I watched it - rather depressing to view! The kangaroos don't stand a chance against human encroachment. I surely wasn't the only one thinking that the comments about supposed kangaroo overpopulation in the narrative could equally be applied to humans! (I kept envisioning some aliens coming to Earth and deciding to "hold an annual cull to 'manage' the problem by keeping [human] numbers at 'sustainable levels' "! We certainly would not like it if that were done to us.)
Comments
Human breeding rates need to adapt, not kangaroos
The fertility of human populations needs to be controlled, not the kangaroos. How can Canberra's urban sprawl continue indefinitely without a cap, and kangaroos be expected to exist on smaller and smaller parcels of land? With human invasion and encroachments onto habitats, they are assumed to have the decency to just wither away and become extinct.
Dr Warren M. Hern wrote a paper titled “Why Are There So Many of Us? Hern stated that cancers “spread by two means: extensive invasion and by metastasis, or distant colonization. Human communities, once established, tend to invade and destroy all adjacent ecosystems without limits”
Says Hern, "The human species is an example of a malignant ecotumor, an uncontrolled proliferation of a single species that threatens the existence of other species in their habitats".
Joeys face up to a 70% rate of deaths in their early lives, and their fertility levels fluctuate with the seasons. They are able to learn to avoid the biggest and heaviest traffic, but as one of Australia's slow evolving animals it means their adaption is struggling to keep up to what is demanded from them. Human expansion, chain saws, bulldozers, heavy traffic, fast cars, dogs and human enemies are a massive changes for kangaroos to learn quickly within a few generations in order to be street-smart. On the other hand, humans are finding adaption hard too! We are living during a time of multiple depletions, overpopulation and multiple threats, yet the era of growth is still continuing - fatalistically for ourselves, and other species.
Not suitable for me either
I'm a grown up and I know the video on cruelty to kangaroos which is not suitable for children will not be suitable for me either. I can't watch it. Somebody who can change things needs to though, obviously.
Libya 1 year later: Chaos reigns as militias run wild
Previously published on Brasscheck TV and Youtube.
Acland
Well Open minded environmental scientist.Today, 2 years down the track I visited this once thriving happy town,this once pristine top grade agricultural land.I hope they paid you well for your sell out.Have a look at your scientific tunnel vision view today.Rehabilitation, ... benefits, how naive you were ... and an environmental scientist and all. How you must be choking on your "educated opinion"
The industry is negative
"Every time you do not say something, every time you do not speak out, then negative sentiment expands, and it’s not just the property industry".
Maybe the reliance on an economy based on property development and rapacious population growth is obviously negative. No matter what you say, the victims must be silenced by insults and manipulated through social engineering.
This demeaning assault on democracy and public opinion must be resisted and exposed for what it is. Democracy has descended into a system to support the wealthy elite and their profits rather than a voice for the public.
Australia's Kangaroo Meat Market involves live castration
Kangaroo meat involves live castration. Would you like red wine, pear juice and cranberry jelly with that?
The following video confirms Australia's rural culture encouraging a psycho-sadistical and brutal hate towards wildlife.
It could be of elephants or rhinos in Africa, it could be Nazi Germany or Poland, or Rwanda or Serbia, but it is rural Australia and its precious wildlife. It is 19th Century debauchery and kangaroo slaughter is condoned by Julia Gillard's Australian Government . It is akin to the teenage deviantism of Martin Bryant and straight out of the film Wolf Creek.
WARNING: This video is extremely disturbing and not suitable for children.
But it needs to be made public! In 2012 it reflects the callous reality of rural Australia. No wonder urban Australia turns its back on rural Australians and starves them of funding - such sadists only deserve an eye for an eye.
Honesty, I could not inflict such on any sentient being, but if sure of the culpability of such a monster, wildlife thereafter would have no fear.
Tigerquoll
Suggan Buggan
Snowy River Region
Victoria 3885
Australia
If you missed Kelvin Thomson's talk
here is another opportunity in Melbourne
I note that Kelvin Thomson will speak at the Humanist Society this coming Thursday 23rd Feb.
‘The Humanist case for population reform’
7:30 for 8 pm
Meeting Room
Balwyn Library
336 Whitehorse Rd, Balwyn (Melway Map 46 E8)
http://www.victorianhumanist.com/
I doubt this will be entertaining
I think it's really sad that kangaroos are marooned in the outer suburbs of ever expanding capital cities. Frequently I hear radio reports that a kangaroo is on a busy road usually in the northern outer suburbs of Melbourne during peak hour traffic. Presenters appear to find this amusing but I was relieved that the other day someone asked where kangaroos were supposed to go when the suburbs keep expanding outwards. Eventually of course they will die off as the outer suburbs get denser and what passes as habitat now will no longer be so. The land the kangaroos live on is considered terra nullius when it is wanted for a new suburb
My response to Asylum-seeker article on Independent Australia
My comment is awaiting moderation.
It's a response to a very econometric article about asylum seekers on Independent Australia, called, "The Artificial Australian Asylum seeker crisis." Basically the article bolsters the idea that "it's all about asylum seekers" which is what the mainstream press wants Australians to believe. I don't know how independent the Australian Independent is. What do others think?
Here is what I wrote:
"A few problems with this article.
It seeks to make its entire case based on economic costs.
It then compares the $cost of providing for asylum seekers in a third world country with the $cost of doing so in an expensive first world country.
It uses an arbitrary notion that asylum seekers should be distributed on a per capita basis per country.
It fails to take into account that in European countries and most countries except the US, Canada and Australia, asylum seekers have little or no chance of acquiring permanent residence and still less of citizenship (which is the equivalent of permanent migration status in Australia)
It fails to take into account democracy and the environment, seemingly believing that if a dollar-case can be made that invalidates all other objections.
I agree that the number of asylum seekers arriving here is relatively small compared with the huge number of economic immigrants who come here at the invitation of our state and federal governments and are swamping our education systems and, by contributing to rapid population growth, are driving up the cost of land, housing, water, power etc.
Now your author might think there is an economic argument about how driving costs up causes more economic activity, jobs etc and that we are all going to be 'clever' about this, but it is clear to me that the growth lobby that drives all this with the government's support is the major beneficiary and that the rest of us are paying for it.
I also agree with the author that the asylum seeker crisis is a beat-up. It is designed to draw peoples' attention away from the much larger incoming stream of economic migrants. It is designed to confuse us all about what is actually contributing to population growth. It is most of all designed to confuse and divide the Left between an idea that most immigrants are asylum seekers or refugees and therefore deserve an initial uncritical reception and the idea that most immigrants are asylum seekers or refugees and are costing us a lot of money. In fact most immigrants are here to make more money and are chosen for their ability to provide cash up front to shopping centers to finance shops etc (as 'business migrants')or to work at 50% tax in our hospitals etc. That stream of immigrants is closely followed by their relatives (many of who are contributing to that other hoary old 'crisis' of the aging population.
So the asylum seeker thing is vastly over-stated but it acts as a lightening rod to drive wedges between Australians who might otherwise act together on more important things - like saving our democracy, our water, our green spaces and affordable housing from business-lobby-driven-inflation-motivated overpopulation."
Behind population policy scenes
I agree with you CSI. That's the pitch.
Politicians selling "Australia Unlimited"
Do governments decide on a rational basis - even economically?
The government is selling the image of Australia Unlimited. Marketing Australia as a land of unlimited room for growth is how you attract well-to-do migrants and investors, which is what the economy seems to be heavily dependent on. The government will never put forward any kind of definite population cap or optimum population number. This would be perceived as too negative to the business/immigration lobbies and might hurt growth.
On the other hand they could propose an absurdly high number, like 100 million or more. This would please the growth lobbies, but would scare more cautious voters. So the politicians will do what they do best - equivocate. They will state there is an optimum population numbers, but they will never, ever clearly define what it is. Regardless of how large the population grows, that optimum number will always be more.
Humans are exterminating koalas
How much can a koala bear?
One koala was trapped by a controlled fuel-reduction "bushfire" that ripped through her habitat last September, after the area had supposedly been cleared of wildlife. When she was found in that tree, 2½ weeks after the fire. Each foot pad was burnt, as well as her ears and eyes.
The Age - how much can the koala bear
Thousands of other koalas, not as "fortunate" as this one, have perished, as the killing of an iconic species continues unabated.
Human population growth is lethal to our slow-evolving species, unable to fight back the developers with chain saws, along with dogs, feral animals, disease, roads and human expansion.
Deborah Tabart is a fierce protector of koalas, and head of the Australian Koala Foundation.
She condemns the hypocrisy of politicians who piously continue to call koalas national symbols while turning a blind eye to threats to their long-term survival infuriates her.
Dr Jon Hanger is the wildlife veterinarian who isolated and genetically sequenced the appalling koala retrovirus, which inserts itself into the animals' DNA and can be passed on genetically or through infection, attacking the immune system. This disease is just one of many threats faced by the famous marsupials, including mining, logging, coal-seam-gas exploration and, most of all, broad-scale land clearance.
They fall from trees straight under the bulldozers!
Terrorism towards koalas: She says. "But the fact is, after September 11, when John Howard was so busy focusing on terrorism, three Labor states - Queensland, NSW and Victoria - were able to work in tandem to build infrastructure and real estate developments".
"Developers have run the east coast of Australia for the past 10 years, and thousands of koalas have died."
Senator Bob Brown is hoping that the remarkable amount of information aired last year in an 8 month senate inquiry will finally prompt federal Environment Minister Tony Burke into listing the koala as a nationally threatened species under the federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC). If Burke obliges, it also means that billions of dollars in development plans in Queensland could be halted.
Deborah Tabart doesn't believe there are even 100,000 koalas left. She told the Senate inquiry the AKF believes there may be no more than 85,000 koalas in the wild.
Koalas are another iconic animal fighting for survival against not only developers - often attacked at the forefront of these debates - but due to our socially sanctioned and politically driven rampant and destructive population growth.
Social instinct
I am reading the thing and have a comment from the start (i guess i should read the book to get more references, if i can find a cheap copy). Are there really some light from biological studies about how instinct have evolved ? Do we actually know much about instincts ?
You give the impression that socialization is a superior form or later form of behvior. I am very skeptical, since you find the most extreme socialisation behaviors in insects and very often have among the same family of species both ultra social behavior and "individualistic" (there are less social bees, social and solitary fishes etc). I guess all this come from a more complex pattern and interplay between different urge that get regulated by selection according to environemental conditions and evolution.
Human for instance are neither social nor individualistic, their pattern of interaction has evolved in time and spaces.
vote about forest use
Thanks to people who had the time to send off emails to those pollies we suggested you write to yesterday. We now hear that the motion could be put to the vote anytime between next week and mid March, so you still have time to email or call these MPs. Oakeshott has received hundreds of emails and calls yet remains immoveable. Maybe try the others.
Do governments decide on a rational basis - even economically?
Do governments decide on a rational basis - even economically?
Given that sprawl has become a drunken addiction of the Liberal-Labor Party, if a new drug of choice - 'land reclaimation' was touted, why should anyone be surprised by further drunken abuse of taxpayers money to try a novel high?
Tigerquoll
Suggan Buggan
Snowy River Region
Victoria 3885
Australia
Correlated variables
I agree that socialist are missing the point, though may be fewer are advocating further population growth.
The debate is also very polarized in France, for instance, with the official position of the degrowth movement regularly pretending to debunk population bomb and malthusian approaches. Their claim is that the main problem is conssumption and not population. There arguments on the question are rather shallow and they usually oppose an ethical stance that closes all debate. They usually cite the case of the african continent that, has a so low footprint per inhabitant that their overall footprint are negligeable-
However they never mention the asian case, with a rapid switch of consumption pattern, fail to detail the notion of footprint and do not quantify the impact of emigration for work that induces a rapid change from rural to urban or western consumption patterns as migrants settle in high consumptons zones.
Ideology is pervading the whole debates, from christian ideological remains to optimist good willthinking that is supposed to be more uniting. The truth all these people have a short memory and seem to forget that fighting high birth rates among the poorest had been a difficult fight led by progressist neo malthusian, a powerful popular leftits and anarchist movement in Spain and France, that confronted states and religious authorities and were sued for "pornography" and forbidden. The taboo surrounding this all issue is in fact a victory of the most conservative forces in the european politic arena that happened during the war and managed to impose family as a central value in post war politics with social aids encouraging large families, special privilges and a the famous mother day that was inaugurated by french collaboration and kept official until today.
But on the other side, this fixation on the population issue seems as naive to me and fail to render the powerful mechanism that is behind the extension and reinforcement of modern globalized civilization. To say it briefly, it is incorrect to believe you can decorrelate conssumption and overpopulation, those two issues are linked historically.
