Bugsy

The first impression that I get is that you aren’t interested in sustainability and are quite content for the population to keep on growing in an uncontrolled manner. I hope that is not so.

Your concerns about implementing increased restrictions on peoples’ right to live where they want and do what they want are real. We all care about that sort of thing. But it is the very act of getting out of whack with our resource base that is leading directly to more and more restrictions on us all. And this can’t be more obvious than with water.

So if we implement genuine sustainability strategies, some further restrictions will be necessary. But if we let the antisustainability momentum continue, you can bet that the restrictions on us all will continue to increase and ultimately be much worse.

Besides, I think that the sort of restrictions that you envisage regarding population stabilization are probably much harsher than what I would think necessary. All we really need is a gearing down of immigration, the abolition of pro-natalist policies such as the baby bonus, and proper planning and regulation of building approvals by all levels government especially in population stressed areas, so that the stable populations can be achieved in those places.

These things in combination with improved resource-provision technologies and more efficient usage will see us on the right track.

Not hard… and certainly not draconian.

Bugsy, they dont live like that because there is no personal restriction. There is no impact to someone personally (ie you will DIE if you use all of your resource), apart from having to let your lawn die. I currently live in a town with no water restrictions, so what do I do... water my garden, take showers, use an automatic washing machine etc etc. If you force people to confront the reality of their scarce resource, they are much more likely to start using it more sensibly.

I am not for zero population growth - just that we shouldnt grow any faster than our resources can handle. One would expect that ongoing advances in technology will help us to stretch current resources further, so growth is possible and probably, without necessarily increasing the need for more resources.

Ludwig is right in that we do need to reduce world population to a level to match energy availability.
However Ludwig does not seem to accept
that sustainability can be on a large scale. We do not need to find a 5
acre plot and live in the 15th century.
Large scale energy may be more efficient than individual efforts.
Whether Australia needs to reduce population is another matter.
When the global warming business first came to my notice in the 1990s
it was said authoritavly that Australia would get more rain.
Now that we have a drought they are saying authorativily that we will get less.
Hmmmm 180 deg shift to suit the lastest news ?

I agree that “sustainability” is certainly great to have. However neither of you have really defined a success condition for “sustainability”. How will you know when sustainability has been achieved? Who gets to set the criteria?

“Sustainability” is actually an ill-defined goal, because it has multiple implicit goals contained within it. Example: If we recycle, will we be sustainable? No, probably not. Single measures on such complex problems are usually doomed to failure if taken by themselves. Usually you have to take multiple measures together simultaneously to achieve success.

Once these measures are taken, are we then sustainable? Not if the population keeps growing you say. Reducing population growth is one of the hardest things to establish in policy in a free country, that is why I said “good luck with that”.

What I really have issue with is though is the attitudes:
Ludwig: “A policy of sustainability...(edited for size), instead of just pandering a constantly increasing demand, is ESSENTIAL. But in the absence of such a policy, it is hard to support any of these ideas.”

Which means to me: “well these ideas are fine, but if we can’t be sustainable, then I must support doing nothing until it is”.
I think this is a naïve attitude, as I believe all the above ideas are PART of making us “sustainable”.

But the big issue I have is with CG: ‘That's why I am a proponent, of "let it run out"’

Which means to me: “Let it run out, that’ll teach ‘em a lesson”. This kind of attitude is irresponsible at best and displays an utter contempt for city dwellers at worst. It cannot be realistically and consciously implemented by any elected leader, which prompted me to declare my relief that you are not one of them.

So lets return to reality and start debating about whether recycling and other measures can work without being a health hazard, which I believe they certainly can. If you want a sustainability discussion, start your own thread on it, this one’s about WATER.

I agree that “sustainability” is certainly great to have. However neither of you have really defined a success condition for “sustainability”. How will you know when sustainability has been achieved? Who gets to set the criteria?

“Sustainability” is actually an ill-defined goal, because it has multiple implicit goals contained within it. Example: If we recycle, will we be sustainable? No, probably not. Single measures on such complex problems are usually doomed to failure if taken by themselves. Usually you have to take multiple measures together simultaneously to achieve success.

Once these measures are taken, are we then sustainable? Not if the population keeps growing you say. Reducing population growth is one of the hardest things to establish in policy in a free country, that is why I said “good luck with that”.

What I really have issue with is though is the attitudes:
Ludwig: “A policy of sustainability...(edited for length of post), instead of just pandering a constantly increasing demand, is ESSENTIAL. But in the absence of such a policy, it is hard to support any of these ideas.”

Which means to me: “well these ideas are fine, but if we can’t be sustainable, then I must support doing nothing until it is”.
I think this is a naïve attitude, as I believe all the above ideas are PART of making us “sustainable”.

But the big issue I have is with CG: ‘That's why I am a proponent, of "let it run out"’

Which means to me: “Let it run out, that’ll teach ‘em a lesson”. This kind of attitude is irresponsible at best and displays an utter contempt for city dwellers at worst. It cannot be realistically and consciously implemented by any elected leader, which prompted me to declare my relief that you are not one of them.

So lets return to reality and start debating about whether recycling and other measures can work without being a health hazard, which I believe they certainly can. If you want a sustainability discussion, start your own thread on it, this one’s about WATER.

“I am not for zero population growth - just that we shouldnt grow any faster than our resources can handle. One would expect that ongoing advances in technology will help us to stretch current resources further, so growth is possible and probably, without necessarily increasing the need for more resources.”

Country Gal, we need to head for at least zero population growth if not reduction until we are confident that the demands on our resource base are not exceeding long-term supply capability. Then if we can gain this confidence, some further growth could be possible.

Continued improvements in technology and increases in efficient resource usage will very likely make further growth possible within a sustainable paradigm. But at present they are struggling to get us up to the sustainability mark and are being severely hampered by the rapidly and constantly increasing demands being exerted on all sorts of resources.

The trouble is, if you are not in favour of zero population growth, you must be in favour of a continuously increasing population, and that doesn’t compute when it comes to the necessary sacred balance between our life-support systems and the pressure we exert on them. It simply makes no sense to continue expanding with no end in sight, even if we do it really slowly. We simply must gear ourselves towards a population that is not continuously expanding.

Tim Flannery reckons the ideal population for Australia is between six and twelve million and he is arguably one of the most qualified people to make this judgement. If it is true, and I believe it is, then we are a long way over our sustainable population, and we really do quite desperately need to reach a stable level if not a reduction, and quickly.