(We) can do better

Low birth rate, its dangers and remedies

My last article didn’t even attempt to expand on this: it was just a satirical gibe on a serious subject. And it mentioned immigration only as one of the solutions envisaged by demographers and urged by economists, to remedy the European reluctance to produce more babies. Meanwhile couples are cajoled and enticed with prizes, bonuses, Christmas boxes, allowances, trinkets, anything, that could lure them to do their duty for their Country.

Italians are doomed to extinction, indicated by the low rate of birth (1,34 babies in 2007)? The Maternity and Fertility Centre Studies confirmed that we are behind the European optimum ideal of 2,1 children per woman, (suggested by a Lisbon document of 2000) in order to avoid the Old Continent disappearing in this century. In this demographic Olympic race Italy is sadly behind every other European nation, of which the Champions are France, with Great Britain and Finland close behind. So, the country of “Amore e Bambini” is being paradoxically defeated by countries with a higher rate of divorce, contraception use, and women at work.

At the moment ,an oppressive pro-natalist propaganda sweeps Italy, fuelled by demographers and the fear of economic stagnation.

Take the well-known Massimo Livi Bacci, who is a robust and insistent pusher for economic incentives for newborns.
Livi Bacci began by defining migrations as the most important means to combat poverty, based on studies that forecast a 20% decline in the labor force in rich countries and a 60% increase in the poor countries by the year 2025.

On examining the consequences of Italian low fertility rate, he admits that:
“In a few years the new entries in the labour market will be substantially fewer than they are today …with very beneficial effects on the high unemployment of the young; the fewer entries, if more productive (as they must be), will also earn more. …”

Well? This is a philosophical issue as to what should be the basis for society decisions as to the type of future we prefer.
Livi Bacci , the demographer, is only worried because the current fertility rate implies the halving of the Italian population every forty years.

The issue of promoting an increase in natality has become the leit-motif of every Italian electoral programme, and, under the last Prodi government, was one of the most important objectives of his government.

Illegal Immigration and Criminality, twin issues

But Prodi may have disregarded the real preoccupation of the electorate, which was understood by Berlusconi, his successor, whose recent third ascent to power, by an overwhelming majority, was due to his recognition that the “people” wanted Security (Sicurezza). According to the figures of ISTAT, criminality is the major source of preoccupation ( 58,7 % ) especially in Puglia, Campanla and Sicily, and is often connected with massive waves of illegal immigration that regularly sweeps the Southern coasts facing North Africa.

TV and newspaper propose the same menu day after day:

Tons of rubbish left to rot in the streets of Naples, road pirates that kill pedestrians and run away, Roma or Roms (gypsies) that force their children to steal, honest citizens revolting against the numerous nomad camps, citizen’s patrols against mounting crime, illegal immigrants, more immigrants for whom, let’s face it, we don’t have jobs.

Here we have contrasting points of view, someone is telling lies and it is not clear why:
“Unemployment rises!( Corriere della Sera, June 2008). No joke, so why do we need more workingwomen + more babies and what are we going to do with the immigrants who reach our chores almost daily?

Why, one should ask, have Italian governments, of every shade, closed their eyes for years when faced with such ever-growing disorder?

It is not a mystery that criminality is more diffuse today in our world than when I was a child. England, for example, has the deplorable record of teenage gang’s and knife-related murder. Sociologists, historians, psychologists have been studying for years the reasons why. No consensus has prevailed.

Italy boasts an endemic ancient type of criminality that is family- and clan- related.: the Mafia and the Camorra. There is of course a relation between this home-grown criminality and an international business base that exploits vulnerable people by a heinous illegal traffic across the Mediterranean Sea.

Our frontiers have become porous

Thousands of “carrette del mare” ( sea-carts), hopelessly overloaded with immigrants are continually leaving Libya for Italy. Many of them end up on the bottom of the sea, tombs for lives and hopes. Reports of clandestine immigrants that reach the island of Lampedusa (a favourite spot for such adventurous passage from North Africa) are so common that it needs a shipwreck or some other tragedy to overcome the lethargy of a public overfed by the media. In the jargon borrowed from the unfortunate destiny of whales and dolphins, these cargoes are called “ beached”. According to figures released by the local Welcome Centre, more than 5,900 clandestine immigrants have reached Lampedusa this year alone.

In the national newspaper coloured ads declare: “LAMPEDUSA, the Pearl of the Mediterranean, From 490 €. Children gratis.”

The island is a tourist destination and in summer a vagrant crowd repeats the transhumance ritual.

With the high decibel of clubs, nobody seems to notice the presence of the new hungry arrivals. We think of them as wretched, they think of themselves lucky. Points of view change as the view from the shores points south or north.

What is the answer to these massive movements of people to this southern Italian outpost? Being Italians, can only be a… Work of Art! Which means: Escapism. You won’t believe this: to commemorate the deaths of thousands of victims at sea due to an ignoble trade with the connivance of General Gheddafi of Libya, the local Major commissioned a monument by a certain Mimmo Paladino, an artist in need of exposure with a politically correct cause. It is a door, which looks out to the sea and should symbolize “ a secular sanctuary”. It will be called “Door of Lampedusa, Door to Europe”.

EU closes the stable doors after the horse has bolted, but…

The wishful thinking by a foolish administrator clashes with the Parliament of the European Union’s decision to harmonize throughout the EU the rules of return to their homeland of these sans papiers (undocumented people). The new stricter law has became necessary- and came far too late – because the sages of the EU have suddenly realized that illegal immigration was choking their welfare system and feeding an already florid criminality.

But nothing is simple in Italy,the land of contradictions, where the old divisions between Right and Left, Secularism and Catholicism, dominate every aspect of life. The European religious bodies are up in arms: the Conference of European Churches, Caritas Europe, and the Commission for Migrants protest against the idea of forced return. “To migrate is not a crime, the real crime is an economic-financial system which allows 11% of world population to consume 88% of resources while the rest live in poverty.”

There you are: the social mission of the Church meets Communist internationalism, both denying the idea of borders.

But the Church’s criticism has a point, although we cannot force poor Italians (they exist) to pay for an unjust economic-financial system of which they too are victims.

We are at a stage where we cannot ignore the “other” “inconvenient truth”: the unmentionable reason of this irrepressible migration: overpopulation.

The flow of migrants comes mainly from Sub-Saharan Africa, which includes the 40 poorest countries in the world. To migrate is a necessity. The median age of population varies from 15 (Niger) and 19 (Gambia) and the demographic growth is the highest in the world. The Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mauritania and Nigeria registered a rate of growth greater than 3% per year, which means a doubling of the population every 23 years. Fertility is high and every woman gives birth to 5,5 children, against 3 per woman in other developing countries. The record belongs to Niger (7,9), Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Mali, Chad, Liberia (6), greater than the birth-rates of European countries in the 18th and 19th centuries.

According to previsions by the UN , the entire region will grow from 309 million to 730 million in 2050, resulting in a scarcity of resources and need for cultivable land which the very density of a young population will not be able to satisfy and will lead to an enormous migration pressure. (Source: Neodemos, Dove emigrare è una necessità, by Letizia Mencarini)

This is the obvious sign that Europe should - before anything else- for the good of the poor and its own good, encourage birth control in these wretched countries by every appropriate means: education, economic incentives, media propaganda, but especially the diffusion of family planning clinics.

Failing this, the future scenario will be more famine, more wars, more suffering, more expensive but ineffectual Western aid. We will not halt the biblical invasion. Italy, its demographers and economists point out, needs young blood to do the jobs that the new generation doesn’t want to do . Or is there something else at work?

Who profits?

What is the role of the Mafia or the Camorra, the two main criminal organizations ? And what is the Berlusconi government prepared to do ?

All Italian society is indirectly involved in the consequences of human traffic, not just criminal organizations.

Take the “caporalato”, a new term to indicate the ringleader of a pool of immigrants, who supplies the industry large and small scale, with labourers at knockdown prices. These pools are formed as cooperatives that have an inbuilt existential volatility: they are born, prosper, die and then spring up again with a different identity. Some of them are manned by immigrants themselves and, for every worker they find, they will receive a financial cut. The immigrants who are victims and accomplices of such illegal transactions do not complain, even if the salary is so low that it doesn’t permit them to rent a habitable accommodation, but forces them to live heaped up sub-human misery.

Most of the illegal labour is used by:

1)the construction industry;
2) agriculture.

We shouldn’t build too many houses. Once the sans papiers get their papiers – which they will finally get – they finally can occupy the very houses that they have built, this time at subsidised rent. A friend of mine who works for the Assisi City Council, providing accommodation for poor families, explains that the more children in a family, the more likely they are to jump the queue for subsidised housing. Italian families, which have one of the lowest birth rates in Europe, do not have right to accommodation, even considering that the statistical reality (1,35 child per woman) is a numerical fiction, as families have more than one child. Moreover, the median dimension of a family nucleus is 2,5 persons per family, including other, often elderly, relatives.

But what will happen, when, according to last international news, the housing bust reaches us, as it already has in Spain and Denmark, where the construction industry has over-built ? "What will happen when the construction industry realizes that a shrinking and aging population won't need new houses?" asks Joseph Chamie director of the UN Population Division. Yes, what will happen ? What will we do with the excessive uneducated workforce of immigrants ?

The South of Italy is full of illegal immigrants from Morocco and other parts of Africa, who never heard of a contract and if they see one, they wouldn’t be able to read it. Some of the most celebrated Sicilian wines are the fruit of their labour. The tomatoes, the olive oil and wines that we eat and drink, and that are exported to markets in far away countries like Canada or England, are grown by seasonal and illegal immigrants, who have been paid next to nothing to enrich some producers and middle-men, of whom even Scrooge would be ashamed.

But the ones who work full time, even in horrible conditions, are the lucky ones: a substantial number roams from town to town, sleeping in stations, parks, a “via crucis” of day jobs, sometimes not paid by a landowner who acts more like a criminal himself. ( Source “Una stagione all’inferno” by Medecin sans frontiers, www.terrelibere.org/?x=completa&riga=260 )

Sometimes hope but more often shame impedes these young men from returning home, where prospects are not much better anyway.

