselves. Certainly, "stop & think" is correct, we will survive but at what cost to the other poor beings that inhabit our finite piece of rock. There will be no room for the fabulous diversity of flora and fauna we in Australia are still lucky enough to enjoy. It is rapidly disapearing in Africe and has long gone in the middle east and Nort Africa.
Each country will look like the middle east, a strip of grass, a few goats, a vegetable plot and millions of starving humans fighting amongst themselves over who has the correct religion.
We now have the oportunity and resources to design an economy which will work without constant growth so we can preserve some choice in what we have for our children. This unchecked growth is for cancer cells and unthinking bugs in a test tube but not for a sentient being in control of its destiny.

“Some countries already have a negative population growth and those who have the highest rate are Africa and the Middle East.” (Stop--).
What sort of a worry would negative growth be?

The only ones I know of are in Africa: Botswana, Lesotho, and Swaziland; all with high fertility rates and having more than 40% of their populations below the age of 15. The reason for their negative population growth rate is a desperate enthusiasm, and some ability, of a great many to live in some other country.

Come to contemplate it: if the world’s population growth rate were to change at the same rate as 1963 (2.19%?), but in the opposite direction, for the same length of time into the future, the population would reach a much more comfortable 2.61 billion.

But, at a rate of plus 2.19% - just imagine the numerous youngsters associated with that. No wonder the warlike folk in the fastest growing regions used child soldiers to make up the ranks, from what they might have regarded as surplus humanity.

Excellent article - tells what every intelligent person knows.
The tragedy is that there is one man in the world - just one - who could make an immediate and measureable difference to the situation. I of course refere to that most educated of fools, the Pope. The catholic church would rather see thousands suffer and the earth polluted beyond repair than relax one of the most stupid of all the catholic doctorinal flummeries. Of course, in view of the history of the church, no-one would reasonably expect any other outcome. Souls for the church is the name of the game, and will continue to be so regardless of the practicalities of day-to-day living. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Wizofaus,

Paul Harrison wrote an article in New Scientist some years ago, suggesting that it is much easier to persuade people to have fewer babies than to consume less. As he put it, the bottom fifth of humanity needs to increase its consumption, and the middle three fifths aren't going to be satisfied with the odd bicycle or radio. One of the reasons world grain supplies are short is that people in India and China now have more money and want more animal protein in their diet. Biofuels don't help either.

If you were correct about technology alone being able to solve this problem, then it would have happened already. After WWII, the Rockefeller Foundation, with other charities and governments, funded the research that led to the Green Revolution. This doubled the productivity of wheat, rice, and corn, turning India from a food importer on the verge of famine into a food exporter. Unfortunately, in most poor countries, as Prince Philip once put it, people decided to feed more hungry people, rather than feeding hungry people more.

Although there may well be technological solutions to some problems, there are so many problems in so many areas that future Rwandas are far more likely than your technological utopia.

It is really encouraging that population growth can now bee freely discussed. For far too long it has been the environmental issue that no-one dare talk about.

With a naturally declining birth rate Australia (and most first-world countries other than the USA) are well placed to develop sustainable, no-growth economies. This may be a difficult task, but surely we have the ingenuity to do it. The alternative, quite literallly, is standing room only for the human race, somewhere down the track - and for those who pooh-pooh this idea, I would merely ask, at what point do you decide that the earth has reached the 'full' mark when it comes to its human population, and under what dire circumstances and draconian measures will something then have to be done?

'Putting an undue emphasis on the environment before the need and the right for humans to reproduce is blind, selfish and bizzare.' What planet do you live on, stop&think? Leaving aside the irrationality of your assertion that humans have a 'need and right' to reproduce (why?), where I come from humans are dependent on the environment for their food, water, fuel and well being, all of which are already under threat due to population growth.

This sort of reaction reminds me of an acquaintance who responded to my concerns about over-population by accusing me of wanting to kill babies and spay all women. Bizarre indeed.

"Lemming beings account for a miniscule percentage of greenhouse gases. Climate change has little to do with how many lemmings inhabit European cliff tops. Putting an undue emphasis on the environment before the need and the right for lemmings to reproduce is blind, selfish and bizzare."

