According to a report by the Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE), there are "no insurmountable technological, engineering or environmental barriers to Australia sustaining a population of 30 million by 2050". Contrary to CSIRO reports, ATSE seems to believe water scarcity and the impacts of climate change aren't an obstacle to population growth.

Interestingly, ATSE believes that the future prosperity of Australia, underpinned by population growth, will depend on our ability to maintain social cohesion in a society with even more cultural diversity than we have accommodated historically. This is due to high immigration levels driving population growth, as opposed growth derived from natural birth rates. Never mind sustainable development, population growth has to be turbo-charged for instant economic growth - importing consumers is easier than growth driven by innovation, like Finland and its Nokia phones. ATSE is basically surmising that such high population growth is inexorable, even at the expense of national social cohesion.

Such a grim high-growth scenario reminds me of Jared Diamond's warning that a society's demise may begin only a decade or two after it reaches its peak population, wealth and power. Diamond states: "Because peak population, wealth, resource consumption, and waste production are accompanied by peak environmental impact, we can now understand why declines of societies tend to follow swiftly on their peaks."

I wonder if Finland will accept Australian high-growth refugees.

Article:

http://www.sciencealert.com.au/news/20071804-15098.html

The first major problem with this study: It was all about determining whether we could accommodate 30 million people by 2050. It wasn’t at all about the advantages or disadvantages of this. So the very objective is fundamentally flawed. Surely the question should have been something like: what rate of population growth and what ultimate population should we have and when should we reach it?

Second major problem: ‘Principle finding – No insurmountable barriers’. This suggests that any current barriers can be relatively easily overcome. But in reality some of them will be extremely difficult to overcome and will only be conquered if we really get our technological act together. And there is not a good indication that we are going to do that to the extent necessary.

Third problem: It takes the growth-is-good-doctrine as gospel. It accept that we will continue to have significant population growth end of story, although it states that without immigration, and with current fertility, mortality and emigration rates, our population will not reach 22 million. Any consideration of this stable population, which could be easily achieved, was clearly beyond the scope of the study, which it shouldn’t have been!

It doesn’t take into account the finite nature of many of our resources, declining rainfall and yields in the agricultural sector, the increasing and just about untreatable issues of salinity, weeds, pathogens, declining soil fertility, etc or radically changed economics due to rising fuel prices or real estate prices becoming more and more out of reach for a large section of the populace or the poor and decreasing quality of police and regulatory authorities or the fact that this precious growth dogma has not led to a significant average increase in our quality of life over the last three or more decades, and that we are bound to fall into a declining quality of life when this resource boom ends (phew, a 120 word sentence!).

continued

It doesn’t tell us what is going to happen after 2050. If population growth is so vital, then it is surely just going to continue for as long as it possibly can, which means the 30 million mark is pretty pointless. If population growth is not vital to our future prosperity (and it certainly isn’t), then surely we should have the goal of stopping it well before we reach the ‘insurmountable’ barriers.

The project context: ‘Looking ahead to 2050’ is critically flawed by its acceptance of continuous expansionism not only up to 2050 but beyond with no end in sight. Surely the context should have been how to reach sustainability by 2050, if not well before.

Sorry ATSE, but it’s rubbish.

Like many of these predictions they ignore the reallity of energy decent
that will start with peak oil. It is dreamboat stuff !

How will it be possible to support these larger populations without the energy resources to produce the food and industrial support they
would need.
In the long term it will be very difficult to support the population we
now have.

Lets put things in perspective, the population of the UK is 60 million. That's in an area of 244,820 sq kilometers.

Australia 20.8 million in 7,741,220 sq kilometers.

So basically it means that the population of the UK live in the same amount of space as Victoria. (237,629 sq K)

So to say that in 2050 we could not sustain a population half that of the UK at present is clearly rubbish.

Okay Oligarch - comparing Australia to non-mulitcultural states, make an effective case that this social cohesion really is a big deal.