Our pattern of conssumption is fostering overpopulation by shattering traditional societies via forced trade, land expropriation and by disconnecting populaton from the necessity of local production. As a result they live in the same false paradigm as ours, of a wealth happening through technology and not directly connected to land production. This is why they can indulge in continuing to have large family, as the surplus migrate to towns and towns are connected to the international network via trade of commodities or service. Eventually these surplus fills the need for flexible cheap labour in western countries that is growing as growth is also occuring. Through our consumption we are pumping the surplus, and thus maintain it. This has always been like this, from the beginning of industry in europe, that fed on overpopulated european peasant communities, then sattelite non industrialized countries, than colonnies and finally the whole world. Reversely, as the density of people, the lack of space, the necessity to commute, the obligation to work for both man and woman and the increased time devoted to consumption of good and service in an industrial world, the "insider" population become less fertile, and only constant immigration can maintain the constant need of a cheap servile labour force.
It is quite clear that most african cannot decrease their consumption. This is thus our task in the western world to focus on our consumption pattern, because this is what, on our side fuel the machine. If , here, we would go back to fields (probably after some violent confrontation to obtain this concrete option) like amishs, the whole globalized economy would collapse, migration would cancel out and local communities in fertile places would have to reduce birth rates because they would face the return of they migrants, both from regional urbanisation and remote western world ones.
From our point of view it is more important to focus on a switch to simplicity and an active fight against globalized economy rather than advocating a rapid decrease of population in the west,because we are not any longer a significant source of the increase of consummers, though it is clear that many european countries (france, the netherlands, germany, england, italy) have a dangerously high density of population, that is by no way sustainable without oil.
The planet's growing dilemma - no real dilemma
Increasing diversity in dietary options assume that science and technological advancements will eventually modify natural resources to produce enough food to feed 2.5 billion extra people. Scientists themselves are more realistic and skeptical.
Indicators of severe planetary stress include loss of species, increasing greenhouse gas emissions, increasing global deforestation, stratospheric ozone depletion, pollution, loss of topsoil, shortages of water and food in many parts of the world.
The Earth is a finite entity, and in the last decade food production from both land and sea has declined relative to population growth. Agricultural land has shrunk and degraded.
Dr Norman Borlaug, father of the "green revolution", was responsible for an increase in food supplies in poor countries, far beyond what many agriculturalists deemed possible. He was frustrated throughout his life that governments did not do more to tackle what he called “the population monster”, and recommended.... “the agencies that fight for increased food production and those that fight for population control unite in a common effort".
The world has been given a 40 year reprieve from the “population monster”, but it's not too late to take Borlaug's advice and unite in a common effort against it.
There's no real dilemma - but a battle between the obvious solution and ignorance. We must unite against human overpopulation, not resort to eating sea weed, gm crops, insects and artificial "meat" as suggested.
See also: Planet's growing dilemma of 16 :Feb 12 in the Age, reprinred from the Guardian.
Could cause oversupply of land though
I'm not sure Tigerquoll. Draining Port Phillip may not be economically rational. For a moment I thought you were really onto something but this requires some caution. It could throw land prices into a turmoil of oversupply. I think Baillieu would consider this if nothing else.
Think of the property boom if Ballieu drained Port Phillip
Think of the property boom if Ballieu drained Port Phillip!
The dumb bastard before him spent the State's inheritance on imposing a billion dollar desal plant on wee Wonthaggi,
so what's stopping the Ballieu doing a Brumby brain snap?
Anyone who votes for the Liberal-Labor Party needs to appoint an enduring power of attorney.
'Tigerquoll
Suggan Buggan
Snowy River Region
Victoria 3885
Australia
If Australia was in the "G9"
.... it would win the reckless population growth trophy over Canada. Australia's population growth in the year to June 2011 was 1.4% . Apart from maybe snatching the trophy from Canada the 2 countries are so similar it seems! We have the same green/Green mindset, the same push for densification of our cities ad nauseum, the same delusion that you can increase population and even emissions but if they are lower per capita it somehow mitigates our impact. We have the same hysteria over the aging population and who will support the over 65s? We have the same apparent urgent need for more skills but the unemployment rate is 5.2% - (623,700 people). In addition to this in Australia the growth lobby gets far too much air time and it is difficult to get away from their propaganda. A couple of days ago I was innocently driving towards the beach with the radio on when to my disgust I caught the ominous familiar voice of one of the great local growth pushers on a sort of loaded panel with no opposition to the underlying premise that Melbourne will just grow and we can do nothing about it. The presenter fatuously laid it bare - we could go up or out- those are our choices. Unfortunately some people will not examine this and will just believe him!
Candobetter contributors told to read, get an education ...
please read the occasional book,
go to school,
get an education,
stopp kidding yourself because anyone with the simplest of intelligence can see right through your shallow self centred ideals.
Such ignorance is sickening
Editor's comment: Candobetter welcomes critical (as well as supportive) comments as long as they add to the discussion and would welcome more. Where a comment, such as the above ad hominem attack, does not add to the discussion, but is not excessively inflammatory, not judged to be in breach of Australia's anti-defamation laws or in any other way illegal, and not excessively verbose we have published them and expect to continue publishing them and allowing our readers to form their own judgement. (If, however, at some future point in time, we were to find an excessive number of overly verbose comments posted to candobetter, we would consider asking that the comments be posted elsewhere and only linked to from here.)
Economic growth model is damaging
Like the traditional inhabitants of our land, our First People, Australian families are being displaced from home and land ownership. More people - to the delight of developers - are "choosing" to live in high rise apartments. Such living conditions are not desirable for families.
An economy based on growth means costs of living keep increasing, population increases and land becomes un-affordable. It displaces a layer of people at the "bottom" of the economic ladder, in a Ponzi-scheme, and denies the damage being done.
Growth means public facilities are constantly in short supply due to growth outstripping everything. This unrealistic and hostile economic model could be replaced by a more human-friendly one. There are limits to everything.
The public housing queues are years long, and families are living in tents. What was the Lucky Country is edging to increasing third-world conditions.
The homeless should start sleeping in tent communities in public parks, rather than being hidden away. People are far to complacent and cooperative.
The accusations of "racism", the guilt and the threat of being a social pariah, is a strong and clever way of controlling public thoughts and opinions. With patriotism safely dampened, growth and immigration can continue without debate.
Shortsighted 'Airport Immigration' ignores 'Settled Immigration'
Shortsighted 'Airport Gate Immigration' ignores the triple bottom line cost of 'Fully Settled Immigration'. What I mean by this is that the growthist open door encouragement of immigration to the airport, simplistically views a one sided benefit that more people arriving bring more dollars and economic demand. It is like a tour operator seeing tourists arrive and seeing them as tour revenue.
But immigration is not tourism. They stay forever. Unlike tourism, immigrants represent not just revenue, but cost - Triple Bottom Line cost - a phrase that has been little used since the 1980s. 'Sustainability' is more euphemistically malleable.
The economic, social and ecologial costs of immigration are selectively ignored by growthists, particularly government short-termism which just loosk as quick fix employment - aka 457 Work Visas for the mining industry, too mean to invest in training the local population. Meanwhile corporate miner profits are at record levels. The banks are making a killing with more mortgage loans and their profits are soaring.
National government economic numbers look good because demand is up with its multiplier effect on consumer demand, housing demand and numbers employed. But it twists the definition of unemployment. It conveniently ignores the society and liveability metrics and ecological health indicators - these are worsening.
So 'Airport Gate Immigration' has these hoards arriving. Australia's Immigration Department handballs sall the costs to the stats and urban governments where most of these immigrants mainly end up settling. Look at the statistics for Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth - the main destinations of choice by most immigrants into Australia by far.
And so in these places social and governent infrastructure has exceeed capacity - road congestion, public transport congestion, hospital waiting lists, propert demand is through the roof (which contiunues to make growthist property developers richer).
Australia's public utilities are overloaded (water, electricity, public transport, roads) and so major capital investment is being undertaken, robbing treasury resources away from locals who have long funded government coffers from decades of paying taxes. So the taxes now go into multi-billion dollar desalination plants in these cities. Electricity transmission infrastructure can't cope with the population increases in Australia's major capital cities. Traffic congestion is undermining Australian traditional lifestyles as more people have to dedicated more of their day commuting. The Australian Dream - owing a quarter acre block, has all but disappeared and now some growthists even curse it as a folly. Escaping to the backyard is now denied to most young Australians.
Try getting a job and see the queues!
Try finding affordable child care in an Australian capital city!
Try renting a flat in an Australian capital city!
Try buying a house in these cities where one's parents live and like one's parents once could. Children reaching adult age are forced to more away from their parents to more affordable areas, often to the country and interstate. Immigrant demand for urban housing is segregating established local families. The children are forced to move out of the cities their grew up in.
Demand for housing is ruining urban amenity as more high-rise towers become imposed upon established locals. When new housing is built, the necessary public infrastructure is ignored by both the developer and national government - no new schools, child care, public transport, hospitals, etc. Local and state governments are unfairly expected to absorb the cost burden. Housing demand is also driving urban sprawl which is destroying arable land for vital food production. Sprawl is bulldozing ecology and reducing vital remnant habitat into smaller islands, with more species closer to the brink of extinction.
'Airport Gate Immigration' is like burning down you house to keep warm, or eating you arm off because you're hungry. Traditional Australia is seeing death by a thousand immigrants.
'Fully Settled Immigration' on the other hand, is about the full accommodating of immigrants until their are fully settled into their new country. They have work, a home, education, and have happily integrated into Australian society. Fully Settled Immigration respects the full needs and full costs of immigrants, rather than saying ok your own as one exits the international airport for the city. In Australia, history since World War II has shown integration generally takes at least two generations. This is a realistic timeframe for Australian Govermment's immigration responsibility and accountability.
It is time for a moratorium on all immigration until the full settled cost of immigration is known, made public and accepted by the Australian national government and the Australian people. It necessitates nationalising all transport, housing, education, health and all the demands of immigrants in order to alleviate the immigrant cost burden from overstretched state and local governments. The growthist industries need to pay their way too with appropriate infrastructure levies and employment training levies for each on an immigrant per capita basis.
Take the regional Victorian township of Alexandra with its 12,000 residents for instance. For every 12,000 immigrants, the national goverment needs to replicate the same infrastructure that Alexandra enjoys in order to maining Australian social standards. But it needs to do this with no ecological footprint, because ecology is already disappearing with the 26 million already insatiable humans here.
Tigerquoll
Suggan Buggan
Snowy River Region
Victoria 3885
Australia
So all imigrants can freely
So all imigrants can freely murder and then just be deported without any punishment. Sounds like an invitation to come here and murder to me!!!!
'Peak everything': Fischer
The former Nationals leader, and until recently the Australian Ambassador to the Holy See, Mr Fischer addressed the National Press Club last week on the question of global food security - an issue he said the Vatican was keenly aware of.
All the signs of impending catastrophe are in front of us, Mr Fischer said, as runaway population growth heads for a smash into "peak everything" - water, land, nutrient, oil, fish and research.
See: 'Peak everything': Fischer of 12 Feb by MATTHEW CAWOOD
If a former political leader can draw the dots on human insatiable greed for growth and declining natural resources, why are other leaders so blinded?
Mr Fischer also flagged forecasts that up to 40 per cent of the Earth may face regular drought by end of the 21st century, and cited Julian Cribb, author of The Coming Famine, who wrote that world food production may decline by around 25pc "exactly when we are attempting to double it".
It's clear the age of growth has ended, yet economists and politician are still fixed in a retro era, to our peril. The Pope, if he is concerned about famine and impending global disaster, should give advice on family planning, and encourage it. How can the Church have any credibility if the Pope ignores the damage done by banning contraception? No species, or anything, can have exponential and unfettered growth within a finite container.
IMF/EU officials to be arrested for criminal harm to Greece?
(This was also posted here.)
A general strike gripped Greece in protest against new austerity measures demanded with increasing urgency by the European Union as part of a debt rescue deal with banks.
Greece's largest police union has threatened to issue arrest warrants for officials from the country's European Union and International Monetary Fund lenders for demanding deeply unpopular austerity measures.
In a letter obtained by Reuters on Friday, the Federation of Greek Police accused the officials of "...blackmail, covertly abolishing or eroding democracy and national sovereignty" and said one target of its warrants would be the IMF's top official for Greece, Poul Thomsen.
"Aging population" fears misguided
All this constant worrying about "aging population" is nonsense.
(a) The only way to avert it is to rapidly grow the population literally forever. As soon as you stop growing, or even slow down, the problem catches up with you. The longer you keep the growth going, the worse it is when it catches up with you.
(b) And to avert it you need extremely rapid growth which would cause the population to balloon to absurd numbers in a few decades.
(c) Past a certain point providing for a rapidly growing population becomes more expensive than providing for a stabilizing/aging population. We are probably past that point already. And in historical terms anything over half a percent (or less) is rapid.
And of course the biggest threat to continued economic growth is peak energy, which we are in the first stages of right now. But I doubt the economists at the Treasury Department are even capable of understanding that. Aren't economists taught that wealth = labor x capital and that natural resources are infinite? They are probably in for a rude awakening.