The Mafia has a role in this human trafficking. Its formidable power is embedded in the territory where it has social acceptance and cooperation. It is a compound of families and “cosche” or clans, which operate as legal enterprises, with above-ground businesses that hide more sinister underworld activities.

Ultimately the Mafia has diversified by forming pacts with various criminal groups from East Europe and North Africa, which handle the most profitable, meanest tasks, such as drug trafficking, prostitution and illegal immigration. The foreign Mafia controls 50% of the prostitutes in Sicily while cocaine and marijuana are in the hands of Albanian clans. Immigrants sell their lives to the Mafia to pay for the trip to Italy.

One hears every single day of scandals involving either inhuman treatment of immigrants by Italian criminals, or crimes committed by immigrants, especially Roms, who have become the latest Italian obsession:

Another unresolved problem: nomads

The Roms are one of the manifold tribes of nomads who came originally from India and have taken up mobile residence in the heart of Europe, always refusing integration and assimilation. Once silversmiths, bear-trainers. fortune tellers, horse traders and other itinerant casual labour, they cannot cope with the changes of a modern world that has no need of their skills. However, their shabby settlements have all the modern tokens of consumption: mainly satellite TV cables, Nike shoes, Mercedes and other luxury cars. Italians fear the vicinity of their 700 camps, scattered among the peripheries of Italian cities. Famous for instructing their children in Dickensian-style pick pocketing, their mores are more brutal than anything old Fagin ever dreamed of. Wire tapping from the police has revealed their cruel lives: parents threaten small children with sexual abuse and beatings if they didn’t follow the orders given through a cellular phone, to rob apartments. Popular reaction was swift and unusually violent:

In May 2008 Roma camps around Naples were attacked and set on fire by local residents.

Journalists were accused of fomenting the xenophobic ire of the Italian populace, by daring to report the criminal acts committed by “foreigners”…So much for freedom of the press.

The Berlusconi government responded immediately by threatening controversial measures. They wanted to fingerprint all the Roma children, to protect them from mistreatment and a life of delinquency and lack of education. In Italy, there are about 35,000 Roma children between 6 and 14 years of age, but only 1,200 are actually enrolled in school.

The Lega Nord (Northern League), a party that represents the richer more industrious North and lobbies for fiscal independence applauded. The left claimed, “discrimination!” The Catholic hierarchy bled for the little children....

But a recent survey has established that 67% of Italians approve the idea of fingerprinting, as nobody has offered an alternative way to avoid the children’s scandalous exploitation by their own parents. The proposed measures have been criticised as racist by foreign observers. On the other hand, apparently, in France, children from 13 years onwards are registered by the police even in the absence of any punishable offence, but thought to be a nuisance for public order…

Is Italian society disintegrating ?

Journalistic ethos and the polite fiction of hopeful environmentalism require that, after describing disturbing scenarios, one should end with a note of optimism.

Unfortunately, I cannot see things getting better. The hopes which Berlusconi has aroused, the changes that his Cabinet of mediocre and inexperienced ministers have been instructed to carry out, are not going to produce a revolutionary reversal of national decline.

Italy is now more than ever divided by the forces of single-issue pressure groups. The leftist mantra is multiculturalism; the right is sticking to nationalism. Italians won’t suddenly metamorphose into law-abiding citizens. National character doesn’t change in a day. The proposed laws to stop illegal immigration are half-hearted attempts to satisfy a momentary anger, but the reality is that the country as a whole uses immigrants to carry out the growth that law-makers and citizens aspire to. Everybody lives on the back of immigrants, legal or illegal. Antonio Golini, professor of demography at the University La Sapienza in Rome, said that immigration is necessary, especially for countries like Italy, to meet the exigencies of the labour market. "But it cannot be massive," he said, "because of the presence in Europe of old minorities."

An aura of hypocrisy permeates the whole thing.

Through a recent survey we find out that 73% of the participants declared that migratory phenomena is dangerous for public order, while at the same time they employed illegal immigrants themselves, as black-market labour.

In the moral vacuum that is the hallmark of our decadent Western societies, the only voice that has any position on social and ethical issues is unfortunately the Catholic Church. And its position is, as to be expected, the defence of the meek, the poor and the slave. In its universalism, it has no voice to defend the national interest. Because it believes that man is made in image of God, it neglects and sometimes despises nature, if nature doesn’t serve unknown “higher” interest of mankind.

In a funny way, the Churchmen have become the defenders of an old vision of economic interests, and their language is laced with market jargon. Thus, the all-out defence of immigration, to replenish the empty pension trunks of the State and be called upon to fill the empty cradles. “Replacement Migration” (Is it a Solution to Declining and Aging Population?“ a subtitle title of a 2000 draft report by the UN Population Division) has been called a buzzword for Italian growth economy.

In a report by the Catholic Foundation, Migrantes (http://www.migrantes.com), with the theme of “Young Migrants: a resource and a provocation,” we may glimpse a Catholic vision of our future as a nation. The schools of tomorrow, let’s say by 2050, will have more foreign students than Italians. They will be sons and daughters of immigrants, and obviously the teaching profession welcomes this possibility, otherwise what will we do with all our teachers ?

According to a priest, the outcome will be positive, because Italian education has already chosen an intercultural approach, where differences are an enriching element.

Pupils from 192 nations are already present with a multiplicity of languages, customs and even traditions, including food, in the Italian schools. According to the Report, the school MUST recognise this reality and renounce the selfishness of mono culturalism.

Some teachers, swamped by the extra work included in an colossal influx of children in big cities, without the minimum knowledge of the Italian language, are starting to rebel, led by a determined group of parents. No need to wait till 2050: In Milano’s suburbs there are nursery classes with only one Italian bambino! The audacious proposal is to institute a maximum limit to the admission of children of other ethnic groups, let’s say, no more than three per class.

We know that the deterioration of Italian civilisation is not just the fault of immigration. But illegal immigration has added to the existent chaos and to the aggravated population pressures. It is suffered passively with a mixture of incompetence and resignation.

The Sicilian author Lampedusa in his book “The Leopard” expounds this revealing political truth: “ We will make changes so that nothing will change.”

Is this the destiny of our democracies?

Some Italian political commentators have risked their reputation by affirming that Italy is governed by thieves, by self-important idiots, by wind-bags or by ineffectual turn-coats. It may be that most political power attracts the wrong sort of personality. The difference lies in an incurable, seemingly invisible sickness, afflicting Italian society. This sickness manifests in the impossibility of indicting and calling to account whoever is responsible for unlawfulness or foul play. An impenetrable smoke screen covers the truth and offers impunity. Whoever knows something, won’t divulge it, or the accused ping-pong the responsibility to each other. Nobody ever can know the truth. Omertà is an Italian word for the conspiracy of silence concerning crimes, usually practised by Mafia members.

And so it goes: thefts, abuses, embezzlement, fraud, negligence of duty, go unpunished and the malpractice lasts forever and ever.

The battle so far seems lost.

We can no longer preserve our neglected cultural heritage, and alas, our quickly fading natural beauty, which, who has grown in this much-loved country, should appreciate and defend. But the greed of the few is spoiling and transforming our age-old landscape. Who will inherit all this ?

"(...)I consider it a grotesque piece of arrogance on our part as a human race that we think we have the right to destroy other species—plants, birds and animals—on our way to affluence. While some species have prospered as a result of human activity, the vast majority have not, and many species are now threatened with extinction.

In December 2005, the USA based National Academy of Sciences reported that human activities are leading to a wave of extinctions that is over a hundred times greater than natural rates. According to the World Conservation Union, almost 800 species have become extinct since the year 1500, when more accurate records began. The Alliance for Zero Extinction has identified a further 800 species on the brink of oblivion. These species are confined to around 600 sites around the world. Only one-third of them enjoy legal protection, and most are surrounded by human population densities approximately three times the global average.

Human activity has increased extinction by between 1,000 and 10,000 times the normal level in rainforests as a result of reduction in area alone. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, the earth is down to its last five per cent of tropical forest cover and is losing that at a rate of over 200,000 square kilometres a year, with the rate of loss increasing. The world has entered the 21st century with little more than 10 per cent of its original forest cover intact and, according to the anthropologists Richard Leakey and Roger Lewis, all the forest cover will be largely gone by the year 2050.

The country which has the world’s worst record for species extinction turns out to be Australia: 27 mammal species, 23 bird species and four frog species have become extinct over the past 200 years. Our wildlife is some of the most beautiful and unusual in the world.

We are known around the world for our unique wildlife but, unfortunately, we have a very poor track record of protecting it. Everyone knows about the loss of the Tasmanian tiger, a stunning animal which is now sadly extinct, but people are less well aware of just how bad our overall track record is. We have the worst rate of mammal extinction in the world. Since European colonisation, about 10 per cent of Australia’s mammals have become extinct. In fact, almost half the mammals that have become extinct globally in the past 200 yearshave been Australian.

The World Wildlife Fund says—and they are right— that we urgently need to build a safety net of terrestrial and marine protected areas to help our unique and threatened wildlife weather the upheavals of climate change. We need to reduce the impact of invasive species like foxes and cats on our native species, we need to assist Indigenous Australians to manage fire on their country and prevent late hot dry-season fires wiping out species and their habitats and, above all, everyone needs to commit to reducing carbon emissions to prevent a wave of mass species extinctions in Australia. I believe there is an opportunity to strengthen the protection for threatened species and their habitats in the review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, which the Labor government has promised.

The last government failed to keep the EPBC Act list of threatened ecological communities up to date because it was pandering to National Party pressure. This has meant that large tracts of threatened habitat across the country are not receiving the protection that is warranted from the federal government under the legislation. We need to recognise the importance of biodiversity protection; it is a crucial part of this country’s climate change mitigation efforts. We need a major national biodiversity action plan and a national biodiversity initiative. I commend for the consideration of the government, the parliament and the people of Australia such an initiative, which has been put forward by the Humane Society International. I commend the Humane Society International and WWF for their essential work. I urge all Australians to support their efforts at work. I urge us to ensure that we will not allow other species to become extinct on our watch during our lifetimes."

