I think the Malthusian factors need more weight in immigration policy. Clearly per capita usage of energy and water must decline even with a static population. If we can make voluntary energy cuts per head of 20% but population increases 50% by 2050 by my maths (.8 X 1.5) we will still need 20% more energy. Yet the PM has said that will cut carbon emissions 60% by 2050. The situation with water may be even more dire with 30% median rainfall decline and desalinated water far too expensive for growing food.

If the ageing baby boomers require nursing home care and there is a shortage of home grown staff I think there will be considerable unease about bringing recent immigrants or guest workers. It might seem as if other countries are rewarded for their burgeoning population while Australia is penalised. Or perhaps it will be another example of global imbalances levelling out. Some long term planning might be in order.

“What our population future holds remains something of an unknown.”

And that’s a disgrace. Australians should have a population policy; we should be stabilizing now with a view to reducing population in the future.

We are not being told anything new when this author tells us that the world’s population will rise to 50 billion, and that rise will be inflicted by undeveloped countries. It is also a disgrace to sit back and watch that happen.

Although it is obviously not yet provable, the fixation with an ageing population in developed countries might be mistaken. People now living well beyond their ‘three score and ten’, into their 80,s and 90’s in Australia, at least, are of a tough generation who knew real hardship during the depression and a world war. They were not brought up on junk food; they were fitter physically without as many cars and labour saving devices. They were/are survivors.

It is unlikely that future generations will live as long. Alcohol, drugs, junk food with more and more people relying on pre-prepared meals, growing obesity etc, might very well see ‘ageing populations’ as a one generation only phenomena.

“As far as our own society is concerned one is tempted to say that States and churches should not be in the business of pushing people to have more children”.

Rather than merely being tempted to say that, we should be saying it, loud and clear. Whether or not people take notice of what their churchmen say, governments should certainly not be touting such nonsense, given the Australian Government’s, for example, extremely hypocritical intention to try to control carbon emissions while still pushing high immigration and encouraging child bearing with bonuses.

The outdated catchcry of ‘Populate or perish’ should now be ‘Populate AND Perish’.

This article is worrying.

“It is interesting to reflect on how discussions of population growth have run full circle over the last 50 or so years. Concern about unrelenting population growth was one of the great preoccupations of the second half of last century.”

One of the great preoccupations?? My goodness, I’ve been concerned about this issue for 20 years and I didn’t notice any preoccupation with it, from anything more than a tiny number of concerned individuals! The truth is quite the opposite; that this vitally important issue has been one of the great blind-spots of the last fifty years!

“Perhaps the best way to handle declining fertility and a shrinking population…”

There is NO PROBLEM with declining fertility and no prospect of a shrinking population in Australia! In some European countries, yes, possibly. But not here.

Even with the pre-baby-bonus-boosted fertility rate of ~1.76 and net zero immigration, Australia’s population would continue to grow for three or four decades before it reached replacement level and then started to decline. But at that point, the decline could be arrested very simply by adjusting immigration upwards.

This article is worrying because it is written by the Professor of Population and Security at the Centre for International Security Studies, The University of Sydney, but contains some pretty ratty stuff.

I'm not really sure what the intent of the article was. It seems that the good professor was having a bit of a bet both ways.

The comments by the first three posters are all more attuned to the problems of a burgeoning world population. Malthusians have been derided in the past, but people at last are starting to see the wisdom in his writings.

Curson's statement, "Or indeed the demographic hysteria of the 1960s-90s when overwhelming population growth was claimed to be eroding world resources, threatening ecological doom, epidemics and widespread population decline. None of this happened."

In fact "overwhelming population growth,.... eroding world resources, threatening ecological doom," is happening, and our leaders, both religious and political seem to burying their heads in the sand and ignoring the problems of continued population growth. On Tuesday, it was calculated that if the whole world population were to consume food on the same scale as the developed world, there would be seven days food available. Makes you wonder about how overpopulated we already are.

All I can say to the younger generation is "Make sure you have good supplies of the pill and your favorite condoms".

David

I find myself agreeing with Mr Right on this one. The controlling factor of population is the carrying capacity of the country. Australia has always had limited capacity to carry population, usually the narrow and fertile coastal strip. The idea that we can carry on increasing population is a good way to ensure that we get increasing pressure on the country's capacity to provide water and other necessities. We are already getting into the arguments about transporting water for thousands of miles, which is like robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Carrying capacity.