Older people downgraded as an "economic threat"
Treasury's Intergenerational Report's warning that an ageing population threatens lower rates of growth, with increased welfare costs and lower productivity, needs to be challenged.
Older people are not a "threat" to society, and increased "rates of (economic) growth" should not solely justify our government's budgets. The Economy is a system for providing for our lives, and supporting our existence, not the contrary. It's not meant to devalue the people it's meant to support.
Older people are not always unhealthy dependents. Young people have long economic dependency periods too. Older people provide family support and child care to workers. They often do volunteer jobs, and provide wisdom, balance and stability.
It is likely that older communities will be more law abiding communities since older people are less inclined to commit crimes against property and people.
The "ageing population" phenomenon has been over-used to support population growth.
To dilute the Australian ageing effect in the population would require a net addition of 400,000 migrants per year, almost twice the 2007-08 record level. The costs of growth, estimated to be about $200k per person in the developed world, are usually ignored, along with the fact that all people age.
Increasing immigration to keep the population "young" would create a pyramid of people and see our human numbers explode in the following generations. Older people need to be appreciated for their contribution to society, and be given care when they need it, not maligned by economic evaluations.
Truganini
My thoughts too. How dare they name a piece of urban sprawl after Truganini. After what was done to her in her lifetime and after death, something of value like a public park, nature reserve, a bay a river should be named after her, not a housing development! ABC presenters pronounce her name as applied to the suburb to rhyme with "miner" rather than "Teena". I was told by Tasmanian family members that her name was pronounced Truganini with the "nin" like "win' not "wine".
Plenty of spin-work for Andrew McLeod in Africa with RioTinto
Those poor Africans.
"The independent Southern Africa Resource Watch, says the companies are moving villagers to poor land far from jobs to make way for coal projects in central Mozambique. Local entrepreneurs are also being sidelined, says the organisation, which monitors the impact of mining across the region. The criticism is based on the findings of researchers who have studied resettlement efforts by Rio Tinto of Australia and Vale of Brazil, which recently began mining in Mozambique's Tete province.
Rio Tinto did not respond to requests for comment."
http://finance.ninemsn.com.au/newsbusiness/aap/8413067/rio-tinto-accused-of-being-unfair
Sounds like Andrew MacLeod, who has gone off from the so-called Committee for Melbourne to head PR for Rio Tinto in London, will have plenty of spinning to do.
Is the US Republican Party neo-Nazi or just untouchable?
Well ya gotta laugh when a US Republican presidential candidate proclaims returning the US of A to the perpetual US myth of the 'land of the free'. Do the Republicans mention any thought of closing Dubya's Gitmo? Naah!
When a US citizen is forcibly removed from a Republican meeting and his camera crew "because they were not accredited" and arrested for "unlawful entry" we are witnessing authoritarianism, not freedom. Free speech and public accountability clearly do not fall within US Republican scope of 'freedom'.
That is why Republican extremist, wildlife poacher Sarah Palin has demanded free speech entrepreneur Julian Assange be hunted down and assassinated.
Palin is dangerous.
Is the US Republican Party neo-Nazi or just untouchable?
Does this mean the Tea Party extremist wing of the Republican Party is wearing brown shirts?
It certainly harks to 1930s fascism. Republican presidential hopeful, Mitt Romney, is promising Hitler-esk scale military resurgence of America's self-righteous imperial might.
Romney believes America should be "the strongest nation on earth" and argued for an increase in military spending to ensure that the United States can assert military dominance over other nations"...It is only American power--conceived in the broadest terms--that can provide the foundation of an international system that ensures the security and prosperity of the United States and our friends and allies around the world." - Romney said during a speech at the Citadel in South Carolina.
Calling for this to be an "American century" in which "America leads the free world and the free world leads the entire world," Romney said that a "feckless" President Obama mistakenly believes that "there is nothing unique about the United States." Romney argued that the president has weakened the nation economically, militarily and in terms of "the enduring strength of our values."
"America is not destined to be one of several equally balanced global powers," said the former Massachusetts governor. "America must lead the world, or someone else will. Without American leadership, without clarity of American purpose and resolve, the world becomes a far more dangerous place, and liberty and prosperity would surely be among the first casualties."
"The United States should always retain military supremacy to deter would-be aggressors and to defend our allies and ourselves," he said. "If America is the undisputed leader of the world, it reduces our need to police a more chaotic world."
Tigerquoll
Suggan Buggan
Snowy River Region
Victoria 3885
Australia
Sustainable Population Aust stall Melbourne 17-19 Feb
The Victorian branch of SPA will hold a stall...
The Victorian branch of SPA will hold a stall for 3 days at Melbourne's Sustainable Living Festival from noon Friday Feb 17th -8 p.m. Saturday Feb 18th 10-a.m. -6.p.m. and Sunday February 19th 10 a.m. to 5.00pm festival stalls are on and around Federation Square. Come and visit if you are at the festival.
Population growth and dissing Truganini
Poor Truganini, her name so taken in vain to name yet another suburb dedicated to overrunning this country; in her life so abused by the same immigrationist system.
"POPULATION growth has seen student numbers at one of Wyndham’s newest schools more than double in a year.
Truganina South Primary School opened with about 200 students in grades prep to 6 for the start of the 2011 school year, but principal Mandy O’Mara said its enrolment had greatly expanded, with 500 students rolling in for 2012." ( Wyndham-Leader, by Kellie Cameron, 7 Feb 12).
It reminds me of that hidiously hypocritical mantra that labor party politicians and their mimickers recite so indecoriously over the former territory of the peoples displaced by colonialism and multiculturalism, as they announce some new development.
"I’d like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land we are meeting on today, the [insert name] people of the [insert name] nation." It makes me cringe. It would be impossible for a politician opening yet another new suburb to acknowledge that the dispossession of the traditional owners, past and present is ongoing and every new development is an insult to all those born here, who are not consulted and who don't want it.
Jakarta
To add to Mary's population picture, Jakarta's population was 800,000 in 1945, just before independence and grew to 8.2 million by 1990.From a very quick "read around" it would appear that Jakarta's population has grown rapidly and much faster than the country's over all growth rate because of migration (presumably from within Indonesia) into the city. It appears the governor of Jakarta made it a closed city in about 1970 with strict entry criteria but the influx has continued. In one of the Jakarta newspapers I read that the fertility rate is 2.1 and they want to get this down to 1.8. Indonesia grows more slowly than Australia.(because Australia doubles its population growth rate with immigration into the country) According to another article in the Jakarta Post, Should Jakarta be a closed city? of 18 Sep 12, some are even worrying though about an aging population with anticipated population decline ! Sound familiar?
Having spent a total of about 3 weeks in Jakarta -one week in the mid 1980s and another 2 in about 2005, I found it an unwieldy, un-walkable, slightly overwhelming city with very interesting pockets and great contrasts between rich and poor. In the 1980s, staying in wealthy Menteng I was fascinated by the broken glass embedded on the tops of some of the walls around the great houses as a deterrent to any trespassers. As though that were not enough, the friend I stayed with had a 24 hour guard outside his house. When I returned to visit with the same friend 20 years later he lived in a different suburb, still had a 24 hour guard but no glass. I have noticed an increasing number of gated communities being built in Melbourne. This would have been a totally alien concept 30 years ago when really there was not a yawing gap between the quality of life between rich and poor and people of quite modest means could command a generous amount of private space of their own. We could be headed in the direction of Jakarta. Like anywhere Jakarta is livable if you are rich and can get around in air conditioned chauffeur driven comfort. If you are a becak driver sleeping in your vehicle every night as I believe some do, then I think life would be very much a matter of day to day survival and trying to take in more calories than those expended in using pedal power to taxi people around the spider like city.
Mantle Mining arrogance and local community destruction
Mantle Mining Corporation’s (ASX: MNM) dramatic increase in both share price and volume over the past two days has caught the eye of the ASX, with the company being issued a speeding ticket. In addition, trading volume has increased substantially from 301,371 to 4.52 million yesterday and 14.99 million 2nd February.
The company is working towards an Inferred JORC Resource at the Bacchus project, which has an exploration target of 1-2 billion tonnes of brown coal.
While shareholders are wringing their hands with delight, not so the residents of Bacchus Marsh!
They are being "greenwashed" by the mining company, saying that this coal will lower greenhouse gas emissions in India - where it's being exported to.
Lower greenhouse gas emissions emissions in India shouldn't come at the expense of loss of community rights, and the destruction of fertile agricultural land by heavy and invasive drilling machinery in Bacchus Marsh.
Paul Connor, from the activist group Quit Coal, will be charged with interfering with a vehicle after police had to use an angle grinder to cut him down after the four-hour demonstration.
Bacchus Marsh drill site sparks protest
Organised by Quit Coal, the protest is the latest in a series of activities against the West Australian company’s 15-hole drill program.
Mantle mining plan to dig a huge, open-cut coal mine, then dry and export coal to India.
This project will destroy local farmland fields and threatens ground water, all for the sake of quick export dollars. It requires the burning of brown coal, so any "saving" of carbon emissions fails to take into account the emissions involved in the coal-drying process, involving substantial energy use.
Objectors to mining exploration in Bacchus Marsh are worried that native grasses will be destroyed if exploration continues. Concerns for the Parwan grasslands were raised at Mantle Mining's open day on Saturday when almost 100 people were invited to observe the drilling process and its desired achievements. Parwan Landcare spokesman Simon Jolly said he had doubts that rare species of grasslands could be successfully revegetated once ripped up.
Mantle Mining has a coal exploration licence to dig up 386 km2 of the surrounding area. Preliminary results of the coal properties have already "exceeded expectations".
Mantle has issued a bizarre and arrogant statement saying that while they support the right to peaceful protest, any such protests will not affect their future operations!
If protests are already deemed futile they must be confident that any democratic action against their destructive exercises will be stonewalled, due to powerful allies in government.
A government spokesperson said prior to commencing work at this site the company obtained consent of the affected landowner and had a compensation agreement in place. How can the intrinsic value of land, of local food supply, the loss of the integrity of their landscape, possibly water poisoning, loss of democratic transparency, and the stress of having such a huge parcel of their area drilled be adequately compensated?
In fact, Melbourne is nearly there.
It seems that Melbourne is closer to having Jakarta's nightmare of gridlocked traffic than many people realise.
The following was written in the Melbourne Age article Gridlock choking life out of city of 27 May; 2007.
MELBOURNE'S transport congestion is worse than the Government has let on, with internal documents revealing a train system at bursting point, trams among the slowest in the world and clogged freeways and major arterial roads.
The following was written in the Herald Sun article Brace yourself, highways to hell coming of 5 Feb 2012 nearly five years later:
MELBOURNE is on the road to a congestion crisis, with an extra 101,500 cars forecast to clog the city's freeways within five years.
VicRoads' official traffic projections, released exclusively to the Sunday Herald Sun, show an enormous influx of cars on five major Melbourne thoroughfares by 2016.
Traffic experts have warned the projections - which do not include trucks or motorbikes - exposed the growing threat of city-wide gridlock.
Our political rulers and their corporate masters have caused this by imposing population growth and continuing to do so. How they have gained from reducing by so much the quality of life of each Melburnian on average and what they stand to further gain by continuing to to do so is difficult to understand.
Yet they must have gained. Otherwise, why would they continue with these policies?
That they gain from reducing the overall quality of life of all citizens shows that our economy, based, not on the production of actual wealth, but on land speculation, property development and financial paper shuffling, is gravely dysfunctional,
Jakarta: Is this where Melbourne is heading? (Mary Drost)
http://www.smh.com.au/world/jakartas-jockeys-in-demand-as-gridlock-drives-city-to-despair-20120203-1qxpn.html (Video)
I lived for years in Jakarta and watched it grow from a manageable 3 million to a nightmare of 12 million. This happened without adding the necessary infrastructure and with the developers having a free hand. So now there are 4 million cars and 6 million motor bikes on the gridlocked roads. It makes you feel sick to be stuck in that sort of traffic. Also the pollution is beyond description.
So a pleasant liveable city has become a nightmare. You can see why I am so protective of Melbourne. You can see now that schools are back and holidays are over how hard it is moving around Melbourne again. We need good planning, and more say by residents and for the infrastructure to catch up with the population we have now.
Take a look at the article - link above- and think about Melbourne.
Mary
Brad Hazzard's "sustainable growth" in western Sydney
Minister Hazzard will be called on to explain his broken election commitment that the Liberal Nationals would stop Lend Lease from destroying an additional 100 hectares of critically endangered Cumberland Plain Woodland at the former ADI Site in Penrith.