I see a multicultural Australia, and I see a society that has less conflict than other nations. I see a country that is working well, and anti-immigrationists trying to tell me that its going to hell in a handbasket.

I don't believe you. I believe the issue is blown out of proportion, and rather than looking at the bigger picture, you're looking at a few examples and isolated incidents, and creating a vast conspiracy.

I can believe that 'social cohesion' is a problematic issue.
As for a vast problem that threatens to doom Australia, you're going to have to point to more than a few brawls and racists.

Quite frankly, I'm much more worried about water. We're running out in almost all our major cities, yet still people are yammering about issues like 'social cohesion.'

Steve Madden, what are you thinking ? Trying to compare population and land mass, as you are trying to do with the UK is meaningless. Why do you think England is called a "Green and pleasant land"? Most of our land mass is desert with fragile and nutrient poor soil, easily damaged with creeping salinity in what was often our most fertile areas. A climate of extreme temperatures with unreliable rainfall doesn't help.

Actually, Snake and Steve, you're both wrong, though Steve's closer to the mark.

You're basically comparing which country needs imports to sustain their population more - and the answer is Britain.

Snake - it's irrelevant which country. If it suits, change it to Japan - don't try to tell me Japan has comparable arable land to population ratio when compared to Australia. The notion's ridiculous.

And in terms of Arable land, Britain's land may be of better quality, but it's not that much better. Think about it. It's tiny compared to the many arable parts of Australia, even discounting the vast expanse of desert.

Ha Snake

I had anticipated your reply, Victoria has a significantly higher rainfall than the UK (last years figures) and I am only talking about half the UK population in 43 years time.

What about Rockhampton and north plenty of rain, plenty of fertile land, no infrastucture.

Sure there are areas of Australia where people should live in harmony with the fragile environment, but this is not the rule where most people live or want to live.

Unfortunately the "sustainable" population debate has been hijacked by single issue fanatics pushing their own agendas.

You are all ignoring the energy equation.
Growing food requires fertiliser, tractor fuel, transport fuel,
processing fuel etc etc.
We are literaly eating oil.
Together with our water problems we are in for a pretty tight time.
We need to keep our population at least steady.
The days of growth are coming to an end.
The days of the 2000km banana are also coming to an end.
You will grow it where you eat it.
When ? Well thats a hard one, sometime between now and 10 years time.

It is pointless trying to ignore the energy equation it will
predominate over global warming and all the other problems.

MURRAY DARLING farmers have just been told "Unless there is substantial rain in the catchment your massive vegy/fruit growing area will receive ZERO water this year"

Now.. translate this into food prices etc..... and we have a problem.

Steve, UK has MASSIVE rain fall mate.. every year. Australia has very LITTLE. The area means nothing, the NATURE of the area means everything.

With other posts telling us about oil crisis and farmers getting no water, I'm feeling more confirmed in my investment choice of a small property in 1998 with the thought of having to be self sustaining in 'a few years time'.

The UK doesn't actually recieve a whole lot of rain. What matters with rainfall is not the quantity, but the difference between rainfall and evaporation. Say, if you left a bucket in the backyard whether it would be full or empty most of the time. In that regard, the UK is far better off, which is of course why it is so green.

Have any of you been to the UK? If so, why would you want Australia to be anything like that? Who says the UK is living sustainably?

The UK is also largely recently glaciated, which renewed soil fertility, in stark contrast to the very stable highly leached defertilised soils sitting above a concentrated salt zone over much of Australia.

OK

You don't like my analogy of the fact that 30 million people could easily fit into an area the size of Victoria.

How about this little known fact "Australia's average rainfall of 490mm last year was slightly more than the long-term average of 472mm, but it fell unevenly across the continent."

This is in contrast to London's 30 year average of 55mm. The 30 year average for Melbourne is 350mm.

