According to the WWF: "Australia has one of the world's largest ecological footprints per capita, requiring 6.6 global hectares per person."

I agree. At present Australia has a grab off the shelf, use and throw away approach to living. As we continue to increase our population through immigration - from people who come from well off countries, we only make the situation worse.

People can undertake a ecological footprint quiz online at:

http://www.wwf.org.au/our_work/people_and_the_environment/human_footprint/footprint_calculator/

Excellent, Nathan:

Your friends from the WWF managed to convince me that I am a bad person, living on the resources of 3 planets: I will therefore need to suffer more colds this winter.

Nathan, have you considered that about two thirds of our country is dessert!

Have you also considered our population per Ha is minuscule.

I agree we need to suspend immigration, but not for your reasons.

I did the survey, and what a load of bollocks.

Nathan, I did the footprint calculator

If everyone lived like me, we’d need 2.9 planet Earths. To support my lifestyle if takes 5.2 global hectares of the Earth’s productive area. ( :>(

Ah but, there are important things that this calculator doesn’t take into account:

I haven’t had any sprogs. This in an enormous factor affecting one’s consumption. In fact, it is about as big, and potentially a whole lot bigger, than everything else put together regarding one’s lifestyle, consumption patterns and overall footprint.

I am not sitting back and letting our national ecological footprint get rapidly larger by way of rapid population growth. I am having a lot to say about the enormous folly of our huge immigration intake and worship of never-ending rapid growth. Again, this is enormously important. WWF seems to miss this altogether. They are NOT addressing the footprint issue in a holistic manner unless they do this, with at least as much fervour as they do for the personal consumption side of things. In fact, if they are not being very vocal indeed about continuous population growth, then they are not addressing the footprint and sustainability issue AT ALL!!

One has to consume stuff at a level that is in keeping with their society. If an individual reduces their consumption as far as possible, they put themselves at a considerable disadvantage within a culture where everyone else is consuming much more. And they would be achieving nothing if they were one of very few individuals who did this, while everyone else continued on as per normal.

There is a much more important thing to do than to reduce one’s personal consumption to the bare bones. This is to SPEAK OUT - to join the voices of concern about our government’s facilitation of a continued rapidly worsening footprint, about the disparity between supply and demand of all basic resources, and about our society heading in the WRONG DIRECTION as far as sustainability is concerned.

An interesting angle on the issue.

I am not convinced that my personal ecological footprint - which is apparently less than the Australian average, and less even than Ludwig's - is a justification for lowering our intake of immigrants. In fact, surely the opposite would seem more likely to be the case.

My own, relatively smaller contribution is most likely to be the result of my living in a city. I most probably travel less than most, whether by car or public transport (I use both), and share my physical living space with others.

Given that many immigrants find themselves in a very similar situation - i.e. city-dwelling, little-travelling, high-density-living - then it follows that the more of them we have, the lower will be our average ecological footprint.

And reducing our ecological footprint from its present 6.6 global hectares per person would appear, from the tone of NathanJ's post, to be a good thing, yes?