Right on Bernie!

Peter

Maybe we all jumped out of the blocks too quickly - in order to put our favourite hobby horses on show.

Maybe you were really challenging Greens to get their excrement together, for everyone's good.

Maybe your article was a call to arms.

Ah well, pity the discussion tends to slip off the radar just as it begins to get more interesting.

Enjoy the bike riding BTW. Winter is coming to Vic, so I must dig out the mittens.

- another article perhaps?

Peter,

You mention "your policies and your actions" in reference to my comments. You seem to be under the erroneous opinion that I am a member of the Greens. I am not; I am a member of the ALP and have been for several years, and have been fairly involved in the past, especially in policy development.

Ultimately you say you want the Greens to argue for a reduction in immigration. They're not going to do that, and nor do I think they should. I do not see the "clear need" to which you raise as the requirement. Indeed, one could argue that Australia would benefit enormously economically, given our ratio of productivity to population, with a significant increase in population. Although I would want that matched with a equivalent reduction in resource use per capita, which can easily changed by altering incentive structures (for example; as I've written many times here before, more taxes on land and resources, less on labour and capital).

Back to the Greens however they are arguing for a reduction in environmental impact - and that is the important issue from a purely environmental perspective. Sure, all other things being equal, reducing immigration is one way to achieve that goal but under the current incentives, resource use per capita will constantly increase.

You may also take the opportunity to look at the Green's immigration policy. Again it makes no precise comment about numbers. But there does seem to be proposals that (a) they're treated like human beings and (b) they're well integrated into our society.

http://greens.org.au/about/policy/policy.php?policy_id=28

All this aside, I do appreciate that you have taken the time to respond to my comments.

Lev,

The growthist ideology that our leaders seem to subscribe to, that population and economic growth, and thus consumption, can increase without limit on a finite earth is as nutty and dangerous as Communist ideas about the elimination of self-interest, Nazi ideas about the Master Race, or fundamentalist Christian ideas that the environment doesn't matter because Jesus is coming soon. Mantras about reducing per capita consumption don't help. China has now passed the US as the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitter. If population is big enough, it doesn't matter if per capita consumption is low. We have a lot of waste in our society, so could probably cut our average environmental footprint in half. Below that point people are really going to hurt:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Highlight_Findings_of_the_WA_S0E_2007_report_.gif

No country is giving its people wonderful lives on less than a European level of consumption.

Given the mass migration and pronatalist incentives the major parties have imposed on us, population is growing at 1.5% a year (a 46 year doubling time). This means that cuts to consumption will simply be used to accommodate a bigger population, not to fix our large existing environmental problems or help poorer countries. Once the population has doubled, what then? How will you prevent a revolt as living standards fall or prevent people from turning on each other a la Rwanda? What about mass extinctions because "people are more important than wildlife", as John Howard said last year? What about future risk from such things as peak oil, the exhaustion of other key resources, such as phosphorus and potash (essential for fertiliser), shortages of fresh water (which exist now), possible adverse climate change, etc.?

The growthist ideology of people like you is such a threat to my children that, far from supporting a party, I just put all growthist politicians at the bottom of the ballot paper and any incumbents last of all. If enough of us did it, it might even help.

Lev,

You floored me with this: "I do not see the "clear need" to which you raise as the requirement. Indeed, one could argue that Australia would benefit enormously economically, given our ratio of productivity to population, with a significant increase in population. Although I would want that matched with a equivalent reduction in resource use per capita, ..."

You seem to be saying we can reduce our resource use by 50% and sustainably increase our standard of living. Is that indeed what you are saying? Do you have links that can justify that?

Peter Ridd,

You noted the fuss has been around the population issue. Its the focus because that is where the focus belongs.

There is no technical reason why we shouldn't engage in sustainable whaling. Done at the right level it wouldn't hurt the whale populations and would help us. Similarly allowing the Aboriginals to hunt endangered animals is a furphy. The animals were fine when there were a lot more Aboriginals hunting them, would recover nicely if we gave them some of their environment back, and will die out if we keep taking it away.

The biofuels thing just blows the mind - but it seemed to afflict politicians of all colours. Sometimes they can't see the obvious, I swear. But the in Greens defence they were the first to come to their collective senses.

Which leaves population. Reduce the population, while eating the whales and letting the Aboriginals hunt would be a sustainable solution.

Divergence,

I do not have what you call a "growthist" ideology. I do hope you realise that by proposing, that population density should have some relevance to productivity, not only I am suggesting a reduction in transaction costs, but also in environmental impact. More people in Australia increases our wealth *and* reduces the global enviromental impact.

RStuart,

Please read the response I have given to Divergence above. If you want Australia to be an high-productivity, export-orientated economy with a low population then you are encouraging environmental damage.

If you want a simple case of reducing resouce use and increasing a standard of living, apply the knowledge of environmental economics and change the incentive structures: Increase the cost of using resources (e.g., through land taxes, site-value rating systems, carbon taxes etc) and reduce those taxes on productivity activity. The net effect is incentive to produce more good and services and use less resources. If you start thinking of what that can do to the urban landscape you'll see how it works.

At the moment we have the reverse; we tax productivity and we encourage the misuse of resources. It is little wonder that Australia suffers terrible urban sprawl, high infrastructure costs and carbon emissions per capita.