Brad Hazzard need to do some explanation as to how his planned new urban release areas can be delivered sustainably, with minimal impact to the environment and the quality of life of locals. Brad Hazzard appears to have thrown the sustainability criteria for new urban development outside of the identified growth centres out the window. How can flora and fauna be managed and protected while being engulfed by urban sprawl? "Sustainable growth" is an oxymoron, and like the Alpine cattlemen's claim that they are doing "trials" to prevent fires in national parks, this urban expansion has nothing to do with science, ecology or environmental protection.
It is nonsense to argue that this will make life better for the residents of Western Sydney. This will only further trash our quality of life and our environment.
Where will the bushland "offsets" be planted? Native species can't just be expected to relocate after losing their territories.
In Penrith there is 2400 hectares identified for release of which most is completely isolated from any proper infrastructure. To allow that amount of land to be fast tracked for release is not "planning" but maximising developers' opportunities. The car will be the only way people can commute. Public transport and infrastructure is begrudged as an after-thought.
It's a plague of people, and houses being build will lead to increased population.
See Western Sydney group to meet with Brad Hazzard this week about urban sprawl of 31 Jan 2012 at http://www.streetcorner.com.au/news/showPost.cfm?bid=23264&mycomm=NW&com... .
"Reverse racism and the Australian Protectionist Party
"Darrin Hodges represents the Australian Protectionist Party which claims the Australian way of life is under threat. The party is campaigning for a 'one in one out' immigration policy. And to protect the jobs of Australian workers.
"Reverse racism can be called positive discrimination or affirmative action and it's basically the idea that there's a sense of political disenfranchisement for the majority... who, even though they're like a majority, politically they're like a minority," Darrin said.
"If it's racist for the protectionist party to advocate on behalf of their identity, then groups like the Lebanese Muslim Association must also be racist, they're advocating on behalf of Lebanese Muslims.""
http://au.news.yahoo.com/today-tonight/lifestyle/article/-/6812577/reverse-racism/
Prof Graeme Hugo - misquoted?
"“That's one of the things we don't realise about Australia - we're not just a great immigration country, but we're a great emigration country,” Professor Graeme Hugo, the head of The Australian Population and Migration Research Centre at the University of Adelaide, said.
Professor Hugo says it's time the Federal Government focuses more on stemming the stampede abroad, rather than trying to keep the migrants out."
Uh, what?? Since when are they trying to keep migrants out? Every state government invites them from government websites. Surely Hugo knows this.
"“The increase in cost of living in Australia may be one of the factors which is encouraging some people to go back. I think a lot go back because they miss that interaction with family, and also lifestyle factors. You know things don't turn out quite as they expected they might,” Professor Hugo said."
quotes from "Migrants leaving Australia," January 25, 2012, 6:18 pm Adam Marshall Today Tonight
Money contributions to SOPA campaign - breakdown
Sponsors of SOPA Act Pulled in 4 Times as Much in Contributions from Hollywood as from Silicon Valley
Submitted by Jeffrey ErnstFriedman on Dec 19, 2011 at MapLight
Dec. 19, 2011 - The House Judiciary Committee on December 15 held a markup of the so-called SOPA Act (HR 3261), a bill that has produced surprising allegiances and adversaries and has pit some of California's most powerful business interests against each other.
The measure, which would crack down on Web sites that offer or sell pirated and counterfeit products, is opposed by a collection of the largest tech companies because they believe it would come at the cost of innovation and future jobs. The bill's supporters, spearheaded by entertainment producers, believe that the measure is necessary to protect consumers from potentially dangerous products and to protect US companies and workers from losing profits and jobs, respectively.
The Stop Online Piracy Act would allow the Department of Justice to shut down any website determined to be facilitating online piracy as well as order any Internet search provider to block links to the offending site.
The debate over the bill's language has pitted the entertainment capital, Los Angeles, against the tech incubator, Silicon Valley. The measure is supported by entertainment producers such as Comcast, Disney, Sony, and the RIAA. It is opposed by tech companies such as Facebook, Google, Mozilla, and Yahoo!
Since the beginning of the 2010 election cycle, the 32 sponsors of the bill have received almost 4 times as much in campaign contributions from the movie, music, and TV entertainment industries ($1,983,596), which support the bill, as they have received from the software and Internet industries ($524,977), which believe the language goes too far.
Reality trumps blind optimism
It doesn't help when the mass media, lead by the Murdoch empire, is constantly misrepresenting just how high our growth is. This is probably the greatest systematic propaganda campaign in Australian history.
But the examples of willful blindness given in the book often ended very abruptly. Those two battleships colliding. Enron collapsing like a house of cards. How will the population growth in Australia end? Quickly or slowly? Of course its going to end, but it certainly won't happen voluntarily. If we are lucky the end could come gracefully, like what is apparently happening in Japan now. But we probably won't be that lucky.
The likeliest scenario I can come up with is when peak oil hits hard and drives the price of fuel way up. Given how utterly car dependent our culture is, this will have immediate, devastating implications. The standard of living will collapse and the birth rate decline immediately. Opposition to immigration will ramp up to the point where the government will be forced to cut it back. Momentum will keep the population growing for a while, but the end will be in sight.
Keating blamed Portugal and was more concerned about China
Geoffrey,
Thanks. I shall check your reference.
Meanwhile, this extract of "Latham's Diaries is revealing reading, as is The Australian-Indonesian Security Agreement - Issues and Implications...
"as defence cooperation between the two countries is expanded, the Australian Government will have to act with care to ensure that it is not embarrassed by being linked to possible human rights abuses by the Indonesian military."
Tigerquoll
Suggan Buggan
Snowy River Region
Victoria 3885
Australia
Live in Australia 6 months and you get permanent residence?
This is what your reply from Hon. Michael O'Brien seems to indicate. The important part is at the end where he talks about permanent Australian residents (as opposed to citizens).
It looks like one can get permanent Australian resident status on the flimsy pretext that one has resided at a property in Australia as a principle place of residence for six months!
What kind of country are we running here? What sort of protection do we have from overpopulation and open slather on our homeloans and everything else?
This is ALARMING.
The home grant should be changed to Australian Citizens' Home Grant at the very least. And it should not go to people with dual citizenship.
It does mean that loads of people from Kuala Lumpur or anywhere can get AUD$13,000 for any new house they purchase in Australia if they can have a signature from one person who has resided here for 6 months. Furthermore, more reading makes me think that if anyone then coming to live in that house or some other house gets permanent residence. What it does is facilitate chain migration which you and I are made to pay for - in taxes and housing shortages and higher prices for electricity, water and rent, plus crowded inadequate transport in a country where democracy is just a disappearing memory. It would be possible to entirely repopulate Australia in this manner, internationally seeking rich people.
At First Home Owner Grant
"- for eligible transactions entered into on or after 1 January 2005, applicants must occupy the home purchased or built, as their principal place of residence for a continuous period of at least 6 months commencing within 12 months after completion of the eligible transaction
- everyone who on completion of the transaction will be an owner of the home is considered an applicant; and"...
In Malaysia the rules of housing purchases for foreigners present an interesting contrast, with some protection for the locals:
"Houses built on Malay reserved land can only be purchased by Malays. Thirty percent of each housing project is to be reserved for Bumiputra purchasers who enjoy 5% to 8% discount on the purchase price."
Secondly, interestingly, what Australians would call racist terms:
"As a guide (and this applies to all categories of Foreigners) here are some of the factors that Lenders look out for:
(i) Country of origin with a preference for developed Countries."
The response from your member does not indicate how Australian law can permit a licence to a company (Mirvac) that will use $13,000 Australian grants to buyers in Kuala Lumpur to attract new buyers, with the obvious impact of such an advertisement on our housing crisis, population growth, and tax-use ethics.
$13000 home grant Reply from Hon. Michael O'Brien
I have received a reply from Michael O'Brien member for Malvern in the Victorian state parliament.
He writes......"I have sought advice from Hon Kim Wells MP, Treasurer of Victoria and the State Revenue Office Victoria and can confirm that the information regarding the Grant being available to non- Australian residents is incorrect.
The Grant is funded by the Australian government and administered by each State Revenue Office. Eligible applicants may be entitled to a one off payment to assist with buying or building their first home in Australia. Eligibility requirements indicate that in order to be entitled to the Grant, you (or at least one applicant) must be a permanent citizen at the time of settlement or construction of the home.
The article you refer to from the Herald Sun newspaper quotes an advertisement in the Malaysian newspaper News Straits Time, stating that "exclusive release to Kula Lumpur" and "Hurry up and get the AUD$13,000 Australian Government Grant". The Grant is not available for non-Australian residents or citizens. However for example, an overseas student in Australia who has permanent Australian resident status may be eligible for the Grant, provided they live at the property as a principle place of residence for a consecutive six months within twelve months of purchase.
He continues that further info can be obtained a State Government revenue Office www.sro.vic.gov.au
'Optimistic' disregard for reality imperils us all
I agree with what you write about Salty Follies, Quark.
This attitude of 'optimistic' disregard of the obvious is also exemplified in "I would rather be an optimist than a pessimist, said the Dodo bird" where ex-journalist, and then Labor politician, Maxine McKew, told the Australian Q & A television show that, since we would all rather be optimists than pessimists, she was going to take the optimistic view on Australia's carrying capacity and on the livability of larger cities, and that to her mind ended the argument.
Both she and Rudd had dodo-like ends to their blindly optimistic [or wilfuly blind] political incumbencies.
Actually, one should apologise to the poor dodo for taking its name in vain. The dodo was made extinct by humans who suffered from willful blindness to the finitude of island biological resources. Metaphorically the dodo has come to signify a lack of foresight in its evolutionary sacrifice of the power of flight, which it might later have used to save itself from predators, had it been able to see ahead a few million years. If you subscribe, however, to the Richard Dawkins view of evolution, that 'sacrifice' was never a choice, it was a product of environmental selection.
Applying the Dawkins evolutionary view to big populationists like Rudd, Salt and McKew, you could explain the post WW2 petroleum-rich economic environment as selecting in a greater representation of blind optimists than at other times. When the cheap petroleum runs out, this form of optimism may be responsible for many millions of deaths. Then the human race will face conditions where clear-sightedness rather than willful blindness, will be the major asset to survival, just as wings would have been for dodos.
In "I would rather be an optimist than a pessimist, said the Dodo bird", we cited Vlad Stoikovich, who wrote,
"Population boosters often paint the population debate as being one of HOPE verses FEAR. They, being on the side of hope, see themselves as visionaries with an unshakeable confidence in the creativity of mankind. On the side of fear, they group together -
“the villains”: NIMBYs, bigots, scaremongers and conservationists, people resistant to and fearful of change, pessimists whose innate distrust of mankind is their greatest failing.
To present the case for and against in such a light is clearly just another case of moral manipulation, an attempt by boosters with vested interests to hold the moral high ground at the expense of reasoned, logical debate. So in the interest of fairness let’s reverse their proposition and assume that boosters are on the side of FEAR and population stabilisers the side of HOPE.
Could such an argument be valid?
We only have to analyse booster arguments to deduce what it is they FEAR:
* Boosters FEAR that we cannot maintain economic growth without population growth.
* Boosters FEAR that the personal stake they have in controlling capital, land and business wealth will not be maximized.
* Boosters FEAR that we will not be able to support an aging population.
* Boosters FEAR that we will revert into a bigoted, Anglo-centric fortress Australia, which breeds suspicion and hatred of those different from us.
* Boosters FEAR strategic/military weakness and invasion from foreign powers.
So what do stabilisers HOPE for?
* We HOPE for a world in which our children can enjoy the same abundant natural environment and species that we enjoy today.
* We HOPE for an economic model which takes into account the full environmental, social and cultural impacts of our choices.
* We HOPE for an Australia whose growth is based on doing things smarter, more productively and in a way which gives all Australians the opportunity to participate and prosper.
* And the list goes on!
Boosters believe in the boundless ingenuity of humanity, they put their faith in the great scientists and machines of tomorrow, that will enable us to consume and grow without limits. But ingenuity comes in many forms and it should be recognized that before every great leap of science comes an even greater leap of philosophy . Perhaps the ingenuity they so crave is not to be found in their grand technological visions of tomorrow, but in the simple philosophical shifts now happening right under their noses."
Keating and legitimising Suharto's dictatorship
A reply to Tigerquoll has now been published as an article here: "Keating and legitimising Suharto's dictatorship "
In a recent interview (24 Mb MP3 file here) on 2 November last year with the ABC's Richard Fidler, former 'Labor' Prime Minister Keating dismissed concerns for human rights and democracy in Indonesia. He claimed that figures given by economists proved that ordinary Indonesians had been lifted from poverty to prosperity by the policies of former dictator Suharto, who came to power in the coup of 1965 in which more than half a million members and supporters of the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) were murdered.