So although many areas are in severe drought our continent is not. The problem is that successive governments for over 50 years have done relatively little to drought proof Australia.

Our challenge in the next 50 years is to do what should have already been done. Then a population of 100,000,000 will be quite feasible.

Peak oil is another furphy, there is plenty of oil. What we are running out of is cheap oil (can someone explain why the cost of oil imports went down 8% last qtr but the bowser price went up 5%).

Oil sands and shale oil in Canada and Venezuela have greater oil reserves than all of the middle east. This is economic to extract at $40 per barrel.

Remember Australia is a net energy exporter.

TurnRightThenLeft, history has demonstrated time and again that multicultural states eventually fail. Then again, history is apparently not your forte.

You see a society that has less conflict than other nations, but where are you looking? Australia and Canada are often hailed as multicultural success stories, but in reality, both countries suffer from a weak sense of national identity. As demographic changes occur in favour of immigrant minorities, problems of social cohesion will only be compounded. How can Australia meet the challenges of the future without a sense of collective identity? Whether or not one loves traditional Australia, one only has to do the math and observe the trends to understand that the Australia of the future will in no way resemble the Australia of today.

ATSE outlined the problem of social cohesion associated with high immigration. Peter Costello has warned the same. This is not merely some "conspiracy" imagined by myself. Furthermore, I have posted numerous times on the relationship between population growth and water shortages. The fact that you still support the high immigration paradigm in this day and age does cause me to question your rationality. Unlike yourself, I am more concerned with the well-being of the people already here.

Its easy Steve,
EROEI are the magic letters.
The tar sands will never be more than marginal supply.
They expect to reach 2 Million b/d by 2020 approx.
The energy required to produce a barrel is just about a barrel's worth.
It will get harder as they have to dig deeper.
There is a polution problem as well.
Canadian gas is in depletion now and North America is on the verge
of very serious gas shortages. They use the gas to melt the tar.

Oil will go up & down in price as costs bight and a demand destruction sets in.
The poorer countries cut back because they could not afford the price.
No matter how you look at it, where you grow it is where you will eat it.
The energy required to fit out 10 million or in your latest suggestion
100,000,000 is just out of the question in the longer term.
We may have no time at all or if the optimists are correct we have 10 years.
Problem is the governments are betting on the optimists.
Have you wondered at Costello's gift of $2000 for gas in your car ?

Steve Madden, your comparison between Victoria and the UK completely overlooks Australia's high evaporation rate. Almost 90% of all rainfall and snowfall in Australia evaporates, compared to the world average of approximately 65%. In fact, out of all of the continents, Australia has the lowest percentage of rainfall which actually reaches storages or streams. Now combine this with declining rainfall in the southern, less arid parts of the continent, and water scarcity becomes an ongoing problem. In these circumstances, why the hell would we want another 10 million people?

Steve Madden

“Sure there are areas of Australia where people should live in harmony with the fragile environment, but this is not the rule where most people live or want to live.”

What? So you are saying that it is alright for us not to live in harmony with our environment where it is deemed not to be “fragile”?

“Unfortunately the "sustainable" population debate has been hijacked by single issue fanatics pushing their own agendas.”

Good lord! As far as I can see, those on this thread and others on OLO are concerned about population for the right reasons. You might find one or two who want a unicultural Australia and don’t care too much about sustainability, but you could hardly tar the whole canvas with that sort of brush. I think you are trying to hijack the discussion by suggesting that your detractors have disingenuous motives.

“Then a population of 100,000,000 will be quite feasible.”

Well maybe 30 or even 40 million… if we really got our acts together on the full gamut of resource-efficiency improvements, alternative and all other technological advances. But why on earth would you want 100 million let alone 30 million? Why would you even think twice about it?

Surely the only thing we should really be thinking about is how to achieve that currently extremely elusive sustainability imperative with all the urgency it deserves….which necessitates bringing demand into line with supply, and hence a halt to population growth in this country forthwith.