That seems to be a concept about which the city slickers in the government and the churches have absolutely no idea. On the other hand, those of us who have anything to do with farming animals, or even growing crops, have an intimate knowledge. The ideas of Thomas Malthus apply equally as well to farming as they do to the human population. If the demand for nutrients exceeds the supply, then the system fails. If the farming system fails, then the human system will also fail.

Here in Victoria, we have the ridiculous situation, where the already stressed water resources of the Goulburn, which is the life blood of hundreds of farms, is to be further stressed, by piping its water to the city, to satisfy the demands of an ever increasing population. This will only result in a further reduction in the amount of viable farmland while those so employed will also be forced to move to the city. A no-win, no-win situation.

David

Peter Curson says that 4 countries in Asia have negative population growth; China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.

China has positive pop growth, at a rate of ~0.63% http://indexmundi.com/china/population_growth_rate.html

South Korea has positive pop growth of ~0.39% http://www.tradexpro.com/ks.html

Taiwan has positive growth of ~0.24% http://indexmundi.com/taiwan/population_growth_rate.html

Only Japan has negative growth, of ~ -0.14% http://indexmundi.com/japan/population_growth_rate.html

And besides, so what if China or any of these countries did achieve negative growth or higher negative growth in the near future? Wouldn't they and the world all be better off for it?

Good article. A contraction in numbers of people working means a contraction in the tax base. Less tax, less revenue for funding welfare and intrastructure - yet we've still got a large top end (60s, 70s and 80s) age cohort who will live longer. Major problem. Potential major tensions.

Some simple truths.

1/ If traditional Australians of AngloCeltic and Northern European background (those comprising the backbone of the population) continue to reproduce at a rate less than 2.1 or so.. then they are breeding themselves out of existence..they are dying race. literally.

2/ If any other group in Australia (or Sweden or Denmark or Norway or France or UK) is reproducing at a much higher rate.. and are identifiable by either ethnicity or religion.. then they are breeding themselves into an uncontested position of dominance.

What we do about that.. is our own choice. I just wonder how our great grandchildren would feel if they found themselves at the unjust "mercy" of a group which has
-higher fertility.
-strong cultural religious identity
-seeks to enhance the immigration of their own to Australia

and ultimately has values and principles which regard non them as worthy of scorn, disgrace and shame.

I rather think our grandchildren would hate their ancestors if that happened.

It may be worth considering China's "One Child" policy as a case study. Whilst many would argue it's not right to restrict the number of offspring a couple may have, one has to ask themselves what benefit is there in bringing a child into the world if they are going suffer. Admittedly the government graciously provides financial incentives for couples to have a child, e.g. baby bonuses, e.t.c, but for the average couple once that baby bonus is spent on booze and cigarettes, what next for the child. Personally, I think it should be mandatory for all couples considering having more than one child to consult a financial planner and most definitely a family planner counsellor. I'm sure if the government was willing to provide a Medicare rebates for Financial Planner services rendered pertaining to this particular issue, couples would consider it.

Dear oh dear. We've heard from the latter day Malthusans in response to this article. They're never far away anyway. But it's only a few short steps from the Malthusan fear of over-population through financial and family planning to a re-born set of eugenicist positions. We need to be careful here folks. This is a democracy and the best people to make decisions about having children are the prospective parents. Once we start actually believing that the baby bonus has mostly been spent on booze, we're not far from setting up criteria about who can have children and who can't.

“The world will be swept up in a demographic transition never before experienced”. Maybe so, and it could be a humdinger – though probably not as envisaged by Peter Curson. Hopefully it will not be as instantly horrific as that blip of a transition in 1348, although the change will be more enduring.
Major transitions in the rate of change of human numbers have occurred at:
1830 (1 billion total) – after a millennia of 1 billion per 1000 years (average), commencing with 0.25 billion humans.
1950 (2.55 billion total) - 1 billion per 75 years average following 1830
2000 (6.5 billion total) - 1 billion per 12.5 years after 1950, and the advent of antibiotics and disease control.
Now, world rate remains at 80 million a year.
For Australia, during the past twelve months there is change – instead of waiting four years for our additional million, following Howard’s inspiration, the Rudd Government insists we will have it in three.
Population and security will be further challenged, as we are already living beyond the capacity of environmental resources to cater for our expectations. That is far more worrying than the thought of grandparents having occasional responsibility for fewer ankle-biters.

