I think the crux of the problem is that neither current not future generations will be able to recapture the middle class lifestyle of the late 20th century. Hallmarks included personal mobility in terms of owning a car and overseas travel, a rich varied diet, leafy inner suburb housing or an affordable commute from the hobby farm, lavish use of appliances like air conditioning and income security. I suggest that Gen Z can look forward to none of that. With such recent memories of 'what it used to be like' I think there will be discontentment at accommodating ever more people. Kids today may look forward to irregular employment if any, not owning a car, a bland diet, water and electricity rationing and generally less fun than their parents and grandparents had.

In the case of populous countries like India and China we are talking about over a billion people who may see the middle class dream slip away. As to the drop in oil price the law of supply and demand says it must go up again due to inevitable supply cuts whatever the demand. Remember that when there is no diesel or synthetic urea fertiliser for dryland wheat crops we will have to turn increasingly to local organic farming. Driving your big Aussie six cylinder petrol car to the well stocked supermarket will become a distant memory. Therefore I think the future will be very hard and an unfair legacy bequeathed by the current selfish generation

Actually, not a bad essay, even if it dismisses population concerns. However, it is easy to refute many of its supporting arguments:

“Australia’s annual immigration intake is now more than 1 per cent of total population, which is more than the proportion achieved during the great migration waves of the 1950s and 60s.”

- Indeed!

“Despite economic circumstances, there is little apparent community interest in changing this”

- Yes, the developers donate large amounts to Liberal and Labor alike to ensure they get the continued high immigration they want.

“Unless voters can see the ocean creeping over their front gardens, or they can’t get water from a tap, then radical policies such as removing family tax concessions or limiting the numbers of children per family have no chance of general acceptance in Australia.”

- Tragic but true

“Faced with this deep seated preference for growth about the only possible option, for those who consider growth a problem and want to make a difference instead of being ignored, is to push for adaptation.”

- The trouble is that adaptation will only work temporarily. Resources ARE finite. The system DOES reach a limit where it can no longer support the population.

“Some commentators have suggested that the production of easy-lift oil (that is, cheap oil in big reservoirs) should have peaked last year, with that peak likely to prompt a hurried switch to other types of oil (petroleum locked in sands and shale and the like).”

- “Easy lift” oil (conventional crude oil) actually peaked back in 2005. All oil production peaked in July 2008. Note that EIA and IEA price predictions have about as much value as those of ABARE – very little! Also, ABARE statistics on food self-sufficiency have recently received withering critique for massively over-estimating the proportion of food that Australia exports. Listen to this report on ABC’s Bush Telegraph: http://www.abc.net.au/rural/telegraph/content/2009/s2526814.htm

(continued in next post)

(continued from previous post)

“ a glance at temperature records since the turn of the century - about when people started taking the forecasts seriously - show that temperatures have been trending down since then, not up. “

- Tell that to the food-growers in the Murray-Darling basin.

“This particular brand of doom-sayers would be better off pushing for adaptation, or finding other windmills to tilt at.”

- It IS possible to limit population. Because resources are finite, adaptation will ultimately fail. This is not just some amusement for bored green activists with nothing better to it. It threatens all of us. If we do not stop population growth then all other measures to stop environmental degradation are futile.

If there was a point to this article, I missed it. It seemed to read like "Please stop going on about the population. Its getting you nowhere, and besides it is annoying."

It also didn't acknowledge where the anxiety about population comes from. He seems to say, "Look we have double our population since 1960, and everything is more or less OK. Yes, the price of petrol spiked, and yes water is a problem, but it wasn't the end of the world so stop worrying." The problem isn't the population now - besides we can't do much about it. The problem that keeps me awake at night is what happens if we double our population again by 2050, as we will if we continue on our current course. It seems likely the downsides of the first doubling will be minor compared to the downsides of the second one.

One problem with this article is the definition of "growth", it's basically the old 'guns and butter' argument, growth in what goods for which purpose. Some people regard the environment as a good in itself, others as a source of raw material,so the claim that greenies are necessarily anti-growth is an attempt to create a straw man,some consumers value the public good of the environment over 4x4s for example. When some individuals extoll the virtue of "growth", they refer to increased production in those goods they value( or any "goods") for instance. Part of the justification for increased immigration is that increased population makes us "richer", certainly the GDP increases, however the real test is the change to per capita GDP, not aggregate GDP. What is the increase there? Is the increase due to immigration or some other factor?