Then once we are sure that we have achieved that, or are definitely going to achieve it, we might think about increasing the population….a little bit.

Why would you want a situation where all the technological improvements that we make are just chasing the tail of ever-increasing pressure on our resource base and environment generated by an ever-increasing population?

The simple fact is that we have to do both together – maximise technological improvements / resource efficiencies and alternative energy sources…and….stabilise population.

Oligarch.

At last we come to the real question " why the hell would we want another 10 million people?"

My answer to this question is so we can pay for the infrastucture that is desparately needed and that is limited by our tiny population.

Given that if you include Australia's antarctic and fishing zone we lay claim to about one fifth of the worlds surface is a population of 20 million sustainable?

But of course "the oligarchic elite impose strict limits on what constitutes an 'acceptable' and 'respectable' political position." :)

Given the Namby -Pamby ,tail -between- our- legs attitude of Aust Govts to such issues .I think we should drop the pronoun ‘our’ when referring to the Antarctic territories.

It’s ‘ours’ only in the sense we are its current guardians .
When push comes to shove we are likely to have no claim -& no show.

Steve

I get worried by the logistical calculations of population growth advocates.

"How about this little known fact "Australia's average rainfall of 490mm last year was slightly more than the long-term average of 472mm, but it fell unevenly across the continent."

This is in contrast to London's 30 year average of 55mm. The 30 year average for Melbourne is 350mm."

London's average annual is about 13 times your claimed figure. On your rainfall ration, I think that the UK could not support 5 million people.

http://www.londondrum.com/info/weather.php

http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/yourenv/eff/1190084/natural_forces/weather_climate/?lang=_e

What's more, the rain falls fairly evenly year round, not seasonally and erratically as in Australia.

Does your erroneous understanding of London's rainfall affect your belief in Australia supporting 100 million people? We may not be able to feed our current population if the dry spell continues, yet you think Australia can feasibly support five times as many.

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,21592458-952,00.html

Ludwig.

In many of your posts on this subject you assert that our resources are being stretched by our population and argue that it should be reduced.

Australia is a net energy exporter so energy is not a resource that is under pressure.

Australia exports more agricultural produce than is consumed domestically so food is not under pressure.

Australia had more rainfall last year than the 30 year average, so its not lack of rain, its lack of water infrastructure.

Sorry if my opinion goes against conventional wisdom, but in my view we cannot afford not to increase our population.

Some very poor thinking here.

We can only have a stable, sustainable population, and silly comparisons of UK land area to Victoria only expose the poverty of the thinking behind those who want to destroy Australia for future generations.

If we need 30 million, why would this then be enough, would we not still be addicted to 60M?

These population pundits are not really interested in any particular sized population - they just want growth irrespective of the problems.

Unnatural, boosted, artificial growth gives lazy business easy profits and homeowners capital gains. This totally distorts market signals compared to the normal distribution of productive resources in Australia. It also distorts interest rates.

Those wanting 30M should explain why 30M, as so far there only interest in 30M appears to be the simple fact that it is substaintially more than today.

This logic threatens Australia.

Steve

Coping with a growing population has brought about the infrastructure crisis in the first instance. Funding for transport infrastructure desperately needed to facilitate mineral exports, Australia's major income source, is severely hampered because of this.

Steve, I have never argued that our population should reduced but rather, that we should get off the continuous growth spiral and head directly towards a stable level….which we could very easily do by simply reducing immigration down to about net zero or less, while just accepting our fertility rate as a very good thing that doesn’t need to be increased by the stupid baby bonus, or reduced by anti-natalist policies.

“Australia had more rainfall last year than the 30 year average, so its not lack of rain, its lack of water infrastructure.”

We actually had more than the average when considering the whole country! Great. But it certainly wasn’t where it was needed. Yes part of the problem is a lack of infrastructure….in conjunction with population overload on the water resources in most of our major cities and high-population regions. Yes it is drought, but more significantly it is the lack of preparedness for inevitable drought events.

