>>Perecles is partly right when he says that overpopulation is the cause of the current world pain in many areas<<

Actually, it was sharkfin who said this, not me. I observe that some of the most densely populated areas on the planet are also the richest - Hong Kong springs to mind, the UK, even Switzerland.

In my view, population has very little to do, per se, with either prosperity or poverty.

For example, Zimbabwe has abundant mineral reserves of gold, nickel, asbestos, coal, copper, chrome, iron ore, silver, and tin, and only 10 million people to share the wealth. Yet the average citizen is dirt poor, and starving.

But for sheer head-in-the-sand arrogance, goforit, you deserve a prize for this little gem:

>>The "African farmer" together with his large family takes very little. He is only a threat to the world when he tries to mimic the "freedom loving, progressive, democratic, affluent ( and suicidal) citizens of the developed countries.<<

Let me understand this. You are saying that the African farmer is a threat to the world, if he wants to have a better life? He should continue in his abject dollar-a-day grind, simply so that you can continue to live your life of affluence?

If he does otherwise, he becomes a threat?

That has to be the most selfish attitude yet presented on this forum.

>>This is a moral issue<<

I'll say.

The world has managed very well so far to improve the lot of its inhabitants. From the doomsday position of the fifties and sixties, where we were going to exhaust the world's resources before the year 2000, we have not only improved on average the condition of everyone on the planet, but have added a billion or so more along the way.

Despite this, you want us to penalize those who want to better themselves, because in doing so they become a threat to the rest of us?

That is the most incredibly self-centred, selfish, uncharitable, greedy, egotistic, illiberal, mean and self-indulgent attitude imaginable.

(My thanks to Roget for helping out with that last sentence)

"If you have an intelligent option that will solve the "how", then you might find more people interested in the "what"."

Quite simple. Start by offering every man and woman on the planet the
option of affordable and available family planning!

“I'm all for population stabilsation...just wary about how.”

Alzo, I would suggest that it is just simply impossible to deal with this issue globally, but that we can easily be deal with it in Australia.

“And we are not really talking about Australia's population as it is in natural decline anyway.”

Australia’s population is certainly not in decline, nor anywhere near it. Neither would it be with net zero immigration. This is an extraordinary furphy deliberately promulgated by the likes of Costello. With very easy completely non-Draconian steps, we could steer Australia’s population towards a stable level. But it is not even really being talked about at a significant level. Of course it should be being discussed with as much fervour as the issues of climate change and water!
.
“Despite this, you want us to penalize those who want to better themselves, because in doing so they become a threat to the rest of us? That is the most incredibly self-centred… attitude imaginable.”

That’s an awfully twisted interpretation Pericles. Obviously it is true that if the third world was to ‘better’ itself in the same sort of way as the first world have, it would lead to impossible basic resource-supply issues and massive strife. There is no mean-spirited attitude in simply stating this. Rather than seeing it that way, you should appreciate the enormous paradox involved.

I agree with you Ludwig ,
Pericles appears to be assuming the worst of human motives for bringing up population growth limitations .
Women if given power and education will by choice limit their family size .
I notice today [ABC RADIO NATIONAL] that Mexico is about to vote on abortions in the first trimester in pregnancy with the vote approximately 50/50 and this a country that is overwhelming Catholic .
We in the rich west should share our wealth if necessary by increased taxation as we encourage free comphrehensive public education , democracy and the preservation of the natural environment all round the world.
Concentration of wealth with individuals or companies in any country
is no longer acceptable .

Many thanks Pericles for your's and Roget's character reference. However I think we are really on the same wavelength. I may not have explained myself clearly enough.

Contrary to your interpretation of my remarks I do not begrudge the right of "African farmers" to aspire to the lifestyle of the first world. What I am saying is that I don't think many people realise that it is just not possible to raise the living standard of the third world while we are so selfish. To maintain our lifestyle we have ( like the Americans ) used a disproportionate amount of the world's resources and that has two effects. Firstly the rate at which we are doing so is causing the depletion referred to in "Crude Impact" and secondly it precludes the third world from raiding the pantry as we have done.

According to recent CO2, energy use etc figures we in Australia use some 30 times more of the world's resources on a per capita basis that the third world. This is a very hard position to justify "morally". We are condemning the third world to poverty because we got in first.

However what I am saying is that our wasteful commitment to a "throw-away" lifestyle so hungry for precious resources is far more significant as a drain on resources than simple population growth in itself.

We have a prime minister that in order to win elections is happy tell us that he won't do anything that would cost jobs, hurt our economy and affect our living standard. I suspect that leaders of all the other first world countries run their democratic governments with the same "me first" priorities. We in the first world worship the "economy" and that doesn't have to consider the "have-nots" of this world.

Unles we learn to recycle, protect nature, only take our fair share, live sustainably and not run down resources we are in for a long hot summer and so too are our grandchildren. Unless we allow others to also prosper we can expect to have an unfriendly world.

The wealthy Western nations are not the only ones responsible for earth climate change. The cutting down of the trees in the Amazon by the native people is a huge threat to the earths climate. The amazing number of cars in Mexico and some other densley populated cities in poorer countries is also pouring huge pollution into the atmosphere. On the funny side what about the larger proportion of methane gas from bigger populations. Sorry couldnt resist that one.