Read more here: "Keating and legitimising Suharto's dictatorship "
Sleep test
As with investment the bottom line is whether one can sleep at night. The article "Salty Follies.." on Jan 11th on this site shows one man in particular and 2 of his cronies’ self talk cum public rhetoric about how they must brainwash the public into acceptance of more population growth. Another example might be the minister for Sustainability in the Australian government who should know that Australia needs to address where its population numbers are going, but produced a report which focused instead on population distribution. Both men must have a way of rationalising their actions or lack of in order to both sleep at night and possibly enjoy family holidays. A device used by Bernard Salt probably to keep himself convinced as much as to persuade others is to use the word "optimistic" to describe those who embrace the idea of a future that is bigger in population terms than it is today. Optimism is presumably some sort of virtue in his mind and most would agree that it has a positive ring to it. In other words though he is saying it is a matter of faith. Faith is a good thing, he has faith and this absolves him from considering the immediate negative consequences of growth on other people and the environment. Willful blindness takes the alert and the sleepwalkers alike to the abyss.
Willful Blindness in East Timor, Sri Lanka, and now West Papua
Rudd's willful blindness applied Sri Lanka and now West Papua.
Gillard, Rudd, Smith and Abbott are all in a froth about 'Australia's commitment to Afghanistan' servile to US strategic interests on the other side of the world, yet the Liberal-Labor Party quietly allow atrocities by the Indonesians upon our immediate neighbours.
Similarly Howard was in bed with Bush over Iraq, yet ignored East Timor until Australian homegrown public pressure got him and Downer to finally act.
Read more: 'Howards New Lies On East Timor'
I take you back to an article I wrote 18th January 2010:
'In Sri Lanka, Rudd has emulated Whitlam's willful blindness to the 1975 invasion of East Timor'
Read about Indonesia's official militia's human rights violations in West Papua, just a thousand kilometres from Darwin.
Manukoreri.net
Tigerquoll
Suggan Buggan
Snowy River Region
Victoria 3885
Australia
Remember the "Peter Principle" ?
It seems intuitive that promotion should be based on merit. One would think that with merit based promotion the best and brightest will always run the show and that this will be better for an organisation. With merit based promotion, the "Peter Principle" (that each officer will rise to the level of his/her level of incompetence) will no longer permeate public bureaucracies and company staff structures, surely? In the government body where I worked for more than a decade , this "evolution" roughly coincided with a staged corporitisation. This is how it seemed to me. Changes to work practices were gradual and incremental enough to cause little complaint from the staff who were generally eager to please and to show they could absorb extra work. They usually declared that it would make little difference to them and gave the impression that they could go with the punches. The younger or newer the staff members, the less likely they were to complain about increases in work load. Increases in workload were due mainly to administrative changes consequent to the increasing need for the organisation to fund itself. This is a climate for favoritism. An eager uncomplaining young officer will win favour with a boss who has been ordered from above him/her to implement an unpalatable change and those staff under this boss but more senior who offer resistance, even if it is expressed in terms of the quality of work will be seen as an impediment. One of my colleagues who was senior but not promoted tells me he was asked to leave the organisation at the age of 53 because he would not cooperate in a particular revenue raising exercise which involved expense to pensioners and which he felt was not warranted in most cases.
I also noticed that more senior staff would recognise "new" ideas as repeats of ideas brought forward usually about 5 years previously and abandoned in daily practice. This was termed "re-inventing the wheel". A more senior employee will usually recognise an idea that has come up before and will know what happened to it in practice. This can be very time and energy saving for the organisation.
Love of money - the root of all evil
New International Version (©1984) 1 Timothy 6.10
For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.
A clear distinction must be made between THE LOVE of money and money itself. The bottom line is that money, like technology, is spiritually neutral. It can be used for good or evil.
Greed is one of the biggest flaws of the human race. We are never satisfied. We always want more. This might have been born by centuries of struggling to survive.
Humanity treats the Earth as a complete stranger, living strictly for their own benefit and not for harmony between Earth and all life on it. Like thieves in the night, as strangers, we rob the Earth of whatever they relish; or, conversely, destroy and annihilate everything on the planet as we please. Governments and corporations force hypocrisy onto us, and those who are enlightened have little power to stop it.
Greed, the love of money, is the root of all evil connected to the destruction of the planet. All governments constantly promote the accumulation of wealth for taxes and personal gain under the justification of "economic benefits". Passing laws that allow the criminal destruction of the environment that they are supposed to protect. Money always rules with these robotic idiots.
Amassing people has become a source of wealth. People are collected and imported as consumers, as commercial sinks, to buy land, houses, goods and services. The costs and dire consequences are passed onto the the population and to generations down the track.
In the book of Revelations, the Four Horsemen must be in their stables already, saddling up and getting ready for the Apocalypse. The Four Horsemen are the GFC, Global Warming, Peak Oil and Overpopulation - and are already with us!
Humans are innately greedy and money hungry and our world is overpopulated.
UN does not look at land-rights
I agree that the UN is dodging its responsibility. It has absolutely no interest in land-rights for people of 'third world countries' or first world countries either. The result is dispossession, disorganisation, and overpopulation. In the third world where child labour is not prohibited, the only way landless people can increase their income is to have plenty of children to send out to work. In the first world the poor are encouraged to have plenty of children (by baby bonuses) and those children, poorly educated as education costs rise, man unskilled and semi-skilled jobs or may endebt themselves with interest in the pursuit of higher education. Also, in the 'first world', the elites who are taking control of all the land, sell this land off to the highest bidder, in a globalised market. The elites also finance the mortgages.
Imagine if Africans and Indians had retained their traditional lands. They would also have retained their traditional stable populations. There would never have been factory fodder or overpopulation. Australia, Canada, the USA are going the same way. This is why I advocate relocalisation with land-rights. And part of land-rights is the power to use your land to grow food and cooperate with your neighbours. It would be impossible to recolonise Australians, Canadians, Americans, Africans, Indians etc if full land-rights were recognised and defended internationally as human rights, with leasing only - not buying and selling - permitted.
Understanding of these problems unfortunately goes right over most peoples' heads - but not the property developers, of course - they are right behind the dispossession, the international buying and selling, and the open borders.
Western population growth mainly by immigrants
The Western population growth in Australia, US and Canada is mainly driven by immigrants seeing the land of opportunity, arriving, breeding exponentially and claiming the baby bonuses.
Catholic heaven!
And the Western baby boomer governments only know economic growth by increasing demand and the fastest way is the immigration red carpet.
Problem is none of the politicians studied sociology or will be around long enough to see the social consequences - Third World with all its culture moving in on the First World - net effect is Australia US and Canada become Second worlds - that is a massive Western underclass.
I blame the UN do gooders - they don't want to address Third World countries poor standards of living - too hard basket. Rather the UN policy is that the best way to improve Third World standards of living is to move Third World populations to the First World.
It is the 21st Century dumbing down social mistake and it has got to f&%#n stop!
Tigerquoll
Suggan Buggan
Snowy River Region
Victoria 3885
Australia
Population growth increasing in US, Australia, Canada
Yes, well... Australia's population growth is being forced up by its governments and commercial growth lobby with trends set to double it within next fifty years or so. Same problem with the USA, which is heading towards half a billion soon - and Canada.
Lower fertility rates not enough
The whole has to take priority over the individual groups and parts. How can "voluntary" birth control really dilute the rampant global population growth rate? Also, individual families and couples can't see the whole picture of the global overpopulation picture. If people don't make the choice, then Nature will have no emotions or qualms about doing so.
Fertility levels declining in some countries will be insufficient to slow down exponential growth to a leveling out. It's about slightly reducing the planet's all time population growth rate acceleration, but not avoiding ecological collapses.
The agonizing slowness with which birth rates are coming down means that population is still increasing.
People propose a giant pyramid scheme to continue to produce young people who will take care of them as old people - leaving the question of who is going to take care of the young people when they get old?
There is still a fair chance that the population in 2100 might be even higher than the 10 billion projected in the medium variant of the U.N. projections. The U.N. projections assume that fertility would decline in most regions of the world, but slowing the surge of numbers would need to be drastic without a world-wide awareness campaign, a denial of aid without cooperating in family planning, and tax disadvantages for big families.
Deconstructing The Dangerous Dogma Of Denial: Hogwash
Madeline Weld ignores the progress made in many countries, including Rwanda, Bangladesh, Mexico, Ethiopia, Iran, Turkey and more. She ignores the successes of family planning providers Pathfinder, Planned Parenthood, Population Media Center, and many others.
If Ms. Weld likes numbers, she should have crunched these before commenting: Nearly 230 million births are averted annually by global contraceptive use, or 1.7 times the current number of livebirths. See epirev.oxfordjournals.org/content/32/1/152.full
Or these from UN Population Division Fertility Reports December 2011 :
Since the 1970s fertility declined worldwide to unprecedented levels between the 1970s and the first decade of the twenty-first century. Total fertility fell in all but three of the 185 countries or areas for which data are available. In the most recent period covered, 75 countries or areas had a total fertility below 2.1 children per woman. The median level of total fertility among developing countries fell by more than half, from 5.7 children per woman in the 1970s to 2.5 children per woman in the most recent period.
Increasing numbers of Governments have become dissatisfied with the fertility levels of their populations. In 1976, 53% of Governments at the world level viewed their fertility levels as being satisfactory, and by 2009 only 38% held this view.
Among developing countries, contraceptive use increased sharply, where the median of the distribution rose from 44.6% in 1970-1979 to 64.1% in 2000-2009.
She blames lack of funding on the feminist agenda, but it is obviously due more to opposition to abortion and contraception. People like Betsy Hartman who call those of us who are population-concerned 'Population Controllers', has a small voice compared to the conservatives who determine foreign aid, including every Republican presidemt since Reagan.
Hartman just adds more ammunition to the conservatives' arguments against family planning.
Weld, on the other hand, in ignoring the many successes arising from the Cairo Convention and voluntary family planning, sells us short, making us all look like Population Controllers, and fuelling the hate of both Betsy Hartman and the conservative lawmakers.
It is funding that we lack to make a success of voluntary family planning (allowing women or couples to choose the size of their families), not population control, but articles like Welds stand in the way of winning funding because population control is not only totally unnecessary, it is highly unpopular.
Foreign Labor Government now building Koreaville in Hobart
It's not just Whittlesea being sold to foreigners.
Forget Australia's affordable housing crisis. Now the Foreign Labor Party is building 'ParanVille' in East Hobart...
Read the following article into today's Hobart Mercury: 'ParanVille nod builds bonus'
'WORK on a $900 million Korean suburb on Hobart's Eastern Shore will start within a year after winning final planning approval yesterday.
Billed as an "integrated lifestyle, education, and residential development", ParanVille will be one of the biggest residential subdivisions developed in the state and promises to give the struggling building industry a massive boost. It is expected to attract residents from Korea, China and Japan who are keen to escape harsh northern winters and the threat of nuclear accidents, its backers said yesterday.
The 158-hectare rural site between Howrah and Rokeby approved by the Tasmanian Planning Commission will become home to more than 2000 new residents and several hundred language students and will generate up to 1000 jobs during the 10-year construction period.
It will feature a language school and residence hall for students. The site was chosen because of Tasmania's international image as a clean, green, safe and politically stable place to live and for its proximity to Hobart's airport.
Foreign Labor Premier Lara Giddings yesterday hailed it as a vote of confidence in Tasmania's new planning system.
"It should give business outside the state, and of course outside investors, some confidence to know that our planning does work and that indeed Tasmania is open for business," she said.
"This project will create jobs in the construction industry at a time when the housing industry is struggling."
Developer Paul Kim's son, Pius, said his father expected strong demand for properties at ParanVille.
"In Seoul right now it's minus 14 degrees. Climate-wise in summer it's really hot and in winter it's really cold in Korea. Tasmania has a much better climate.
"Also, there are other factors such as nuclear risks, typhoons and natural disasters.
"Koreans and Chinese visitors who come to Australia love Australia, but they especially love Tasmania."
Mr Kim said his father was delighted the local community had welcomed the project and it had now passed the final planning hurdle.
"He has been working for this project for nine years now and he is happy to see it to fruition. Almost all the construction work will be done by Tasmanians. Some parts of the planning will be done by Korean workers as well and some Korean construction techniques will be brought over by them.
"When he first came to Tasmania in 2003 there were only 30 Korean people living in Tasmania. Now officially there are about 1080 people living here and there will be more."
The Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry welcomed news of the development's final approval.
Chamber chief Robert Wallace said the decision sent a clear message to investors that Tasmania was open for business and the project investment would provide a major boost to the state economy.
"This will be a project of state significance, one that will provide a much needed boost to employment," he said.
The manager of Rokeby's Hardware Pro store Ken Mathers said he was looking forward to welcoming the new residents to the area.
"It will have to be a huge spin-off," he said. "It will be ongoing because then you'll have hundreds of well-off retired Korean people living there.
"It will be a boost for every business on the Eastern Shore for us in the short term with the construction, but in the long term it will give us access to hundreds more people."
