Ahem! Isn't this thread, if that's what it is called, supposed to be about the population problem. Stop your bickering you two! You should be allies not antagonists on this problem.

A place the size of au with 25 mil or so overpopulated. That is a very narrow view of australia. Because there's only standing room on Bondi beach the country is overpopulated. You need to have a holiday in the country. Where would au be without immigration. We have women that are more interested in working, than having kids. They would rather spend their entire earnings on lifestyle ornaments, rather than staying home and keeping house. Au is big enough to be 10 countries, I can not understand why you say we are overpopulated.

slug,

'We have women that are more interested in working, than having kids'

And men? I think it takes two to make kids. Obviously men don't give birth, but it's not as if there are all these men searching in vain for a woman who wants to pop out 6 kids. Families decide together how many kids they want (unless those rascally woman sabotage the contraception the couple have decided on, which lends more to the opposite that men don't want to have the kids).

This population 'problem' is something that will work itself out. The evil capitalist goal of continuous growth will assure countries like China and India will develop a middle class and have less babies like us. Then more of us middle class countries who have the luxury of tut-tutting those naughty polluting poor countries who make all our cheap consumer goods might just finally realise we have some responsibility for the pollution. Enter the Church of Tree Hugging, and the yuppie communities all over the world will compete with each other to see who smells more, to prove their non-showering holier than thou green credentials

Apologies Kulu I do not normally argue off topic - so steel yourself for my final comment.

Houellebecq

You being such a newbie here and all, you can't help being ignorant.

Yabby

You state that people must earn your respect. When does this actually start? When you first meet someone? What if they are waiting for you to earn their respect? And what does this have to do with my comment that you rant on and on about contraception but never address the fact that education and empowerment of women has demonstrably reduced populations?

I have an image of Yabby in Africa tossing out handfuls of condoms which are grabbed by the local kids who discover the joys of balloons and water bombs.

http://www.informaction.org/cgi-bin/gPage.pl?menu=menua.txt&main=population_causes.txt

"The education and empowerment of women is vital in reducing poverty and overpopulation. The health and size of the population is related to our behaviour and, in particular, the behaviour of women. Knowledge and skills will enable women to find work and earn money. Economically independent women tend to have fewer children, and these children are inclined to be healthier and better educated.

Better results have been achieved when governments and NGOs target women in developing countries and invest greater effort in their education. Money given to a poor woman is more likely to be utilised for the nutrition and health of the family. Women that have been given the opportunity to earn an income, have put the money to better use. When more effort has been put into improving the health of women, this has had the effect of benefiting the children. The education of women is a major factor in stabilising human population numbers.

At present, there are insufficient numbers of schools or healthcare facilities in many developing countries. For example, in parts of Africa only 56% of people are literate and only 5% receive high school or secondary education. ......

........ If women are assured that their children’s chances of survival are similar to those in developed countries, they may be less likely to have more children."

*I have an image of Yabby in Africa tossing out handfuls of condoms which are grabbed by the local kids who discover the joys of balloons and water bombs.*

That is the problem Fractelle, its all in your imagination.

I've done this topic to death, years ago now, as part of my arguments
against the Catholic Church. If you read up a bit on the topic,
information from UNFPA, Planned Parenthood, the Gutmacher Institute,
Marie Snopes and many others, you will find that increasing
resources were spent on setting up family planning clinics for
third world women, all over the place. Women could go there
for help, information, supplies, etc. This empowered them for
the first time in their lives to make their own decisions, even
if their husbands disagreed.

Hundreds of millions of third world women use no contraception at
all, as nothing is available. The Catholic Church and once Bush
became Prez, the religious fundies, fought this all the way and
made sure that funds were cut off, the day Bush took office.
Thankfully Obama is now turning that around.

Yes, educating women generally makes a great deal of difference
and is a noble cause, but that is going to take decades, a hundred
years, whatever. What some of these women want is a solution
tomorrow. All the surveys that I have seen, show that when
asked if they would use family planning if available, most would.

Lots of things will help women in the third world, from micro
credit onwards.

Given limited funding, one has to prioritise. Educating all
third world women to the standard of Western women is not going
to happen overnight and nobody is putting their hand up for that
kind of money.

Empowering women to decide how many kids they plan and want to
have, can be done relatively cost effectively and is a quite
realistic goal, achievable today.

Whilst some women are forced to have 8-9 kids, even if they don't
want them, they have no chance at all

Michael Dwyer,

"Overloading Australia" by Mark O'Connor and William Lines came out late last year.

The book is discussed in the following OLO thread:

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=8485&page=0