The limited time horizon of some of Mark Lawson's comments is amazing, an increase in oil prices was projected some years ago,but look they have collapsed recently, so don't worry. "Next year is the distant future" is, unfortunately, typical of the mentality of our capitalists.

Whatever the realities of climate change, Australia is basically a desert it is not the USA or Brazil, how many people could Australia realistically support without enormous expenditure in order to obtain water supplies, 25 million? 50 million? 100 million? 10 milion? That question must be answered before the advocates of "growth" can present a plausible argument.

Despite the author’s “…deep seated preference for growth…” immigration to Australia and the global population increase is the biggest threat both to Australia and to the world.

It is true that the population is not interested in the subject; so why does the author claim that “…all the proposals by the anti-population push are sure fire election losers”?

There is no evidence that the wider population WANTS high population growth; that is the proven choice of the powerful building industry and other big business lobbies who stand to gain financially from high immigration and population growth. The latter also have the ability and wealth to make huge donations to politicians.

Rather than being a vote loser, lower population “proposals” are a money loser for big business and, therefore, a money loser for the politicians who obviously have not put the proposals to the electorate for that reason.

The apathy of the average punter exists only because the true horror of over-population has yet hit to them, as it surely will in time.

Knowing that people are apathetic, the author tries to ensure that they stay that way by telling them that the economic system is “ simply not set up to contract”, and that, “no amount of berating by those concerned about a growing economy putting strain on resources is about to change that.”

There are several impolite words to describe the author’s claims, but we must as least ask ourselves what change might occur if voters weren’t so apathetic. And, is Mark Lawson trying to keep them apathetic as a supposed authority (although there is nothing in his biography to say that he has any authority to say the system cannot be changed, and that Mr.& Ms. Average would not take an interest in our burgeoning population growth if knew the truth; the truth that is being kept from them by big business and politicians; the truth about the countries that do very well for themselves with populations smaller than ours.)

Mr. Lawson’s ‘greenie’ bit is a red herring. I am a conservative and free market advocate.

“There is an amusing note on the Sustainable Population site about how much return fire an author received when he suggested, in one forum, that families should limit themselves to two children. His experience would be a small taste of what would happen if a member of this anti-population movement ran for Parliament…”

Crikey Mark Lawson, anyone who advocates a limit of two kids per family is not anti-population. And Sustainable Population Australia Inc is not an anti-population movement!

How ridiculous to imply such rubbish.

Someone who advocated no-child families would be antipopulationist!

After reading this, I gave the rest of the article a very quick skim, up until the terrible concluding paragraph:

“In any case, as previously noted, the whole problem is moot because all the proposals by the anti-population push are sure fire election losers. This particular brand of doom-sayers would be better off pushing for adaptation, or finding other windmills to tilt at.”

The notion that we should all just ‘adapt’ to a regime of rapidly increasing population with no end in sight rather than strive to inject some commonsense into this lunatic policy, is one of the worst conclusions to anything that I’ve ever read!!

You can bet your bottom dollar that proposals put forward by SPA, CASSE (Centre for a Steady State Economy) and others, that are based on sustainability, WILL become election winners before too long. As to whether we all have to suffer an enormous economic and social upheaval first or not remains to be seen.

The tenet of this article is just terrible – that those who don’t just blithely go along with massive endless increasing population are anti-populationists and that the push for a stable population and sustainable societies should be given up.

Wow, you get about zero out of ten for this one Mark.

