Over fifty years since the publication of the book 'The Population Bomb', the Author of the book Paul Ehrlich warned overpopulation and overconsumption would drive us over the edge.

I agree. The realities are there and we can't ignore them.

For me this is put in the context of Australia's population recently reaching 27 million people. It's not something we can sustain and we must take affirmative action today. Our rivers are drying up, our farmland is shrinking due to urban sprawl and housing and air quality is dropping.

We still have many arguing for a 'big Australia' despite the impacts environmentally and socially, including lowering our quality of life. Quality of life is something Australians should be able to have and not something we should have to sacrifice.

In Australia we are seeing the growing divide as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. With only so many resources available, you have to spread them out per person and we each only get so much each. It's not a lot.

As we all know climate change is an ongoing issue, with Australia one of the highest per capita in terms of emissions due to our throw away lifestyles. We're not overly good at saving resources and our ecological footprint is a high one per person.

We can't afford is our current population increasing the way it is at the moment and according to Sustainable Population Australia, we must stabilise our population below 30 million to stop the growing impacts on climate and biodiversity, as well as to preserve quality of life.

Dear Nathan,

«we must stabilise our population below 30 million to stop the growing impacts on climate and biodiversity, as well as to preserve quality of life.»

That would be nice, but can you do so without using violence?

There are way too many people in the whole world - if you want to prevent them from coming to Australia, then you could only do so at gunpoint, and somehow I don't think that you would approve that.

Australia's population is increasing mainly through mass immigration. That can be stopped. As for the world population, one minute we are told it is shrinking, the next we are told it is increasing.

Perhaps the WEF is right when it says that the great threat to the world is misinformation. I think the main problem is some people picking the information that suits their particular ideology. For instance, Paul Paul Ehrlich was proven wrong in everything he predicted.

Australia’s ‘drying up’ and ‘shrinking’ problems are all down to government mismanagement, not population. They want more people for their own reasons; but they don't cater for them when they get here; then obviously, everyone gets a smaller slice of the same size pie.

Climate change is NOT an “ongoing issue”. The issue is government and activist hysteria about the non-issue. Climate change is an “emergency” concocted by governments to give them what they want: bigger and more tyrannical governments.

Reading Leftist crap and spreading alarm is not going to help anyone, Nathan. If you want to do something, vote for politicians OTHER than Labor, Liberal, Greens and Teals.

There is not a single problem in Australia that, if not actually caused by politicians, has been exacerbated by them.

Yuyutsu,

<<There are way too many people in the whole world - if you want to prevent them from coming to Australia, then you could only do so at gunpoint, and somehow I don't think that you would approve that.>>

I can believe tough decisions can be made without guns. Why do some always see guns/weapons as the only answer? I've think we've become to used to it.

Yes, there would be rush of people if we were to 'cap' at 30 million, but I dread the time for others when they are living in populations in Australia of 50 million, 100 million etc. These high numbers of people are nothing more than new bodies sucking life out of the limited resources available in Australia and taking away from the land. It's not a good thing for the planet or future generations.

ttbn,

<<Reading Leftist crap and spreading alarm is not going to help anyone, Nathan.>>

We're now at 27 million people. Wake up!! The figures we can't go over are 30 million people in Australia. So, we're not far off. Tough decisions are going to have to be made, including by the politicians you hate. The others you suggest we vote for generally don't get in and we don't have enough of them in parliament. To make a difference they need to be in Government or control the Senate.

Every day we are getting closer and you can only cram so many people into a small space. Not many people want to live in central or remote parts of Australia. So, it's not looking very good. The writing is on the wall.

Dear Nathan,

No matter what 'cap's you set, unless you use guns to physically stop people from coming, they will still arrive.

We don't need to give them citizenship or any other legal "status", we definitely don't need to give them benefits like social welfare, medical care or police protection - and that would possibly stop half of them, but the rest would still come in their millions and like it or not, you need to decide within yourself whether you are willing to use guns against them.

This problem of overpopulation is universal, it is not unique to Australia.

Hi Nathan,

Of course rapid population growth contributes to
problems. Higher waste production, including sewerage,
pollution, carbon emissions, air and water pollution,
deforestation, and a much faster depletion of our
natural habitats leading to biodiversity loss. And that's
not mentioning the infrastructure and planning policies and
programs that we need to plan to cater for the growth of the people
numbers.

However, I'm not sure at what rate our population is increasing.
and whether our death rates and our ageing population balances
things out. There's so many factors that need to be considered.
I don't think it's as bleak as all that.