From a speech on "Threatened and Extinct Species" to the House of Representatives
by Kelvin Thomson MP (ALP), Federal Member for Wills, Thursday 14th February 2008

http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/reps/dailys/dr140208.pdf [Accessed House of Representatives Hansards]

Kelvin Thomson is a member of the Federal Labor Party and has been the member for Wills since 1996.
His home page is: http://www.alp.org.au/people/thomson_kelvin.php

Wills was previously held by:
Cleary, P.R. (An Independent) 1993-1996
Hawke, R.J.L. (Ex Prime Minister, ALP)1980-1992
Bryant, G.M. (ALP) 1955-1980
Electorate Profile of Wills:
State: Victoria
Area and Location Description: Wills covers an area of approximately 57 sq km from Fawkner and Glenroy in the north to Brunswick in the south and also includes Essendon Airport. The main suburbs include Glenroy, Gowanbrae, Hadfield, Oak Park, Pascoe Vale, Strathmore and parts of Brunswick, Coburg and Fawkner.

Demographic Rating: Inner Metropolitan

Members:

* THOMSON, K (ALP) 1996-
* CLEARY, P R (IND) 1993-1996
* HAWKE, R J L (ALP) 1980-1992
* BRYANT, G M (ALP) 1955-1980
* BRYSON, W G (ALP) 1949-1955

Government ignores the rights of consumers to shun factory farming horrors

The horrors of mass-produced egg and chicken products were aired last night in Jamie Oliver’s revealing exposé “Jamie's Fowl Dinners”. In addition to the grand-scale cruelty of factory farming methods, what this documentary also revealed was a crisis in mass-produced animal-derived products, as much an issue in Australia as it is elsewhere in the world.

People are horrified when they know the reality

Although the horrified response of audience members exemplified the feelings of people faced with the reality of factory farming, Australian consumers in Australia are currently unable to identify the production methods of the majority of products on their supermarket shelves.

“With the proliferation of vague and meaningless product labels, many of which give no indication of the farming production method used, it is becoming impossible for consumers to make informed choices,” said Verna Simpson, Humane Society International (HSI) Director. “HSI has asked the Government to instigate an urgent review and reform of all legislation relating to the labelling of animal-derived food products, to ensure there is truth in product claims and clarity in product labelling.”

Min for Agriculture ignores cries for less cruelty

The response has been abysmal, with Tony Burke, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, stating that he does not support the labelling of food according to the method of production, and claiming that simply putting the place of origin of foods on labels is enough for consumers to judge suitability based on animal welfare concerns. (Tony Burke's email address is Tony.Burke.MP[AT]aph.gov.au)

Disrespect for ethical concerns of consumers

“This response from Minister Burke is reproachable and demonstrates a complete lack of respect for consumer rights,” said Ms Simpson. “The government is effectively spitting in the face of consumers who have very real ethical concerns about animal welfare and the production methods of the food they are buying. The approach he is advocating is far too simplistic. It is bewildering how Minister Burke expects consumers to make informed choices with this labelling system that is devoid of any meaningful information on what is in the products they are purchasing, and how they are produced.”

Labelling standards must include animal welfare

HSI is calling for a reform of all federal, state and territory legislation and regulations applying to food labelling, branding and marketing, that must ensure the terms used on product labels are limited and clearly defined, and that these terms are linked to consistent national standards, including those for animal welfare.

From an HSI press release, Sydney, 24 July 2008

Contact: Verna Simpson on 02 9973 1728 or 0416 189482

HSI concentrates on the preservation of endangered animals and ecosystems and works to ensure quality of life for all animals, both domestic and wild. HSI is the largest animal protection not-for-profit organisation in the world, with over 10 million supporters globally and has been established in Australia since 1994.

Humane Society International Inc - Australian Office
PO Box 439 Avalon NSW 2107 Australia
Ph: 02 9973 1728 Fax: 02 9973 1729 www.hsi.org.au

This remark from Cameron Smith, reviewing the updated version of "Limits to Growth" is the one that most needs emphasis, I believe:

Besides pushing our demands beyond the limits of the natural world, the authors say it widens the gap between rich and poor, because only the rich have pools of capital to invest. So their wealth grows exponentially and the poor lag increasingly behind."

Social democratic governments just don't understand this. They believe that "a rising tide (of economic growth) will float all boats". Besides, growing the pie is a lot less painful politically than confronting the ruling class and slicing it up more equitably, that it is, re-distributing income through capital gains taxes where it really hurts. Even the delegates at the Bali conference swallowed this nonsense, the nonsense that we must help the developed countries through economic growth.

Last winter I submitted a paper to my (New Democratic Party) NDP MLA on child poverty, something she cares about. It revealed that the NDP record on child poverty in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and British Columbia (BC) was as bad as anywhere, and that there was no correlation between provinces with booming economies and provinces with lower rates of homelessness and child poverty. In fact, the province with the greatest success in eliminating child poverty was Quebec, and it had the poorest economic performance of all. Why, because solving poverty is a question of priorities, not wealth. If you come into an inheritance, you can still choose to blow the money on an expensive car, a boat and a foreign vacation and leave your kids teeth unfixed. But if you live on a tight budget you can make their dental health a first priority

.

There is an analogue to this in environmental stewardship. Those who would say that economic growth is necessary to solve poverty are often the same people who say that it is necessary before the fertility rate drops. " So lets stop worrying about runaway population growth in Africa, pump development money in there and ruin the environment until they prosper and decide not to have babies". "The demographic transition"---a myth that never dies. Then there is our cherished belief that the environment is something external to us, something extra, an extravagance, that we can only "afford" once we have attained a healthy and robust economy, which of course exists quite apart from this "environment". So lets keep growing this economy so that we are wealthy enough to pay for a "clean" environment. Ruin it with growth, then clean it up. Sorry folks, it doesn't work that way. Don't have to go into the tedious details.

Unless you are a Socialist. Or a Liberal, or a Conservative, or a Growthist of any description.

Trying to catch up with poverty by growing the economy is like being a dog and trying to catch up with your tail. Better to stop and give it a rest.

Tim Murray
Quadra Island, BC
July 23/08

See also: Why is the UN so complacent in the face of over-population peril? of 3 Jul 08.

In the early 1970's, a book titled "The Limits to Growth" was published, a report by the Club of Rome on the predicaments of mankind. Ultimately translated in 30 languages, it caused a furore, predicting that should civilisation continue on its present path, it would run out of every resource under the sun, causing a collapse of society and a major dieoff of human population.

Over the past few years, many, no, almost all economists have lambasted this report, usually misquoting it completely and erroneously saying civilisation would, for example, disintegrate by the year 2000. In fact, the computer models described in "The Limits to Growth" predicted that within a period of 100 years from its writing, there would be famines, shortages of resources, and world population would greatly reduce. Because 'nothing has yet happened', the report is lampooned as the literal poster child of misinformed "Malthusian" type thinking that misled many people into believing the end of the world was nigh.

So then, thirty five percent of the way into this Century of Doom, how are we faring?

Not well is how I perceive it. Everything the Club of Rome predicted is bang on target. Already, economic growth world wide has caused the supply of many essential resources to fall short of demand. The three that concern me most are water, food, and energy. The immediate result of this in a free market is to cause the price of these resources to go up, sometimes dramatically such as oil.

We live in an increasingly complex societal system in which everything is interconnected, and as a result the failure of any one single component can cause the failure of the entire system. A major failure of the electricity grid, for instance, would cause the failure of the sewerage system, not to mention water supply to your taps.

As a rule, when it comes to resources exploitation, we always go for the easiest ones first, what I call the low hanging fruit syndrome. It's like picking mangoes. You always start at the bottom of the tree, then you have to start climbing the tree to get more, only to discover that the bats and the birds have got at them, and by the time you reach the top they're all rotten. Well, all the low hanging fruit has now been picked. Politicians are now clutching at straws in their insistence we must keep growing at all cost, even if it means, as an example, building a dam on the Mary River. So, what should we do?

1. Education. Everyone ought to get educated about where their food and energy comes from. 90% of all store bought food calories are sourced from fossil fuels, and when these become scarce and expensive over the next five years, we have to find new ways of feeding ourselves, organically. http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100303_eating_oil.html
2. The big switch. Cars are dinosaurs. It doesn't look like it now as governments encourage freeways to airports, but public transport must be increased dramatically whilst we still have enough oil to build the infrastructure with.
3. The other big switch. We must switch to renewable energy, as soon as possible and as much as remaining energy sources will allow. Our house runs 100% off solar power, if we can do it, anyone can do it.
4. Relocalise. Believe it or not, a lot of bananas grown in Qld (even those grown in Tully) go to Melbourne to be sorted and sent out all over the country, including back to here on the Sunny Coast. Our hinterland has the capacity to feed us all if properly managed, much land is wasted for housing development.
5. Farmers' Markets. Centralised markets, such as the one in Brisbane, are only doable when we have ample supplies of cheap fuel. With Peak Oil now almost certainly behind us, this must cease, we have to source our food, the water used to irrigate it, and the fuel for distributing it, locally. Sugar cane could again be grown locally to fuel the trucks needed to move the hinterland crops to our coastal strip's Farmers' Markets.
6. Use energy much more efficiently. I estimate that 80% of all the energy used by household is squandered. No one likes the idea of austerity, but austerity is what we need to aim for in a world constrained with ever diminishing energy supplies. Our household uses a mere 20% of the average electricity consumption, and we certainly do not do without. We are aiming to reduce this further!
7. Work less. You all work too hard (I don't work at all, at least for wages!). It is my opinion society works to borrow money, so as to consume stuff it doesn't need, to impress people we don't even know. And most of the stuff we consume ends up in landfill. Families today are half the size they were 50 years ago, yet our houses are twice as big. Why do we do it?
8. Downsize. Look around you and ask yourself, "do I need all this stuff?" When we moved from Brisbane, we threw out two and a half
   tonnes of junk....
9. Forgive debts. This economic system is doomed to fail. Capitalism relies on economic growth so that interest on debts can be repaid. Growth is finished. Maybe not today, nor tomorrow, but soon, because all the growth we have experienced over the last 75 years is entirely due to a supply of cheap and abundant fossil energy, and that energy is already waning.
10. Permaculture. Google it. Permaculture is a design system which integrates all the things around you so as to satisfy all your needs, food, housing, water, energy. This is done so as to waste nothing, whether that be land, water, energy, or even your precious time. Permaculture fosters happiness and an immense sense of satisfaction that what you are doing for your survival is totally sustainable, and totally within your control. It's freedom from the slavery and drudgery of modern life. No driving in traffic, no ingesting food that slowly kills you, more time for family ties.