Most of us reading this will be dead of old age before we have to cope with any of the problems associated with population decline. What we will have to cope with, however, is more humane and efficient ways of moving people around the world to where they are needed, and ensuring that disruption and stress to both existing residents and newcomers is kept to a minimum. I can't think of any better way to achieve this than by doing our damndest to make sure that everyone in the world has a liberal education, human rights and the opportunity for freedom of movement, including our own citizens.

I have no concerns about my hypothetical grandchildren growing up in a country that is half Asian, but I do have concerns about my real children growing up in a world where spurious concerns over population decline are often used as a thin disguise for xenophobia and racialised mistrust.

The obvious global problem of over-population is the most serious crisis facing the world because it is based on the reality of "populate and Perish".Clearly populations must be brought under control and reduced. The water supplies and food production and the worsening of air pollution is leading to global warming and eventual extinction.Industrialisation is growing out of control.

What makes the picture more complex is a cultural one.Some cultures designed out of religions believe in global domination can be achieved by the power of the penis.Each family already has an average of five to six children. It is decreed by imams that Muslims should have large families by way of their duty by their religious beliefs. In countries like Israel where the population of the indigenous population reached ZPG some 10 years ago the Israeli Arab population is exploding to the extent that government determined by universal suffrage or one person one vote will no longer be possible. So there the policy for the Jews is "Populate or Perish". Such is the case in Europe in countries like Belgium where the Belgian population will in less like a decade be inMuslim hands.The Belgians tto have reached ZPG whereas the Muslim population is growing exponentially. Nearly the same is the reality faced in the UK.They have brought political extermination on themselves by misconceived policies of unbridled altruism which has turned around and bitten them on their bum.None of these countries can afford to reduce their ethnic populations if they want to preserve their political identities so they want to populate as fast as possible. They would want to take Cardinal Pell's policy very much to heart. It then seems to become a race to see who are the faster breeders in order to survive. The demand placed on countries by the cry "Populate or Perish " is very uneven andunfair.Therefore the policy will lack any credibility.
There are very real dangers ahead.

socratease

Glad to know that I wasn't the only one who had any difficulty working out what the intent of the article was, VK3AUU.

It should be obvious that human overpopulation is the greatest threat to this planet's environment and, hence, humankind's future. We should certainly not complacently sit back and accept a further rise in the human population to 9 billion. Everything possible should be done to stabilise population and then reuce it humanely ASAP. An article which may be of of interest is:

"Why is the UN so complacent in the face of over-population peril?" of 3 Jul 08 at http://candobetter.org/node/631

Some articles about the aging baby boomers problem claptrap are:

"Catastrophists versus Cornucopians" of 17 Jul 08 at http://candobetter.org/node/659 and

"The demographic false alarm" of 10 May 08 at http://candobetter.org/node/483

Professor Curson, what do you think Australia’s optimum population is?

That is; the best balance, taking into account sustainability, the maintenance of a high quality of life and a healthy economy, national security, and playing our part in global humanitarian and refugee issues.

I’d suggest that the best-balance population level has well and truly been surpassed, being in the order of 12 million. We shouldn’t strive to reduce our population to that level, but we should most definitely strive to stabilise the population quickly… shouldn’t we?

I worry about security, with Australia having a tiny population compared to Indonesia or China. But if we can’t maintain a high quality of life and a strongly coherent society, we won’t be in any position to resist invasion or infiltration.

On the other hand, if we continue to have rapid population growth and increase the stressload on our resource base and life-support systems beyond their ability to support this burden, and our quality of life rapidly declines, interest in overtaking us will decline greatly…..maybe.

Perhaps there is no way to prevent Australia from becoming totally ‘Chinafied’, given the immense size and power of China and our now absolutely vital economic connections and hence dependency on China’s growth. So if we resign ourselves to this inevitability, do we need to worry about security at all? Should we only be worrying about quality of life and sustainability? Or should we not even worry about those things and just continue to grow with no end in sight?

What should the essence of Australia’s population policy be Professor?

I’d love to get your perspective on this stuff. Thanks.

Malthus was a reactionary. His predictions were wrong then and are wrong now. Why do some people think we have suddenly reached the tipping point now with population and resouces rather than say ten or twenty or thirty or forty or (in Malthus's case) over 200 years ago?

Why is it so blindingly obvious to everyone but me apparently that humanity has passed its optimum population level?