VY's Maulthusian doomsday article is CORRECT. Doomsday is nigh. VY hints that technological advancement and human capabilities have indeed found a way to provide for each other using.. OIL &Coal.. for the exclusive benefits of OIL MAGNATES & their 'faux-democracy' pyramid schemes. It is also correct in hinting that oil magnates deliberately stifle all serious competing ENERGY(GEOTHERMAL,Natnotech battery, PBR nuclear,SPace dynamo) science research & development so they stay numero uno in world power and politics. The only reason why we have people starving in countries is because that is INTENDED (PBR nuclear&geothermal power for poor nations was doable at least 20 years ago). At PEAKOIL2025 there WON'T be any mature-technologies up&running. The PLAN is for OIL-WAR! Children born today are simply nuclear-cannon-fodder.

A gross imbalance and lack of distribution of OIL and the revenues & power that accrue from it is a programmed economic STRATEGY by just 23 global corporations (Ref: Noam Chompsy) backed by Media interests & the muted voices of foolish investors the world over. Why are investors foolish? Because they will be the first to jump off ledges when the big 23 call for an imminent economic correction CRASH.

The world's population rate in 1963, was 2.19%. A backlash to WWII was necessary. Some countries already have a negative population growth and they should be economically rewarded. Those who have the highest rate, Africa and the Middle East should be given sustainable (no oil&coal) geothermal energy assistance programs to help them achieve sustainability &at least a zero-population-growth-rate.

"There is bound to be a LEMMING called dump&stink out above the European cliffs right this minute. It has failed to come up with a theory about sustainable overpopulation...and does not yet know how all too willing it will be to JUMP..when PEAKOIL thermodynamic economic conditions bite it on the ar$e!!"

Johnny Rotten asks why nothing is being done about overpopulation -- the answer, as always is religion. Every sperm is sacred, remember?
Divergenge; what wonderful numbers -- we're like bacteria in a jar of nutrient broth.
It is forty years, almost to the day, since clarion calls about the danger of overpopulation rang out among the 'back to nature brotherhood' as we tried to be self-sustaining and ecologically friendly, and subscribed to the Doomsday Book and other excellent publications.
Forty years! and still our glorious leaders remain unconcerned, refusing to commit to anything at all!
Human societies have never responded to warnings in all their thousands of years of history. Only catastrophe has ever caused humans to change their ways. And thus it will be with over-population, climate change and pollution.
Take what steps you can to preserve some quality of life, and mentally prepare for a very, very unpleasant future when the oil, water, food and welfare run out.

A very good article which gets right to the nub of the problem.
I suspect that the solution will be taken care of shortly when particularly in Asia, widespread famine occurs due to a shortage of water and hence the ability to grow rice. This is already occurring at an alarming rate as the melting snowfields in the Himalayas result in a dwindling of summer river flows in Thailand, the main rice producing country.

Farmers in developed countries are also going to face reductions in output, due to a developing shortage of artificial fertilizer as we run down our present supplies. This will impact on the production of biofuels as well as food. Even the addition of more productive GM crops will not help in the long run.

We need to get the total world population back to a more sustainable level of probably no more than two to three billion quite quickly, otherwise it will happen even quicker than anyone can possibly imagine. We may, even now, have reached the point of no return.

David

I believe Tim Flannery said that the world passed the point of no return in 2007.

Yes we need to reduce greenhouse gases, this isn't anything new, after all we don't use CFCs as refrigerants or propellants in aerosols any more so that we can stop the hole in th eozone layer growing.

The catholic church ban on contraception has lead to profound poverty in South America. The indian populations suffer from poor health, inadequate food, limited education opportunities. Increasing their population isn't going to improve their standards of living.

Thanks Valerie for directing people to reports about the myth of the burden of aging population.

There was ONLY one elephant in the room at Bali and it wasn't the Air Conditioning.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/answer-to-hot-air-was-chilling-blunder/2007/12/17/1197740183601.html

"In Bali, conference organisers missed a large elephant in the room.
The air-conditioning system installed to keep more than 10,000 delegates cool used highly damaging refrigerant gases - as lethal to the atmosphere as 48,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide, and nearly the equivalent of the emissions of all aircraft used to fly delegates to Indonesia."

We can safely assume that shares in Fairfax depend on population growth.

'Unsustainable population' will NEVER be a front page issue for PROPAGANDA rags like the Herald/Age.

It's great to see so many enlightened people weigh in. Ouch! That hurt - typing "it's great to see so many...people!" Unfortunately we are a tiny minority. For every one of us there are 20 StopAndThinks, and they are no doubt multiplying like bunnies.

I'm researching and featuring the relationship between economic growth and population growth in my documentary, and this is a huge beast that will not go down easily! But let's all keep it up.

