clownfish, population is not declining. Birth rates are but we are still on an upward trajectory. 9 billion people is wishful thinking...why not 20, 30 billion - after all we live in the age of lunacy where the finite isn't, where resources are endless, replacements always possible and technology will save us. 6 billion or 9 billion - it is far too many people with an ever increasing level of consumption.

All the people who believe in AGW or Climate Change whatever. All YOU have to do is disconnect water, gas and electricity to your own dwelling. Oh yes and stop buying prepared foods and start growing all your own food. Problem well and truly solved because none of you will make it!
The best thing we can do for the poor is to show them that subsistence farming is the ultimate poverty its just not possible. As for our wasted aid then just appoint administrators to any bank found to be holding the funds stolen by dictators and their servants. The bank is broken up and all the funds (Including the stolen ones) sent to the country whose funds they were holding. Of course this may hurt many of our politicians who have benefited but it would be worth trying lol.

Rudd, Wong and Turnbull are vehemently opposed to adopting stringent environmental policies which are ahead of the pack because they cannot bring our captains of industry on-board.

But this short-sightedness means that Australia will be deprived of a critical competitive edge in the environmental industries of the future.

If in doubt, just look at Denmark, which, because of tough environmental regulations adopted over the past decade, has become a world leader in the development of wind energy. Germany has similarly become a leader in solar energy with gross feed in tarrifs changing the landscape over the years. We are still waiting to see effective national policies implemented.

Denmark's global leadership is why Copenhagen will host the climate change summit. At the opposite end of the spectrum, is Australia's pathetic 5% carbon reduction target with in-built bonuses to gross polluters and a fanticiful gas storage scheme to trap high pressure gas for millions of years under the Earth's crust without any leakage causing a disaster for future generations.

Australia's position deserves to be rejected as too little benefit with much too much risk and at far too much cost. Australia and the world has been dudded with Wong's 'best we can do' contribution' to this unfolding crisis.

next, I did not say that population is declining, I said that population *increase* is declining. A fact I note you then acknowledged.

Why not 20 or 30 billion? Well, the Holy Writ, the IPCC certainly disagrees. That's where the 9 billion figure comes from.

There are too many people in the world? Well, off you go and do your bit: I believe Phillip Nitschke has some helpful advice in that department.

Or is the typical Green elitism that expects other - usually poorer - people to make all the sacrifices?

Clownfish talks blithely about a population of 9 billion, even though there is appalling poverty among the 6.7 billion we have already. According to this UN report, many countries where this future population growth is expected are already running short of fresh water, and demand is expected to increase with population. No more water = no more food.

http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=44779&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html

If a people are hurt because they have been beating their heads against a brick wall, whose fault is it? As the article said, the planet doesn't do political compromise. In Clownfish's view, of course, the guilty parties, who ought to off themselves, are the people who called attention to the problem.

A fair way of dealing with greenhouse gas allocations and other problems of ability of the environment to absorb wastes would be to give each country the same share of emissions as the share of global population that that country could support at a reference standard of living. The country could then make its own decisions about the balance between numbers and quality of life. This would still mean that we would need to make some very serious cuts before we were in a position to lecture others. A prime minister who is a population booster in thrall to the corporate elite is hardly likely to lead the way.

Divergence, I do not talk *blithely* of 9 billion, I merely point out that shrieking "15 billion! 20 billion!" is just hysterical nonsense.

Appalling poverty? Yes, of coures there is poverty, but there is far less of it than there used to be. The plain fact that the neo-Malthusian devotees of the gloomy Baby-Boomer Jeremiahs like Ehrlich and Brown just can't bring themselves to acknowledge is that, even though the world's population has increased, a greater percentage of that population are living a longer, healthier lives than ever before.

This is the great achievement of people like Norman Borlaug; people who didn't just sit back, wagging their fingers at poor people, but actually did something about it.

"There were some that shook their heads and thought this was too much of a good thing ... ‘It will have to be paid for,’ they said. ‘It isn’t natural, and trouble will come of it!'"

~ J. R. R. Tolkien, "The Lord Of The Rings"