If it is because global warming is self-evident, then I think people mistake the cause (the way goods are produced, for profit) for the seeming cause (the demand for consumer goods, for the basics like food and water, housing, education and medical care.)

If it becuase there are "immutable" laws of science which mean there is only so much soil, or oil, or water, or whatever the argument about impending scarcity is, then the counterbalance to that is the creativity of humanity to address those issues. Whether the level of creativty necessary to counter global warming and so called declinig resources can flourish under capitalism today (where creativity is rewarded to make profit, not to satisy human need and ther appears little profit in addressing global warming) is another question entirely.

Malthus is dead, and we should bury the rotten corpse of his ideas with him.

It seems to me that once we get past the pure biology in this topic we get amongst the imponderables. And like discussions on Global Climate Change the list of factors that contribute to the conclusions border on Chaos theory and Philosophy.

Objectives like racial, religious, cultural, national integrities(individual preferences) will in the long run become progressively less sustainable, without reducing civilization to the level of survival of the most amoral i.e. Do we either directly or indirectly eliminate (lesser?) others? (The end justifies the means).

Apart from the philosophical we then get to the myriad of issues, like what to include and what weighting to give each factor most of which are speculation e.g.
• What impact will GCC have on agriculture and food production?
• What impact will GCC have on available area for human and animal habitation?
• Availability of quality water and air.
• By what distribution system i.e. will Capitalism survive?
• Will technology develop quickly enough to cope with food production and the desired lifestyle?
• What quality of life do we want to have?
• How are we going provide infrastructure?
• How will we manage the increasing waste stream?
• What level of pollution will the environment cope with?
• Disease prevalence is based on factors including proximity. How will we deal with this?
• How are we going to control, accommodate the starving masses that WILL out number the developed West?
• What will we do if those starving masses get their hands on Nukes, germs etc.
This list isn’t a compete one.

Having said this people by and large adjust to their reality. i.e. It is unlikely that our grand children will necessarily Honor “cultural” mores or lament changes unless trained to do so. Even so they will define their own.

Projecting the possible numbers and trends are part of the calculation but do the models adequately define the above too. Many responses/discussions are pointless in their specular myopathy

Passy

The size of the global population has increased several fold in recent decades. The rate of growth remains around 80 to 90 million per annum. There are massive blatant grave consequences of this around the world.

Is it really not blindingly obvious to you that we have passed the planet’s optimum population level?

When and at what population level do you think this will happen then?

“…the counterbalance to that is the creativity of humanity to address those issues.”

The creativity or technological ability of humans is what has given us this staggering population blowout. Wouldn’t it have been nice if we had been able to use our ingenuity to improve the quality of life for everyone, instead of just for a small minority while greatly boosting population growth with the vast majority living in poverty.

Our ‘ingenuity’ has actually been a pretty damn superior level of dumbness!

Further technological advancements will serve to prop up continuous population growth, rather than improve the quality of life for billions living in poverty.

We’ll start to show some genuine ingenuity when we start to strive to live in balance with the life support systems of this planet…and that means striving to stabilise our population with a vengeance, along with maximised technological advancement.

Ludwig

Your comments are assertions. Is there any evidence we have passed our so called optimal population level? Just becaase it is blindingly obvious to you doesn't make it so, or correct.

It was blindingly obvious to every Catholic that the sun revolved around the earth too.

If we have indeed gone past our optimal population level as you assert, what is the solution? Barbarism? Feudalism? Mass extermination or its cousin, just war?

Passy,
The problem is there isn't a definative Carrying Capacity(CC)number. Any number would be based on specific assumptions and circumstances.Change any one or number there of, and the CC changes. Depending on the quantum and factor(s)changed so to the CC changes widely.
I have in recent times seen several (highly qualified) numbers. The biggest wild card at the moment is the effects of the various factors that seem to indicate Global Climate Change.

Quantity and Quality of life

Look more closely at one driver of pro-natalist policies

What matters more – the survival of the most humane and civilised values of the West or the continuation of particular ethnic groups as large proportions of a nation?
If we could work to ensure the continuation of the most humane and civilised values of all our civilisations East and West, then problems about ethnic and religious outbreeding competitions could be solved.

A tragic thing is that Western humane and civilised values are having a struggle to be maintained and publicly known. As it is, immigrant groups in Europe and USA can be struck more by the less civilised and less humane features of our culture because these are so prominent in the popular media and in social behaviour. Consequently they can think that their own less tolerant religious rules of conduct and thought are superior, rather than accommodating also what is worth preserving in their new countries.
'Where there is no vision,the populations perish.'