Dave Gardner
Producer/Director
Hooked on Growth: Our Misguided Quest for Prosperity
www.growthbusters.com

An excellent article Valerie, as usual. It seems (almost) to have reached a consensus. So why isn't this translated externally? Hopefully the new government will put in place policies that provide the groundwork for such measures to occur. The madness of the previous government's policies re population growth raised serious questions in my mind re their suitability to govern.

As much as we may like to blame the Catholic Church for the population increase, it really isn't the culprit. You only have to look at the fact that since world war two, the populations of both India and China have increased threefold. Neither of these two countries are burdened with the dictates of Rome. As well as that, both countries have been attempting to limit their population growth, China by introducing the one child policy and India by promoting the use of contraceptives. It is ironic that Australia, over the same period of time has also increased its population three times while doing its best to increase the birth rate and stimulate immigration.

Indeed, the Catholic Church's attitude toward contraception has resulted in an increase in HIV-AIDS in Africa which in the long term may actually result in a reduction of the population in many African countries.

So many sensible people have posted responses to this particular article that I wonder how many of them are in a position to actually influence a person of substance to DO something.

We all really know where the problem lies, population, so why is it so hard to address. Is it because the control freaks who run the religions raise their ugly heads or is it that the bean counters can not grasp a reductionist economy while keeping our quality of life. Some people must equate quality of life to be the number of flat screen TV sets you have in your house! How dumb.

Quality of life and choice for our children in the future is what this is all about. Global warming, pollution, war and famine are only the result of not addressing the real issue.

Get the numbers down and we can all get on and have an enjoyable existance living within our replenishable resource allocation while actively persuing technological advancement to make it even better.

Our economies are based on the widespread use of credit - money borrowed from banks that needs to be repayed over time with interest. Its credit that drives the creation of businesses, construction projects, farming - you name it.

Credit brings extra money into an economy beyond the "fiat" money created by central banks, thereby devaluing the currency and inflating prices. Higher prices = greater amounts of credit needing to be borrowed = greater amounts of interest to be paid ... and so it goes.

To service this ever-increasing debt, businesses need to continue making larger & larger profits ... thus they need to "grow". To make more profits, more consumers are needed to buy their products. The credit/inflation treadmill generates continuing pressure to build population, thus more consumption & more profits.

The whole system is biased against any notion of a stable, sustainable economy. To pay back its debt it needs to grow or face collapse. Therefore to halt population growth a total rethink of our monetary system is required, something the world's leaders, all backed by big business groups, simply won't countenance.

With such consensus - what has Peter-have one for Australia-Costello been thinking?

Of future consumers, of course.

And Pete and his like-minded mates haven't gone away; therefore we need to keep this topic on the front page and be very, very vigilant.

Divergence, where did I imply that "technology alone" will solve all our problems?
Keeping population growth in check will be important, but realistically there simply isn't much that can be done to keep our numbers below 9 billion. I could argue that if it were that easy to convince people to have less babies, we would have succeeded doing so by now - however it's also a false dichotomy to assume the only alternative is to "consume less". My whole point is that there isn't a *necessary* link between increased consumption and increased environmental destruction - up to now, it's simply been cheaper to do it that way. And I certainly don't see the solution as some sort of "technological utopia", where brand new unproven technologies save us all: in many cases it may mean reverting to older technologies, or at least older patterns of use (such as increased reusing and repairing, rather than tossing away and buying new). We have the technology right now to design consumerables to be mostly recyclable, with reusable components. We have the technology right now to produce energy in a manner that doesn't pollute and compromise the atmosphere - indeed it's existed for decades. Once we have clean energy and goods made out of largely recycled materials, our environmental impact could be a fraction of what it is now, to the point that 9 billion of us could potentially all enjoy a high standard of living and still not be comprising the planet's ability to support life.

I would take exception to wizofaus' points. If we are today using resources at a rate that would require 2 or 3 Earths to do so sustainably, I think it's a mistake to think technology has the ability to make 9 billion of us happy on the planet without an earth-shattering change in consumption patterns.

Renewable energy is far from perfect. It requires mineral extraction and petroleum products to manufacture the wind turbines. Manufacture of photovoltaics is not environmentally benign. And I've recently read of an analysis that found if our energy use continues to expand at current rates, in 250 years we'll be using all the solar energy the sun bestows upon us.

Technology CANNOT enable us to continue to increase consumption if population isn't declining significantly.

Dave Gardner
Producer/Director
Hooked on Growth: Our Misguided Quest for Prosperity
www.growthbusters.com

Yes indeed. Wizofaus also fails to take account the additional food requirements of additional population. Even if the additional energy grows on trees, that will take away from the production of food which also grows on trees. We live in a closed system and we have apparently reached the point where expansion is no longer possible so that sooner rather than later a massive correction will be necessary.

