Great post Efranke. We need to demand answers to all of your questions from KRudd, Garrett, Nelson and Hunt. In fact, an article or a new general thread on OLO doing just that would be in order.

This stuff is of vital importance. The hypocrisy in the promotion of high population growth while espousing reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and all sort of other environmental improvements is just extreme.

*With more intensive agriculture, production can easily be increased. In 1950 India had a population of 400m and had to import food. Now it has a population of 1100m and exports food, thanks to technology.*

Demo, you seem to forget that intense food supply relies on cheap
petroleum based fertilisers. Take away cheap oil and your food
production starts to hit a major snag. Our ever growing Western
cheap food is directly related to oil. Take away the oil/gas
and the whole thing falls into a heap and is not sustainable.

The population issue is a global one. We still add 80 million a
year to the planet. Yet hundreds of millions of women in the third
world still don't have access to family planning. The beloved
Catholic Church still protests against every condom. Its crazy
stuff, it really is.

Ludwig, I wish I could take credit for those questions, but, alas, they were from a press release by SPA's Dr. John Coulter. I posted them because I believe they are vitally important questions that need to be asked of Kevin Rudd and Chris Evans.

Their reckless decision to ramp up immigration to an obscene 300,000 p.a. in the midst of the current environmental and housing affordability crisis staggers belief. I believe we, the Australian people, deserve some answers as to why our quality of life is being sacrificed at the altar of immigration-driven population growth.

Coulter's full press release is here:

http://www.population.org.au/media/mediarels/mr080519.pdf

Of course, most of the population growth fanatics don't care if ordinary Australians are worse off as a result of sustained mass immigration. Take Democritus, for example. He completely ignored the point Divergence and myself made about the negative correlation between a larger population and quality of life. Like most mass immigrationists, all Democritus cares about is maximising the number of people that be crammed into this arid continent. His warped sense of charity to foreign peoples blinds him to the damage mass immigration is inflicting on his own people and country.

Mark O'Connor, conservationist and advocate for immigration reduction, put it nicely:

"In short, for those emotionally committed to immigrationism the optimum-population debate is a morass. It involves issues many of them are either not expert in or simply don't care to think about. Many immigrationists prefer to see their creed simply in terms of human charity, of helping people. Yet, like the Unjust Steward in the Bible, they try to give away what is not quite theirs to give. In a more modern analogy, the would-be charitable immigrationist is a bit like someone who writes a check to the Salvos [Salvation Army] on someone else's account - and without even finding out if the account has the required funds."

http://www.thesocialcontract.com/artman2/publish/tsc0402/article_318.shtml

Yabby,

Ammonium nitrate, and phosphates are not petroleum derivatives (the main ingredients of fertilizers).

Pesticides are.

Demo, you will find that ammonium nitrate, in Australia anyhow, is
mainly used for explosives. Sulphate of ammonia, urea etc,
come from natural gas. MAP, DAP, all use gas. Yes phosphates
and potash are mined, mining uses oil.

In fact the whole Western food chain relies on cheap oil, every
step of the way, to the consumer. If you want to go without
it, go back to permaculture.

1. Thomas Barlow is right in his implication that every use of the word ‘sustainable’ should include a definition. Other concepts that always need definition include ‘economic growth’ and ‘prosperity’.

2. But you need to ask why is population growth promoted by governments? A Victorian State Labor MP told me that Victoria is losing its industries, so in order to prosper it has to rely on constantly increasing land values and the building industry. (Politicians don’t have to worry about the sustainability of the country in the future. They can and do resign and walk away.)

3. To be sustainable, Australians will have to return to the earth what they take from it. Hence the recent article on sewage (http://onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=7572)