Two things count here; resource and infrastructure planning and the absurdity of allowing the demand to continuously increase in regions with poor resource provision and infrastructure….and the screaming lunatic level of absurdity of continuing to allow this demand to increase now, during times of crisis!!

It is all very well to say that there is plenty of water. But it’s meaningless if it is not where it is needed, and if it takes many years and huge economic cost to either pipe it to the populace or to move the people to the water.

So when considering resource scarcity, we have to think about where the resources are, where the people are and the whole economics of resource utilisation. In fact, you can hardly consider it to be a real resource if it is not readily utilisable, can you? A potential resource at best.

“Australia is a net energy exporter...” and “…exports more agricultural produce than is consumed domestically…”

Yes, and we could and should be using this huge energy reserve and ‘excess’ food production to gear ourselves onto a sustainable footing. But instead we are using them to take us directly into crisis, by way of allowing it to facilitate continuous rapid population growth, and allowing our economy to become dependent on this degree of export.

“ ‘why the hell would we want another 10 million people’ My answer to this question is so we can pay for the infrastucture that is desparately needed and that is limited by our tiny population”

With respect, this sounds like classic dog-chasing-its-tail thinking. You think that more people will produce and pay for the infrastructure shortfall that exists with the current population, but you don’t even consider the extra cost and infrastructure that will automatically be needed to cater for this extra 10 million!!

So the question remains effectively unanswered.

“…but in my view we cannot afford not to increase our population.”

Why? Surely you would have to have a really good reason for wanting a population significantly larger than the level that we could easily stabilise it at. This is surely has got to sit right at the core of your argument. As old zygote suggests; the onus must be on you to explain why Australia should have a larger population, not the other way around, yes?

Fester you are correct, my stating that London's avarage rainfall was 55 mm was obviously wrong. I mistook monthly totals for yearly totals, I apologise.

We have a chicken and egg argument, but when was the last "world class civil engineering project" started in Australia? 1949. Almost sixty years of doing SFA.

Given the current wisdom that we have to have user pays for everything we will never have the infrastructure we need.

Guess when this headline was from "Federal Cabinet today moved a step closer to a major overhaul of the nation's water policies. Irrigation could be cut and water rights suspended"? 5/11/2002, nearly five years ago what happened?

Australia could easily have a much larger population that could reinvigourate our regional centers, but we are content to sit on our collective backsides and do nothing.

More people, more taxes, more infrastructure, more wealth, economies of scale, regional centers booming.

Look outside the conventional wisdom that has let us down for 60 years.

Was it Steve that said we had 600 years of coal ?

Well, a German group has recently completed a study of world coal reserves.
The world will reach peak coal in 2025.

http://www.energywatchgroup.org/files/Coalreport.pdf

It will be worth a read.
Another peak that not many have considered is copper.
Some reports in resource financial papers have mentioned
the shortage of copper to explain the rising price on the LME.
It seems that all the easy copper has been mined, sound familar ?
So I have read about oil, gas, copper, uranium, & coal peaking;
Any others ?

Just for starters these materials will limit what can be done for
an expanding population.
I am not an "end of the world as we know it" ist I am a pessimist
as far as peak oil is concerned but an optimist in the longer term.
I believe we will muddle through, but with a smaller world population.

Oh one more thing that tie our hands in even considering a larger
population, besides water that is;

We import 45% and increasing about 5% a year, of our oil.
All of our oil companies are subsiduries of the large European and
US companies. What do you think those companies will tell their
Australian offices when they have trouble placing bid orders for oil
to satisfy US and European countries ?

What we need will be a drop in their bucket and we will have to
survive on an immediate 50% cut if it happened tomorrow,
or a 55% cut if next year.
That would be our worse case scenario as it would give no time
to implement mitigation procedures.