Wow what a bunch of pessimists!

All the posters above seem to lack imagination and 'can't see the wood for the trees'. It is obvious that any potential future innovation will not be coming from these people.

I think the point of the article is that future innovation and invention is unforeseeable, therefore the people that raise potential problems of 'peak anything' or 'seemingly unstoppable climate change' ignore the fact the the human race is highly adaptable and sometimes it is only when there is greatest need (such as war or competition) that we have the motivation to innovate.

Although I won't comment on issues such as peak oil or climate change, I fail to see any current motivation for the drastic measures some people expect. It will be once difficulties actually start to effect the population that the drive for innovation in these areas will occur.

These pessimists used a computer to write their posts, then put on the gas heater and cooked their dinner on the electric stove; they sleep under woollen blankets, enjoy high tech medical care and call each other on mobile phones from the offices of Sustainable Population Australia and their uber leader Sandy Kanck. Hypocrites.

The only thing worse than reading their silly posts would be sitting next to one on a flight to London as they whined about how the jet fuel was punching a hole in the ozone layer.

I wasn't much of a fan of Zig's at Telstra but he's spot on re mobile telephony.

Cheryl,

Australians are very quick to support things when they think it won't affect them or that some else is paying.

Once the ETS and renewables legislation is enacted, and the price of electricity, manufacturing, transport etc increase, and they are faced with higher local gov costs, inflation, and unemployment, the attitudes will begin to change, and the NIMBY approach might be reviewed as it was in France.

Population is the problem, technology is the solution.

This is just Big Bonus, Big Business making hollow promises in return for more IMMIGRATION:

"We know y'all are pi$$ed off with immigration that makes us and OUR Politcians richer, you stressed out of your fear-laced discretionary-spending minds, the rivers dry , the seas dead and not enough power to run a DESAL.
Things are GRIM but if I am to get "more-richer" I need more immigration. Bigger markets for more profits.
And so we SPIN a high tech future with robots that paint your pretty toenails, and phones that for only the-cost-of-a-house will let you smell your sexy mate overseas.
We'all know ENERGY &WATER really's what you need. We know our overpopulation ploy will make them scarcer till WAR comes so we can secure what's left. We know people will die. But the point is we'll be so rich that it won't be US. Anywho, don't tell, mum's the word. I'm not rich enough yet! 20 or 30 million more immigrants should do it. And - if they start a civil war I'll sell 'em all the new hi-tech guns&bullets they need."

My online opinion:

The Author of this Hi-Tech saviour CRAP and his ilk should have been drowned at birth.

Those of you who think that technology can do anything and solve every problem should go back and read some of the science fiction and popular science articles of the 1950s. It is quite true that we now have technologies that they never even imagined, but a great many of the predictions they made have never been realised:

Where are our flying cars and robot servants? Why don't we have bases (let alone colonies) on the Moon or Mars? Where is our nuclear power that was going to be too cheap to meter? Why don't we have so much leisure time that we don't know what to do with it (unless we are unfortunate enough to be unemployed)? Why can't we regrow amputated limbs? Why are cancer and infectious diseases still problems? (Remember President Nixon's "War on Cancer"?) Why is there still widespread hunger and poverty? According to a recent UN report the number of hungry people is actually increasing, in both absolute and relative terms.

http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/20568/icode/

Instead of, say, blowing out the population in the hope that some magical technology will make the interior of Australia green and fertile, it might be smarter to wait until the technology is proven and then increase the population, if it still seems like a good idea.

I have known and worked with a lot of scientists and engineers over the years, and I can't recall one of them who was a Cornucopian like some of you here. Mathematical literacy and a basic knowledge of science tend to be sobering influences.

Kaep,

Thanks for you report from the lunatic fringe.

Divergence,

The reason that Maltheus has been discredited, is that in spite of the world's population growing, the real price of all commodities has decreased (despite predicted increases), and the percentage of those below the poverty line has decreased steadily and where it still exists is largely due to corruption and gov mismanagement rather than incapacity.

The inability of technology to solve all the world's problems immediately also ignores the fact that cancer survivability has increased from nearly 0% a century ago, to 50% in the 60s / 70s to close to 80% today.

I am not an advocate of increased population, as there are diminishing returns, but it is not the bogey man that everyone claims, and if it does peak in 2050, the world will be able to cope thanks to increased productivity.