Pelican,

I agree that WORLD population including ours is beyond sensible carrying rates.
As I over emphasised in my last post stopping SENSIBLE migration Drs etc won’t achieve anything worth the effort or the moral turpitude.

The link (in my post –thanks to Steven) shows that the problem is global the biggest anthropomorphic contribution to CO2 is food production. Our survival, our profligate lifestyle will be a moot point if say the likes of China, India etc. continue to ‘develop polluting, inefficient industries and continue growing even at a reduced rate.
China has problems now with its policies.
Our contribution to world CO2 is exporting coal and destroying food in order to keep the profit up.
I agree we should have a population policy that policy needs to consider our need for younger people or we/our standard of living will crash.
No-one seems to understand that any change in population will need massive changes in the way the world and our economy are structured.
Simply saying like Ludwig that it will be difficult isn’t enough we must work out how to achieve it.
It is unfair to be disgusted with governments they ultimately do with in the boundaries of what the public will accept.
Likewise the Greens can have the most appropriate policies on ZPG but if no one votes for them they may as well stay home.
Ultimately it is up to the people of Australia...good luck in convincing people like Col Rouge...his attitudes are shared +/- by at least 40% of Australians.I think you would need to get a referendum numbers up to do it.

runner,

The Queensland government has only recently given up a plan to build a dam on the habitat of three endangered species at Mary River, including a lungfish of tremendous interest to science. If dams could solve our water problems, the politicians would be building them, instead of going for expensive and energy hungry reverse osmosis plants for desalination and sewer mining for water. Ordinary people are likely to see their water bills double. We have permanent water restrictions in almost all of our cities, with people encouraged to spy on their neighbours. Not many green lawns where I live, unless it has been raining recently. There are a lot of costs associated with water restrictions to the community, some not immediately obvious. See

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24826011-5013404,00.html

We do grow more food than we need, but the issue is whether it is sustainable and whether the safety margin is big enough. We have degraded a lot of agricultural land and continue to degrade more. Our agriculture is heavily dependent on fossil fuels and on reserves of phosphate and potash, all of which are being depleted.

The corporate elite are demanding the high immigration and the baby bonuses (and getting them thanks to their political donations) because they want cheap, compliant labour, bigger markets, and easy profits from real estate speculation. They can afford to buy their way out of most of the environmental and social problems that result from their policy. Can you?

Examinator,

The politicians have beaten up population aging because they can use it as an excuse for why infrastructure and public services are getting worse in many areas. Making class issues appear to be generational issues also makes them and the corporate elite safer. Growing the population to solve a (mostly imaginary) aging problem is simply a pyramid scam that locks us into unending population growth.

Take a look at the World Economic Forum Competitiveness Index

http://www.weforum.org/en/initiatives/gcp/TravelandTourismReport/CompetitivenessIndex/index.htm

Germany, with negative population growth, actually ranks ahead of us, the US, and Canada, and many other European countries with very low growth rates rank high. The level of public services in these countries tends to be much higher, because enormous resources don't have to be diverted into infrastructure for growth. Where would you rather live? Young, growing Nigeria or elderly Germany?

Our real problem is simply to vote out the existing politicians and replace them with leaders who understand sustainability issues, although countering the propaganda of the major parties and their corporate sponsors may indeed be a problem.

The silly squawkings of Rudd concerning the viewpoints of Muslim fringe clerics some time ago demonstrate how well he learned his lessons re Garret Hardin's" life boat" thesis.
Populist soapbox stuff merely reinforces the mortgage belt, further turning it from realpeople needing toknow the truth, into a docile political commodity, and this is the aspect that Rudd, Turnbul etc see things from, rather than as any thing related to real problems.

runner

Apologies if you think I was pushing an ideology. I guess to be fair mentioning issues like "myths of economic growth" is ideological but it is difficult not to raise this issue because it lies at the heart of the population debate. Well it is one factor particularly in the western world but also impacts the developing world who live with the insecurity of old age and without the security of the welfare state.

This issue does transcend politics if the Australian experience is anything to go by. Both the major parties seem to be aboard the same self-destructive train.

Examinator

You make some good points and it is not enough to just state the problem but to suggest possible solutions. This will mean re-thinking the way in which we manage the economy and it will more than likely mean a more regulated economy.

The problem when we start talking economy and regulation is the old 'reds under the beds' paranoia is sure to raise its head and this is not conducive to finding a balanced solution. By balance I mean acknowledging that pure socialism is not the answer but a regulated economy which integrates and recognises sustainability and environmental issues as an important part of that economy.

We are more than just an economy. From a global perspective I would like to see diplomatic relations at the most senior level discussing systems that would see a welfare state established in all nations that would provide security for old age while encompassing a global perspective on reducing economic disparity. World leaders are already meeting on climate change and national security issues why not a global solution for population sustainability and wellbeing.

This is the only solution for the developing world. I know this is not easy and maybe it is naive to hope that it could happen but you have to start somewhere and little by little inroads might be made.

What a crop of officious meddling religious fascists Australia is raising.

This entire discourse is based on nothing but rabid ignorance. You are reasoning like morons because your assumptions are wrong.

There is not now, never has been and never will be a static ecology, climate, or human economy. Got that? Do you understand that? If not, you are not qualified to comment because you are too stupid and should just kill yourselves now. Humans are part of nature. Got that? Understand that? It is not a sin for them to use natural resources. We are not facing an imminent ecological catastrophe. The current fashionable hysteria is not based on science it is based on religion - a religion of anti-human pious pretentious morons. Those who declare, for example, that the carrying capacity of Australia is x million don't know what they are talking about, and it's as simple as that. How would they know? Have they examined all the resources, all the human value systems, all the potentialities, and do they have knowledge of all future developments do they? They assume a static world. Should cavemen 100,000 years ago have stopped using caves because there weren't enough to support a population of 6 billion? Should Aborigines have deprived themselves of kangaroos because there weren't enough then to feed a population of 20 million? Wake up, you morons. If we are to preserve natural resources for future generations, they in turn will be under an obligation not to use them for still future generations, so the whole asinine screed amounts to a position that humans shouldn't use natural resources. The idea of central planning of the entire ecology and world economy by political diktat is not just stupid, it's like - how many disproofs could you possibly want you idiots?

If you think there are two many human beings on the planet, why don't you shoot yourselves and stop annoying the rest of us: a win/win situation?