“Eventually we will come into contact with somebody as clever and vicious as ourselves and I believe such an encounter will be devastating if we are not strong enough to demand respect.”

Wayne, now you are touching on my concerns about national defence in a world of growing aggression and resource stress (have you seen my posts under ‘Enriching Australia’?)

Yes I do think there is merit in developing a nuclear defence capability for this reason. And if we do that, maybe we should develop nuclear energy on a broader scale.

But you do seem to greatly overplay the availability of uranium and to underplay the huge dangers involved with playing around with this stuff.

“Planning for a stable future is naive.”

It is really unfortunate that you believe this. Developing our nuclear resource is not at odds with the necessity to stop expanding and learn to live within the sustainable ability of our resource base to keep supplying all our basic needs

I'm new here and haven't read many prior posts at the forum. I'll try and find a moment to read your enriching Australia discussion.

I don't believe I ever mentioned a nuclear defence system but I'm in agreement that we should pursue one. Japan is now discussing that same option and have enough mox to build a thousand nukes. Technologically advanced as they are it would take them less than 12 months to develop it according to analysts.

Being surrounded by nuclear nations like Russia, China and N.Korea we would be well within our rights to withdraw from the nuclear proliferation treaty and build our own defensive arsenals.

"But you do seem to greatly overplay the availability of uranium and to underplay the huge dangers involved with playing around with this stuff."

Uranium is a common element. Thorium is even more common and would probably be used instead. The huge dangers are a myth. Only one accident resulting in fatalities over 20 years ago is not high risk. Only 29 people died. Over 10,000 people die every year from coal burning. Even cars kill over a million people each year. Do you want to ban automobiles? Nobody condones "playing around with this stuff". Modern reactor designs are very safe.

"necessity to stop expanding and learn to live within the sustainable ability of our resource base"

I find the notion of bottling us up abhorrent. We should instead green up the desert and expand into the uninhabited 90% of this continent. Build a trench from the sea to empty Lake Ayr which is below sea level and let it fill up. Then evaporation will create clouds and rain.

Wayne we seem to share a common concern about the possible procurement of a nuclear defence capability. Good.

Well I think it is good. I mean, I find this subject almost to awful to contemplate, and it seems that this is the way of it with others too. Only one or two people responded to my comments under ‘Enriching Australia’. It seems that it was too ugly for those who had already commented on that thread or had read the comments to formulate any response.

“The huge dangers are a myth.”

Yes, with all our technological improvements, nuclear plants and the whole industry is pretty safe when it comes to accidents.

But.... I think the real risks lie with major conflict, when plants might be bombed or sabotaged... or the possibility of economic decline due to the continuation of a chronically unsustainable lifestyle leading to corners being cut and plants becoming unsafe. Only one incident could have absolutely enormous consequences.

“I find the notion of bottling us up abhorrent.”

I find the way that you think about this very interesting. You equated stability directly with stagnation and now you equate the notion of living within the sustainable ability of our resource base as bottling us up.

So, would you want us to not live within our means?

If we can in the future feel confident that our resource base can sustainably support a bit of expansion, then fine. But that certainly isn’t the case at the moment.

If we overstep the mark and alllow basic resource provision to go into decline, we won’t be expanding but will be forced to shrink back to smaller-scale operations, will suffer an awful backward step in quality of life and will have our research and development capabilities severely restricted.

Carefully managing the scale of all things human is of fundamental importance to us being able to maximise our growth. Growth in terms of technological advancements and improved efficiencies, that is. So, limiting growth in terms of human expansion is of fundamental importance to maintaining or increasing growth in terms of good developments.

"plants might be bombed or sabotaged."

We should certainly factor that into our new plant designs. Currently the concrete domes over reactors can withstand a direct hit by a Jumbo Jet but there is no reason why we couldn't further reinforce them. I also believe that we should hand over the responsibility of protecting such plants to the military. This will ensure that theft and terrorism as well as aerial attack become virtually impossible. I'd set up a battery of anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems. I'd also give military guards orders to shoot trespassers. If GreenPeace members are stupid enough to ignore the warnings on the fence then they deserve to die.

"So, would you want us to not live within our means?"

I'd like us to increase our resources. There is no reason why we couldn't be the leading Space technology nation on Earth. I'm not talking about following NASA's backward methods. Our solar system has virtually unlimited resources and space. A determined investment in private sector space launch technology would allow us to expand into and colonise the solar system.

We should strive to expand by both greening up the hinterland of Australia and planning ahead by taking steps to conquer Space. Only political will is lacking. The technological capability exists and only requires application.

If we instead choose to stabilise and not grow then other nations will continue to expand and eventually threaten our safety. The only advantage America and other advanced nations have over the rest of the world is Nuclear Weapons capability. That advantage will be shortlived. The antiquated Nuclear Proliferation Treaty is nothing more than a piece of paper and nobody ever really intended to honour it. Secret developmental programs are going on worldwide. I foresaw N.Korea, Pakistan, India and Iran developing bombs long ago. They are just the tip of the iceberg. All the anti-nuclear treaties ever did was push research underground.

How long do you think it will be before this 1940's technology is successfully aquired by those who would gladly wipe us off the face of the Earth?

Wayne, I asked;

"So, would you want us to not live within our means?"

I don’t think you’ve really answered this vital question. Surely the most important thing of all is for us to live well within our means, with a big safety margin. If we don’t do that, we can just forget about having a dynamic technological / scientific / academic / research and development sector.

Sustainability comes first, end of story.

In securing sustainability we are also presumably securing a healthy science capability…. and all the things that you desire can proceed at a pace.

So why don’t we green up the hinterland of Australia? Because of the initial costs, the lack of sufficient returns and the long-term decline in productivity – all the things that we have learnt about pushing agriculture too far in the past on this continent. In short; economics that don’t add up. And this is the scenario coming from the pro-expansionist lobby!

When we also factor in the increased population that large-scale agricultural expansion would facilitate, and thus the failure to provide a bigger per-capita return after an initial boom, and then suffer a per-capita decline as soil-fertility declined, salinity increased, dams silted up, dry periods reduced productivity, etc, etc, I think it is a very good thing NOT to expand the greening of Australia, but rather to learn to live with what we’ve got, with minimal modification.

Exploring space is all well and good, but if you want to plan ahead in a meaningful manner and in an appropriate timeframe, then getting us off the insanity of continuous expansion and implementing sustainability is 100% definitely the thing that you need to concentrate on

"In securing sustainability we are also presumably securing a healthy science capability…."

The greater our population the more advanced we will become. Technology and science require ever increasing research specialties. The more population we have the greater the number of scientists we have. We can no longer live off the sheep's back. As the clever country we need to pursue all branches of science. Currently we have less than 20 million people in Australia. There are more individuals than that in New York! Either we expand or perish.

"So why don’t we green up the hinterland of Australia? Because of the initial costs, the lack of sufficient returns and the long-term decline in productivity"

I disagree. There are cost effective long-term solutions to reversing the climate change which has gradually turned arable land arid in Australia's inland area's.

Space exploration is an egotistical enterprise. I'm talking about space conquest. Colonisation and engineering enterprises on a scale which would make the builders of Titanic faint.

Short term? How about mirrors between the Earth and Sun to increase evaporation in certain areas and increase rainfall? That's just straight off the top of my head. Solar shades could achieve opposite results where needed. There is no reaso why we can't take charge of our destiny and go into the weather control business.