The latest film clip by Dr Liz Allen via the ABC explains why we apparently shouldn't be worrying about Australia's population size, because the real issue is in fact social inequality. But what Dr Allen is doing here is creating a false dichotomy. In doing so she is attempting to channel all discussion on what is actually a highly nuanced issue into one where those involved are forced to pick a side.
In reality we can play a major role in reducing inequality at a global level by providing universal access to education, family planning and healthcare. That is, of course, what many people who care about the issue of population, advocate for, because this is the most effective and least coercive way to enable populations to stabilise over time.
In Australia rapid population growth is compounding social inequality, as it is a catalyst for urban sprawl and the over-priced, poor standard high-density development that is springing up across our conurbations. This has the impact of both gentrifying and slumifying communities at the same time and, in turn, it has the knock-on effect of pushing people on lower incomes out to the increased social isolation of the urban fringe.
Life on the urban fringe has huge ramifications in terms of social inequality and this translates into increased reliance on driving, a lack of walkability, a lack of access to non-human nature and major difficulties in services and infrastructure keeping up with demand.
The environmental impact of urban sprawl is also significant and as the sprawl increases, so does our average per capita carbon footprint (and this challenges another false dichotomy).
As we are experiencing a climate emergency, anything that adds to the problem of climate change will have huge ramifications for those who are living in poverty because they will be the first in the firing line.
The environmental impact that medium to long-term rapid population growth is having, and will continue to have, is significant, especially at a time when we need to be tackling this emergency head on. This is why the education and empowerment of women (and men), as well as access to family planning, plays such a major role in climate expert, Paul Hawken's seminal book, 'Project Drawdown'.
Therefore, continuing to rapidly grow Australia's population to suit our GDP driven ponzi economic system makes no environmental or social sense, especially in face of the enormous challenges that the world is facing.
Dr Allen also perpetuates the myth that we must grow in order to counteract an ageing population. This has been disproved so many times and much has been written on this topic. For any population to stabilise, it is inevitable that there will eventually be a larger than normal cohort of older people (for a while). This is not something that we need to be scared of. Delaying the ageing population issue by a few generations will only exacerbate the challenge further down the track.
While we need to seize the opportunity to allow our domestic population to start to stabilise, an effective way of tackling population growth at a global level is through a system of mutual aid, where we share knowledge and expertise with as many different cultures as possible.
This mutual aid will not only help to provide access to education and medical services where they are needed, it will also help countries such as Australia to lower their per-capita emissions through learning resilient methods of land management and climate specific architecture.
Of course migration wouldn't have to end but it would be driven by a different paradigm; one that understands that we need to work to non coercively stabilise populations both at a global and at a local level in tandem with a much greater emphasis on retrofitting our existing built stock.
In short, the time has come to have an ongoing discussion about population; one that understands that it is complex and that it intersects with a whole range of hugely significant issues.
Mark Allen is an ex town planner and is the cofounder of Population Permaculture & Planning and Holistic Activism & Behaviour Change.
Comments
quark
Wed, 2018-10-31 09:35
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Snapshot of Australia's population pyramid
Sheila Newman
Fri, 2018-11-02 13:50
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25-30s migrant cohort will cause huge aging crisis
You are right, Quark. It is so obvious that we need demographers to tell us not to believe our eyes. Liz is paid to tell us nonsense; she should be ashamed of herself. Rather refreshingly, the NSW treasurer, Dominic Perottet, has written truthfully about immigration today in the Australian (p.12) "There's room to grow, but we need breathing space." Despite the title it paints a truthful picture of the costs, although it does not mention the horrendous sacrifice of native animals and wild spaces to the god of population growth:
"[...] We can't pretend that high immigration comes without a cost, and we believe growth should not impose an unfair burden on those already here. Excessively rapid growth puts downward pressure on wages and upward pressure on housing prices, both of which have sorely stung workers and aspiring home-owners in Sydney and other parts of NSW for a decade.
It also means more people on trains, more cars, more students in our schools and more patients at hospitals. And it's the NSW government, not the federal government, that is responsible for providing the necessary support for the surging population.
When you look at the numbers, it's no surprise communities in Sydney are feeling the pressure. In 2006 annual net overseas migration to Australia increased to roughly double its average pace across the preceding 25 years. After the mining boom, the bulk of those migrants have come to NSW, as our annual share of national immigration rose from 25 per cent in June 2012 to 38 per cent. [...] Even if the NSW population stayed at today's level it would take time to complete the work so that our communities could be more livable [sic] [...] Instead, extraordinarily high rates of immigration risk pushing those outcomes beyond our grasp. "
Dominic Perottet goes on to state, incorrectly, that this is "a problem state governments are powerless to solve on their own because we have no say in the national immigration rate."
That is not true; state governments have been egging on the immigration rate, visibly, with their state immigration portals, constantly advertising for more people to come and live in their cities and states. This is the first time that the NSW government has stood on its hind legs and said, "Enough."
Unfortunately, in Victoria, the government is really just another form of the property development lobby, and they never say enough. We should say, "Enough," to them.
John Bentley
Tue, 2018-11-06 10:54
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Enough means enough
James Sinnamon
Thu, 2018-11-15 10:51
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Telesur/PressTV take the supposed open borders high moral ground
The following was posted as a comment to Nigel Farage lashes out at Angela Merkel, as Chancellor attends EU Parliament debate (Video) (13/11/18) by Alex Christoforou | The Duran :.
Unfortunately, many other otherwise informative web-sites take the supposed high moral ground on refugee and immigrant rights that Nigel Farage has so conclusively demolished (I would have appreciated knowing that Nigel Farage's speech began 3:59 minutes into the video). Explicitly or implicitly they condemn those who try to defend national borders, including Nigel Farage, Donald Trump, Marine le Pen and the German AfD.
These web-sites include the Iranian http://presstv.com/ and the Venezuelan https://www.telesurenglish.net/
In turn those media and countries which own those media are vilified by some of those listed above, notably President Trump, when, in reality (as argued recently by Paul Craig Roberts) they could be Donald Trump's allies.
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