We have rapid population growth in Sydney, SEQ, Melbourne, Perth, etc. It seems crazy that growth rates continue unabated despite critical issues with water supply.

How can it be that our governments, and the general populace, continue to allow the rapid influx of people into these resource-stressed areas? Why isn’t every attempt being made to mitigate this population movement, by way of reducing immigration, reversing the baby bonus and other pro-natalist policies, encouraging decentralisation and the like?

Why is all our effort going into reducing per-capita consumption, implementing alternative water sources and better efficiencies in usage and so on... and none of it going into addressing continuous growth?

Isn’t it a case of just facilitating and even encouraging continuous population growth if we only address these latter factors and in so doing, simply take us deeper into resource-stress problems and further away from sustainability?

Could it be that all the good things we think we are doing are actually working against us reaching true sustainability, for as long as we don’t address the continuous growth factor directly?

Mmmm congratulations Ludwig you drongo. You are the first person on OLO to score a typo in the title of the thread!! |:>/

‘Isn’t continuous growf at complete ODDS wif resource stress?'

Hey Ludwig

What we need is some balance between rampant capitalism and government regulation.

Logically, higher profits each year are an impossibility. Realistically what companies need to aim for is sustainability both in its approach to provision of its products and its obligations to the environment (which sustains it) and the community (which funds it).

I'm no socialist but I can see where unregulated capital gain has caused mismanagement of resources and exploitation of humans and animals.

By applying sustainable practices, we have a win/win situation - companies can continue to prosper, people can earn a liveable income, animals can be farmed humanely and the environment protected and enriched. This doesn't require living a monastic existence, just less greed.

Our current system of maximum profit, short term planning is teetering on the point of collapse. We can either make efforts now to prevent total collapse or help ourselves by both helping each other and the environment.

My next vote will be cast towards those with long-term vision, a humane approach to the environment and an inclusive attitude to the wide variety of human endeavour.

Judgemental people need not apply.

Scout, whom are you going to vote for next time? Who has the necessary long-term vision and humane approach? And if there do happen to be a couple of individuals somewhere out there in our political quagmire, how are they ever going to be voted in? And if they are, how are they going to get their ideas to prevail? It’s hopeless, if we rely on the existing political structure.

In fact, quite apart from the innate desire to keep on growing for as long as we can and for governments to be strongly swayed by the rich and aggressively greedy end of the spectrum, the very essence of our political system works against us achieving sustainability.

Our democracy or pseudodemocracy, or demoncracy as it should be known, dictates that governments cater first and foremost to what the people want now, and only cater for the future where it is not too strongly at odds with this. If they protected our future with the fervour that it now needs, it would mean compromising the present… and they’d be turfed out on their ear real quick!

So, it appears that we are doomed to adjust to the tightening of resources and the various other manifestations of our unsustainable practices as the bad things manifest themselves…. not well before, as is really required. It’s going to continue to be reactionary, which means that any real preparation for the massive changes ahead is just not going to happen.

We certainly do need “some balance between rampant capitalism and government regulation.”

But how on earth do we get it to the extent needed, when it is the rich and powerful…the most rampant capitalists of all… that basically tell government what policies to implement?

Collectively we are short-sighted and self-centred…. and our political system reflects that ‘beautifully’.

Ludwig

I agree with you 100% regards the pool of political 'talent' we have to choose from.

I will be doing my homework - looking at independents and voting below the line to ensure my preferences go where I want them. This is vital, as the current situation in the senate is untenable in a democracy. As for the 'Opposition' the libs themselves are doing a better job, vis a vis, RU486 and current stem cell debate.

So I guess a good start is freeing the senate from the Lib monopoly.

The rest of my POV is sheer optimism that the powers-that-be will wake up in time to the fact that unrestrained exploitation is finite and, therefore, doomed.

Ludwig: I think the problem is actually democracy itself, which is a tyranny of the masses. When it's centralised at a national level, it's even worse. Another problem is the concept of the modern city, which is not sustainable at any level, and so, it's like a leech on everything else.

If people actually had to work at an individual and small community level, ultimately, the decisions they made would have a far more obvious effect on their lives, and so they'd be more sensible and sustainable. However, because I can vote on something (that I will have no idea about regarding the most intricate details) that will affect someone thousands of kilometres away, and vice versa, there's obviously going to be a problem.

Likewise, we have the crazy situation that every state or federal election is decided by the handful of marginal seats, which basically exist on the edges of cities (in the main). Rather than being an opportunity to create sustainable communities, and thus reverse the trend of modern cities, everyone wants to throw money at such electorates to gain their votes, and so there's absolutely no reason for them to grow in anything other than unsustainable ways. Then, ten years later, as the population has grown, the process begins again in another set of fledgling marginal areas, leaving behind a wake of madness.

There's also the problem that when you vote for a party or individual, you're getting a package deal. To an extent, you have to vote on a couple of key topics, and then you're lumped with whatever else is policy down the priority list.