The good professor states:

"Interestingly, in the developed world we still lack a convincing explanation of why some people in rich countries choose to have larger families than others and very little knowledge of why some people choose to have any children at all."

Could I suggest greed and a lack of selflessness may be part of the answer.

I have a large family because it is normal. My children learn to share, relate and work with others and tend to do so with significantly less resources and expense from their often dual income sponsored spoilt 'pigeon pair' peers.

As noted elsewhere, the number of people and their impact on the environment is proportional to the excesses that their culture allows and encourages.

Passy

“Is there any evidence we have passed our so called optimal population level?”

Yes, abundantly so.

Is there any evidence we HAVEN’T passed our so called optimal population level?

You can’t assert that we haven’t. The best you can do is say that you don’t know.

So do you really think that it is a good idea to just keep letting the population expand if you don’t really know what the consequences might be?

Wouldn’t it be vastly better to err on the side of caution?

Don’t you think the consequences of not erring on the side of caution if there is uncertainty about this the biggest issue on the planet could be absolutely disastrous?

Why on earth would you want population to continue increasing?

Why would you not want to stabilise population if there was any doubt about it having a grave negative effect on our environment, the viability of lots of other species, climate change and indeed our own future wellbeing or even survival?

Passy,

If you take a look at the various environmental footprint sites, such as Redefining Progress, it is clear that the Earth, with present technology, doesn't have the resources to give everyone a decent standard of living, even if all the wealth were divided equally. This is made explicit in a graph that appeared in New Scientist last year (p. 10, 7/10/07 issue): the resources of three Earths would be required for a modest European standard of living and 5 or 6 Earths to give them all our standard of living. This graph from Wikipedia plots environmental footprint, i.e. consumption, against rank on the UN Human Development index, i.e. decent health, education and living standards plus human rights.

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

It is obvious that even the most frugal country any of us would want to live in (as an ordinary person) consumes well above the global average. Not that any of this goes to excuse the senseless waste we often see here. However, I wonder if you or Reality Check would be willing to put up with cramped, noisy accommodation with no privacy in some polluted urban or rural slum, a joyless limited vegetarian diet, one shower or change of clothes a week, neighbourhood monitors and secret police to ensure no one criticises the Great Leader or otherwise rocks the boat, etc., etc.

Reality Check,

You should live up to your name and read "Constant Battles" by Steven LeBlanc, an archaeologist at Harvard. He documents a recurring pattern in history and prehistory, with people outbreeding their resources, overexploiting their environment, then murdering their neighbours to take what they have, over and over again. He describes excavating the American Southwest to find fortified communities, collections of trophy heads, whole villages massacred and left unburied, a large proportion of the men dead as a result of war wounds, and so on, with all of this happening before the arrival of the evil white man. This is what the lack of greed and "selflessness" of people like you leads to. It is just fortunate that you are balanced by people with more sense.

Now for Passy's argument that technology will magically expand the carrying capacity. There is a web business called Retrocity that sells T-shirts with science fiction art from the Art Deco period. One of my favourites has the caption, "I still want my flying car". Go back and see what they were predicting in the science fiction and popular science magazines of the 1940s and 1950s, then compare it with what you see around you: No colonies or even bases on the Moon or Mars. No flying cars. No medical technology that can regrow amputated limbs. No electricity too cheap to meter. Hunger and poverty still very much with us...

If you were sick this winter, like some of the rest of us, you might ask why the superscience that you expect to solve daunting problems, including the pumping dry of aquifers and shortages of essential plant nutrients, such as potassium and phosphorous, can't even find a way to cure or prevent the common cold. We were lucky with the Green Revolution, but now we are up against a lot more problems than the low productivity of grain crops. Why push our luck?

Ludwig has proposed the only wise course of action.

This has been cross-posted to the forum at http://candobetter.org/node/673#comment-1039, which is a discussion of Sandy Irvine's 20 page essay "Trotsky's Biggest Blindspot" at The essay is a very detailed discussion of the gravely flawed treatment of the environment by most socialists (even anti-Stalinist socialists) through the 20th century and into the 21st centuries. Further comments, either there or here, are welcome.

---

In the very broadest sense, when Passy implies that there is no conclusive evidence that the earth's human population is in excess of its carrying capacity, he is correct. But I would hasten to add that one can't definitively disprove the existence of the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny, either.