David

Actually, the Earth is certainly not a closed system - and while there certainly are limits to the amount of energy that mankind can safely harness for our own use, I don't think it's fair to say we really have a good idea of what those limits are. I also foresee a good case for substantially reducing our per-capita energy usage, which will help things.

Look, either we will find a way of reducing our per-capita footprint, or many millions, if not billions of us are going to meet a nasty fate. There's no way the human population is going to voluntarily reduce itself in the next 50 years.

Look, either we will find a way of reducing our per-capita footprint, or many millions, if not billions of us are going to meet a nasty fate. There's no way the human population is going to voluntarily reduce itself in the next 50 years.
Posted by wizofaus,

That would have to be the most profound observation you have ever made. I salute you.

David

Commuter “The credit/inflation treadmill generates continuing pressure to build population, thus more consumption & more profits”

Nice conspiracy theory, population growth represents the interests of central banks and bankers.

Problem

The provision of “Credit” is tied to a responsibility of “repayment”.

When the world bank lends money it attaches some significant “strings”, which I recall Malaysia’s malignant rat-bag Dr Mahatir blamed for his governmental incompetence.

I would further note, cycles of high or low interest rates are influenced by a government prudence (surplus national budgets versus deficit governmental budgets (directly influencing state credit ratings and interest rates), consumer confidence and defaults.

I disagree, credit policy is not the “propellant” for the population boom. Credit policy is merely a sideshow.

What does motivate population growth is the irresponsibility of people who think they are “entitled” to breed more children than they can support. This applies epually to governments as it does individuals.

Gore and the climate change wallies go on about “climate refugees” and the implication not of 100 thousands refugees but 100 million people seeking new places to live.

Well, the first step to dealing with that “potential problem” is to ensure those 100 million stop “breeding” beyond their current resources, so they will not need to look for new lands to populate (when that “new land” is your back yard).

Back to either tax inducements for responsible breeding (no baby bonus / family tax breaks) or encouraged (/ enforced?) mass vasectomies (easier / cheaper than female sterilisation), which I think was popular in India for some years.

Btw I recognise, the idea of continuous economic growth is not “sustainable” indefinitely. I do not know how long it can go on but anyone who thinks it is about to end should seek a reliable work source, something at the bottom of the “reward / desirability” chain. Because when the recession comes, the high-flyer, advertising, spin and hype roles will evaporate over night.

If you can save some money, you might buy some nice real estate (provided you can service the debt) because mortgages “snatch-backs” will be plentiful

Now here's a novel idea which ought to have been posted on OLO, but instead winds up on the scrapheap of American mass media. Then again, maybe that's where the idea belongs, along with Mr P, Mr B and Chicken Noodle News - - -

From the December 14 edition of CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck:

"PAGLIARULO: Well, just when you thought Al Gore and his posse couldn't push the envelope on global warming any further, along comes Barry Walters, a professor in Australia who is proposing -- get this -- a baby tax to help save the planet.

"The professor wants to charge parents 5,000 Australian dollars -- that's a little over 4,000 U.S. -- for every child after their second and about $700 U.S. every year for life. Better yet, under his plan, couples who get sterilized would be eligible for carbon credits. Yay.

"Joining me now from Pittsburgh is the host of this very show and the author of An Inconvenient Book, Glenn Beck.

"Glenn, I have three kids. You have four. You know, we've got a little something extra now. If our kids are acting up, we can say, "We had you even though we knew we were killing the planet."

"BECK: Yes.

"PAGLIARULO: This guy is out of his mind, no?

BECK: Yeah. Oh, this is insane. You know, a lot of these environmentalists absolutely hate people."

http://mediamatters.org/items/200712200005?src=other

I don't know if anyone has read "Nature's End"- a scifi novel from the mid 80's set in a enviromenatlly degraded world with the population moving towards 12 Billion people around 2060. The writers' one of which was Whitley Schrieber catalogued various consequences of our actions on the planet and used press outakes from the 80's to illustrate what was happening. This is a brilliant novel but the premise of the novel was a death cult growing out of the mess the planet was in with a push to halve the population with mass suicide on a given day. I think this senario may not be too far from what may happen given estimates of world population at 10-11 billion in 2050 up from close to 7 billion now. In the book controlled immigration to the West had totally broken down due to envrionmental refugees- this is starting to happen now and will worsen over the next 10-20 years. It is difficult to see the countries of the world acting with the urgency needed to start to halt the damage to the environment that will end up in a situation very close to that painted in the novel.