Finally, something sensible and well-written to counteract the marketing horrors of the growth merchants. MarkO'Connor and Bill Lines’s next prose book on the topic Overloading Australia is due out in late 2008  from Enviro Books, Australia. O'Connor hass co-authored with William Lines (whose latest book is Patriots, a history of the Australian conservation movements). Here is a collation of extracts: Extracts from Overloading Australia :

• #clarke">Colin Clark and the myths of growth economics
• #monbiot">The Monbiot Fallacy
• #rrf">The Replacement Rate Fallacy

Colin Clark and the myths of growth economics Denialist claims have changed remarkably little in 35 years. Almost all the arguments and tactics were already on show in 1973 when the internationally famous Australian economist Colin Clark published a pamphlet with the British Catholic Truth Society, Putting the ‘Population Explosion’ in Perspective. He followed this a few months later with a small book, The Myth of Over-Population. Conservative think-tanks and rightwing church groups remain fond of recycling its pungent assertions. Clark had the ability, rare among economists, of writing simply and clearly. Unfortunately, this great virtue exposed his errors and muddled predictions. Let’s take the scientific howlers first. Clark assures his readers that carbon dioxide is harmless so long as it can be ‘discharged into the atmosphere.’ As for greenhouse effects, it is clear that recent fluctuations in the Earth’s climate ‘are not due to the burning of fuel.’ Despite being supposedly a chemist and an agricultural economist, Clark displays near total ignorance of agriculture. For instance, he assures us that the then heavy use of fertilizers would soon fade away: ‘Farmers now apply fertilizers heavily, to make their soils more fertile. Once these have reached a satisfactory level, fertilizers can be applied more lightly.’ Perhaps for this reason, Clark was sure that world food production ‘could easily be increased to 50 times its present level’. This would be easy if all suitable land ‘was properly farmed or grazed’. Clark persistently confuses the maximum yields of experimental plots, under ideal conditions, with what can be expected in the field. For instance he notes that meat production of 1000 pounds per acre a year from grazing lands has been recorded in temperate regions. From this he deduces that since grass grows faster in the tropics, five times the yield should be possible there! In practice tropical yields are often lower. Like latter-day deniers, Clark is contemptuous of the very notion that resources are limited. He argues that most of the things we call resources, like wood pulp or fish are really products of human labor. This is a classic case of an economist treating the natural world as a ‘free good’. Clark could not grasp that fish-catches and lumber-extraction depend not just on investment and labour but also on nature’s fecundity. Instead, he assures us that fish supplies are increasing much faster than population. He defends DDT as a blessing to mankind, claiming that scientists ‘cannot find that its levels have done any harm to human health’. He assures us that climate change is natural. Alarmists like Paul Ehrlich, he claims, ‘want to have it both ways, and prove that we are in danger of making the world hotter and colder simultaneously’. This perverse misunderstanding of warnings about climate instability is still a standard tactic for Clark’s successors. One can make allowances for Clark who was meeting a new idea, but not for those who perpetuate his muddle. Despite his scientific ignorance, Clark had no hesitation in predicting the future — wrongly. He ridiculed the idea that our use of fossil fuels might change the climate but did concede that ‘Some centuries hence, our descendants may decide that it is unwise to add further carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.’ In fact just two decades later governments began negotiating the Kyoto agreement on greenhouses gases. Clark also assured his readers that serious energy problems will come only when world population is ‘over a million times what it is now’. He mocked Ehrlich for suggesting that the US (whose oil production, unmentioned by Clark, had peaked in 1970) was already having some trouble in buying in enough foreign oil. Clark claimed the only problem the US had was ‘restricting the quantities of oil which other countries wish to supply’. (Today the quest for overseas oil dominates US foreign policy.) In any case, said Clark, cheap abundant energy from nuclear fusion was coming soon, and ‘will be vastly more efficient’ than the nuclear fission of current reactors. Thirty-five years later nuclear fusion remains a distant hope. Clark’s current disciples overlook these embarrassing errors while citing his authority and persisting with the same assumptions that produced the errors. But Clark’s ignorance of history and science was not quite what it seems. He was perversely erudite in ferreting out scraps of fact that might suit his theories, yet studiously ignored well-known facts that didn’t. In short, Clark, like most later deniers, is betrayed less by ignorance than by powerful prejudices that distort his vision. The Monbiot Fallacy Some environmentalists invent ingenious arguments for not thinking about population. In early 2008 the British environmentalist George Monbiot invented the Monbiot Fallacy. As a man who prides himself on recognising that economic growth is incompatible with preserving environments, Monbiot has long argued that total economic growth is a good surrogate for total environmental destruction. Granted that economists demand a minimum of 3% growth per year, he predicts massive destruction of the natural world by the year 2100. This seems right, since at that 3% rate we will see the world’s economy double four times — grow 16-fold. Yet current projections are that in that time the world’s population will only increase by half. Therefore, Monbiot suggests, that ‘economic growth this century could be 32 times as big an environmental issue as population growth.’ He thus feels justified in not being too bothered about Britain’s rapid population growth — and in hinting at unpleasant views of those environmentalists who are. Yet as we saw at the end of Chapter 5, even if the planet could provide such a quantity of services and products, there is no precedent for assuming that economic growth can owe so little to population growth. Existing statistics show population growth and growth in per capita consumption as almost equally important. In Australia for instance ― as John Coulter pointed out to Monbiot ― over the past 25 years the economy has been growing at 3.2% while the growth of per capita GDP has averaged 1.9%. This indicates that, in terms of growth in environmental impact, 60% of the growth is due to rising per capita demand and 40% to increase in population. Monbiot has also scrambled the maths. Even on his figures, 16-fold economic growth divided by 1.5-fold population growth, means about 11-fold per capita growth: a ratio of about 1 to 7 between the two factors, not 1 to 32! A better way out of the Monbiot Fallacy is to argue thus. If the nature of our economy ensures a doubling of total consumption every 20 years or so for ever, then most hopes of saving the environment and warding off climate change are lost. The present population of the Earth, plus the increases in per capita consumption that economists will demand of them, is enough to doom the Earth. However if we are serious about fighting such runaway growth, then both the factors that drive it (population and per capita consumption) must be kept as low as possible. Granted that per capita consumption, even of necessities like energy and food, may need to be voluntarily pinched in, the larger the number of individuals to be supplied and fed, the less chance there will be of them agreeing to do so. Monbiot should also have considered the scenario where nature or lack of resources does the job for us — relieving the pressure on the environment but giving us the problem of human misery to alleviate. Imagine that peak oil bites sooner than expected, the economy goes into recession, there is so little fuel oil that private cars can run only by permit and homes can be heated only a few hours a day. Will not these privations be crueller for an expanded population than for a smaller one? Numbers matter.   On the Replacement Rate Fallacy   The late pro-natalist B.A. Santamaria once informed his readers in The Australian that for Australia’s population not to fall rapidly the average woman must have 2 surviving children.  Such views are quite common, and often lead to a false belief that population is either falling or about to fall.  Thus in July 2008, when the Pope visited Sydney for World youth Day (just after World Population Day), Australia’s Cardinal Pell told the media that Western nations faced a population crisis fuelled by ‘ruthless’ commercial forces, and that ‘No country in the Western world is producing enough children to keep the population stable.’ If Pell was thinking about his native Australia he was right―but not in the way he imagined. Australian women are having far too many babies to keep the population stable. In fact almost twice as many as necessary. Births in Australia (about half a million a year) are twice deaths (about a quarter of a million) and have been so for the past twenty years―even though Australian women have been averaging significantly less than two children each for at least that long. Clearly there is something cock-eyed about this “replacement rate” argument. It involves a common, but elementary, error in demography. Can  you spot it? In fact to keep stable and just replace itself, a relatively young population like Australia’s would currently need something even lower than Western Europe’s rate of around 1.3 children per completed family. More like 0.93. And that’s without immigration! Misunderstandings like Pell’s often come from those who a decade earlier might have tried to argue that we need more people for defence, or for “respect” in the world. As those older props are discredited, more weight has fallen on the Replacement Rate Fallacy. Underlying all this is a natural bias of human beings towards pro-natalism   The replacement rate was a useful, if theoretical, concept back when couples everywhere were having 4 and 5 children as a matter of course. Since couples often justified this by saying that the world must be populated, demographers would point out that all a couple need do to replace itself, was to have 2 children. More exactly, about 2.05 children, to allow for the odd child that dies before reaching reproductive age, and for the slight excess of male births. But basically, if women in their reproductive years average two surviving children, or one surviving daughter, a generation will simply replace itself, won’t it?    Well, no! Humans are not fruitflies, where the generation of parents dies as their offspring are born. Children don’t replace parents, or even grandparents these days, but more often they replace great-grandparents. Hence if a generation of parents were to produce an equal-sized generation of children this would not mean the population had stabilized. In fact the population would not stabilize, at that rate, until the last generation to have more than 2.05 children had departed the scene. For instance, if India achieved so-called “replacement fertility” now, with all its couples in future averaging just 2.05 children, its population would still double, adding an extra 1 billion people! Demographers need to clearly explain to journalists the difference between the Theoretical Long-Term Replacement Rate (TLTRR) and the Current Replacement Birth Rate (CRBR). The latter is the birth-rate that would currently (though not indefinitely) produce as many births as deaths.  The only replacement rate that Australia could claim to be safely below is the Theoretical Long-Term Replacement Rate (TLTRR) of just over two children per completed family. But that is the replacement rate of an imaginary Australia, an already stabilized Australia, a society in which there would now be equal numbers in each generation. By rights we should distinguish birthrate from fertility rate. The birthrate is the number of babies born per thousand people per year (and hence the replacement birthrate is that at which births per year would equal deaths); whereas ‘the fertility rate’ is the average number of children a woman will have in her lifetime ― which is the demographers’ justification for speaking of 2.05 children per woman as ‘replacement fertility’. If only non-demographers could be got to observe this distinction, Santamaria’s error could be succinctly described as confusing the birthrate with the fertility rate. Since fertility rates are always below 10, and birthrates may be nearer to 100, the two terms ought not to be confused! However one must despair of getting the media to distinguish between birthrate and fertility rate. The ANU demographer Dr Christabel Young has pointed out another hole in the replacement rate argument. When you take Australia’s current fertility rate of around 1.8 children per couple and factor in even a low net migration gain of just 80 000 per year, she calculated, it is still the equivalent of having a total fertility of around 2.4 children per woman. That of course is well above any estimate of the long-term replacement rate. And in reality our current net migration gain is now some 178,000 per year.   Some demographers are simply careless in talking about “the” replacement rate to journalists who almost invariably misunderstand “below TLTRR” as meaning “below the CRBR”; but there may also be pro-natalist demographers, and politicians, who do so deliberately to create concern about “our falling population”.  For instance the pro-natalist Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS) recently put out a media release that suckered ABC TV News (26 February 2008) into reporting that Australia’s low birthrate was a disaster because there were, "not enough babies being born to replace people dying." In fact AIFS had merely said that fertility in Australia was “below the level required for population replacement” –which left them free to blame the ABC (and several other news media) for the error. Similarly, some of the business-lobby groups who try to create concern about “falling population” may be well aware from their own research that population is in fact rising rapidly. (Australia’s is rising at 1.6% a year, faster than Indonesia next door, and one of the fastest rates in Asia.) Reporters who are tempted by such nonsense” should  apply a common-sense reality-check. Anyone who drives around Australian cities ought to be aware that population growth is extremely high!   NOTE: The above is not an exact quotation from the book but combines passages from several chapters.