No-one can definitively prove, that is, until it is too late, that the planet is over-populated to the point, where some theoretically better society than the one we have now, cannot rise to overcome all the problems that now seem intractable - exhaustion of fossil fuel reserves, exhaustion of stocks of rare metals, global warming, destruction of rainforests, extinction of other species, destruction of agricultural land, destruction of river systems, the lowering of underground water tables upon which much of the world's agriculture depends, the destruction of fish stocks, etc, etc.

However, on the basis of overwhelming data, it seems to me intuitively unlikely that even the most perfect, equitable and democratic possible form of social organisation would not be sufficiently superior to capitalism as to be able to easily solve all of these problems, particularly if thery were to be compaounded by the addition of over two billion more to the human population.

All the advances in human productivity in recent centuries have correlated very closely to our unsustainable and accelerated rate of consumption of finite non-renewable natural resources, particularly fossil fuel energy, so it seems far more likely that that, rather than advances in human knowledge, is the major driver of seemingly improved human productivity.

(tobecontinued)

(continuedfromabove)

So, as Divergence, Ludwig, ozideas and others have suggested, it would be extremely reckless not to assume that humanity's numbers have overshot the carrying capacity of our biosphere, regardless of what form of social system we eventually adopt and and it would be extremely reckless not to begin, as a matter of utmost urgency, to stabilise human numbers without any further delay.

As I have made clear elsewhere, I agree with Passy think we can do a lot better than we are we are with the rapacious, inefficient and grotesquely iniquitous globalised system of capitalism that we now live under, but unlike Passy, I won't be placing my faith in claims of the virtually unlimited capacity of human intelligence made by most socialists as well as by neo-liberal apologists for our current economic system.

Thanks for the responses.

Ludwig, you say:

“Is there any evidence we have passed our so called optimal population level?”

Yes, abundantly so.

Is there any evidence we HAVEN’T passed our so called optimal population level?

You can’t assert that we haven’t. The best you can do is say that you don’t know."

OK, I don't know. So what makes the prediction we have reached (or passed) our optimal population level valid now but not 200 years ago when Malthus said much the same thing?

People have mentioned hunger as an example of us having passed this optimal level. I understand we produce enough food to adequately feed everyone on the planet. The fact that 3 bn people can't afford to buy food is the problem, not our inability to produce enough.

I am not some sort of technological determinist, least of all under the apparently decaying system of capitalism. But I do see production for profit as the major road block to feeding everyone now, and into the foreseeable future.

As to sci fi and alternative futures, perhaps the reason these sometimes sensible solutions haven't occurred is because although they might satsify human need (such as growing asparagus on Mars,)it is not profitable to do so. Just as it is not apparently profitable to develop alternative energy spources like solar power, geothermal power etc. Of course the solution that capitalism offers us as oil prices increase may be a (too?) slow move to those alternative supplies, or to dirty oil from oil sands in Canada and other places.

A society where production is decided democratically to satisfy human need could address this issue of renewable energy sources without waiting for determining if something is profitable or not before it happens.

Passy

The critical question in my last post is;

“Why on earth would you want population to continue increasing?”

Why wouldn’t we very strongly plan to ‘err’ on the side of caution if there was ANY feeling that we were dangerously overstepping the mark?

With respect, you’ve passed right over this fundamental issue.

As Divergence points out, the history of technological advancement has been quite chequered and certainly not up to expectations.

And…the other really big facet of our technological evolution is that it has greatly facilitated population growth and hence facilitated the horrendous grossly unsustainable pickle that we are now in.

So let’s support technological advancement all the way, but let’s for goodness sake also strive to stabilise the population…. and make sure that technological improvements actually lead to improvements in quality of life instead of just to more people with same old low or lower QOL.

Perhaps the Chinese have got it right after all. They are currently estimated to have 400,000 excess deaths a year because of air pollution. If all countries could follow the example, we could ramp up the total number of excess deaths a year world wide to something like 2 million. If we stopped treating AIDS, denghi fever and malaria, we could just about stabilise the population.

David

Jon J wrote: "I have no concerns about my hypothetical grandchildren growing up in a country that is half Asian..."

Given the cultural chauvinism and racism that permeates many Asian cultures, I certainly wouldn't want my hypothetical grandchildren to grow up as a non-Asian minority in a future, Asian-dominated Australia.

