Where do you get this stuff warmair, you must pull it out of that air.

That high rise or other dense populations models have a much larger footprint than country areas has been proven in many studies.

"Making much greater use of renewable power." Rubbish, Germany, Spain & all but the UK are running away from that mistake as fast as possible.

"Providing much better public transport". Public transport costs more, & uses more power/fuel per passenger mile, than private transport is another fact proven many times over.

"Shifting much of the heavy transport of goods to rail". The double handling required by rail make it impartible for any but long distance bulk goods, & even this is better by sea where possible. Rail is great for wheat to port shipment, but lousy for bread to the supermarket.

"Stopping the destruction and damage to the remaining natural areas". Looking at the trees doesn't feed anyone, & too many of our national parks become overgrown scrub, useless to man or beast.

"Controlling introduced species". Agree completely, but that is an emotional judgment.

"More appropriate use of fertilizers and pesticides". Motherhood statement. Make some positive statements that can be judged.

Which floor of your high rise do you live on?

Nhoj, "Unlimited population growth would be a *DISASTER* for planet Earth."

So what are the limits then?

Whenever people start talking about limits, you start blabbering about unholy alliances.

So what are your acceptable limits, Nhoj?
That can be implemented right now, not in some fairytale future.
Our government can stop or reduce immigration with a pen signing a paper.

"we invade, fight, kill, intimidate, squabble, compete, are territorial, we seek domination etc"

And when is this going to magically stop?
Grow up.

"And the solution is for the behaviour of mankind to alter.... it will take many, many, many more hundreds of years to complete."

So let's stop immigration for 300 years then.
Then reassess. No improvement? Sorry, another 300 years.

Yuyutsu "guess where they all come from"

Not from Australia.
If African and Asian wombs are excessively busy, how is that our responsibility?

Why should we allow their myriad offspring the "moral right" to trample all over our country?

"I make a clear distinction between moving into your society and moving into this continent."

In the real world (join us sometime) there's no distinction.

In you move into this continent, you can't help but impact on the society already here.

"you already expressed your contempt of morality by stating:
<<then to hell with other people's opinions or desires>>"

And how is there a *moral* dimension to that statement?

Being selfish or indifferent to others (without deliberately causing real harm) is not "immoral".

warmair "Controlling introduced species"

Yuyutsu might disagree.
You have no "moral right" to exclude any species from this precious continent.

Hasbeen

“That high rise or other dense populations models have a much larger footprint than country areas has been proven in many studies.”

The studies I have seen say that up to 3000 people per square mile there is a rapid reduction in eco footprint. After that the benefit tails off quite quickly. That works out at about 100sq feet per person which in my view does not constitute country living. The other factor that confuses the issue is the more affluent a person is the greater their Eco footprint. Not surprisingly it is usual to find the richest people living the cities.

"Making much greater use of renewable power." Rubbish, Germany, Spain & all but the UK are running away from that mistake as fast as possible.

There you are on very shaky ground. While it may be cheaper to use traditional fossil fuels, renewables definitely have a lower Eco footprint. Part of the definition of Eco footprint includes emissions of CO2 and regardless of your view as to effects of CO2 renewables generate less CO2 and therefore have a lower eco footprint. The exception is of course nuclear but that is a whole different argument.

"Providing much better public transport". Public transport costs more, & uses more power/fuel per passenger mile, than private transport is another fact proven many times over.

Explain how on earth you think that a bus carrying 60 people uses more fuel per person than one person in a car. Hint a 60 seater bus uses around 25 L/100K compared a typical aussie car at over 12 L/100K.
Continued

"Shifting much of the heavy transport of goods to rail". The double handling required by rail make it impartible for any but long distance bulk goods, & even this is better by sea where possible. Rail is great for wheat to port shipment, but lousy for bread to the supermarket.

A Rail vehicle has some 18 times less friction than a rubber tyred road vehicle. Trains also deliver better fuel economy for other reasons as well. The double handling often occurs on interstate road cargo anyway.

"Stopping the destruction and damage to the remaining natural areas". Looking at the trees doesn't feed anyone, & too many of our national parks become overgrown scrub, useless to man or beast.

The sort of thing I had in mind was the barrier reef where they have recently been given the go ahead to dump millions of tons of dredged material and while we are on the subject fertilizer runoff to the reef could be vastly reduced.

I live in a modest 3 bedroom house in a regional city.

Obviously you are going on ideology, warmair. The average load for a bus is more like 6 than 60, but it would be a pity to let fact interfere with a good bit of propaganda.

Life cycles of wind is worse than coal for emissions, biodiesel & alcohol produce more emissions than petrol when production is included, & solar is a bad joke. Oh, & while we are at it, it appears from satellite observations, deserts are greening from the increased CO2, & the planet is not heating.

You obviously know nothing about the reef, if you actually believe a little dredging around the permitted ports will have any effect.

To start with the tidal currents run along the coast, not from the coast out to the reef. The silt will fall out in the area between the coast & the reef.

This area exists because of the huge amount of sediment expelled by the coastal rivers. The Fitzroy, the Pioneer, the Don & the Berdican are the reason the dredging is necessary. They expel more sediment on a mild fresh than all the dredging in Queensland since settlement, this is the reason the reef is so far off shore in the area in first place.

If you are going to push this green stuff, try getting some facts, & doing some thinking first. Then you might sort the truth from the fantasies your leaders push to the chattering classes. With some truth you might actually get some converts. You will never get them with this rubbish.

Warmair,

As was mentioned in an earlier post of mine on this thread, environmental footprint, even if you are right, isn’t the only thing that matters. Human well-being matters too, and most people don’t want high density forced on them. The demographer Joel Kotkin points out that the vast majority of people around the world prefer single family housing with some privacy and a back yard. High density is also poison for fertility rates.

“High-density environments such as Manhattan, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, D.C., or Boston invariably have the lowest percentages of children in the country, with Japan-like fertility rates…

“The ultradense cities of East Asia—Hong Kong, Singapore, and Seoul—have among the lowest fertility rates on the planet. Tokyo and Seoul now have fertility rates around one child per family while Shanghai’s has fallen to 0.7, among the lowest ever reported, well below the “one child” mandate and barely one-third the number required simply to replace the current population. Due largely to crowding and high housing prices, 45 percent of couples in Hong Kong say they have given up having children.”

http://www.joelkotkin.com/content/00806-city-leaders-are-love-density-most-city-dwellers-disagree

A lot of us want a stable population, but not that we should disappear or be completely replaced by migrants.

High density tends to be bad for the physical and social development of children. See Prof Bill Randolph’s “Children in the Compact City”.

https://www.be.unsw.edu.au/sites/default/files/upload/research/centres/cf/publications/cfprojectreports/childreninthecompactcity.pdf

There are also studies showing that urban living dramatically increases the incidence of anxiety disorders and depression, and that it doubles the incidence of schizophrenia.

http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/feb/25/city-stress-mental-health-rural-kind

Is our goal to cram in the maximum number of people on the minimum standard of living or to give our people good, free lives in a healthy environment where the other species can live too? All these things are possible if we don’t let our numbers get too big and apply a reasonable amount of common sense.