Pigs are intelligent animals that have strong bonds with each other. They endure miserable lives to make pork and bacon products cheaper.

Unfortunately Codes of Practice little to provide animal welfare for pigs. They have little maternal attention and are weaned early. Not only are intensive farms places of animal slavery and cruelty, but of land, water and air pollution. The screams of pigs can be heard in Castlemaine when they are slaughtered - workers use ear muffs. They know their fate and can smell Death! Making pork and ham "more affordable" means that pigs do not get many concessions. If people paid fully for organic and free-range meat less livestock would be eaten and it is livestock that contribute to much of our greenhouse gases and water wastage in Australia.

These intelligent animals don't get a chance to make many decisions in life, or have many choices. Their short lives are full of pain, from mutilations without pain relief, and constant deprivations. They are known to turn cannibalistic and eat each others' tails due to the sheer misery and stress in their short lives. Thus their tails are removed!

Pigs are really active and inquisitive animals. They need plenty of room. Those raised in factory-conditions, in concentration-camp conditions, suffer horrendously from deprivation and activity. Pregnant sows are pinned into sow-stall for up to 16 weeks without being able to move or lie down - all allowed by the Codes of Practice. These comic and intelligent animals are so ridiculed and abused by humans who only see them as a food source. Pigs are thought to be as least as intelligent as a 3 year old child, and can learn to play video games! If you love animals, avoid eating them!

See also: www.savebabe.com, Secrets of the pork industry revealed.

What you can do: Help pay for a radio advertising campaign against this cruelty by visiting www.animalsaustralia.org/lucy_speaks.

See also: A McKillop, General editor with Sheila Newman co-editor, “The Final Energy Crisis - First edition”, Pluto Books, ISBN 0745320929

The Next Oil War is likely or increasingly possible because the old, mature, or ‘post-industrial’ urban consumer societies, and the burgeoning new and emergent industrial economies of the planet are totally dependent on oil gas and coal. One of these big chunks of Humanity will have to rival the other for a bigger share of a smaller fossil fuel supply pile. However, burning fossil fuels in vast quantities not only ensures fast depletion and possible armed conflict, but also and surely causes the climate change some citizens, and some politicians in most of these countries claim to regard as a serious problem. By a whim Jurassic geology, most remaining oil and gas reserves are located in the Middle East and central Asian region. Very logically, almost surely any subsequent and probably final Oil War following those that occurred, or continue in the region since 1991 will also occur in this region. This is a geological fatality.

Particularly in the ‘post-industrial’ societies of the OECD, awash in an ocean of cheap industrial goods made with, and operated using oil, gas and coal-based energy, many persons claim they aspire to "ecological lifestyles" and protection of the environment. This is not only a form of mass schizophrenia, but also an increasingly acute and politicized question, simply because the consumer society industrial-urban lifestyle, whether ‘post-industrial’ or ‘new industrial’ is extremely energy and resource intensive. This results in a stark real choice – political speeches, or posturing at G8 summits lauding “sustainable development and renewable energy” is finally no substitute for measurable and concrete action. This must target, and achieve reduction in average fossil energy consumption per capita. Action must start soon.

Kuwait’s liberation from Iraqi occupation in 1991 was hailed by the markets as a triumph for cheap oil and a signal for ‘exuberant’, almost daily increases in general stock values on major markets. Today, however, Kuwait and other GCC countries focus alternate energy investing as part of their After Oil strategy. Kuwait’s national oil corporation reportedly admits and accepts national oil reserves have been heavily over-estimated, and may only be about 43 Billion barrels remaining (reported by Petroleum Intelligence Weekly in 2007). World consumption in 2008 will be about 32 Billion barrels. Apart from any other factor, the actual size of remaining reserves, and the extreme high rate of extraction makes it possible to conclude that full and final depletion may intervene before any final Oil War could be started – thus preventing this war from occurring!

#UnsatisfiedDemand" id="UnsatisfiedDemand">Unsatisfied Demand

This no-war outcome due to “the prize’, abundant oil reserves, disappearing before the final oil war can be organized is however unlikely. To be sure, “ecologically correct” lifestyles are media friendly, and appeals to these lifestyles are larded into the political speeches of economic growth-chasing political leaders, who know exactly what their consumer and voter masses really want. That is a new car, flat screen TV, suburban swimming pools, cellphones with permanent Internet access, jet travel holidays in faraway but cheap tourist locations, and mountains of plastic, metal and cheap food produced using several barrels-equivalent of energy per hectare cultivated. By direct consequence, economic growth must continue!

This permanent quest for more of everything automatically assumes – in fact demands and imposes – that there will always be more oil to satisfy this expression of individual and collective greed, schizophrenia and ignorance of ever clearer limits on satisfying this primitive urge to overconsume. Kuwait may almost ashamedly avow that it lied about its oil reserves, perhaps to spur its Western oil consumer ‘friends’ to chase out Iraqi invaders 17 years ago, so Kuwait can continue producing at least as much, perhaps more than previously. The same ‘performance logic’ is applied to any other oil exporter country, except Russia and because of its thermonuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and rather evident willingness to exert its newly regained Oil and Gas Power on the world stage. Bullying Russia into ‘performing’ better at more quickly exhausting its national oil and gas reserves and driving down world prices, and its revenues as a result, is not on the table, but for the others, it is.

As we know, this farce is operated “because there is no alternative” and despite the vast emissions of greenhouse gases it produces being officially, today, described as ‘regrettable’ or ‘critical’. At worst this mass schizophrenia is fantastic hypocrisy, and terrible confusion at best or least. In this antinomic and irrational political, social and cultural context, both rational and irrational decisions can be expected. One of these decisions, from a nexus of rational and irrational being interwoven and seamless can easily be the Next Oil War. This would be launched by consumer nations against some ‘underperforming’ oil exporter. Another strand of irrationality, and already a discredited kneejerk ‘response’ to oil crisis, well documented in the 2005-2007 period from boom to slump, was the attempt to massively develop the agrofuels or biofuels. These food crop-based and of course ‘low carbon’ fuels would, under almost any hypothesis, never have provided more than insignificant quantities of oil saving fuels for the Apocalypse Wagon, or family passenger car. Many billions of dollars were however poured from the pockets of investors into their development, to little avail. As oil prices rise, so does the cost – and alternate value as food and feeds – of their ‘basic feedstocks’, the grains and vegetable oils.

#NewKuwait" id="NewKuwait">New Kuwait or North Korea?

Since late 2005 and increasingly ever since, agrocommodity prices reflect, and agroindustrial investment analysts underline the new trend for "full barrel price indexation". In other words the main crops used, or potentially to be used for producing fuel ethanol and biodiesel oil, to save petroleum-source gasoline and diesel fuel, now reflect their real, or future potential alternate use for feeding cars and vice versa, letting the car starve. The biofuels boom-slump cycle was short, no more than about two years, but at least serves to educate the consumer masses that they really do have a choice: to drive or eat. This decision has already been made, by force majeure, in North Korea and Cuba, cut-off from cheap Soviet oil when the USSR collapsed.

North Korea, in particular, pursued copybook Soviet and Western ‘modern agriculture’ development or the massive substitution of oil for manpower, draught animals, crop rotation, composting and all other ‘primitive and traditional’, non-mechanized forms and methods of industrial food production. Far behind Japan but close to the USA in direct oil intensity of its food production, North Korea in the 1980s utilised about 1.75 barrels per hectare every year, specially as fertilisers, insecticides and pesticides, as well as for irrigation, agricultural machines and road transport. Today it uses about one-half that amount – and starves, although it does possess rudimentary atom bombs and exportable if rustic ballistic missiles, if not all-year and all-day electric power supplies from its mostly oil-based power stations, chronically short of fuel. Cuba, a little less drastically, has also been forced to make adjustment to reality, severely cutting both direct and indirect oil intensity of its agriculture. Its poverty but nice climate makes this an ideal location for low cost holiday flights from the “ecologically concerned” OECD postindustrial countries, of course not including the USA, for ideological reasons.

Not for ideological reasons but simply because oil prices have started to reflect reality – in particular there are no easy and cheap substitutes and reserves are declining – even the postindustrial countries are beginning to pay more for their food. Since they essentially ‘eat oil’ this is no surprise for anybody able to scan a list of energy inputs to ‘no alternative’ modern food production, distribution, its predatory soil mining, biodiversity destruction and complete unsustainability. A future more like that of present-day North Korea or Cuba will however be a very bad surprise to the average innocent consumer, and rather difficult to manage for their current-crop leaderships. Much more attractive to some, an exemplary and quick war aimed at ‘securing’ oil supplies ‘at reasonable prices’ will almost inevitably bubble to the surface in the mind of our decision making elites and be faithfully trumpeted by every government-friendly and patriotic media outlet.

See: www.energybulletin.net/node/45944.

