Interesting article and discussion. While I'm firmly in the camp of those who think that human overpopulation is the major cause of environmental degradation of Australia and everywhere else, I can also see that the solution/s - if they exist - are rather more complex than simply restricting immigration or reducing the birthrate.

While I obviously don't agree with the more aggressive (and offensive) 'growthists' who've contributed to the discussion, I think that Pericles makes some very good points. How exactly are we going to limit or reduce himan populations in Australia and the rest of the world, without drastically altering our economies by reducing/simplifying the material conditions of our existence?

Personally, I can't see a situation where any democratic government would ever be allowed by its voters to voluntarily impose such constraints, which would have to be quite draconian and would inevitably be decried as reducing their constituents' 'standard of living'.

This is, of couse, why no credible political party in Australia (and probably elsewhere) will touch population policy, beyond talking in platitudes. My feeling is that the population/materialism bubble will eventually burst, but it will be involuntary and calamitous, and will only happen after the environmental destruction of the planet gets much worse.

Meanwhile, of course, it will provide people everywhere with plenty to fight about.

Pericles, perhaps my blog post fails to address YOUR key issues, but they are irrelevant -- straw man arguments, as Efranke has already pointed out. The impact on the economy of a gradual decline in population will be far easier to swallow than that from any Mathusian die-off. You seem to assume that business as usual can continue, and you are dead wrong (in more ways than just this). You may not like my plan, but at least I offered. So, where is your response to my question about a plan for continuing to feed the current population, let alone any increase? Where is your plan?

And I have already acknowledged that the "big picture" is not about to change significantly, not until we are on or over the brink of disaster. Likely, you and others of your ilk will be the first ones to cry "Why didn't someone do something? Why weren't we told?" Well, you have been told.

As for individual behaviours, I chose at a time when large families were the norm in my region to have only two children -- less than the replacement rate. Little did I know that the government would subsequently open the immigration floodgates and undo any good I had done. Thus, I fight in any other way I can, including political activism. So what are you doing?

Pericles: a pity that you took the neo-Malthusians' express wish for depopulation at face value as something worth practical consideration. That only encourages them; they interpret your engagement as a sign of self-doubt, even weakness.

When push comes to shove - which is about right now - the neo-Malthusian elitists find varieties of culling mechanisms. One coming into vogue in the UK and US is the further dismantling and merchandising of public health systems and pharmaceuticals. In the US, behaviorist quacks have even carried their Randian dystopia so far as to calculate monetary equations around the old Eugenicist/Nazi question: "When is a human life not worth living?"

On a global, international level, the indications are grim from recent Dutch seizures of Indian merchant vessels carrying generic medicines and their component chemicals. There's no specific law to justify such obvious Big Pharma piracy.

That's why I identified the neo-Malthusians' barely suppressed and hastily concealed euphoria over the Swine Flu pandemic: they're coming out of the woodwork, feeling that it's now "their own special time". See: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=8838&page=0 (they got well and truly trashed there too)

Curmudgeon,

It is amusing to think that the British government would make a "wild-eyed" fanatic their Chief Scientist (akin to Obama's Chief Scientific Advisor). If you don't see him as having scientific credentials, I wonder what you would accept. Imminent collapse in Australia or other developed countries that are self-sufficient in food is unlikely, but our leaders are certainly whittling away at our safety margins and degrading our environment. See the government's own Measures of Australia's Progress reports (on the Web). The latest one flags a number of important environmental indicators that are getting worse, apart from urban air quality.

