Ludwig wrote, "Pericles, you feeling alright? Your sense of logic is warped at the best of times, but today it appears to have disappeared completely".

The Ludwig modus operandi = personally put down people who don't agree with you.

Likening someone to a monkey or cannibal because of their race is undeniably racist. Questioning the economic value of high immigration is not. One prominent colonial was outspokenly racist when he had a monopoly of convict labour. When the convict ships stopped coming he quickly became a convert to multiculturalism as his prosperity was dependent on cheap labour.

A question of great complexity and complicated further by one's motivations and circumstances. I have yet to see an accepted estimate for the per capita cost of Australian infrastructure.

Nhoj......Australia has the capacity for more people, common-understand will grant you that insight.\, however, Overpopulation of any country at this time...well...I guess the horse has bolted on that one world wide( its like the first fleet, and rats and other vermin have plagued this country like the cane toad) Bigots...even the word racism...I can barely type it....but!.....since the great lands of ours IS in the greatest geographical position for a huge amounts of reasons, it pays to let in( a fee, yet to be discussed)...of how we manage the future of Australia and its diversity.

We have only one chance to get this right....there wont be another.....

It's critical we save Australia, and watch the rest do it wrong.

Education on all levels "on this issue" is for the greater understanding, so all can see truly.

Kat

Nhoj,

It's not as simple as inappropriate use of resources as you put it. That's the easy way out. When I decided to go vegetarian I did so as part of a high school project. Why, because I wanted change.

However if I was to ask you, would the majority of people in Australia - want to go vegetarian - the answer would be no.

I also currently live towards a zero waste, zero packaging lifestyle - after watching a documentary on waste in poor countries and the environmental impact. I also now live so differently environmentally across the board.

However this message is very difficult to get across to the 'day to day person' when "Australia is the second highest producer of waste per person in the world at approximately 650 kilograms per person - and:

"The average Australian family of four people makes enough rubbish in one year to completely fill a three-bedroom house from floor to ceiling." Where does all of this rubbish go? Somehwere, nowhere?

At present with no solutions to address the above - technology or better use of resources are just a belief - that's it. Question: Where are these resources? Do they exist forever? Look at poor countries and their resources.

As for playing to the race element 100% wrong. I support reducing Australia's population to a more sustainable level and increasing our humane obligations re refugees and asylum seekers.

You do persist in grabbing the wrong end of the stick, Ludwig.

And, not content with that, you then proceed to wave it about mindlessly like a Collingwood fan at the SCG.

When the Swans are playing Carlton.

>>So if we had a population five times bigger than at present, with an average per-capita footprint 0.8 times as big as at present, we’d be doing better would we??<<

That would make us the twelfth largest population in the world (we are presently 51st with a third of a percent of the global population), and is also 60% higher than the highest ABS estimate for our population in the year 2101.

So, not the most realistic of examples, eh?

But since you ask, it is not outside the bounds of probability that if we were able to cater for that number of people (a tad short of Mexico, incidentally) without lowering our per capita GDP, and at the same time reduce our ecological footprint to that of Macedonia (which is conveniently 0.8 of our present number), then yes, there is a high likelihood that we'd be "doing better", as you describe it. In fact, if we could do all that, we'd be champions of ecological management.

But a simpler way to look at it would be to examine the position where a) the population stays the same, but the per capita ecological footprint increases, and b) where the population decreases, but the average ecological footprint stays the same.

Would we, in your opinion, be "doing better" in either of those situations?

>>I could address each statement in your last double post. But I see no point if you are going to make such a totally off-the-planet assertion as this.<<

Now you have a better perspective on it, perhaps you can have another shot?

>>Incidentally, we have an unfinished discussion here<<

Only in your imagination.

Pericles,

You are assuming that a lower environmental footprint is always better. We can certainly reduce the component of our footprint that includes senseless waste, but there are limits to how far you can cut consumption before you start seriously interfering with human well-being. The following link is to the Global Footprint Network 2010 Atlas. The graph on page 21 plots environmental footprint against rank on the UN's Human Development Index. All of the very high ranking countries and nearly all high ranking ones have environmental footprints well above the average and, according to the Global Footprint Network, well above what the Earth could sustain if everyone lived like that.

http://www.uky.edu/~tmute2/GEI-Web/GEI-readings/Ecological_Footprint_Atlas_2010.pdf

There is also the issue of supplies of certain key resources, such as fresh water, and to what extent it is politically realistic to force down living standards and personal freedom to make room for more migrants without provoking widespread support for Far Right parties such as Golden Dawn in Greece or the National Front in France, in other words, fostering the very racism that Nhoj hates. Nhoj may be prepared to live a vegetarian life of self denial to make room for more people, but most of us wouldn't. Public opinion is not as much on Nhoj's side as he thinks. This was the reaction to Rudd's Big Australia speech

http://www.smh.com.au/national/big-australia-vision-goes-down-like-a-lead-balloon-20100803-115g7.html

When I remarked to some Iranian scientists that I was surprised so many migrants were against Big Australia, I was told, "A lot of us come from countries that are overpopulated. Why would we want to duplicate it in Australia?"

Back in the real world, the Australian Academy of Science recommended 23 million as a safe upper limit to our population. This was back in 1994 when the evidence for our various environmental and resource problems wasn't as strong.

http://www.sciencearchive.org.au/events/sats/sats1994/Population2040-section9.pdf

The Australian Conservation Foundation has nominated human population growth in Australia as a Key Threatening Process under the Environmental Protection Act. The submission gives their reasons

http://www.acfonline.org.au/sites/default/files/resources/EPBC_nomination_22-3-10.pdf