A few points to address in the comments but not many. michael_in_adelaide had an interesting point is saying that production of oil peaked in August 2008.. almost certainly right. That's when the credit crunch affected demand, so suppliers cut back and will cut back further. Saudi Arabia is closing down the pumps as we write, because prices have fallen so low.. You say easy-lift production peaked in 2005. I'd be interested to see a source on that one. If there is/was a peak, you'll probably find its because Russia has mismanaged its oil sector.. There is certainly hint of any absolute peak in any of the international publications. ABARE getting price forecasts wrong may well be right but it is beside the point.
As for the rest, one way to put the issue in perspective is to imagine what Australians in the 1930s would have said about a population of 20M plus in 2009. At the time, remember, there was a serious topsoil erosion problem, which resulted in big dust storms, as well as regular, bad locust infestations (same thing happened in America). Those problems were overcome (although locusts still turn up every now and then) with agricultural productivity increasing throughout, occasional drought aside, despite the much publicised problems of salinity ect.
In other words there is no hint in any of the statistics anywhere for any reason to place a limit on population. Nor is any collapse due to higher temperatures foreseeable. As noted global temperatures have been going down not up for the past decade. One response was to point out that there is a drought in parts of Australia. Yes, Australia is subject to droughts - always has been - and no, global temperatures are not going up. They are going down.
Admittedly there may be a problem with water infrastructure in some cities. If so, instead of moaning that there are too many people, we should get busy with planning. In other words the anti-population lobby should make a useful contribution to public debate - for a change.

Mark, I've only got one thing to say to you.......... You're a bloody idiot!

Some of the suppositions in the article are ludicrous .
Take China as a population example look at your Globe , do a guessamation with your fingers it's about the same size as Oz , sure it's got one hell of a River but we have Broad Acre Ag. status they haven't , they grow rice on Mountain sides ! Yet we import Vegetables and Processed food from China ? So we must need development not Population controls .

Our big Problem is Laziness , no Imagination , no Spirit , no Ethics , no Community Spirit .
We are leaning towards becoming Greens , Homo's and TV / Computer Addicts . We want to vote for people who can "Spin" us , who look terrific on TV . Imagine Abe Lincoln turning up at an OZ election as a candidate just the look of poor old Abe would lose his deposit .

People don't stop any more , if they want to think they consult their Computer , second hand ideas .

We don't exploit our position yet we call quite happily ourselves "The Lucky Country", we are not entitled to do that because Luck is the result of having Dreamers , Thinkers and Tinkers amongst us who persevere to undo the ignorance that impedes us .

Our Greatest Asset is Water we have it all around us we could irrigate Oz in its entirety .

For People who worry about CO2 imagine an irrigated Forrest covering half of WA , when I was a kid we were taught that the Amazon was the Worlds Air Filter , WA already has the worlds largest Forrest lets turn it into a real carbon collector hundreds of times larger and more effective than the Amazon .

All we have to do is emulate Nature eg; add some intellect and mechanics , forget about RO that was designed for Ships and Submarines .

@ curmudgeon
'global temperatures are ...going down'. I guess the Wilkins Ice Shelf must have developed osteoporosis after being under observation for a century.

TASWEGIAN

Changes in sea water currents could be melting the ice ?

I will respond to the Wilkins Ice Shelf comment as it has reminded me about this particular piece of nonsense. There are some people who have decided that the change in this shelf is evidence of warming. As temperatures globally have been going down not up, I'm not sure what changes in a particular region are meant to prove. In fact, I seem to recall several similar bulletins over the years about this bit of the antarctic and that part of the antarctic collapsing, only to be told later that the actual area of ice had not changed. Changes in the summer sea ice around the Artic have been far more pronounced and for that there are two competing explanations (One is higher temperatures but, as noted, they are globally going down not up; the other concerns cyclic changes in ocean currents.) There was a recent paper in Nature which "proved" that human activities had influenced temperatues in the Artic but, as I understand it, this did not mean they were necessarily much higher just different. There have been statements in newspaper articles that temperatures in the Antartic are higher but I would greatful if anyone could point me to a dataset - actual measurements - from which such a conclusion could be drawn.
Those who point to the antartica and greenland supposedly melting faster than usual also have to explain away the recordings to the Topix satellite run by the University of Colorado (will supply link if you want, don't have it on me). This measures sea levels globally and, again, sorry, the results of recent years are the exact opposite of what the models forecast.

Mark Lawson, referred to “Overloading Australian” by Mark O’Connor & William but didn’t do it justice.

O’Connor&Williams contend that the overpopulation is the root cause of many of our conflicts .

