'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.