Pericles,

As Efranke pointed out, Australia's fertility rate has been below replacement level for decades. Any remaining natural increase will end and slowly go negative as the baby boomers start to die in significant numbers. In the very long run, we might need to encourage people to have more babies. Slow population decline down to a sustainable level is not an economic disaster, however. See

http://www.newstatesman.com/200211040019

Our problems are due to too many growthist politicians promoting too much immigration, not too many babies. The solution lies in mobilising people to get rid of the growthists. Globally, we can't tell foreigners what to do, but nor are we forced to make their problems ours, with the end result being to make Australia as poor, populous, environmentally degraded, and politically unfree as the places people are risking their lives to escape. There are a number of studies showing that liberal immigration policies promote even more population growth back in the home country. See refs. to Chapter 3 of Virginia Abernethy's "Population Politics". This is not to say that we should not do more to help in evidence-based ways. Rick S referred to some of them.

Excellent stuff Rick S (on your blog).

Welcome to OLO.
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Pericles, you wrote;

“It is not difficult to parade the arguments for a lower level of population. In fact, it is by far the simplest position to adopt…..It's is an easy stance to adopt, and a simple one to defend.”

Glad you think so. So if it is a simple “solution” , how come you are a self-confessed ‘population denier’ ?

“ ‘Stop immigration’. Ok. What happens to the people we turn away. Are we happy to condemn them to an early grave, so long as they go and die where we can't see them?”

We bring in ~13 500 people a year who are possibly at risk of meeting an early grave. That’s a tiny fraction of our total intake. I advocate doubling that, within a net zero immigration program. That would be a reasonable balance between our sustainability imperative and our obligation to be a good global humanitarian citizen, in conjunction with increased international aid directed primarily at population stabilisation.

" ‘Limit population growth’. Ok. Who stops, and who is allowed, and who decides?”

Simple. Those who are allowed into the country would be determined on the same basis as they are now, just in different numbers, with more refugees and vastly less skilled people and their families.

As far as births are concerned, no one needs to be forced into not having kids. We just need to reverse the incentives regime, from the absurdity of the baby bonus and tax incentives that encourage a higher fertility rate, to financial incentives that encourage a lower birth rate.

Who decides? The Australian community. Government, scientists, ordinary people, etc.

It is EASY in Australia. It’s a whole lot harder in many other countries, but if Australia is to have a meaningful input into the global population growth issue, it has to get itself onto the right track first. That doesn’t mean that we have to achieve a sustainable population first, but we do have to implement the right policies that will take us there first.

More later.

I just love the way people insist on convenient pigeonholes, Ludwig.

>>...how come you are a self-confessed ‘population denier’?<<

I'm not.

Unless, of course, you slap this label on everyone who doesn't believe that a reduction in population is necessarily a great idea.

As for Efranke's little outburst:

>>Pericles thinks that reducing immigration is somehow immoral<<

Is it any wonder that I can't take your arguments seriously, if this is the extent of your logic?

I accept that populations rise over time. I accept that we are extremely profligate in our use of non-renewable resources.

But I refuse to be panicked into half-assed schemes, or railroaded into warm-and-fuzzy pet projects, without allowing myself the luxury of asking what I see as some reasonable, unemotional, straightforward questions.

It is significant that neither you nor Rick S is prepared to grasp the nettle, and tell us what will be the economic impact of your "policies".

>>where is your response to my question about a plan for continuing to feed the current population, let alone any increase?<<

I don't recall your asking such a question.

How about you supply some evidence that we are in danger of being unable to feed ourselves, and then ask your question.

But in the meantime, I am reassured that none of you is seriously suggesting that we reduce our population, as some people have done. I do recall figures like "Australia can only support ten million" and "the world can only support a billion"... now where did I read that last one?

Ah yes. The author of the piece on which we are commenting, Tim Murray, has a link from his blog profile

http://biodiversityfirst.googlepages.com/

"Earth's human population is over 10 times what is optimal"

"Governments worldwide should offer males and females generous compensation for getting sterilized"

"If fines were issued and privileges were revoked for reproducing, reproduction would decline."

"Broadcasters funded by taxation (eg: Australian Broadcasting Corporation, British Broadcasting Corporation, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) should be shut down if they continue to exclude and censor the overpopulation reality"

You see where this is heading, don't you.