Afghanistan:
“a dramatic example of this occurred in 2002 [in] Afghanistan , prior to the US launching its war on the Taliban . Millions of refugee began to pour out of the country ….the sudden flood of refuges had had little to with the Taliban , or the war– they were peasants fleeing a famine…the famine was caused by drought , at least partly; but the drought was not unprecedented. What was unprecedented was the vast population that was now trying to feed itself in those cold upland valleys…Afghan women were averaging over 6 children each. As a result the amount of land sown to grain per person had fallen to a miniscule 0.02 of a hectare”

Rwanda:
“Between 1950 and 1990, Rwanda population tripled from 2.1 million to 6,8 million. The per capita grain land available fell to 0.03 hectares…rapid population led to farm fragmentation , land degradation ,deforestation ,and famine. These stresses ignited the undercurrent of ethnic strife in the early 1990s…Most Western reports misrepresent the killing as a race war between Hutus & Tutsis, even though much of the killing was related to land, not race – with killer very often from the same group as the victims”

Burma:
“The devastation caused by Cyclone Nargis in the Ayeyarwady Delta in Myanmar(Burma) , in 2008 resulted from the massive destruction (due to human over-population) of the mangroves that once protected the delta from such events. But that explanation was too complex for the commercial channels and didn’t fit ABC or SBS ideology.”

The Solomon Islands:
“The classic signs are present . The islands have one of the worlds higher population growth rates. Partly fuelled (as in so many Pacific islands ) by irresponsible religious sects, and are on course to double in 24 years. Hence one ethnic group , the Malaitans , had little choice but to squat on the ‘unoccupied’ lands of other tribes”

If-you-can-find-a-copy- it’s-well-worth-a-read.

Curmudgeon: "imagine what Australians in the 1930s would have said about a population of 20M plus in 2009. At the time, remember, there was a serious topsoil erosion problem"

Don't know about you, Curmudgeon, but when I see topsoil erosion, or salinity, or pests the first cause that pops into my mind is "poor farming practices", not population. Reducing the population simply ain't going to solve those problems, so I doubt people at the time thought it would - despite your assertions to the contrary.

The problem now is resource exhaustion - we have run out of water in some cities, and in some farming areas. It is certain petroleum will become very expensive soon, and it also looks likely coal will peak this century. LPG almost certainly will. The first thought that springs to mind when you see evidence of resource exhaustion is "better keep an eye on the population". Although not to you, apparently. You just go into denial.

And I don't understand why you keep saying droughts are a natural phenomena. I agree Queensland's dry spell was just that - a drought. Even those "AGW fanatics" in the BOM said so at the time. But what on earth does that have to do with population? Yes droughts are normal. People over-populating then dying like flies during a drought is pretty normal too, yet it sounds like that is what you are advocating.

Leigh, what has happened man? I've seen two well reasoned and pretty persuasive posts from you recently. Most uncharacteristic.

Seriously, what is wrong with this man when he perpetuates the lie that global temperatures are down and when presented with the scientific evidence, that combined land and sea temperatures are up, he ignores it?

“Adaptation,” is the new cliché for the delay and divide brigade who remain indifferent to the creeping white death, desertification, extreme drought or water shortages where this nation must also find sufficient water to provide for 125 million sheep and cattle.

Rather the "adaptation" cabal prefer to instruct us to “go forth and multiply” despite the fact that increased populations equals unbridled development which means developers will rush to precious water supplies and drain aquifers for sprawling new towns, golf courses and swimming pools.

Water shortages are occurring around the planet and often where water is available, it is heavily contaminated from over population by humans and livestock and hazardous emissions from pollutant industries.

Water shortages are striking mainland Europe too where Barcelona must now import water from France and in the Spanish province of Murcia, where prosperity is on the rise, farmers are fighting with developers over water rights. Across Spain, average surface temperatures have gone up by 1.5 degrees Celsius compared with 0.8 globally, and rainfall is expected to decrease by 20 percent by 2020.

Scientists are warning that 50% of the world's nations will be hit by water shortages by 2025 and 75% by 2050, a result of warming.

Seemingly, Mark Lawson knows something the scientists don't when he insists that we must continue to “populate or perish!”

How about arguing for population growth/reduction/stsbilisation on the basis of benefit? Along these lines, Mark Lawson might also have commented on schemes such as that advocated by the La Rouche inspired Citizens Electoral Council. Arguing this issue on a statistical platform only avoids the need to offer substantial reasons.

Off topic:

Mark, Curmudgeon, at home or anywhere else - re: Wilkins

Please, it is obvious to those trained in (and whose vocation is) the dynamics of atmosphere/ocean coupled systems that you are blowing smoke.