Tigerquoll
Suggan Buggan
Snowy River Region
Victoria 3885
Australia
Ian Angus resorts to ad hominem in absence of clear thinking
Just found an article by Angus reacting to the above article. [Ed. Writer has forgotten to include URL] He really undermines any arguments or good faith he might claim to by his ad hominem attack on Stuart Hurlbert, who has apparently criticized his ideology.
Angus has absolutely nothing to say in defense of Angus's 'theory'. Instead he goes on a personal attack, insinuating that Hurlbert is racist, elitist, a target of the Southern Poverty Law Center, and a supporter of democratic immigration policy in Arizona.
Next, Angus attacks Madeline Weld for being an associate of Stuart Hurlbert, and, amazingly, an ersatz feminist because she wants to give women in the 'third world' the chance to use contraceptives. What would Angus know about feminism? Women want control over births! He would deny that? Sounds like an MCP ponce to me.
Finally, Angus gets upset because Weld distributed an article by another socialist that criticised Angus's book (which I see candobetter has also published here: A real Ecosocialist review of that cornucopian book, Too Many People). He calls this "participating in an international campaign to use a disagreement among socialists to discredit our book." Phew! Looks like they are right those who criticise the so-called socialist movement for censoring and intimidating free speech. Alan Thornett's only crime is solid argument that shows up Angus's ideology for the tosh it is. Where does Angus get off, trying to deny people the right to publish or the right to benefit from the publication and dissemination of wider views? Someone has to open the eyes of youth to the utter bogusness of elites in the so-called 'socialist' movements where so many young people are attracted to the ideals the movement pretends to espouse but actively undermines with cant like Angus's. (Wonder who subsidised their book? Most of these pro-growth books are cashed up by growth-lobbyists.)
Angus, you sound p-a-t-h-e-t-i-c.
Keilor folk need our solidarity
http://brimbank-leader.whereilive.com.au/news/story/dont-destroy-our-keilor-village/
Keilor folk have asked for help so I have posted a comment on this article in the Brimbank Leader. Do help them by taking a minute to add a few words of support for retaining their village atmosphere.
We have a fight on our hands with the possible destruction of our beautiful village.Please feel free to have your say on this article supporting our cause .
http://brimbank-leader.whereilive.com.au/news/story/dont-destroy-our-keilor-village/
Comments now closed on this form. Please add any comments in respose to comments on this page or any new comments on the new page here. - 5 Feb 12
Population problems and imperialism
Hi Madeline,
Thanks for this article. I would like to ask you a question and also make an observation. My question is:
To what do you attribute the population problems in Rwanda, Haiti, Australia, Canada etc, if not imperialism?
My observation is:
People who call themselves socialists have begun to uses the term 'populationist' with a meaning opposite to the one that I know of. I believe the word is derived from the French. Here is a definition I wrote a few years ago when I thought that I coined the English version:
"Populationism : refers to a philosophy, attitude or policy encouraging population growth by any or all demographic means - natural increase and/or immigration and, arguably, low infant mortality and increasing longevity. "Populationist" refers to a person who holds this philosophy etc. These words don't exist in English but I find them very useful additions."
Here is another useful word:
"Immigrationism : is fairly self-explanatory, I think, and refers to a philosophy, attitude or policy encouraging high immigration. "Immigrationism" and "populationism" are two useful terms I borrowed from the French immigrationnisme and populationnisme. I have dropped the typical French double 'n' when I have spelled them in English. An "immigrationist" is a person with a philosophy, attitude, etc. of immigrationism."
Food security in Africa
The Australian government has generously made a commitment to promoting food security in Africa, including $142 million in aid for the current crises in East and West Africa. (October 11 2011)
According to the press release, Africa holds 60 per cent of the world’s uncultivated farmable land however one in three people still go hungry there every day.
Under-investment in agricultural research and innovation, along with a decline in agricultural productivity, are key factors affecting Africa’s ability to bring about food security.
Australia has unique agricultural and scientific expertise and world class teaching and research institutions that are well-suited to African agriculture and food security.
This expertise includes dry-land and tropical farming, climate change adaptation, commercialisation of agricultural research and water and soil management.
Press office - Australia strengthens food security in Africa
Australia’s total funding in response to the drought and famine in the Horn of Africa now stands at $128 million - including $98 million in humanitarian assistance and $30 million for the region’s long-term food security.
However, nothing has been recommended for funding family planning, or reproductive health for women.
Africa is a Malthusian nightmare, and there are limits to how Nature can be expected to be as generous as our government, and deny its limits to feed more hungry people.
More than 13 million people in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia are in urgent need of food and humanitarian aid because of consecutive droughts, following two poor rain seasons.
The United Nations has launched a $2.48 billion international emergency appeal in response to the crisis.
The warnings from the environment are obvious, and need to be heeded. The elephant in the room is that food production over the last decades has increased arithmetically, but population growth has increased geometrically, outstripping food supplies.
The Australia government's International Food Security Centre should a study how to stablilze global populations, ensure our own food security, and promote a steady-state economic model.
Unfortunately, the harsh reality is that Nature has her own unemotional way of enforcing equilibrium on the planet. If there are too many people at any moment, there will be a tragic shift to more appropriate numbers.
Throwing money at corrupt regimes won't help, and there is a limit to how agricultural science can cajole and extort natural ecological systems to produce more food!
By 2031 our projections indicate that 95% of possible population outcomes for Australia will put the population between 27 and 33 million. Twenty years later in 2051, it spans 29 to 43 million. The proportion of the population aged 65 years and above will lie between 21% and 28%.
Our present economic growth model is contradictory and hypocritical as it forces us to ignore all Nature's warnings on the limits to growth in deference to a bigger GDP, and a bigger Australian population.
We need to end being an "immigration nation" and become a vibrant, mature and stable nation guided by common-sense and strategically balanced policies, not based on sacrificing long term survival, amenities and food security for the short-term cash grabs of population growth.
Australia's population growth, security and food security should also be holistically addressed, along with a consuming economic model that demands perpetual growth!
Has the roaming Rudd got Big Australia agencies overseas?
Has the roaming Rudd got Big Australia agencies overseas?
Kuala Lumpur perhaps?
What about Jakarta and Ashore Reef? Perhaps the Australian Navy could do some revenue neutral charters, rather than just sending out the welcoming party?
'Adequate housing is a human right and is part of having a quality of life. However, each day 105, 000 Australians are without safe, secure and affordable housing.
Tonight half of Australia's homeless will stay with friends or family.
About 2 in every 7 will find a bed in a boarding house.
A lucky 1 in every 7 will find a bed in the homeless service system.
1 in every 7 will sleep rough on the streets of our cities and towns.'
This probably doesn't include Australian Aborigines in the outback. Unacceptable in Australia in 2011!
In Australia we have a Foreign Labor Government.
Tigerquoll
Suggan Buggan
Snowy River Region
Victoria 3885
Australia
Home grants to KL cits continued
Kelly O'Dwyer and Micheal O'Brien respectively.
First Home Grants to KL cits
Hi Jill,
Who is your local MP and who is the State Member she referred the matter to?
Sheila Newman, population sociologist
home page
First home grants to buyers in KL
I sent the following letter to my local Federal MP. She has referred it to the State MP from whom I have not yet heard.
"It has come to my notice that the first home buyers' grant of $13,000 is being advertised in Kuala Lumpur to potential buyers of property in Australia. This grant whilst probably misconceived in its attempt to make housing more affordable in a climate of high population growth and high demand for housing, was actually intended for Australian first home buyers. I object to my taxes being used in this damaging way and would like to be reassured that either it is not true or there is some justification for this. I totally oppose government engineered high population growth through high immigration and abhor the consequent rise in property prices which lead to immense pressure on local people who are in the market for a house. I would like to add that I am well aware that the small numbers of asylum seekers who arrive on our shores have nothing to do with this issue. It is seemingly deliberately confused in the minds of the public, courtesy of the media and some politicians past and present. I would be grateful if you could let me know the true situation regarding the availability of the first home buyers' grant for non Australian residents."
Population cap needed for Tweed Heads
The possibility of a population cap for the Tweed has been raised by Councillor Katie Milne. However mayor Barry Longland says he doesn't believe a survey would be helpful and doesn't support the idea of a specific population cap. He said the council already controlled population growth indirectly. Then why this destructive new "development" site? Noosa Shire: Noosa Shire has long recognized the significance of the magical Noosa River to its citizens.
Noosa has been really innovative and forward thinking and worked out how many people can be sustained by its resources. They looked at water, infrastructure and giving nature enough space. Noosa has steadfastly resisted the temptation to allow its population to grow beyond its capacity to take water without tapping the Noosa River. It has installed a population cap. The evaluation of population size should also include not just natural resources that support human populations, but about giving indigenous animals such as local wildlife a "fair go" - a chance to survive.
All species try to advance their own interests, and take territories away from other herds or species, but with chainsaws, developer greed and an economy based on growth, there is little koalas can to to retaliate, or adapt. Thus, we must do it for them.
See also: Sunshine Coast population to hit half a million by 2030? of 22 Sep 2008 about Noosa Shire Mayor Bob Abbot's population cap.
Katter's big Australia, foreign labour and bush bashing mandate
RE The Australian Party not recommended comment above
Yes, Katter's big Australia mandate for more foreign labour sux, as does unresticted bush bashing and cattle bashing.
I should have read the red print.
Tigerquoll
Suggan Buggan
Snowy River Region
Victoria 3885
Australia
Australians accused of racism - social control
With Australia Day has come a barrage of "racist" accusations against Australians. Various news websites all report that people who fly Australian flags on their cars have been found to be more racist than those who don't.
Of 513 people at last year's Australia Day fireworks in Perth, it was found that one in five had attached the flags to their car, and 88per cent surveyed thought it was a patriotic step. But at least the flag-flyers aren't overtly racist. Those ''speak english'', ''love it or leave it'' and ''f--- off, we're full'' bumper stickers.
This is not about ugly racist hate, eugenetics, segregation, vilification, separations, physical attacks, apartheid, or genocide against specific racial groups. It's about attitudes, a fear that excess patriotism will divide a nation and compromise our government's multicultural and population growth agendas.
It's to manipulate the public into silence about immigration, population debate and any criticisms about how successfully integrated we are.
Surgeon Charlie Teo condemned Australia as racist and said "when I left Australia, I knew that it was racist towards Asians, and when I went to America there was virtually no racism towards Asians". Yet, he admitted that Chinese are very racist, and that his mother used to be quite racist against "you whities", and the Japanese are quite racist against Chinese, Chinese against Japanese. That's a lot of racism!
Given the huge number of nationalities that make up this country, which nationality does he actually accuse of being 'racist'? The Chinese? Vietnamese? Africans? Afghans? Irish? Americans? English? Spanish? It's usually targeted toward "white" people and build up guilt for our "white Australia" colonial past.
Former governor-general Peter Hollingworth has branded Australia Day an excuse for a booze-up, adding we are all racist deep down.
Australia Day is now about controlling and mellowing down patriotism so that those who remember Australia as the wealthy "Lucky Country" will focus on welcoming new arrivals and celebrate the all the various ethnic groups who arrive here to share our hospitality.
It's a a ploy by the media and politicians, with the help of celebrities, to create a collective guilt, and stop debate on our immigration policies, to stifle any questioning of the success of our multiculturalism and of our high immigration numbers - one of the biggest of the developed nations.
Australia Day has become a not so much a time to recognise and appreciate our forefathers, our fledgling culture, our indigenous peoples, our cultural and natural heritage, our history, our flora and fauna, but toned down to focus on the benefits of immigration, "diversity", and the prosperity population growth is supposed to bring us!
The Australia Party not recommended
Even Bob Katter's "The Australian Party" supports high immigration.
"Australia needs to increase its population to achieve acceptable levels of economic, scientific, strategic and personal development. Government must develop immigration and birth rate policies consistent with these principles. In addition, the population growth needs to be distributed widely throughout Australia and especially into northern Australia".
It's a red-neck group:
"Australians must have the freedom to pursue outdoor recreational activities of their choice including hunting, shooting, fishing, boating, camping, 4-wheel driving, horse riding, rock climbing, and bushwalking without unnecessary limitations and restrictions".
They also support the cruel and indefensible live animal exports for its economic value.
The more traditionally one is Australian, the more one's shunned
More more traditionally one is Australian, the more one is shunned
Australian Prime Minister Gillard's Australia Day speech yesterday at the nation's capital spoke of modern Australia’s greatest story of inclusion and belonging, but she was referring to new comers to Australia, to immigration..."this your home for you and your descendents forever". No mention or recognition was made to Australia's traditional people...inclusion? and belonging?
No mention was made of traditional Australians of colonial ancestry. No mention is made of struggling and forgotten rural and regional Australia. No mention is made of the many Australian families struggling due to recent corporate retrenchments and offshoring - such as by Qantas, Toyota ACL, Suncorp, BlueScope, Heinz, Westpac, Pacific Brands, etc. The Labor Party support base is increasing looking to the immigration base. Perhaps this is why Bob Katter has decided to offer an alternative party in The Australian Party.