It is certainly high time families were discouraged from having more than two children.
In the seventies there was an excellent film set in the near future -- "Soylent Green". Central Park N.Y. had been reduced to three scrawny shrubs in a glasshouse; bulldozers were used to shift people from the streets, and those who decided to die prematurely were euthanased beautifully and rewarded financially. Soylent Green were the most popular biscuits; made from human meat...
It made such a powerful impression on me I have never bred, nor wanted to. However, I seem to be the only person on the planet thus affected.

Interesting one, ybgirp. I'd forgotten about Soylent Green. I was not very clucky at the time, didn't have kids till the '80's, but stopping at two was more a matter of agreement with my partner than any consideration of the wider world. I'd already done that, crouching under schooldesks during atomic air raid drills in the '50's.

It’s not only living things that get reproduced. Thomas Edison did not just invent the light bulb; he also invented the electricity distribution system. Henry Ford did not invent the automobile, he invented the assembly line. Industrial systems and processes, like the assembly line, were reproduced in Russia and Germany after WWI. They then reproduced some of the vast machinery for WWII. The Nazis applied the assembly line concept in their extermination camps.

The story told in "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" reveal how electricity generation and distribution systems have been reproduced in third world countries, parasitising their economies like strangle vine in mallee scrub, providing a means of reproducing and extending a foreign economic system.

Systems and objects get reproduced, by humans, with little restraint or thought for the resources they consume, and cause to be consumed at increasing rates. Traditional societies comprising "uncivilised" humans can bonk themselves silly, but if they remain in third world conditions, as opposed to the streets of New York, the consequences will most likely remain localised, rather than becoming globalised. They may well suffer a fate worse than death before they die, but they’re not going to wind up manufactured into Soylent Green.

I can only hope my kids and their kids live long and happy lives; but sooner or later, after I am gone, they will be gone and we will all be gone. Meanwhile, where do we come from?

I think this all comes down to choice. It seems a pity that some are turned off having offspring by the thought of too many people on the planet. Having children is one of the most rewarding activities you can aspire to. However, the problem arises where the society ecpects a population rise to perpetrate the existing economic system, wether that be a religious, cultural or money driven model.
Australia is in the very lucky position where we can exercise choice. Women are not forced to bear children by social or religious pressures as was the case 50 years ago. Luckily the negative stigma has largely gone, thank goodness. What we now have is a false population increase with immigration driven by the banks and building lobby which is driven by growth at any cost to prop up their share price. Instead of developing markets and occupations to keep people busy producing items, services and products which enhance our levels of choice and do not destroy the rest of the world, we are doing more of the same.
When do the pundits wake up, see the messages and change the direction of the juggernaut before it is too late.
If anyone out there who reads the posts in this excellent forum knows a politician or banker or economist please get them to see sense and work out a better economic model while there is still time.

Australia has the resources, the wealth, the knowlege and the vision to do this. Why are we following the rest of the world like sheep?

Why indeed, Guy V... the reason is one word I haven't read [I think] so far in this thread... PROFIT.
There's been loads of interesting stuff about credit and an economic system that requires constant growth. But Profit is the driving force, and yet profit in a closed ecosystem such as the one we inhabit, is suicidal. Unless every 'withdrawal' is compensated for by a commensurate 'deposit' the balance tips and chaos ensues.
e.g. We remove forests and replace with crops... some imbalance there. The crops are harvested and sold overseas... removing ancient nutrients causing further imbalance. Some fertilizer is added, but no humus and probably no organic mulch, therefore exposed soils erode tipping the scales further. The resulting dustbowl doesn't return a profit so it is discarded and we move on to rape the next place.
Replacing valleys and hills with houses and streets may make a profit for the developers, but it results in a gross imbalance ecologically.
Remove the idea that profit is acceptable, and the problem is half solved.

Thank you, Val for a timely and interesting article.

I have reproduced your excellent article under the terms of the Creative Commons license on my own site at http://candobetter.org/node/289 linked to from http://candobetter.org

Online Opinion users might also find the excellent article "Is it reactionary to oppose immigration?" by Tim Murray, director of Immigration Watch Canada (http://www.immigrationwatchcanada.org) to be of interest. It was published on Margo Kingston's webdiary at http://webdiary.com.au/cms/?q=node/2240 on 19 December and has, as of now, attracted 120 comments.