For example, you clearly don't understand anything about ocean heat capacity, its inertia, or the effects on ocean and atmospheric currents (sea or wind) - let alone temperatures (sea or air).

Your pseudo-scientific understanding of 'climate-science' is woeful. Unfortunately, people can be 'taken in' by your guff, particularly if they are fearful of the consequences of global warming.

I don't think you are stupid ... so why are you being deliberately obtuse?

______

Protogoras

Individuals (and societies) will need to adapt to the creeping consequences of climate-change :-) Some will be better able to than others. Some species will not be able to adapt, they will be lost.

I understand where you are coming from. Adaptation alone is not enough. We must find a way to live and grow (not population-wise) in a more sustainable way. This alone will help mitigate against an exponential growth in GHG's due to the misuse of our energy resources and poor land management practices.

Back on topic, anyone?

There are important things to be learned from this article for all proponents of population stabilisation including, Thomas Friedman, Mark O’Connor and the contributors to Online Opinion such as myself. The first thing is that when your ideas are popular you don’t need strong arguments in your favour. All you need to do, is revert back to “Millions of us hate your ideas, so just give up.”

I might be too generous but I sense from this article that Mark Lawson really understands that growth can’t go on forever and that environmental problems are easier to solve when there are less people, but he would prefer to be on the winning side. Mark never says “Growth can go on forever.” He says business and government want growth today, so we should all fall in line. Mark knows that Sustainable Population Australia policy is for BOTH sustainable water practices and population stabilisation, but he barks out the old “We’ll just do this magic trick to get more water” to fill out the article. Silly, but you don’t have to be clever when you are winning 100 to Nil.

Population advocates have stood on logic for too long thinking that an obvious argument like “growth can’t go on forever on a finite planet” would be good enough. Mark Lawson correctly points out it isn’t even close to good enough. Both major parties want more population growth.

We are not a species that is designed to look at the long term. Maybe that will change when commodity prices stay high for a few years. Maybe not. It hasn’t happened with housing. In some ways articles like these strengthen my resolve to keep fighting for a more sustainable society, because if the best arguments my opponent can raise are crap, I know I must be right

curmudgeonathome , DATA SET

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/myths/

<the Wilkins Ice Shelf comment as it has reminded me about this particular piece of nonsense. There are some people who have decided that the change in this shelf is evidence of warming. As temperatures globally have been going down not up, I'm not sure what changes in a particular region are meant to prove.>

A 3 C warming of the Antarctic Peninsula, 10,000 year old ice shelves collapsing, and an accelerating rate of ice shelf collapse over the past few decades hardly conflicts with the idea of warming.

<Those who point to the antartica and greenland supposedly melting faster than usual also have to explain away the recordings to the Topix satellite run by the University of Colorado (will supply link if you want, don't have it on me). This measures sea levels globally and, again, sorry, the results of recent years are the exact opposite of what the models forecast.>

According to the University of Colorado,

http://sealevel.colorado.edu/

sea level has been rising by an average of over 3 mm since 1992.

"Since August 1992 the satellite altimeters have been measuring sea level on a global basis with unprecedented accuracy. The TOPEX/POSEIDON (T/P) satellite mission provided observations of sea level change from 1992 until 2005. Mean sea levelJason-1, launched in late 2001 as the successor to T/P, continues this record by providing an estimate of global mean sea level every 10 days with an uncertainty of 3-4 mm."

Given the uncertainty of the measurement, calling the trend based on a couple of years of data cannot be done with any confidence. What can be stated with great confidence is that sea level over the past century has been rising at an accelerating rate.

From wikipedia: "Tilting at windmills is an English idiom which means attacking imaginary enemies, or fighting otherwise-unwinnable battles. The word “tilt,” here, comes from jousting."

Using this definition, one could argue that the problem might be 'unwinnable' because it does not appear our governments are listening but overpopulation is not imaginary. Have you ever been to India and seen for yourself the effects of great numbers of people sharing limited space, limited resources and limited access to social support? You can always fit more people in but what quality of life do you aspire to for those populations?

The author makes a mistake in first assuming that those who argue for sustainable populations believe that Australia alone can fix the problems of burgeoning populations and diminishing resources. It is a global problem.