Much of Labor's investment and expenditure focus is celebrating the immigrant ahead of all other peoples of this nation. Whitlam-Fraser's multiculturalism remains all about accepting and tolerating and embracing foreign cultures. No clarity or interest is provided to Australian traditional culture(s) and what Australian core values may entail. So the silent majority remain silent for fear of being branded racist and it is the most successful censorship campaign over public opinion and free speech since the Whitlam years. Most government employees are now immigrants or the offspring of immigrants. Rudd still wants his 'Big Australia'.
[Read Prime Minister Gillard's official Australia Day Speech of 2012].
Tigerquoll
Suggan Buggan
Snowy River Region
Victoria 3885
Australia
Made in Australia not welcome here
Now that Australia Day has passed, there have been some targeted condemnation of Australia as a very "racist" country. However, it's all social engineering to keep democratic debate off the agenda. Of course, there are some red-necks who are racist in the original meaning of the term, but the newest definition is about shutting down debate of our high, mostly Asian, immigration rate and foreign asset acquisition.
All species of animals protect their herds or communities from outsiders. It's about protecting limited resources, territories and their gene pool. Australia is an extraordinarily tolerant nation.
Due to globalization, Australia as we knew it hardly exists.
While cultural diversity is stimulating, and some foreign imports and exports are beneficial and healthy, Australia is being sold off to reap the benefits of being part of the "Asian Century". Economic growth is the main aim of governments now, even at the detriment of the Australian public, our own industries and our identity.
Australia is being eaten away for foreign imports, and our own manufacturing is going offshore. China lacks human rights, or trade unions. Thus, they have billions of willing cheap and available workers to undercut local produce such as foods.
"Made in Australia" is not an ideal being encouraged by our Federal government. They prefer to defer to China's powers and cooperate with APEC.
Indigenous peoples, the traditional owners of our land, have not been consulted about selling off our land to foreigners, about mining, wildlife managment and exploitation, about our influx if immigrants, or our population growth. They have been given lip-service treatment. No wonder they were angry on Australia Day!
Native species are not optional extras
This seemingly trivial change to the Code of Practice for Timber Production 2007 hides wide and damaging implications. The loggers won't do surbeys for every forests before logging - they want production, efficiency and income, and are not interested in wildlife or our forests' integrity.
It was agreed that the endangered animals are in danger of disappearing, by definition, hence their FFGA Action Statements. No one has the right to override these scientific findings for logging profits.
Already logging has threatened Victoria's last remaining Leadbeaters Possums at Toolangi, those that miraculously avoided Black Saturday's inferno. Fires and salvage logging has added problems to habitat as logs provide homes for many native birds and animals.
It's assumed that wildlife will simply breed and recover. We have policies to protect native vegetation and offsets, but nothing about protecting native species. Destroying habitats is a sure bullet to their destruction, and extinction is forever!
Our existing reserves are insufficient and even bushland birds, once common, are in serious decline. There needs to be a holistic and organised approach to protecting species. We cannot decide and force wildlife to exist where it's convenient economically.
If there's extinctions from logging in Victoria in the coming years, is this how our government, and Premier, wants to be remembered in history?
What "balance" do native animals have compared to the power of logging industries? Species have no economic or political power. The scales are very heavily already against their survival. They do not need any more impediments or burdens to their long term survival.
The "landscape" view is how we know that species are under threat and need protection, and watering it down is species genocide. It's simply nonsense.
Our forests and native birds and animals are an important part of our heritage, and they all play a part in maintaining ecological functions. They are not optional extras!
Deforestation will see Tweed River Device come back to haunt it
Tuesday's landslide in the Papua New Guinean mountain town of Mendi, which has reported as many as 60 people dead or missing, is likely due to deforestation and mining.
Similarly, the Tweed Shire's ongoing deforestation such as that currently threatening Kings Forest will see Tweeds fancy new 'River Device' brand come back to haunt it.
How many people have been evacuated from Tweed Shire homes this time around? Check today's news report.
Council approval of deforestation and encouraged land use development has massively increased surface runoff and is culpable negligence, just like the Brisbane City Council's approval of riverside developments on flood prone river flats and the Queensland Government's encouraged deforestation of the Brisbane River valley out along the Warrego Highway to Ipswich and Toowoomba.
Bring on class actions and drive the Tweed Shire Council bankrupt! 'Together Forward'...and out to sea!
Tigerquoll
Suggan Buggan
Snowy River Region
Victoria 3885
Australia
Turning a blind eye to cruelty
Fortunately, these smarter people do not include you. Repeating worn out and discredited arguments will do little to convince people. There are more ethical methods of controlling populations, like the application of contraceptives, that have been successful in similar circumstances. The problem is that this would cost money, thereas the deliberately created man made fur industry makes money, which is a 'no brainier' to a few New Zealenders. What we forget is that is population was deliberately introduced, and is a result of agricultural planning by our great grandparents. It is wrong to blame the cruel practice of possum hunting on necessity, when it is the result of strategy.
Tweed Heads - support for koalas over developments
A study carried out by ecological consultancy Biolink estimated there were 140 koalas left in the Tweed region last year.
The president of Team Koala, a carers group in Tweed Heads, Jenny Hayes, says the future of the district's koala colonies will be in jeopardy unless plans to ban dogs from the residential area are adopted. A report prepared by professional planners about the Kings Forest development is endorsed by the local council.
"Professional planners" are more interested in human concerns and profits from developments than koalas. How are they going to "plan" so that koalas and urban development housing can exist side by side? Not likely! How are people going to exist without cars, housing without denuding the area of trees, without dogs and cats and without the noise, pollution and stress?
They had 3,000 submissions, mostly about supporting koalas. Tourists and residents don't want to come to see housing, and generic urban sprawl. They come to see Australia's wildnerness, natural setting, beaches, and wildlife.
In the Kings Forest submission, prepared by the director of planning, there was a recommendation that all dogs be banned at Kings Forest to protect koala populations. The Tweed Coast Koala Habitat Study 2011 was undertaken which showed the dangers of dogs to koala populations in the area. It ignores cruel sadistic attacks, traffic, and loss of habitat trees.
Once timber supplies were exhausted the Tweed Valley became a centre for sugar cane and banana growing. Population was minimal until the 1880s, with growth during the late 1800s. Significant development did not occur until the post-war years, with the population of the Shire increasing from about 19,000 in 1947 to 22,000 in 1961, then to 25,000 in 1971.
The population of Tweed Heads is "forcast" (or will be boosted) to be over 91,000 this year, and to increase to 128,000 by 2031.
Retirement is a considerable source of Tweed Heads' notable population growth while tourism is the primary source of income. This source of income will be compromised by it's transformation to urban sprawl and loss of it's identity as a place for our iconic marsupials - koalas.
Planning has descended into opportunities for developers
"Planning" has become synonymous with opportunities for developers, and pumping up population numbers. Matthew Guy justifies regional growth and more land releases as an effort to provide "affordable housing" to Victorians. There will never be a closure to "affordable housing" while our population keeps expanding and growing. Like putting out spot fires, one may be out, and then the fires escalate.
Planning should be about ensuring a future for Victoria, and a balance between natural assets, providing infrastructure and a consolidation what we already have. Instead, public funds are being spent on perpetual growth, while Victoria is swimming in debt!
Planning has descended into a Ponzi scheme to provide opportunities for developers and housing investors- for our "development"-driven growth-based economy in Victoria.
Like bacteria in the petri dish, enjoying consuming their finite resources, when they are full and come to the limits of growth, they wallow in their mass decline.
Is Matthew Guy corrupt?
Is Matthew Guy corrupt?
Money laundering of Australian tax grants to Malaysians? What the?
Is Matthew Guy authorising such Australian grants to go offshore and displace Australians from housing opportunities?
If Matthew Guy was a people smuggler he would get a measly 4 years incarceration. In Henry VIII's time he would be hung drawn and quartered. I'd watch!
What do Whittlesea residents think?
Has the Guy bastard had the decency to ask them to approve Malaysian invasion of their quiet coastal community?
What if corporate Australian real estate agents landed in Malaysia's popular east coast tourist haven of Kuala Terengganu and proclaimed property discounts only to Australians?
I would understand local Malaysians 'concerns' so to speak; fortune if one survived.
Tigerquoll
Suggan Buggan
Snowy River Region
Victoria 3885
Australia
Evils of globalization of the housing/education market
Not only this, but it is being suggested that the Australian government will be offering HECS style loans for international students to study here. With the rising dollar, their numbers are decreasing. With few real industries in Australia except mining, our government is desperate for foreign currency and to use our educational infrastructure for profits.
Globalisation is the modern evil. Globalization can satisfy our hunger for cheap imported goods but it also means thousands of jobs get shipped abroad for the cheaper labour costs. It also means our housing market is entrenched, and prices kept at healthy levels to maximise profits.
Supporters of globalisation argue that by becoming part of the world economy, developing countries and those living in abject poverty get a chance to grasp economic opportunities. "free trade" simply enables multinationals to dominate markets and push out local enterprise, and add to local housing/job woes.
Globalization is the metastizing cancer of the worst aspects of global capitalism, perhaps the most insidious, most ruthless and most evil system of wealth creation (exploitation) the world has ever known. Some developing countries can benefit, but powerful nations are able to suck out and monopolize local markets, and human rights - such as that of housing - decline.
King's forrest development - Koala's nightmare
It is inconceivable to think that this development has been approved and is going ahead despite the environmental impacts. The ramifications of this are wide spread and a review needs to be done to ensure that the fragile eco systems are preserved, better still stop the development!
Growth lobby wants koalas to go extinct.
Thanks Menkit for another of your fantastic articles - straight to heart of the matter and signalling another serious battle.
Last Thursday, on 3RPP, I interviewed a Victorian lawyer who recently did a masters in environmental law and confirmed her impression that our laws are almost completely useless, due to the problem of standing (being entitled to bring about an action) in the states, particularly Victoria, the expense of the courts, the tendency for governments to change the laws, and the failure to monitor species numbers properly - among so many problems. Even if you get a win, no-one will enforce it. Look at Environment East Gippsland and VicForests.
My guest also raised the fact that every year now for decades Australians try to make the koala recognised as a threatened species, and every year the matter gets sidelined, yet every year the koala gets closer to extinction.
The reason? Developer lobbies want the koala to become extinct so that they can develop its remaining habitat. And why are koalas going extinct? Because of Australian developers, who are bulldozing their last vestiges of habitat - and lobbying for high immigration and foreign purchasers.
Until the growth lobby and developers in particular make a stand for the koala theirs should be identified as the most shameful occupation in Australia.
The development and growth lobby is the koala's worst enemy.
Blame developers for koala extinction. Make that your primary message. Associate the damage with the industry that profits from it and display pictures of the developers and the politicians that protect them at your protests.
Kings Forest Illegal Clearing
The illegal clearing in the Cudgen Nature Reserve adjacent to the Kings Forest development site needs to be heavily penalised and an environmental compliance officer located at the development site at the cost of the developer to ensure such a "mistake" cannot happen again.
human pathogenic destruction
Australia does not have high fertility levels. The problem is our hign immigration intake, exacerbating our species extinctions and destroying bushland, and living standards in Australia. Instead of increased productivity these days, the buzzword we are supposed to use now, increasing population will mean a gridlock of congestion, depletions and ruin. Australia has inherited a rich biodiveristy, and slow evolving ecosystems and species. The deliberate destruction of koala habitats is akin to "genocide", species destruction. Such misathropic growth can have not justification.
Biologists estimate 20,000 to 40,000 species go extinct every year, many times higher than the "background extinction rate" built into the evolutionary process. The cause? Human environmental impact, the product of consumption times population.
Dr. Warren Hern's "Humans as a Cancer on the Earth" hypothesis is based on the observation that cancerous growth has much in common with the characteristics of human population growth. These include: “1) rapid, uncontrolled growth, 2) invasion and destruction of adjacent tissues and environments, 3) metastasis, or spread by colonization, 4) dedifferentiation, or loss of distinctiveness in individual components” and “furthermore, the malignant process in an individual or an ecosystem often involves the production of toxic metabolites.
No population of a large vertebrate animal in the history of the planet has grown that much, that fast, or with such devastating consequences to its fellow earthlings.
Our iconic koalas are under threat from a runaway human invasion! In fact, all native species have been impacted by the growth of human populations, and as koalas are competing with the same locations, they are losing out badly. Premier Anna Bligh is happy to create, manipulate and profit from a human population explosion at the expense of wildlife habitat and to willingly make human invasions a greater threat to Queensland than those of the unwitting cane toad.
http://candobetter.net/node/1570
Kings Forest debacle
It looks like the planning completed for this development is totally corrupt. No surprise in the Tweed. It would be hard to briefly describe the number of concerns.
