Ludwig,

You clearly don’t know much about demographics. It has been over 30 years since we, in Australia, have had a birth rate which was at replacement level. That is, the level at which a population will remain stable. It won’t happen until the generation born around 1965 pass on, but Australia’s population will start going backwards. Unless we make up that difference with migrants, it is inevitable. And if we do make up the shortfall with migrants we could very well find ourselves with a different country altogether.

Many European nations are already at this point. According to the UN, below-replacement fertility is expected in 75% of developed world by the year 2050. Between 1970 and 2000 the developed world declined from 30% of the global population to just over 20%.Thats a 33% reduction. The Muslim world increased its share by 50% in the same period.

Japan, Germany, Poland, Russia, Croatia and a dozen other countries are already in population decline. Countries like Spain, Italy and Greece, Finland and Denmark have such low birth rates that their populations will begin declining soon. Chinas one child policy will ensure that Chinas population is near it peak and will soon recede.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_decline

Africa and the Middle East are the drivers of global population increases. What this means for us is that our populations in the west are going to become older. That is, the average age of the population will increase. This will mean a lot more retirees who need to be funded by far fewer young people. This will be a significant economic problem.

Paul L, as this thread is about nuclear energy, let’s take this line of discussion to http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=1773.

I’ll reply to your post in an hour or so.

Paul, I see that you are merrily posting away on other threads. Are you not going to reply to my post on the ‘When growth turns into a monster’ thread?

You had a solid dig with "You clearly don’t know much about demographics.”

Surely you are not going to just abandon the discussion that you have prompted?