Australia and Australians can only hope to ensure or lobby for rational governments that can think freely from global trendiness and economic self-interest to prevent similar problems here on our largely arid continent.

Yes we can use technology, conserve water, share resources and reduce our living standards to embrace larger populations to some extent. Lets face it, our living standards in the West are far better than our neighbours.

But to deny that resources are limited and that populations will be constrained by natural or man-made disasters denies the obvious - our escalating global populations.

The reason politicians, and many others, want growth to continue is because it is all we currently know to preserve prosperity. We desperately need economists and others to develop a new paradigm for a steady-state economy, or better still one which can prosper in the face of declining population and reduced resources. It is curious that our parents and grandparents, who lived in times of little or no resource stress, were far more thrifty and careful in their habits. Things were, however, much more expensive, so there was no question of replacing appliances every other minute as we are expected to do now.

On the population front, everyone must have a figure at which they would consider the world's population to be maxed out, be it 3, 6, 12, 24 or 48 billion. Whatever the figure and whenever it occurs, we will one day have to confront a no-growth situation (or, more likely, a catastrophic decline) and we will have not more than 50 years to adapt from half-full to full-up and from growth-as-usual to no growth at all. Proponents of sustainable population sensibly want this situation considered and addressed for the benefit of us all.

Although dated, still relevant:

http://www.actionbioscience.org/newfrontiers/eldredge2.html

hat-tip dick

Why is so difficult to understand that there is a link between population and environment? Is it not obvious that when Australia gets a population of 100 million some time around the turn of the century, all crammed into the most fertile and wetter parts of the continent, there will be bigger environmental problems from more dams, roads suburbs etc. And why is it not obvious that one of the best things about Australia is that we can live in relatively clean and un-crowded towns and cities, and that we have a right to try to preserve these values? And for the economists amongst us, why is it not obvious that with a country that earns its living by exporting minerals, tourism and agriculture, none of which require a big population, we are better off with a small population. If you take a line north of the tropic, you account for a huge percentage of Australia’s export earning and a population of less than a million. We North Queenslanders would be much better off without the populated south, and Australia’s export earning would be bigger per capita if we did not have to do a division by a large number of people. So whether you care about the environment or your hip pocket, a larger population does not make sense.

Peter Ridd

Hi all. I would like to thank everyone for their input on this obvious problem that the capitalist pigs that don't seem to think there,s a tomorrow. There,s not much I can add, that most of you haven't covered, but I will say the problem is real, the consequences are real and the human race is going to pay a heavy price for there ignorance's.
Overpopulation or the human foot-print is pushing every live thing to the living end, and the evidence to the facts are as clear as the ice sheets are white, and we wont be seeing them for much longer. Pick your factors that's either man made or a natural cycle of the earth, which i believe to be the main cause, but the attitude of most greedy people is, " I only live for 60 or 70 years so why should care " and our fore fathers of the 19 century while times were good, thought the party would go on for ever and this means stuff you next generation and now we see the selfish results of a raped planet and nothing left for you.

I pray and I use that term lightly, that one of you makes it into government one day and stop this madness.

A simple policy. Let the death rate over-ride the birth rate and in one short life time is all it will take to put things back to where sustainability for all concerned will be a reality.

all the best

EVO

Q&A, Pelican and others, I highly recommend a listen or read transcript of yesterday's Background Briefing on Radio National.

The author and historian, Ronald Wright, discusses the vexing issue of population versus resources in his work on "A short history of Progress".

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/backgroundbriefing/stories/2009/2548406.htm

He really puts human beings into context with the rest of the planet.

Thank you Fractelle for the link. even if nobody appreciated it.

But thats life.

EVO

Thanks for the link Fractelle, I have been away.

Having just finished listening to Ronald Wright, I would commend it to anyone, just find the time. There are so many quotable quotes - what he has to say is very illuminating, very challenging.

As I said in my last post (on another thread), I am taking time out (from OLO) to attend to personal matters. Nevertheless, thanks again for the link to his talk.

Best wishes
qanda

qanda

I'm pleased you took the time. I know we are buried in links here, and it is impossible to look at even some of them let alone all, but I thought that Wright's talk summed us up very well indeed and fell into the category of must read/listen.

Looking forward to your return to OLO.

