Ludwig... I am wordless with admiration - seriously. What beats me is how you sustain your optimism. Another thing I find perplexing is that all except one of the serious, practical environmentalists, conservationista and worriers about sustainability I have contact with are childless couples in late middle age who will probably avoid the worst of the troubles to come. The breeders are carrying on as if there's no tomorrow.

Bugsy, you asked; “what are you actually doing about it?”

I gave you a full and frank answer and you have given absolutely no response. Some sort of response would have been nice.

“There are many problems with just banging on about population levels”

Hells bells – my posts on this forum, and my input over many years has been all about putting population into context with other factors that impact on our environment, quality of life and future wellbeing.

“trying to cut immigration in the short term won't be the solution.”

It is one of the biggest and most easily addressed factors. But of course it won’t be THE solution.

“Redistribution of the population”

I would be in favour of that if it was of limited and well-planned extent and conducted within an overall sustainability policy. But if it is just going to lead to new areas being opened up for settlement, or the conversion of sleepy fishing villages to Mcmansion avenues, ad-nauseum, then no thanks.

continued

“I think recycled water has a great advantage that if people are afraid of it, then they can move to an area not affected by water shortages.”

Yeah, move to areas that are not under resource stress now and put them under stress. Again, within a sustainability paradigm some redistribution would be appropriate, but outside of it, redistribution basically means just stressing more and more areas.

“If water recycling can repel people from moving to areas under water… then I'm all for it! It's one of those win-win situations”

It’s not going to stop people from moving into an area unless it is bad enough to strongly affect the quality of life of current residents. That’s not a win-win situation.

“The cities need to be less attractive, that at least can help”

I don’t believe it! This is entirely the wrong way of thinking about it. You are saying that if we let the overall quality of life decline or resource stress increase to the point that the whole caboodle looks much less attractive, then we won’t have to worry about population growth and its effects of lowering quality of life and increasing resource stress! Wow!

“….many of them are applicable with or without a population policy”

No they aren’t. Not in cities and regions with strong population growth pressure.

Thanks ybgirp

“What beats me is how you sustain your optimism”

I don’t know if I’d call it optimism. I just can’t imagine being a serious environmentalist or advocate for the maintenance of a half-decent quality of life without being involved in the big-picture issues and without being fundamentally concerned about at least the medium-term future if not the whole sustainability bit.

I’ve been involved with all sorts of ‘subissues’ for longer than I’ve been an ardent sustainabilityist, such as land clearing, weeds and feral animals, fire, water, rare & threatened species, etc. But I realized pretty early on that there’s not a lot of point in being passionate about those sorts of things if you can’t see the big picture and put at least a fair portion of your efforts into it.

One of my main gripes when I was president and committee member of the North Queensland Conservation Council was this very strong tendency for people to be totally absorbed in particular issues or campaigns and just not interested in the big picture. The tendency was to be highly reactive and not very proactive at all, or perhaps proactive within very narrow parameters. That’s the main reason why I left. And it has become my main point of contention when I detect it on this forum.

I found a much broader level of concern in Sustainable Population Australia (Inc). http://www.population.org.au/

I should add that NQCC has changed and is highly supportive of population / sustainability issues now.

Climate change may well provide the catalyst for the implementation of a sustainable population policy here in Australia. As the CSIRO has outlined, climate change will reduce Australia's capacity to sustain a large population even further as the continent experiences extreme weather events and less rainfall in the southern parts of the country. Our current water shortages are merely a preliminary symptom.

Blind Freddy can see that Howard and the States need to curb the immigration-fuelled population explosion if they are serious about addressing the nation's water shortages. Sadly, the new Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews has announced there will be no reduction in migrant intake levels for 2007-2008. Even with the looming spectre of climate change, our cretinous leaders are still completely acquiescent to the rapacious demands of big business. How sickening.

As Tim Gosling stated in his OLO article from 2006:

"The only reason Australia should ever grow its population is to make life better for the people who are here now. A growing population is terrific if you are a property developer worth $300 million and are intent on becoming a property developer worth $500 million. But for the average person, water “shortages” are just one of the many signs of life getting WORSE with population growth."

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=4154

Historically, humans have always only responded to catastrophe – and always too late. The planet is littered with the remains of civilizations that waited too long and were annihilated by climatic changes. We’re the same species, there’s been no evolution, and we’re softer both physically and mentally, so it’s silly to expect modern humans to react differently from their ancestors. Just make sure you’re on high ground, far from centres of dense population, with plenty of drinking water and a few years supply of food, and a couple of packets of sleeping pills and a large plastic bag for when it gets too tough, and you’ll outlast just about everyone else – for a while.