"...but I do have concerns about my real children growing up in a world where spurious concerns over population decline are often used as a thin disguise for xenophobia and racialised mistrust."

Here's a thought: rather than frame the discussion in terms of a moralistic dichotomy, why not allow an open and frank debate about the actual demographic choice our country faces? After all, there is nothing inevitable about our demographic future.

Whether Australia is shaped by Australians or by immigrants should ultimately be up to Australians. If the Australian people truly want their European-derived nation to be transformed into a largely Asian society, then let them debate and approve such a radical change through an informed democratic process. And if Australians decide that they do not want their country to be transformed in such a revolutionary manner, then let them assert some control over their demographic destiny without the howls of "xenophobia" and "racialised mistrust".

To deny Australians this choice is to deny a people the right to determine their future.

Ludwig

People are both consumers and creators. If you are saying there are immutable limits and we have reached them, fine. I just don't see the evidence for that.

I can counterpose erring on the side of caution by saying that more people equals more creativity intellectually and product wise which equals a better chance to survive the possible impending breakdown in society. Better to err on the side of population increase to ensure that extra creativity occurs and can be used. The latter point may be becoming more difficult under a profit driven system, I agree.

As to standards or quality of living, 1 bn people are starving. The problem is not that we can't feed them - we easily can. The problem is they are too poor to buy food. If we are going to identify blockers to quality of life, (in this case food for the starving) at least we need to consider the (non) distributional aspects of capitalism as one of them.

Passy,

Whatever the case with the availability of food worldwide, Rwanda and Haiti are good evidence that Malthus was right.
In Rwanda, the population tripled in the 1950-1990 period, giving it the densest population in Africa, with a 3% annual population growth rate. (Rural) population densities reached as high as 1000 people per km^2 in some parts of the country and 422 on average (not counting lakes, parks, and forest reserves) at the time of the genocide. About 50% of the land is arable, and land holdings per household averaged 0.6 hectares, when the UN Food and Agriculture Organization says 0.75 hectares would be the minimum for a nutritionally adequate diet for the family members and 0.9 hectares for economic sustainability. (See Pan African News report 4/11/00 (on Web) on 2000 Land Policy seminar in Kigali).

Michael Renner in a 2000 article for the Naval War College Review (53(4), but also on Web) claimed that the land scarcity was so bad that by the time of the genocide half of all farming was on hillsides with slopes greater than 10% and that erosion led to a steep decline in grain production from the 1980s. James Gasana, Rwanda's Minister for Agriculture (1990-1992), in an article in the Sept./Oct. 2000 World Watch magazine, presents a table showing the correlation between calories per person in the various districts of his country and people killed in massacres. Human ingenuity could not make up for the fact that there simply wasn't enough arable land per person.

Passy, here's another article of many that demonstrates my point that the productivity increases of recent centuries have been more due to humankind's unsustainable consumption of non-renewable natural resources, especially fossil fuel.

"Eating Fossil Fuels" of 2004 by Dale Allen Pfeiffer at http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100303_eating_oil.html

The fact that the supposedly smartest minds in the world chose in the 1960's to change our agricultural system so that it became dependant upon a non-renewable natural resource, that is gas and oil, and then allowed human numbers to increase on the basis of the clearly unsustainable increases in agricultural productivity is sure proof that humankind, taken as a whole, is no smarter than it was two or three thousand years years ago. In fact, given the additional knowledge available to us, this may serve as confirmation that humankind has, on the whole become more stupid in recent times.

Certainly Marxism which laid claims to have been the most advanced of all politcal philosphies, did not rise to the challenge before it in the late 20th century. To the contrary, its adherents chose largely to dovetail behind eccentric ignoramuses like Julian Simon who also preached that the human carrying capacity of the planet was effectively infinite thus helping this moron to sow so effectively the confusion he has sown.

So a chance to avoid the catastrophic circumstances we now face was lost.

In his latest round of public speaking Professor Tim Flannery says we are using up 25% more resources than is sustainable. We are stealing from our children and grandchildrens' future. The earth has a population of 9 billion now but in 100 years time it will be 1 billion as diseases like dengue fever and famine wipe out those who can't get out of the way quick enough. With the polar ice caps melting its likely that the tropics will become too hot and dry to support human activity and people will farm Greenland again and Antarctica.

Look for him in the newsagent in the September issue of The Quarterly?

Professor Tim Flannery will be on QandA at 9:30 on Thursday night on ABC1