Mark Lawson claims that there is "little apparent community interest" in reducing Australia's extremely high immigration levels. That's a big call, given that the Australian public has never been consulted, and has been frequently misled, about immigration and population. Perhaps if we were allowed to have an open and informed national debate on such issues, some semblance of democracy could be introduced into Australia's immigration policies. As it stands, our present immigration policies are most undemocratic, even anti-democratic.

I also notice how Mr. Lawson dismisses the general premise of Mark O'Connor's and William Lines' recent book, Overloading Australia, without bothering to address the specific, and very compelling, arguments they raise. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, it seems that Mr. Lawson still clings to the old booster myth that Australia is a vast, empty land that can easily accommodate many millions more immigrants, without any worry of serious environmental degradation or decline of quality of life. Depleted soils? Water shortages? Rising carbon emissions? Congested cities? Overburdened infrastructure? Housing shortages? Worsening balance of payments problems? She'll be right, mate!

[Continued below...]

Not only do Mr. Lawson and his fellow boosters completely ignore the very substantial costs of high population growth in this country, they also fail to demonstrate the benefits. Why exactly must Australia continue to double its population every forty years? How does this staggering rate of deliberate population growth benefit the existing population? "Population growth stimulates the economy", the boosters argue. The problem with this argument is that although population growth increases total GDP, it does not increase GDP per capita. So, even though the overall economic pie may be getting larger, the average Australian is not getting a larger slice as there are far more people than before to divide the pie up among. In fact, all the research seems to point to the average Australian actually becoming worse off financially under the high-growth road that the growth lobby and their lackeys in government have steered this country down, with lower wages and higher housing costs being two costs that immediately spring to mind. And these are just the very tip of the iceberg when you consider the full costs - not only economic, but also environmental, social and cultural - of sustained, immigration-driven population growth. The fact of the matter is that we ruining our country and condemning future generations to a lower quality of life all for nothing.

Are these the rantings of a 'greenie'? No, just a concerned citizen.

Thanks for the link Fractelle, very telling.

I had not responded previously as I had forgotten about this topic as it slipped further down the page/screen and only just realised it was still active today.

Humans are part of the earth and as such we do have impact - it is as simple as that.

Thanks Pelican

And thanks for your summary, on the 'Hey Good Lookin' thread. I thought about going back and trying to pull out the major points established from the discussion, but I did say I had finished posting and I feel that a lot of the, er, bluster from particular posters would just see that as further ammunition, so I refrained. Does this mean I have been silenced or did I finish at the time of my own choosing?

I would say you chose your time.

You don't seem like someone who can be silenced merely by differing opinions and you always have interesting things to contribute - even if we do not always agree. :)

Just when you thought it was safe to walk on water.lol (Jaws theme.) My departure has been overly exaggerated and the imaginations are fit and healthy with all sorts of interesting insights and limited profiling skills, plus an abundant serving of guess work.

Well, that's science, and religion still has its place, but not on the front lines.

Q&A, Pelican and others, I highly recommend a listen or read transcript of yesterday's Background Briefing on Radio National.

The author and historian, Ronald Wright, discusses the vexing issue of population versus resources in his work on "A short history of Progress".

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/backgroundbriefing/stories/2009/2548406.htm

He really puts human beings into context with the rest of the planet.Posted by Fractelle, Monday, 27 April 2009 11:22:13 AM

Mr Wright speaks clearly and with-out doubt, is at the fore-front of new-age thinking. I have said before, with the masses of humans, our old system cant cope with the numbers, and if the world wants to grow, a new system is need.
Now that's a big step! and one, we are no where near ready for, yet. Technologies have not taken into account that the evolutionary time clock ticks at a different rate, and this is what so many over-look.

So the market people rule the world? do you see what their doing? Now the thing about change, it takes a lot of guts, and I know the Australian people has the coco-nuts to lead the way, and show them what the meaning of sustainability is, with-out ignorants of out-side influences.

Buy your time carefully Australia, you sit with one of the cleanest and richest environments the world has ever seen, and to blow that, would be disappointing. Let the reckless burn-out, and when they want uncontaminated food products, we,ll be waiting. hehehe.

EV

EVO3

Yes, very timely.

Can I invite you all over to this OLO thread to join the discussion?

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=8911#141810

I think John Sterman (2nd video, about 18 mins in) puts things into perspective insofar as what can be done.