Antipopulationists..Malcolm King

He states that people are not pollution. He fails to grasp the point that each person on average in Australia will emit 20 tonnes of CO2 this year.

Malcolm also fails to understand that with population growth, society has to put people somewhere. We have to build up and out. Building up is a poor choice for raising children and building out covers up our best agricultural land close to cities,destroys precious ancient bushland and biodiversity.

He espouses classic specism. Like racism and sexism, specism is a perverse logic. It devalues the right of other species that we share the planet with a place to live. He sees no problem with destroying the native animal habitats for an ever growing population and for ever increasing food production.

Malcolm's moral compass is irrational and environmentally destructive. His commentary does not pass even a casual test of truthfulness or sustainable logic.

What is the infrastructure cost per Australian? Australia has just ridden a commodities boom, yet the cost of infrastructure has left government very heavily indebted. This seems in conflict with the "Growth is good" ethos.

What happens when you build an export economy based on digging things up and you run out of things to dig-up ? What happens when our combined public debt ( est. to rise to 300 billion) and private debt now at 640 billion = 1 trillion dollars ? What happens when you base your domestic economy on housing......those billions being spent on pollution ie. real estate infrastructure.....could have been spent on education, health and emerging technologies for export ? What happens when you increase your population by 1 million every three years and each one of those by birth and immigration, consume more than they produce ?

It is all unravelling before our eyes. A trashed economy and a trashed ecosystem. Take our collective heads out of the sand. Stabilise Australia's population growth. As Max Walsh ( ex Economics Editor for the SMH ) wrote in the 1980's, "..the last thing Australia needs is a housing lead recovery.

very perceptive, Protagoras, with your tongue-in-cheek suggestion that we'll soon move to mining seawater. In all seriousness, that's exactly what we'll do but it'll be hundreds of years into the future when our more easily accessible on-land or under-sea mineral resources have been exhausted. The history of mining over the last 20,000 years (the oldest mine I know of is the Widgi Mia ochre mine near Mt Magnet in WA worked by Aborigines with the variously coloured iron minerals traded over much of Australia) is that mining moves to the lower grade and more difficult deposits as the easily accessed higher grade deposits are worked out.
So, if history is any guide, we have lots of resources left to recover, including oil, gas, phosphate, whatever. It's just that our technology will improve, we'll be able to mine deeper and at lower grade and the many problems predicted by so many people who've placed posts on Malcolm King's article will simply not occur.
Our problems are reasonably short term - to not make as many mistakes over the next 30 or 40 years as global population stablises then reduces as we've made in the last 200 years since the start of the industrial revolution.
I believe we're smart enough as a species to learn from our past mistakes and continue to make this a better world for the vast majority of people. The saddest part is that so many people don't want to see or can't foresee such a positive future for humanity.

Cheryl,
Those "sod you we'll do what we like " people should be rounded up and put on a deserted island that is just about stuffed with 5 years of supplies.

Col will quickly call a meeting of the Elders and determine that a one child policy is mandatory .

They will then adjourn to the beach, beg forgiveness and pray to the Green God for the natural abundance that they destroyed back home.

Wing Ah Ling writes "Down with speciescentric arrogance!!

Equal rights for shower mould and windshield bugs!!"

No worries. Under Mother Nature's law, they already have equal rights. Mother Nature is not a democracy, and at some point we might come to understand that.

But even Mother Nature must have her standards, so She likely draws the line for equal rights just at the edge of politicians.....and economists.