#ComingFast" id="ComingFast">Coming Fast

World consumption of fossil or mineral petroleum and 'fossil hydrocarbon liquids' in 2007 was about 5150 Billion litres or around 4.8 barrels per head of world population. The world's two biggest biofuel programmes, or industries, in Brazil based on sugarcane ethanol and in USA based on maize ethanol, produced a combined total of about 38 Billion litres of anhydrous ethyl alcohol the same year. The European Union biofuels program targeted 5.75% by volume of all European motor fuels being substituted by 2010, mostly based on rapeseed biodiesel, but is now in the process of being ‘disowned’ by most political decision making elites, due to its sheer uneconomic performance. A more rational target could be 0.5% or 1% on a sustainable basis.

Any increase in petroleum demand, even tiny fractions of one percent, sets yet more impossible targets for biofuels expansion. This is at least in the real world of ‘current generation’ biofuels based on food crops, and not the fantasies of ‘next generation’ biofuels produced from using miracle plants not needing irrigation, pesticides, agricultural machinery and only the slightest processing energy – for example jatropha curcus. In addition, world consumption of motor fuels is locked on to the growth of the world car and vehicle fleet, increasing at about 55 million units per year. Excluding their production, which is in no way low energy the annual increase in oil demand, only for motor fuels, due to fleet expansion, can be estimated at about 85 Billion litres, equivalent to about the fuel value of 110 Bn litres of anhydrous fuel ethanol. From this, we get an idea of how far the biofuels – or the ‘next best hope’ of electric cars - have to go, and grow, to start representing a credible alternative to oil.

We can note that even to hold the not-so-impressive rank of 1% bioethanol/99% fossil petroleum in world car fuel terms, the world's two-biggest bioethanol production industries would have to increase output by stellar amounts. Supposing, for example, that Brazil and USA were to expand their annual bioethanol output at the rate of world motor fuel demand growth, then in 2007-2008 their mission impossible target increase would need to be about 400%. Taking a more rational target, and assuming the world's two biggest biofuel industries targeted firstly achieving 5% of world motor fuels supply in volume terms, and then maintenance of this 5% part of the total, their combined output will have to grow at a sustained rate of at least 25%-per-year for more than a decade. Long before this, Brazil would run out of sugar and Amazonian forest to clear for grazing cattle displaced by sugarcane growing expansion further south. And the US would run out of maize and the water to grow it. This is the simple reality behind the 'biofuel revolution' and reason for its very quick end.

World oil production is facing an exactly similar mission impossible. So long as there is any growth in the system, so long as more people eat more industrial food, drive more cars and fly more planes, consume more plastic and metal, and continue being good industrial-urban consumers, we will get closer to the point where supply is in permanent shortfall. Very surely, promoters and defenders of the ‘alternate and renewable energy revolution’ will point to encouraging signs of massive investment intentions and cashflow projections, and spiraling mergers and acquisitions in ‘New Energy’. But on the ground and in the fuel tanks of the world's approximately 975 Million car equivalent road and off-road vehicles, ocean shipping fleets and 25 000 Boeing 767 and Airbus A320-size planes it is fossil petroleum, either liquid or LPG, which makes around 98.5% to 100% of these vehicles operate.

For market traders and operators in the arena of formerly dual-use, but now again simple food commodities the time is ripe for testing new 'psychological price ceilings', due to oil’s recent and proven ability to grow about 33% in price over 6 months. Soft commodities still have some way to go in catching up the hard commodity boom, itself driven by and dependent on rising oil, gas and energy prices, and sometimes-rapid depletion of orebodies and exploitable reserves. Almost unknown to the minds of media commentators and business analysts, the entropy-linked requirement for oil and energy prices to keep moving higher in order to make intrinsically low-performing substitutes feasible or ‘economically attractive’ is the only way forward for alternate energy. By doing this, they could drag the biofuels and electric cars, solar electricity, geothermal heat or other alternate energy ‘solutions’ behind them, into the realms of long-term economic feasibility - as opposed to their present de facto role as vehicles for short-term financial and speculative trading interest. The bottom line cost, of course, is to spend more of personal and national income on anything containing or using energy, and less on the trinkets and gadgets so prized by economic growth fanatics.

#Overheads" id="Overheads">Beware of Overheads

Infrastructure and overhead energy costs, in the OECD countries, and increasingly in the Emerging Economies are either extreme high, or very high. The survival value of the whole production process is therefore low. Without cheap, or at least abundant oil and gas, the construction and operation and maintenance or current production systems and their infrastructures is compromised. The successive shells or layers of the urban industrial consumer economy, that is economic infrastructures, have high or very high embodied amounts of energy, and this dependence increases as we mount the successive infrastructure layers, due to previous shells or layers being energy intensive. The much touted image of cellphones as ‘jumping the infrastructure barrier’ of landlines made from copper and recycled tree trunks, is a classic claim of those profiting from placing extreme high frequency emitters close to the brains of children and adults.

In 2007, around 10% to 12% of US total electricity consumption was swallowed by Internet and cellphone, portable computer and pager systems. Some 55% of US electricity comes from coal-fired power stations, burning hundreds of millions of tons of rail shipped coal each year. Champions of the ‘mobile office’ and the ‘communication revolution’ sometimes call this the ‘dematerialized’ economy!

Embodying and incorporating abundant and previously cheap fossil energy in productive and support infrastructures of the economy, these structures and economic processes need energy to be maintained, operated and renewed. Without this energy supply, cheap or otherwise, the North Korean or Cuban ‘solution’ becomes the No Alternative. Unfortunately, replacing ‘current generation’ productive systems and their infrastructures with alternate energy will not be difficult, but totally impossible. Arbitrage, or choices will have to be operated, surely not by the blind and chaotic 'free play of market forces', and preferably not by Our Heroic Leader and his clique.

This reality is in fact known to many persons, even to traders, speculators, and business analysts who track big spending on alternate energy, 'to save oil', in their market surveillance. It is also known to the scientific community, but care is taken by politicians and the media to avoid clearly spelling out such fatal and total weakness and dependence to Average Joe Citizen. Even less spoken of are the concrete, real world results of failed energy transition. In particular, as we have discussed elsewhere, these include oil war, military invasion, and mass killing in the wider Middle East and central Asian (MECA) region, triggered by failed attempts to increase ‘pumping performance’ and supply of real world petroleum for the real world, fatally doomed economy.

#PartyingOn" id="PartyingOn">Partying on with Alternate Energy Investing

The continued growth of the 'alternate energy boom' is entirely linked to the oil price. What is required is an oil price near the pain threshold, but well below the panic level we can place at around 150 to 200 USD/barrel. After the panic level is attained, the world economy will enter into troubled but classic waters of deep economic recession, cutting oil demand, and shaving its price. This is the ‘slump dividend’ for surviving consumers!

Sufficiently intense world economic recession can however easily result in only the war option for improved oil pumping ‘performance’ from exporters being retained. But we could also argue the opposite may ensue through reduced needs for energy in the slowed world economy, plus the ‘prudence premium’ on ray-jeem changing underperforming oil pumping countries ‘for their own good’, but finding they produce less for some while after their military ‘liberation’ and democratization. We can conclude that if we stay inside the pain threshold price, below 150 USD/barrel, fast development of many alternate energy sources and systems will remain a healthy new business. It can continue to attract not only the pension funds, but the Bill Gates, Vinod Khosla and Peter Thiel or Richard Branson of this world. These extreme consumers of every imaginable fossil fuel can continue to scurry round the world, preaching 'environmentally correct energy' as well as classic ways to make more money

.

The most important future effect of the 'biofuels revolution' is however on food prices. The production of biofuels on a large, or even massive scale is unlikely, but it comes at a bad time for world agriculture and food production. In large part due to climate change, but also because of rising fuel prices, erosion and loss of biodiversity due to industrial overkill being used against the biosphere, world agricultural output has stagnated. More strictly economic reasons for stagnating world food production can also be added, for example water supply limits and declining amounts of prospective new agricultural land for raising production. Prices for basic food commodities are rising, independently of real or potential biofuel ‘feedstocks’ demand on available grains, sugars and oilseed supply. This problem is already recognised, in the action taken to develop GM non-food "fuel crops", such as jatropha and grasses (in general leguminous species) which can or might be planted in non-irrigated lands, take less existing agricultural land, and potentially use less or no fertilisers, pesticides and machinery for production.

We find there is a firm and surprisingly low limit on how much alternate energy, such as the biofuels, can be produced before danger signals are set for the growth economy. As any economic textbook will explain, the amount of "discretionary non-food revenue" available to consumers has always has been the key determinant of economic growth, and growth potential in any economy. This 'iron law' of the economy, much discussed by Ricardo, Say, Malthus, Engels and Marx, among others, is easy to understand. As the consumer cypher or Economic Man spends more of their income on food and energy, and has less to spend on Microsoft products, iPods or flights in 100% kerosene-fuelled Virgin airliners this hits company revenues and corporate profits, employees are thrown out of their jobs, company spending decreases, and so on.

The moral question of do we need to feed cars and keep modern “ecologically minded” consumers high on the barrel, rather than feeding the approximately 900 Million underfed persons of the planet is usually avoided. Likewise, the urge to do something to limit climate change is certainly present in the media, but concrete action to cut oil, gas and coal burning is not. To what extent the growth economy survives, or more precisely how long it survives is of course low-key or absent from in media treatment of the Alternate Energy Investor Boom, that is yet another asset bubble.

More important for us at this moment, in late 2008, we can note how quickly real world energy-economic limits cut into the agrofuels boom, leaving a trail of unused or underused biofuels processing plants, in the case of G W Bush’s US Renewable Fuel Scheme – unable to operate through too costly corn or soybean oil on one hand, and insufficiently expensive imported oil from ‘underperforming’ oil exporter countries on the other. This tradeoff, between food and fuel, was and is arbitrated by rising food and energy prices and their impact on the economy, political ideas and public opinion.

