“The greater our population the more advanced we will become.”

Oh dear!

Looking around the world we see a very poor correlation between population size and advanced society. The correlation is more negative than positive. This is also the case with population growth rates.

It is certainly not size that matters; it is affluence, or standard of living.

Australia has done pretty well on the world stage in terms of scientific, sporting, artistic, etc achievements. And when you consider these achievements on a per-capita basis, we have done extremely well. This is very largely because we have been a young nation that has been able to exploit a large resource base and develop a highly affluent society.

“The more population we have the greater the number of scientists we have.”

Well, if we could maintain the same level of affluence, yes. But we can’t. Things are in general decline, and our scientific / adacemic / research and development sector is declining accordingly, as progressively bigger slices of funding are redirected into more immediate issues.

Indeed, this decline is one of the really tangible symptoms of our unsustainable society.

“Currently we have less than 20 million people in Australia.”

Our population is now pushing 21 million. The main reason why we have a population that is far less than that of the USA on a similar sized area of land is because of our vastly poorer life-support systems. This is most apparent in reliable rainfall and soil fertility. If we possibly could have, we would have gained a population similar to that of the US by now.

Even with huge new water schemes and the like, we could perhaps increase our population by 50%, and perhaps even do it sustainably if we all learnt how to properly utilise our resources. But we would still be tiny on the world stage – if you judge nation size by population size.

“As the clever country we need to pursue all branches of science.”

Yes. So let’s secure our basic life-support systems and sustainability ethic. And then we will be able to do this.

Wayne I am happy to continue our discussion, but I will now be offline for probably a couple of weeks, out in the wilds doing what any good botanist and geomorphologist should be doing!

Looking at the real world that is, instead of being stuck in front of a computer screen!

Hello Wayne

Are you out there?

Do you want to continue this discussion?

"Looking around the world we see a very poor correlation between population size and advanced society."

Depends on where you look. The third world was never advanced to begin with.

"It is certainly not size that matters; it is affluence, or standard of living."

Its both.

"The main reason why we have a population that is far less than that of the USA on a similar sized area of land is because of our vastly poorer life-support systems. This is most apparent in reliable rainfall and soil fertility. If we possibly could have, we would have gained a population similar to that of the US by now."

So why not put effort into improving the soil and rainfall levels. Build desalination plants. Flood Lake Ayre. Sign the Kyoto protocol. Embrace nuclear energy. Go forward. Not back. Expand. Not diminish.

"Even with huge new water schemes and the like, we could perhaps increase our population by 50%, and perhaps even do it sustainably if we all learnt how to properly utilise our resources. But we would still be tiny on the world stage – if you judge nation size by population size."

Even 50% would be a vast improvement. More skilled labourers. More trained professionals. More doctors. More scientists. More engineers. A greater reservoir of talent.

"So let’s secure our basic life-support systems and sustainability ethic. And then we will be able to do this."

I'd rather use technology to solve the small problems you've mentioned and allow the Australian public to mutiply as they please.

Thanks for responding Wayne

“So why not put effort into improving the soil and rainfall levels.”

So why not simply learn to live within our means. I think that you will find improvement of rainfall and soils a task beyond us, at least to the extent that it could support a population anything like double our current level, let alone 14 times as big as with the US! Crikey, even if were enormously successful, we would only be able to support a few million more people, and no doubt not in a sustainable manner.

“Go forward. Not back. Expand. Not diminish.”

Why do you automatically equate expanding with going forward? Surely stabilising our population and learning to properly live within our means is the best way to move forward as a nation.

“I'd rather use technology to solve the small problems you've mentioned and allow the Australian public to multiply as they please.”

Why do you place such faith in technology? Hasn’t technology been shown to be a mixed blessing? Don’t you think that one of the main problems with technological advances is that it allows us to get further and further out of balance with or life-support systems?

Don’t you think that there are major problems with uninhibited multiplication of ourselves? At what point will the population be big enough? Will you then agree that we would need to stabilise it?