Koalas, water, town planning, modern sustainable practices....possible removal of trees/flora before approval -currently under investigation.
Check it out.
Japan's low birthrate is a positive
This is an old article, but a good one. I think Japan is on the right course. They are hugely overpopulated. The population will age, and this is a serious problem. But increasing the population, or even maintaining it at the current level, would cause far greater problems. It seems to me that the rest of the world should be seeking to emulate Japan. Instead Japan is held up as a terrible lesson for what happens if you dare to stop growing.
All I see in the media is "we don't want to cut back on immigration, or we'll wind up like Japan", "we may be growing slowly, but at least we're not Japan", "our growth rate is very fast, but at least we're not Japan". The couple of times I've talked to people about population growth the response I've gotten is "we can't stop growing - look at Japan". This is sadly why I hold no hope Australia, or America, will ever be able to voluntarily accept population stability or decline.
skilled migration at the global level is environmentally good because it encourages education in the developing world and that decreases global population growth,
Ha, yet when Japan stops growing, thereby decreasing global growth, according to McLeod this is a disaster. If any developing nation actually stopped growing then the first thing McLeod would do is tell them to start breeding again.
But this terrible natural disaster strikes Japan and all McLeod could talk about was Japan's low birthrate and unwillingness to open their borders to tens of million of migrants. Its almost like he's saying that the tsunami was no coincidence. It was actually a punishment visited upon them by the Great God of Growth for daring to forsake Him.
Andrew Mcleod of the Committee for Melbourne is leaving Australia. Going to London to work for Rio Tinto.
They are welcome to him.
The palmoil industry says: Orangutans are pests!
?The orangutang’s mother has been killed on one palmoil plantations
Dear friends of the rainforest,
the BBC reports that orangutans are treated as "pest" and exterminated on Indonesian and Malaysian palm oil plantations. In the last year alone, up to 1,800 orangutans were killed in Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo).
They wander hungry through the plantations as though in a daze, looking for food and thus eat the palm seedlings. Palm oil plantation workers are paid to kill orangutans either before a forest is cleared or, if they see any in a plantation. Either way, it is totally illegal to harass, harm or kill any orangutans.
Please write to the Malaysian Palm Oil Council and protest with your signature against the slaughter of orangutans:
Please write to the Malaysian Palm Oil Council and protest with your signature against the slaughter of orangutans:
If you wish to support the rainforest defenders on Borneo directly, please make your donation here:
https://www.rainforest-rescue.org/donate/90
Many thanks and best regards,
David Vollrath
Rainforest Rescue (Rettet den Regenwald e.V.)
[email protected]
www.rainforest-rescue.org
http://www.facebook.com/rainforest2rescue
Knighthood, beatification
A respected commentator has foreshadowed that the next Salt anointing could be a knighthood or beatification
Good news! Andrew Mcleod leaving Australia
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/the-visions-splendid-but-now-times-up-20120120-1qae7.html#ixzz1k3gxjzVQ
Andrew Mcleod of the Committee for Melbourne is leaving Australia. Going to London to work for Rio Tinto. Guess he's going to kick some indigenous ass for them instead of for the Committee for Melbourne. Unless he's taking his committee with him. Wouldn't that be good news, if the pseudo charities and pompous builders went to work in a copper mine at pacific islander rates and stopped bothering the rest of us.
Sterilisation is more ethical than abortion
Sterilisation is more ethical than abortion.
The above personal attack by 'Focis' is trolling.
Tigerquoll
Suggan Buggan
Snowy River Region
Victoria 3885
Australia
Bernard Salt the new Page 3 Murdoch girl
The egregious Salt is now Mr Murdoch's new page three girl. Going by the video in the candobetter article I'm commenting on, that doesn't say much about the Murdoch rags. I mean it looks as if Salt is now going to play the role of Emily Post. How can the public swallow this much offense? Who the hell still reads the Murdoch news?
A bunch of old wrinklies, I guess, who don't have the internet and whose brains have fossilised.
"Demographer Salt joins paper", The Australian, 21 January 2012
BERNARD Salt, Australia's leading commentator on demographic and social trends, joins the paper as social editor.
In this new role he will analyse and report on the implications of the extensive economic and social change reshaping the nation.
A partner at KPMG with more than 20 years' experience in demographic analysis, Salt has been a columnist with The Australian since 2002 and has become well-known across the country through his public speaking engagements and his regular commentary on television and radio...." etc etc
The rest is here: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/media/demographer-bernard-salt-joins-the-australian/story-e6frg996-1226249814326
Justice and Fair Play
What's the big deal about justice and fair play? Everybody defines these to mean "support my group". Why don't you get more specific? You seem to be one of the brightest in the eco-movement - if you can't figure out how to clearly say what you are proposing, probably nobody can. If you can't, we just sail off the edge of the world.
Tim Murray
I'm really astonished to find someone able to make humor out of the Sierra Club, as a former XCom member. It had no humor inside itself, just very serious attitudes. I'm so happy your mom didn't abort you.
This is very frightening. In
This is very frightening. In the guise of saving money to help the environment, this is the first step to centralised control - by WHOM???? The programmers of course. Who are the real programmers though? Does the android also give press interviews? Can it be sacked should the Sierra Club be seen to degenerate environmental issues? It will be interesting to see if people continue to support them with a robot in place. This is just the beginning of them taking over our planet ... a veritable nightmare!
Populated Self-Delusion
I think the very idea of population stability or decline is unthinkable to most Americans. America's self-image, like that of Australia, is that of a young, empty land rich with promise just waiting to be filled. This is a delusion because the reality is that America is a solidly middle-aged, considerably overpopulated nation who has already used up many of its best resources (and Australia is rapidly headed in the same direction).
The Sierra Club and other movements abandoned any policy of population stabilization because the very idea of American population stabilization is deeply disturbing to most Americans. Those within the movement who were willing to tell Americans what they wanted to hear (that population stabilization isn't necessary) were able to garner the most influence and gain control.
Eco-propaganda invites contra-terms
Agree NIMBY.
Here's some contra-terms...
smart sterilization
planet parasite
darkside ecologist
eco-bulldozing
eco-arson
bushphobia
forest home invasion
kit kat orphans
monsanto scientist
strategic incompetence
stihl forestry
wutbürger
...I am sure there are many others out there underutilised against the growthist propaganda.
Tigerquoll
Suggan Buggan
Snowy River Region
Victoria 3885
Australia
Cities are never FULL
A robot that spits out "green" buzzwords and oxymorons such as "smart growth" is what we have already in even the best of our environmentally "friendly" organisations and politicians. "Sustainable growth" itself is an oxymoron. The well-being of nations and their people is almost invariably judged by the rate of economic growth rather than living standards, food security and even basics like housing.
In an announcement from Minister for Population Tony Burke and Brad Hazzard NSW Minister for Planning and Infrastructure, the Australian and NSW governments have signed off on a program which paves the way for 30 years of "sustainable growth" in western Sydney. They are trying to work out how environmental values can be best protected while allowing "sustainable development"!
At the same time, they are offering a strategic assessment that reduces red tape by considering federal and state environmental planning issues in a single assessment process and give greater upfront clarity to developers, landholders, planners, industry, government and the community. Surely this is a contradiction, wrapped up in oxymoron buzzwords?
It's the same old destructive urban spawl and environmental bulldozing and pollution under clean, "green" meaningless expressions.
http://www.environment.gov.au/minister/burke/2011/mr20111222.html
At the same time, the housing "shortages" are set to worsen. Australia has a strong population growth that will continue to outstrip housing supply and the shortfall could reach 500,000 by 2029.
http://www.news.com.au/money/property/housing-shortage-set-to-get-worse/...
Instead of cities ever being FULL, it's simply called a "shortage", and growth will continue but it is simply labeled "sustainable". It's assumed that "planning" will provide for ongoing high immigration levels.
The business lobby won’t acknowledge any of the problems of growth; they are focused on the total size of the economy, a crude measure. They don’t look at GDP growth per head.
Climate change, rising fuel costs, water shortages, etc etc. Experts are warning Australia's food producers have a new crisis to consider: Food Insecurity. It's just another political issue, an induced "shortage" rather than an essential!
Human sterilisation is world's best practice!
I challenge anyone to conceive (pun intended) a better overpopulation solution than human sterilsation on ethical, effectiveness, cost, rapid results and minimal if any suffering grounds.
Human sterilisation is simply world's best practice!
The only downside beyond denying selfish perpetuation of family lineage, is broody frustration.
What alternative curbs the human pathogenic trend!
Tigerquoll
Suggan Buggan
Snowy River Region
Victoria 3885
Australia
Do we have to crash? No but we have to add and subtract!
Tony, in rely to your January 9th, 2012 post: Do we have to crash?
2 billion global population came from David Pimentel and he meant everyone lived on a farm, using animals to plow, heated with wood burning stoves, lit with candle lamps, worked 10 hour days with hand tools, and no one lived in cities.
If you want to live like middle class people in developed countries, after fossil fuels are gone, the number is much less than 100 million. Based on in place hydroelectric generation the number is 30-40 million. Just for the record, do the numbers. You will find you could not power that kind of life with windmills on an isolated island. Solar thermal or voltaic, bio mass, title, and geo thermal all produce less net energy than wind mills.
As to how we can get to a population of 30-40 million before we run out of cheap oil and coal and gas, (and suffer civilization collapse and die-off) there are two ways --- genocide, or -- a very low number (~500,000) of births each year.
This attains a global population of 40 million in 80 years. At which point the 500,000 births allows 2 children per woman.
The 500,000 birth plan would be implemented by grassroots social consensus, or law that gives out that number of permits each year in a lottery. Yes the implementation is tough. But at least the numbers add up.
Jack Alpert [email protected] More at: www.skil.org
Titanic parallels
There are parallels of course with population growth and big profits. The Titanic was not nearly full when the disaster happened. She was only carrying about half of her full passenger capacity of 2,435 people due to a combination of the low season and ongoing transport disruption caused by a coal miners' strike in the UK. The death toll has been put at between 1,490 and 1,635 people. Less than a third of those aboard Titanic survived the disaster. Some survivors died shortly afterwards. Exact numbers are unclear due to changes in the passenger list, and some people used aliases along with their real names - for some reason. The death toll was designed to be even higher!
The over-confidence in technology, in man-made vessels, and the drive for progress and profits, is of course what is happening today with big corporations determining government policies. The lure of wealth and economic growth through more money being transacted, and more people as consumers, is over-riding common sense and natural global declines.
Our "life boats" of clean air, fresh water, food producing land, balanced and functioning ecosystems, clean and vitalizing oceans, vegetation, natural diversity are being consumed and engulfed by overpopulation. The decline and extintion of species should be a warning to the world that our planet is dying.
An economy based on perpetual economic growth, via population growth, is fatalistic and clearly can't continue. It's about trading long term survival for short term economic benefits, at our peril.
The lessons of the Titanic and the Costa Concordia have still to be learned. Cities are being "planned" to maximize profits and populations rather than being naturally balanced and evolved in a human-friendly manner.
Canberra's kangaroos solution is simple but political
Well, after the trailer on the documentary 'Kangaroo Mob' I was very skeptical, but having watched the film last night on ABC, I felt it was reasonably objective, although depressing in outcome.
The monitoring, research and problem solving for Australia wildlife needs to be a nation-wide ongoing task of our National Parks, not just a one off programme for the government's public relations and image. It is wrong that wildlife are protected in National Parks or on one side of a fence, yet can be culled, attacked by pet dogs, and mown down by traffic on the other side of the fence.
In this programme, clearly the El Nino 15 year drought cycle drove the native local kangaroos into the encroaching Canberra suburbia. It needs to be pointed out that the kangaroos were bloody there first and have more rights than profiteering developers pursuing single bottom line land profiteering.
Why are dogs allowed to venture into the kangaroo reserve without policing?
Why aren't wildlife corridors (not concrete drains) built to facilitate wildife to pass under deadly highways?
Why is kangaroo proof fencing not constructed to keep them off the known high 'black spot' highway?
Why are barbed wire fences permitted to exist in and around the kangaroo reserve?
Answer: Politicians, and their Canberran electorate who vote for them, couldn't give a shit about wildlife!
The programme demonstrated that tranquilising and relocation is a viable option. It would cost money. Indeed wildlife reserves should be supplemented by water storage dams so that the reserves can be made more drought resistant, providing for rich native grasses during drought, thus ensuring that next El Nino the kangaroos do not need to stray into the dangerous suburbia. Once again charities have to support wildlife. It is the job of the National Parks and Wildlife Service that these days spend more money on maximising tourism - walking tracks, websites, tourist facilities and glossy reports.
The ACT Government should have no involvement in wildlife or environmental issues. The entire wildlife conservation management task needs to be nationalised - not hard, as the Feds are situated in the same city.
Tigerquoll
Suggan Buggan
Snowy River Region
Victoria 3885
Australia