Hey Hasbeen,
Yes I was referring to Easter Island, from a documentary I watched some time back.
I'm not even sure I could find the video now easily, it was that long ago.
It seemed both convincing and logical at the time though.
What are they saying actully happened there now?
It's all rather curious and interesting.

Hi Belly,

Half of Australia's annual population growth is from immigration and refugees: without them, not only would our population be barely growing at all but it would be ageing rapidly - those immigrants and refugees would tend to be joining the working population of Australia, and thank goodness for that.

In many parts of the world - Europe, Japan, even Lebanon - the birth-rate is not keeping pace with mortality and population growth is either stagnant or declining. China is, of course, facing a disastrous population decline later this century as its abandoned one-child policy is, in fact, continued by a population used to the idea. As Aidan noted above, population continue too rise, not because of 'too many babies' but because people live longer.

As well, the introduction of pension systems tends, after a learning phase, to reduce the number of babies born. And of course, as women - there key to it all - seize education opportunities, they tend to marry later, if at all, and to have far fewer kids, if any at all.

So there are many factors leading to either population stability or decline, but certainly not over-population. As someone else observed, there are many parts of the world which are barely populated and - strange ! -the areas which are heavily populated tend to be amongst the most prosperous on the planet. Europe has a much denser population than China, more like 500 people to the square km rather than China's 140-odd.

The relationships between population growth, prosperity, technology, women's rights, social policy and educational opportunities are far too complex for my old brain, but they may, on balance, point to slightly higher world population by 2100, mainly by growth in under-populated Africa, but even that will slow down to zero by 2100 with improvements in social policy and educational opportunities for women.

Perhaps our grandchildren will be more worried about stagnating population growth ? Maybe not even that.

Cheers,

Joe

Hey Hassie,

My fear is that the global community remains blind to
the limits nature imposes on all life. The answer that
I see lies in the accumulated knowledge of good science
and economics and also most critically in human behaviour.

It is predominantly ethical values in the exploitation of
finite natural resources - fairness today and fairness
between generations - that will determine the greatest
challenge of our time. It's in my nature to remain an
optimist - however I don't see how victory will be
achieved by standing on the sidelines.

I see hope in the greatest challenge facing the human species:
that of living within the bounds of the planet's life systems.
The bottom line is that of ethics, and in particular whether
we are prepared to share these limited resources, will
ultimately decide the outcome.

I don't think that anybody of any intelligence would deny
that the planet has a finite amount of resources or that it
can tolerate only a limited amount of pollution. If world
population continues to grow rapidly, if industrialisation
spreads around the world, and if pollution and resource
depletion continues at an increasing rate - and all these
things continue to happen - where is human society headed?
The most optimistic answer to these questions would have to
be that - one way or another, sweeping changes await us.

Loudmouth Gday, maybe it is just me,but I am not convinced we will have a voice in population or just about any thing else in the near future, yes this country, like America, once, thrives on migration refugee intake, constant growth needs it, but while starvation water shortages and other factors will, WILL , drive refugee flows so very much larger than today is keeping the numbers just putting them in other country's the answer?not have a voice? we have little impact right now on most things, we even ignore if we have any power at all it is and must be in the much despised politics on election days

Dear Foxy,

Newton could have said that resources can neither be created nor destroyed - we have to technology to find those that already there, now all we have to do is develop technologies which use, re-cycle and re-use the resources which are already there. I don't think that the finity of resources is really a problem. In fact, i suspect that by 2100, we'll be leaving resources in the ground, tripping over the bloody stuff, simply because cheaper alternatives - from re-cycling - will be readily available.

I was talking to my daughter about the non-biodegradability of plastics, and how valuable this property is in the manufacture of precisely non-biodegradable products - furniture, park-benches, road surfaces, paint, building materials, and so on. If we paired the utilisation of plastic's non-biodegradability with improvement in re-cycling technology, we'd be laughing.

It's an inexhaustible world, Foxy :)

Love,

Joe

Belly,

You have to distinguish between migrants and refugees - Australia takes around 200,000 migrants each year (plus those international graduates being given permanency) but only about 14,000 (or has it been kicked up to 20,000 ?) refugees each year. They are very different populations in terms of skills.

Yes, both populations tend to be relatively much younger than there Australian average and therefore probably tend to have their families here. But since Australian-born populations probably have zero-population-growth, we need them to provide the work-force in future generations, to look after us old farts.

If anything, I would advocate far better integrating facilities for refugees into the work-force and a corresponding gradual increase in annual intakes of refugees. If they can be integrated into the Australian work-force more quickly, then a higher intake would be quite justified. We are going to need them.

Cheers,

Belly