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The Forum > Article Comments > Zero immigration and sustainable populations > Comments

Zero immigration and sustainable populations : Comments

By Eric Claus, published 5/11/2008

A high immigration intake does not benefit the average Australian.

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Yes, an excellent article from Eric Claus. Being a fan of multiculturalism, I appreciate the myriad ways in which Australian society and culture have been enriched by the contributions of migrants since European colonisation. However, as an environmentalist it's been obvious to me for some time that we've reached the point where our population can no longer continue to grow sustainably.

Zero net immigration would go a long way towards making Australia's population ecologically sustainable. The only qualification I would add to Claus's analysis is that we should continue to accept bona fide refugees on humanitarian grounds, perhaps at a level less than or equal to that of voluntary emigration.
Posted by CJ Morgan, Thursday, 6 November 2008 6:27:40 AM
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Kiashu,

You are ignoring the environmental aspects of this problem. You might go to the Worldwatch Institute website and read the statistics, if you have any doubts about losses or shortages on a global scale of arable land, fresh water, fish stocks, biodiversity, fossil fuels and minerals that are vital for our technology, and capacity of the environment to safely absorb wastes. It is generally true (with exceptions like Saudi Arabia) that if you make people richer and give them developed country services, they will have fewer babies. This would fix the population problem, but makes the consumption problem worse, and we are already in serious trouble. With current technology, it would take the resources of 3 Earths to give everyone a modest European standard of living (see graph on p. 10 of 7/10/07 New Scientist).

No democratically elected government is going to cut average Australian consumption back to Third World levels, and migrants consume much the same as other people in the host society. Their children certainly do. In the US, migrants cause 4 times the greenhouse gas emissions as they would if they stayed home, and if emissions due to immigration to the US were assigned to a separate country, it would be the world's 10th biggest greenhouse gas emitter. See

http://www.cis.org/GreenhouseGasEmissions

The Australia Institute has found that it is twice as much here, i.e. 2 net migrants = 1 extra Australian baby.

No doubt if some of the climate scientists turn out to be right, people whose land is being inundated or turned to desert can console themselves that people like you gave a big, warm, multicultural welcome to a few of their fellow countrymen.
Posted by Divergence, Thursday, 6 November 2008 8:59:13 AM
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So Kiashu, what do you want our immigration program and population policy to be like?

You are happy with our current immigration intake and policy of endless population growth, yes?

Or would you like us to be taking in more migrants?

At what point do you think it should all stop? I mean, surely you can see that there has to be a limit at some point?

It is interesting that you are quite familiar with Eric Claus’ writings, and you are presumably familiar with the whole argument for reaching zero net immigration and a stable population. But while you have pointed out some of Eric’s arguments and poo-pooed them, you haven’t given any counter-arguments.
Posted by Ludwig, Thursday, 6 November 2008 10:01:53 AM
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A really outstanding article. Congratulations!

One point to note for the commentators - a stable population does not need to mean zero immigration. You can operate a one-in, one-out system like Norfolk Island.
Posted by michael_in_adelaide, Thursday, 6 November 2008 11:23:12 AM
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Examinator: Don’t neglect your own needs regarding more research.

Kiashu: “Most Australians recognise that unless you're Aboriginal, you're a migrant.” Our long-suffering continent would recognize that Aboriginal Australians were the first migrants, 56,000 years ago on best estimates.

They caused some ripples in adjustment to the environment blanketing the place and, after lots of see-sawing of numbers, at 1788 a sort of calm interdependence existed between environment and one million humans. Humans living rather frugally compared with ourselves.

By increasingly living off our capital, the environmental/physical resources we depend upon, we have pushed this continent’s human numbers up from the initial one to about 21.5 million. Having depleted these resources considerably, we are intent on increasing pressure on them by increasing our numbers by about a million every three years: equal to another city the size of Canberra. Each year, with deliberate intent.

In every way that really matters - our society, the natural world around us, the foundations of what sustains us, is being degraded under pressure from Australia’s present numbers.
Kiashu – I wonder as to your thoughts:

Do you advocate alleviating human trauma of the world’s most deprived via migration? The world is already a crowded place all over. The most deprived societies are projected to increase by 800 million during the lifetime of granddaughters of present mothers. What proportion of these unfortunate humans should we bring to Australia, knowing we are already diminishing our fundamental resources?

Would you, instead, contemplate providing aid within the deprived country? In this way more can be achieved for the same money.

Would you consent to giving assistance to such countries in the matter of female emancipation and rights enabling them to limit their fertility where they wished it – as a means of improving the lot of all in such deprived circumstances?

And I also wonder, do you get out at all, or are you closeted within your own group unaware of the grand diversity which already throbs within Australian society?
Posted by colinsett, Thursday, 6 November 2008 1:09:20 PM
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I have to say that this is the saddest article and set of comments I've yet seen on OLO. Any student of history will tell you that the most successful societies are those that are open to people and ideas. A quick look at the decline experienced by Imperial China after it closed its doors to the world illustrates the point.

Leaving aside the economic nonsense in Eric's article, surely our sense of humanity obliges us to provide refuge to the world's poor as well as we can, given the circumstances at the time. As for the so-called environmental limits, this is just 'original sin' theory masquerading as science: Man is at fault for spoiling paradise and must therefore be condemned. Words fail me.
Posted by Senior Victorian, Thursday, 6 November 2008 1:46:10 PM
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