NathanJ, I think to most people of the younger generations it would go without saying that We should be working towards reducing the impacts of human beings not making the situation worse. But reducing Australia's population growth isn't the answer. And reducing business immigration is likely to result in a bigger lowering of immigration's benefits than its costs.

Upstream irrigation is usually where the water's been used most inefficiently. Drought is forcing us to use less water anyway, but the objective shouldn't be just using less water, but making better use of the water we get.

Reducing environmental impacts is absolutely essential. But it shouldn't just be taxpayers footing the bill; the environmental cost should be included in the cost of everything sold.

We certainly need better economic policies to improve employment and taxation income. But the thing we most need to do is to stop considering problems in isolation, and instead let the solution to each problem solve other problems rather than creating more.

No need to worry
When all our current 3rd generation unemployed youth reach 40 in 20 years time they automatically become our Doctors Teachers Police etc
Its all just numbers

Aiden, OK you were referring to Federal. In NSW the Liberals are
making a lot of noise about infrastructure that they ARE building and plan to build.
Labour is taking a much lower profile on infrastructure no doubt
because they would have to borrow much more.

Unfortunately I believe the infrastructure planning is not being
realistic, but that is not unusual because the politicians either do
not know about the energy crisis we face or just refuse to believe it.

It affects everything.
You can see it in defense spending.
Having had our oil production decline by more than 50% our now
uneconomic oil refineries are closing. So we will import 100% of our
petrol & diesel.
So we buy diesel submarines ? Duhh !

You can see it in transport spending.
We undertake 30 year financing of motorways built for $1-50 / litre
petrol. So when petrol reaches say $4 a litre what then ?

You can see it in immigration planning.
More More More shout the politicians and businessmen.
Shut down the mines and power station shout the greenies.
They want more people and less energy, have they gone stark raving mad?

Aaaarrrggghhh !

Bazz,

In the future people will buy more efficient cars and some will drive less, but synthetic fuel is likely to limit price rises.

Even the greenies want reliable electricity; it's just that they want solar and wind to supply it.

NSW Labor's infrastructure policy is likely to lose them today's election despite NSW Liberals having an infrastructure policy that should lose the election to any decent opposition (hence my starting the other thread). If you live in NSW I urge you to vote for the minor parties. Strong governments are a bad thing as they inevitably go feral; state governments work far better when they're forced to justify every single decision they make!

Aiden, no synthetic fuel yet developed has a sustainable eroei.
In the US it is law to use a percentage but thay cannot achieve that.

Likewise solar & wind cannot do the job, they cannot even build themselves.
Much as I am a fan of electric cars I think there are a few catch 22s
on the way to changing to 100% electric.

I think it was you that flagged solar cells that are up to eroei of 60.
Well that would change everything, but we must work on what exists not
what might exist in the future.
If they come good well we can change course then and nothing lost.

Bazz, what counts is net energy return, not EROEI. The Catch22 claim is a myth, and a particularly stupid one at that – I'm still amazed that so many people fell for it.

It would be stupid to assume that what exists in the lab today won't exist in the field in the future. But there is no good technical reason why normal solar cells couldn't do the job.