The topic begins: "How many is too many? Australia's population problem". Why is it? It's a worldwide problem. That being there are too many humans living and having impacts worldwide, a place that all animal species live in.

"Human wanted" and "needed" items are derived somehow and somewhere from nature. Other animal species take from the environment also, but their needs are very sustainable in the long term - but need a home to live in. That is why I've said "that being all animal species are dependent on the natural world" and should not be destroyed by human activity.

Most humans don't realise this. Every time, when a person gets out of bed in the morning (like Australia), they are very unlikely to be thinking their home is built on something. It's in fact, built over (soil) that is part of the natural world - but humans don't directly see that, so it's not in their mindset. Humans, particularly in well off countries (over time) have also developed a "fear factor" and believe they must have certain materialistic items to survive. We believe we are more dominant to environmental and living elements and believe we can do what we want to the planet.

Humans worldwide have to change how we are living. I have myself. One good way to assess this is to take an ecological footprint quiz. http://www.wwf.org.au/our_work/people_and_the_environment/human_footprint/footprint_calculator/

An excellent interview on population is also at: http://radioadelaidebreakfast.wordpress.com/2011/05/20/government-population-policy-interview-with-sandra-kanck/

All countries have an obligation to ensure they have a sustainable population and good environmental and economic policies for the benefit of future generations.

Dear Shockadelic,

Nathan is right - we have been hijacking the original discussion for quite a while now and today he re-introduced the correct topic.

If you agree, then let us stop here. Otherwise we can continue our talk later once I feel better, but probably not on this particular thread where we disrupt the others.

I know you'll hate me for it NathanJ, but I've been killing the ants that are invading my home, in these dry conditions we've been having.

I regularly kill cockroaches & mice, when they do the same. Let them go build their own home.

And Yuyutsu, I'll happily do the same to anyone or anything that invades my country. The ants don't carry weapons, but they despoil my food & my property. They are invading my space.

Any gate crashers, who push their way into my country despoil it in a similar way. Whether they carry weapons or not, they are invaders, & should be repelled with all force available to us.

malthusista and Divergence, the unemployment and underemployment problem is down to economic policy not immigration.

Yes there is a peak capacity problem on our roads and public transport... but even if no such problem existed, the network is far from perfect. Improvements are needed, and the increasing population strengthens the incentive to fix things and provides the opportunity to fund them. Though I'm a bit puzzled as to how you arrived at that $200 000 figure?

More national parks are needed to protect the animals. I expect most of the animals will eventually adapt to the sprawl, though the presence of cats and dogs makes that more difficult.

"How can you have high immigration and NOT increase Victoria's population?"
If the economic decline continues, you may soon find out!

But I never said that immigration had nothing to do with population. It was just some of the arguments against it on this thread that had nothing to do with population.

I am familiar with I=PAT. But T could be greatly improved just by hastening the uptake of existing technology. When scientific advances are also factored in, T's contribution becomes multiple orders of magnitude.

The nice thing about soil is it's a renewable resource, and the next green revolution is likely to be based on soil microbiology. Furthermore, while electricity will never be too cheap to meter, that doesn't mean there will never be times when it's free. Indeed if you look at wholesale prices, you'll see that it sometimes happens already!

The following link raises some very relevant questions
that are worth discussing:

http://www.uow.edu.au/~sharonb/STS300/limits/studies/articles/popclip2.html

How many Australians is enough?

Dear Hassie,

Is that what can be called -
"an insect mentality?"