#WhatNext" id="WhatNext">What Happens Next

Any asset boom is under imminent threat of implosion whenever stock markets wilt in the face of reality and investors scurry to salvage what they can of the bets they that more and following gamblers would come along to the same party, bringing fresh cash. Continued growth of the Alternate Energy asset bubble therefore depends on stock markets avoiding a crash. In turn this means there must be neither an oil price crash, nor a continued oil price explosion.. If we take the second and rational hypothesis, a classic economic crisis generated by oil prices moving to 150+ USD/barrel, the crisis will trigger a cut in world oil demand, reducing oil prices. Plenty of arguments support this outlook, particularly the extreme oil and gas intensity, or total oil dependence of the OECD 'postindustrial' societies. These ultimate consumer societies are under recession threat almost any time because of the debt-driven, resource intensive, unstable, cycle prone bases of economic growth in these societies. Not only the banks and finance houses, but most home- and even car-buyers are ‘highly leveraged’, that is debt dependent, exactly like OECD governments, most of which also run big trade deficits.

Another possible cause of a serious tilt to the Alternate Energy asset bubble’s Titanic deck is simply a boom-bust sequence in the 'stock growth and decline cycle'. Exactly the same happened in a quick period with the dotcom and hi-tech asset bubble, ending in the crash of 1999-2000. Since then, the Asian economy growth explosion, mergers and acquisitions mania, the real estate bubble and its subprime afterglow, all driven by stepwise increases in world liquidity, low interest rates and consumer debt, have taken over as economic cycle drivers. This extreme fragility is unlikely to resist the ‘external shock’ of oil prices climbing to their real equivalent price of the early 1980s, corrected for competing asset prices and the US dollar’s world value. This is probably around 175 USD/bbl, in any case more than 150 USD/bbl. Reaching this panic price level will be signalled by stock exchange falling any time oil prices rise, instead of the reverse, which was the pattern right through 2005-2007, but not now in 2008.

Also, and ironically any prolonged fall of oil and gas prices can help ‘crater’ the world economy by strangling the 'real resource boom' and depriving the world economy of liquidity transfusions generated by high metals, minerals, agrocommodity and energy prices. The Alternate Energy asset bubble is therefore caught between two stools the same way Kuwait, and other small GCC petro-countries are caught between Iran and US occupied Iraq plus Saudi Arabia.

If we take the 1980-1982 shakeout or meltdown of the world economy as at least partly oil price-triggered, this recession cut world oil demand about 9.5% in 3 years. The same economic slowdown, today, would also cut oil prices until falling supply due to Peak Oil caught up. Thanks to market over-reaction or ‘exuberance’ this process would naturally be a firework show of extreme volatility, but could end up cutting oil prices to below 100 USD/bbl, wreaking havoc on biofuels feasibility and return on investment, as well as the financial performance of other alternate energy investor vehicles.

Later on, long-term shrinkage of oil and gas supplies, which will surely start from 2011-2014, intensifying after that, will finally cut world energy demand by unimaginable amounts. The economic spinoff, or economic impact of much higher oil and gas prices spilling through the economy will simply mask the underlying physical causes of economic recession. In the 'longer-term’ future of about 2015-2018, it is not certain the alternate energy sources, including biofuels will have any larger role to play than today, simply due to the world economy practicing – for force majeure – the kind of de-growth that is the only solution for fighting climate change and limiting outright destruction of the biosphere. To be sure, the percentage weight in world energy of Alternate Energy will be higher, that is rising from around 1.5% today, to perhaps 5% of a smaller world total energy demand by around 2015. Much higher food prices, simply reflecting energy prices and environment costs of current agriculture, will also play their part in economic de-growth, and mightily constrain ‘first generation’ biofuels production we can easily note. Kuwait can practice After Oil investing, with ever-increasing real need, but the Alternate Energy asset bubble may be off trader’s screens well before that!

.

Copyright Andrew McKillop Jul 2008

Ross McCluney, Ph.D., Chattanooga, TN, 21 July 2008 rmccluney [ AT ] comcast net Periodically I’m asked why I oppose new nuclear power plants. I have B.A., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in physics, so have had some exposure to nuclear physics in my training. I also studied the subject during the first wave of nuclear power plant applications. So I guess I’m not surprised that some people expect me to be in favor of nuclear power. I am surprised by the question, however, because the nuclear industry in the U.S. has been all but shut down for over 30 years. I thought everyone understood the multiple dangers and threats inherent in nuclear power. I guess I didn’t count on all the youngsters who have come along during the hiatus period and who haven’t learned much about the history of nuclear. Newcomers to the nuclear controversy seem to think of nuclear as clean, safe, and a great antidote to global warming. This is reinforced by that cute pro-nuclear animated commercial by Areva, with its catchy tune, that you might have seen on TV and by several pro-nuclear politicians. So let me state the primary reasons I’m against this resurgence of nuclear power. 1. Radioactive waste and other radioactive releases. The waste products from nuclear power, including the wastes from manufacturing the fuel, the wastes spewed into the air and water by every nuclear power plant (admittedly modest in quantity under normal operating conditions, but dangerous nevertheless), and the “spent” fuel left over from operating the reactor, has half-lives ranging from short to tens of thousands of years. The half-life is the time it takes for half of any quantity of a radioactive material to decay to another substance – in some cases this may be a stable element, in others it may be one or more other radioactive elements. The types of radioactive materials and emissions produced are also varied in type, including alpha, beta, gamma, and neutron radiation. For more on these see http://www.factmonster.com/ce6/sci/A0860620.html http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/sci/A0860620.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionizing_radiation Radioactive waste, either routinely emitted or accidentally released in high quantities or concentration, is very damaging to living things. Ionizing radiation from radioactive substances receives this label because the radiation is so energetic on the microscopic scale that it can strip electrons from atoms, ionizing them, leaving them positively charged and therefore very chemically reactive, meaning that the charged atoms and the molecules to which they are attached, easily undergo chemical reactions with other atoms and molecules in their vicinity, producing new chemical species in the process. It doesn’t take a lot of this inside biological cells to cause a lot of disruption, leading to failure of the cells to operate properly, usually making the organism ill. High energy radioactive radiation can also produce genetic mutations, disrupting genes in the human body. We naturally have this happen within us regularly, due to the presence of cosmic rays and solar storms from outer space and a low level of background radiation from the soil, rocks, and other sources. Plus there is still some residual radiation from atmospheric weapons tests in times past and a little from nuclear accidents at power plants, weapons labs, and industrial plants. All of this is dangerous and is thought to cause at least some of the cancers from which humans increasingly suffer. The problem with nuclear power is that it causes an increase in the background radiation, increasing our risks of disease from the radiation directly and from the genetic mutations. Radiation also contributes problems with human reproduction (infertility and sterility) and is thought by some to be a contributor to some miscarriages. Though it is a controversial subject, I believe that there is no “safe” level of radioactivity on or in the human body. The National Academy of Science, in its 7th report from the panel on Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation, 2005, seems to agree. Though many of us have very short-lived radioactive tracers for medical diagnostic tests, and these are generally considered safe, because they are very low level and leave the body quickly, every exposure is potentially risky, and is tolerated for the greater benefit such exposure hopefully provides. Unreported, involuntary routine exposure, day in and day out, however, is another issue entirely. The risk for cellular mutations resulting in cancers are increased in the vicinity of nuclear reactors. Children are more susceptible to radiation induced cancers than adults. References: http://www.bfs.de/en/kerntechnik/kinderkrebs/kikk.html http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/sepam.pdf http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/nosafedose.pdf 2. In the event of an accidental release or a terrorist intentional release, substantially higher levels of radioactivity can be experienced by the populace. Radioactivity is particularly dangerous because it cannot be seen, heard, smelled, or felt. You can be exposed to unsafe levels and not find out about it for years (unless the exposure is very high or acute), making it very difficult to identify the cause of the illness that results or even when or where you were exposed. A particularly unfortunate factor is that cancer can never be “proven” to be the result of a specific event months or years before; however, we know that every radiation exposure increases the risk that the affected individual will suffer from it. Some radiation impacts are heritable – can be passed on to the next generation – so the nuclear industry is gambling with the genetic treasury of life. Human-caused radioactive pollution impacts all species exposed, so all are vulnerable. 3. Nuclear power plants use a lot of water, as do fossil fuel-fired ones. They suck water from a lake, river, stream or wherever they can get it, heat it up in order to cool the steam coming out of the power plant’s generator turbines so that it will condense into water again. The water making the steam is clean and recycled over and over. The water from the environment, after being heated, needs to be cooled before it can be released back into nature again. This can be done with natural evaporation by putting the heated water back into a closed off pool where it evaporates and cools as it goes to the other side, where it can be released again back into the ocean, bay, lake, estuary, river, or stream from whence it came. The evaporated water is carried away by air currents, eventually being condensed into rain again, so the power plant operators may say that the water is not lost. However, the evaporated water can travel many miles or thousands of miles before it condenses into rain again, and this can cause the net removal of copious quantities of fresh water from the region. Many regions are suffering from prolonged droughts, so power plants that make matters worse by taking billions of gallons of this water away are not helpful. This applies equally to nuclear and fossil-fuel-fired plants. 4. There are much better, safer, much less expensive alternatives based on a combination of reducing the need for electricity through conservation and improved efficiency in energy-using-equipment and making the electricity we need from clean renewable sources such as direct solar conversion to electricity, wind power, and hydroelectric power. The large sums to be spent on new nuclear power plants around the world could be much better used to improve energy conservation, efficiency, and use of renewable energy. The jobs created by an expanded conservation, efficiency, and renewable energy industry will be more numerous and less dangerous than those which might be created by a dramatic expansion of nuclear power. 5. The costs of nuclear power are huge. In addition to the 18 billion U.S. dollars, and more, likely to be spent in building a typical nuclear power plant in my country, the U.S. government, using our taxpayer dollars, spends fortunes: a. Insuring power plant operators from excessive costs in the event of a disastrous nuclear accident (no private insurance company will insure a nuclear reactor for the full costs of a terrible accident) b. Providing security and protection against possible terrorist attacks c. Historically pouring more than 65% of all research funds on energy into the development and protection of nuclear reactors d. Researching and making nuclear fuel for power plants and guarding the processes e. Researching and otherwise trying to figure out what to do with radioactive wastes and spent fuel, which can remain radioactive for tens of thousands of years The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is supposed to evaluate and approve or disapprove nuclear power plants and monitor their operations. This is a very expensive operation. Though the nuclear industry pays for NRC operations – NRC sends a budget to Congress and then Congress invoices the industry – not all federal government (taxpayer) costs are covered by the industry. This might explain why the NRC works more for the industry than for the people of the United States. If this were not enough, there are the high costs to operate the plants, transport the fuel to many power plants around the country and abroad, transport the wastes and spent fuel to processing or storage sites, also sprinkled around the country. 6. There are high costs to secure all this radioactive material, in storage and in transport between sites, as well as to guard the power plants themselves, and the radioactive storage areas not usually inside the thick walls of the containment buildings built to keep the nuclear reactors themselves isolated from the outside environment. 7. Operations of the nuclear industry and all the nuclear power plants around the world use copious quantities of fossil fuel for a variety of purposes, and the combustion of fossil fuels releases global warming gases into the atmosphere, so nuclear power is not free of global warming contributions. Repetition by nuclear proponents of the false claim that nuclear energy could be a solution to the climate crisis and the assertion that nuclear is emissions-free are troubling indicators that propaganda is still driving nuclear waste policy in the US. Using nuclear power is even counterproductive at reducing carbon emissions. As Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute points out, "every dollar invested in nuclear expansion will worsen climate change by buying less solution per dollar..." It makes little sense to support construction of new nuclear reactors as a means of addressing the climate crisis. Available renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies are faster, cheaper, safer and cleaner strategies for reducing greenhouse emissions. The list above is reinforced by the sampling of current news items as of June 2008 which you can find at http://www.futureofhumanity.org/Nuclear/. If you scan through this list and search for additional items on the web, you will discover the large number of accidents, accidental releases, and other problems nuclear reactors are facing all over the world. None of this gives me any comfort that nuclear energy is safe. There are several sources of relatively unbiased factual reporting on the problems of nuclear energy in the world today. See for example, The Nuclear Monitor, back issues at http://www.nirs.org/mononline/mononl.htm, published by the World Information Service on Energy (WISE) and NIRS. Read carefully, however, the web publications of the many nuclear industry proponents. You can also subscribe to a weekly service that sends out summaries of nuclear news articles and links to them at http://groups.diigo.com/groups/nukenews Thanks to Mary Olson for her assistance with this article. Mary is Southeast Regional Coordinator for the Nuclear Information and Resource Service and is based in Asheville, North Carolina, USA. She can be contacted at nirs [ AT ] main nc us.

