Warmair,

If you are concerned about global warming, you should recognize that our politicians' mass migration policy is adding to the global concentrations of greenhouse gases. (Our own fertility rate has been below replacement level since 1976.) It is not just a global problem. Unless migrants are already rich or come from other rich countries, they are going to increase their carbon footprint when they come to Australia. The whole point of migration is usually to increase consumption. The Australia Institute has calculated that in Australia, the average migrant's carbon footprint is double what it would have been at home.

The bigger population means that more exports are needed to pay for the imports needed by the bigger population. This issue is discussed in the Australian Conservation Foundation submission that I linked to in a previous post.

Then there are the immediate government infrastructure costs, estimated by Jane O'Sullivan to be $100,000 - $120,000 per person in Australia and 30,000 pounds per person in the UK by economist Ralph Musgrave (in 2008). These factors at least partly explain the frantic asset sales of our federal and state governments and their encouragement of coal and gas mining, regardless of the threats to endangered species and our best agricultural land. The emissions from the coal we export far outweighs the total carbon footprint of the Australian population.

"The domestic emission reduction programs to which campaigners devote much attention are similarly dwarfed by coal exports. For example, if the federal government adopted a 25% emissions reduction target for 2020, implemented an ETS to get there, and tightly limited the use of cheap imported carbon credits so that Australia made its emission cuts rather than outsourcing them, domestic emissions could fall by up to 249mt annually by 2020. Sounds impressive until you realize that the emissions saved are wiped out by the addition of just two new coal mines in Central Queensland."

http://www.guypearse.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Pearse-Climate-Camp-Speech-Final.pdf

So be brave. Talk about population, and regard it as a badge of honour if some migration agent, shill for the property developers, or brainwashed Leftist calls you a racist.

Divergence there is a lot I agree with in your post.

Personally I like Australia under populated but using the eco footprint as an excuse for limiting migration simple does not wash.

The eco footprint is at the best of times not a particularly useful measure other than to bring home the fact that we are exceeding the planets carrying capacity.

For example according to the figures commonly accepted figure Australia has a biocapacity of 14.7 global hectares per person and an eco foot print of 6.8 gh/p which gives us a credit of 7.9 gh/p, which suggests that the ecological limit to our population is around 50 million. So using the eco footprint as an excuse for limiting population is not a good argument.

If the population was 50 million the eco footprint would still be around 6.8 gh/p so there is a fundamental flaw in the argument.

Nevertheless I believe it would be worthwhile to reduce Australia’s eco footprint below 6.8 gh/p. The way to do this is by being kinder to the environment, as in some of the ways I listed previously.

Hasbeen
You obviously have not travelled on a bus in any of our main cities recently, but nevertheless even taking your figure of an average of 6 passengers per trip, the bus is still ahead, as the fuel consumption is only about twice that of a typical Aussie car which an average carries less than two people.

The reef and surrounding areas are suffering from our activities and I am convinced that we could do better.

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/great-barrier-reef-facts-tv-ads-ignore-dredge-dumping-risks-20140501-zr2im.html

Warmair,

You appear to be right about the biocapacity, but it only boils down a lot of factors to a single number. I would question how it deals with key limiting resources or future risks. Some of the possible effects of climate change are really nasty, and even a small reduction in average rainfall could result in big reductions in run-off. Scarce and expensive phosphate rock could also have a big impact.

You need to look at how we are actually doing, not how well we could do in theory. The government's own State of the Environment reports have been showing progressive deterioration in a range of environmental indicators apart from urban air quality. See also the Long-Term Physical Implications report

http://www.immi.gov.au/media/publications/research/_pdf/physical-implications-migration-fullreport.pdf

If a country really is underpopulated, then mass migration will make the existing population better off. This is no longer the case. The pressures on the environment and the liveability of our cities due to more and more people are obvious, while the per capita economic benefits are very small and mostly go to the owners of capital and the migrants themselves

http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2014/04/rbnz-slams-the-population-ponzi/

We have been acquiring five new people for every new full-time job

http://www.smh.com.au/national/majority-of-new-jobs-go-to-migrants-20130614-2o9p4.html

Perhaps our politicians should show that they can manage the country in the interests of all the people that we have already (not just Big Business and especially the FIRE sector) before they are given more of them to play with.

warmair who told you the reef is suffering. The people who are out there daily, the academics who may spend as much as 10 days a year out in the nasty ocean, away from their computers, or greenie activists.

I once had one of those fool academics tell me the crown of thorns was destroying the reef we used for tourists. Very interesting when I had never seen one, & my staff had seen only 2 in a year.

I averaged 200 tourists, & a dozen divers with instructors taken to the reef 4 times a week for years, so have a little knowledge of it. Previously I skippered overnight fishing trips for 3 resorts for quite a while, as well as years of private cruising here & in the islands.

We hated walk on the reef days. We would go through bottles of mercurochrome doctoring the coral cuts, & would have loved to see it banned. Unfortunately when it was surveyed the marine biologists could find no difference in the few hundred meters we frequented, to the 17 nautical miles of that reef that dried at low tide.

I get so sick of this fragile nature garbage. I spent years wandering the islands of the Pacific war. I visited many of the sites of major bases, both ours & Japanese. The only thing fragile was mans constructions. The remains of many huge bases were almost impossible to find, after just 30 years of jungle regrowth.

I would love to get some greenies out to see the real world, but it is hard to prise them out of their natural environment, inner city high rise.

Hasbeen.

Your right to a point. Its because of our management of our waters which fuels your point.

Of corse Australia is well managed and Thats what your seeing. Rules and regs keeps the mindset in full eye sight.

Have a look collectively, and the picture becomes what the topic is.

Kat