Lev,

I see my earlier summary of your argument was wrong. Is this what you are arguing?

"All things being equal, it is ecologically better to consume goods where they are produced. Since Australia is a nett food exported of the world would be ecologically better off if some of the population moved to Australia. This would be good for Australia economically as an increased population density typically raises the standard of living."

I hope I have got it right this time. Unlike what I thought you were saying earlier, this makes some sense to me.

However, it still doesn't persuade me that increasing Australia's population is a good thing for several reasons:

- While it would improve the worlds overall ecological footprint, it would increase the ecological impact on Australia. The nasty things we associate with that would increase: water pressures, water way degradation, species extinction. Call me selfish, but I don't like the idea.

- The positive effect would be minuscule. Doubling our population to 40 million would move 0.3% of the worlds population to Australia. The effect on Australia's ecology would be major.

- Finally, the risk is huge, so the upside must be huge as well. You are assuming Australia can easily handle the increased population. What if you are wrong? The media sometimes shows us what happens when a human population overshoot's the environments capacity. It happens often enough in third world countries. Images of flys buzzing around living corpses spring to mind. So what is this wonderful upside?

The final point is the most convincing to me. Lets say living standards are projected to increase by 100% by the doubling population. If the downside was something like the great depression, it wouldn't worry me. But no country on the planet has double the standard of living of Australia. The downside of a exponential population overshoot isn't "just" a great depression. Its a "correction" of the type the roo's in Canberra are facing.

ps. Isn't it nice to have a quiet discussion now the peanut gallery has moved onto other threads?

rstuart,

That was a good post.

There is growing controversy about the concept of food miles, and some evidence that air freighting fresh vegetables from Kenya to the UK actually can have less total impact than growing them in Britain.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/mar/23/food.ethicalliving

In the long run there are concerns about exporting nutrients with food, but currently sewage tends to be dumped in the ocean anyway. These concerns don't apply to minerals.

There also seems to be no association between GNP per capita and population density. The figure for Finland is much better than for a number of other, far more density populated European countries.