Oligarch

Woops I only just noticed your request above.

No I can’t provide a link to the mumblings of one measly Beazley.

It was just an impression I got. Maybe it was wishful thinking. I dunno. Anyway, its all pretty irrelevant now.

Discussion transferred from http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=392#7657

“But that just means that any discussion on how to deal with increasing available resources ends up being a discussion about limiting population.”

Interesting comment Bugsy. Most people would not agree I guess, because they don’t even consider the population-growth / continuously-increasing-demand factor. But I would say that you should be right – any such discussion should end up talking about population, because this is generally the biggest factor in just about all resource issues, and the most ignored or maligned factor.

“Can you direct me to the posting where you plan for the effect that limiting our population will have without foreign cooperation in stabilising global population size?”

Sorry, I’m having trouble interpreting the question. Hope I’m on the right track:

If we can limit our population when the easy thing is to just let it keep growing, then we would be demonstrating to the world that it can be done. We would be setting a good example. If we don’t do this we really can’t pressure any other country to take up sustainability, can we? We’ve got to be seen to be making very solid advances towards sustainability before we can be taken seriously on the world stage. And as I have said ad-nauseum on this forum; even if we are really successful in developing new technologies and considerably reducing the average per-capita consumption of resources and production of waste, but we just continue to allow the number of consumers to keep increasing, thus greatly diluting or canceling out or completely overwhelming our technological and efficiency gains, then we are deluding ourselves and the rest of the world that we are really addressing sustainability.

“birth rates in western countries are already decreasing due to education and high living standards”

Yes. But per-capita consumption in western and developing countries is increasing. And we always have to look at population in tandem with per-capita impacts. The decreasing rates of population growth in many countries are good, but it is hardly enough. The world is grossly overpopulated and the rate of growth is still high.

continued

“how will we be treated by the international community when we refuse to take refugees and immigrants of countries that are total warzones”

We should take our share of the world’s most needy refugees. I advocate reducing our immigration rate down to about 30 000 per annum and within it doubling the refugee intake to around 25 000. Of course, we should be boosting our international aid effort as well. In fact, that is by far the most important thing – addressing refugee issues at their sources. We should increase our international aid effort to at least the UN recommended 0.6% of GDP. Currently our expenditure is a tiny fraction of that. 0.6% of our gross earnings is hardly a big amount to put towards improving the world. And again, if we can’t see our way clear to do that, we can hardly preach to other countries how to conduct themselves.

Our failure to put in a fair and reasonable international aid effort is another flaw in Australia’s responsibility to be a good global citizen.

“No, it's all very simple isn't it?”

On the national level it is, at least in theory. On the global level it certainly isn’t.

“Globally, I would suggest that population stabilisation is more likely to occur when a higher standard of living is enjoyed by people with less children.”

Absolutely. And our international aid efforts should be geared towards improving education and family planning. But yes it is difficult. I agree with you that on the global level there are enormous difficulties, especially with entrenched cultural and religious beliefs and practices and an inherent distrust of aid workers from developed countries.

But in Australia we don’t have to worry about these factors. We don’t have to worry about lowering the birthrate at all. There is only one national factor to deal with – immigration. And then there are some internal distributional issues, but overall it is vastly easier here than in most third world countries.

Now we are getting somewhere.

"If we can limit our population when the easy thing is to just let it keep growing, then we would be demonstrating to the world that it can be done. We would be setting a good example. If we don’t do this we really can’t pressure any other country to take up sustainability, can we?"

I put it to you that this statement is approaching the realms of fantasy (not in a bad way, just a mistaken hypothesis). That whatever measures we take to stabilise will be taken up by the rest of the world because we did it, I think is folly. Other countries with religious and cultural backgrounds that encourage population increase will ignore us. This has been seen time and time again in other policies that are unfavourable to domestic politics in those countries. We will of course be accused of hoarding a virtual paradise while the rest of the world goes to hell.

"All politics are local politics" - Tip O'Neill

The reaction from the Catholic Church and other religions must be factored in to your policies.

And now if I can hypothesise freely (I may be wrong of course). The "cultural shift" you have previously referred to that would allow population stability would most likely be under a banner of secular humanism, enlightened self-interest that would allow us to keep our lifestyles and let only a select few in to share. Good luck with affecting that. One major question when this immigration policy is enacted: The select few that would be allowed in to augment our stagnant population would be from which religious demographics? Hopefully not from those that do not promote birth control or the sanctity of fecundity...you'll be hearing from the discrimination commission in the UN before too long.

Even locally the population issue is much more complex than you seem to think it is, that is my major issue really. When planning, it is much easier to organise people when they are numbers until they turn up on your doorstep with flaming torches and a noose.

To understand humans, it is necessary to look at animals in similar circumstances – the most obvious examples are poultry in more or less ‘free range’ enclosures. Left to their own devices they will breed until there is no more food, then fight until enough are dead to permit more breeding. At the same time they will scratch and destroy their environment until it is a desert wasteland. Then most will die of ‘war’ and famine. Only the intervention of a farmer to allocate resources, cull excess birds, lock up land so it can recover and thus maintain an artificial ‘balance’ will prevent annihilation.
Humans live in a similar environment; the finite ‘cage’ of planet earth with very little arable land. We are breeding ourselves into war, famine and extinction with no ‘farmer’ to stop us before it’s too late. ‘Nature’ will eventually stop us through catastrophe. There are a few humans with the wisdom to prevent the impending ‘apocalypse’, but they do not hold any power, thus we are doomed – and perhaps rightly. We are behaving exactly like a virus – entering new lands and destroying them, then moving on to other ‘cells’ and destroying them, leaving behind ecological deserts. We’ve had our day, so should accept our fate gracefully

You do that ybgirp. Then, you can leave the rest of us alone.

Feelings of impotence and inability to address or understand problems lead to cynical reactions that are no help whatsoever. At least we know we cannot rely on you, since you've already given up.