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.