When Barrie Unsworth complained on Sydney's local ABC radio of the New South Wales Labor Party's efforts to ensure that state Labor parliamentarians vote against the privatisation of NSW's electricity assets - a policy already rejected resoundingly by the electorate in 1999 and currently opposed by 79% of the NSW public - his interviewer Toni Matthews expresssed her total agreement with the former NSW Premier: "Why - It seems obvious to me - Why isn't it obvious to these younger members that you're talking about that they're creating mayhem within the party?"

On 15 July, Sydney's local Radio Station gave a free kick to the NSW government's efforts to hand privatise the electricity assets of NSW when fomer NSW Premier Barry Unsworth was interviewed on the Morning Show by a wholly sympathetic and uncritical Toni Matthews This was subsequently reported in other media including the West Australian and ABC's online news service. In the interview Barrie Unsworth spelt out his plans to again enlist Labor 'elder statesmen' to including former Prime Minister Paul Keating, former Labor Premier Bob Carr and former Labor Council heads Michael Easson and John MacBean, to wear down the resistance of the NSW Labor Party to the privatisation of NSW's electricity assets. The online ABC report was misleadingly entitled "Keating, Carr asked to heal NSW Labor".

The ABC reported:

Mr Unsworth has lashed out at NSW Labor state secretary Karl Bitar for actively campaigning against Mr Iemma and his power privatisation plans, which the former premier supports.

However, if Mr. Unsworth had been a little more consistent, he would have also 'lashed out' at the entire NSW Labor Party, which, at its conference voted 702 to 107 against privatisation and he would have 'lashed out' at the NSW union movement.

If Mr Unsworth had been consistent, he would have, above all, 'lashed out' at the NSW public, who have failed to budge from their emphatic opposition to privatisation. On 29 June it was reported that an opinion poll found 79% opposed to privatisation, even when the Government's rationale for privatisation was put to them_#main-fn1">1. This poll is consistent with an earlier poll sponsored by the NSW union movement which found that 85% of the NSW public opposed privatisation.

It would therefore seem odd for Mr. Unsworth to have felt only resentful towards only a few Labor Party and trade union officials. Why Toni Matthews failed to point out these widely understood facts is unclear.

It is striking that Toni Matthews made no effort to challenge the seemingly very weak case put by Mr Unsworth for privatisation:

... I think it's an argument that has gone beyond its time because everywhere else in Australia electricity is conducted on the basis of a national market and there are some people - you would virtually call them Luddites in this state who can't comprehend that or don't want to accept that times change. I was saying to someone yesterday: Where's the state dock yard? Where's the state abattoirs? Where's the state brick works? I mean those sort of things come from another era and, quite frankly, governments should get on with the jobs that they're entrusted to do and get out of activity which is no longer relevant.

So, it would seem that 79% of the NSW public are 'Luddites' because, unlike Barrie Unsworth, they do believe that the provision of electricity, if not, perhaps, bricks, abattoirs and dockyards, are core government business.

In much of the interview Unsworth vented his indignation at the efforts made, within the NSW Labor Party, to remove the abysmally unpopular Premier Morris Iemma as leader of the NSW Parliamentary Labor Party. He told ABC 702 Sydney Local Radio:

"All this talk about forcing the Premier to leave office and searching for some other candidate is not in the best interest of the Labor Party,"

"I'm just appalled that there are people in trade union leadership and also now in party leadership positions who are seeking to achieve that end."

Toni Matthews, not for the first time and not for the last time in the interview, expressed her total agreement with the former Premier when she responded, "Why - It seems obvious to me - Why isn't it obvious to these younger members that you're talking about that they're creating mayhem within the party?"

Barrie Unsworth was particularly indignant at the attempts by the NSW Labor Party to ensure that Labor parliamentarians support, on the floor of Parliament, Labor's opposition to privatisation. He complained, "I have been able to confirm that parliamentary members in marginal seats have been brought to head office and in effect told that their preselections would be at risk if they didn't support the directives of head office".

"This is a democracy," Unsworth continued, "The people of NSW elected the Government, not people down in Sussex Street."

The full transcript interview lasting 8 minutes is included #transcript">below. It is an illustration of how poorly the people of Australia continue to be served by its newsmedia, even the supposedly independent and 'left wing' ABC.

Unsworth's inititative, should it succeed in getting the NSW Labor Party to acquiesce before Iemma and Costa, will no more 'heal' the NSW Labor Party than did acceptance of the privatisation program of the Hawke and Keating governments 'heal' the national Labor Party back in the 1990's.

The privatisation of Qantas and the Commonwealth Banks, also carried out against Labor's own platform and also without any mandate from the electorate, only helped pave the way for 11 dark years of even worse misrule by the Howard Government. The privatisation of the remaining Government-owned half of the Commonwealth Bank followed Paul Keating's election victory in 1993. It was privatised despite a specific promise made by Keating not to. This only served to help demoralise Labor's own ranks and handed a perfect propaganda weapon to the Howard opposition, which had cynically voted in Parliament to support the breaking of Keating's 1993 election pledge_#main-fn2">2. From then, amongst the repertoire of responses to any objection to the Coalition's own plans to privatise Telstra, was to remind the electorate that the preceding Labor government had "privatised everything that moved."

It became impossible, during subsequent federal elections campaigns, to convince many rural residents, hard hit by the Commonwealth Bank privatisation and Labor's overall neglect of rural Australia, that Labor was sincere in its stated opposition to Telstra privatisation, which, in any case, it has retrospectively endorsed.

In the inteview Unsworth accused the younger Labor Party officials of failing to understand history: "I mean if they had looked back over history, they would realise that disunity is death."

In fact it is Unsworth, himself, who seems unable to grasp the lessons of Labor's history. Whilst 'unity' under the pro-big-business leadership of Hawke and Keating, did not save Labor supporters and the broader Austrlian public from the catastrophe of the Howard years, open defiance of the NSW Labor Party of Premier Carr's earlier attempt to privatise electricity did not cost it office. In 1999, when Labor stood against a Liberal/National opposition pledged to fully privatise electricity, it won resoundingly, in spite of being led by Bob Carr. This is clear evidence that the NSW public can be discerning enough not to automatically turn away the Labor Party simply because of an episodic display 'disunity'.

NSW Labor's best chance to both hold on to office and to actually do something whilst in office, other than serve the interests of the corporate sector and property developers, would be for the ranks of the Labor to disendorse all of their parliamentiary supposed 'representatives', who have turned their backs not only on them, but also on the NSW public and basic principles of democracy, starting with Iemma and Costa

Footnotes

#main-fn1" id="main-fn1">1. #main-fn1-txt">↑ John Kaye calls on Iemma to dump sell-off as NSW public repudiate privatisation of 29 Jun 08 by John Kaye

#main-fn2" id="main-fn2">2. #main-fn2-txt">↑ To their credit, the NSW state Liberal/National Party Opposition has acted in a far more principled and decent fashion than did the Federal Liberal/National Opposition in the 1990's, not to mention the NSW state 'Labor' caucus. Paradoxically, it is thanks to the them, far more than to the Labor caucus, only a small handful of which were prepared to support Labor's own policy on the floor of the NSW Parliament, that the attempt to flog off NSW's electricty assets has been defeated thus far. This is in spite of such a stance threatening to strain their relationship with the NSW corporate sector as The Australian newspaper ominously warned in June. Had the Liberals and Nationals not inisted upon the privatisation legislation be referred to the NSW Auditor General, the legislation would almost certainly now be law.

See also: Unsworth report is a dead duck of 11 Mar 08 by Ed Lewis, John Kaye calls on Iemma to dump sell-off as NSW public repudiate privatisation of 29 Jun 08 by John Kaye, No Mandate, No Sale - Demand Costa and Iemma debate electricity sale in Parliament of 14 May 08 by John Kaye

#transcript" id="transcript">Appendix: Full transcript of Interview of Former NSW Premier Barrie Unsworth by Toni Matthews

The follwing has been transcribed from MP3 file linked to from "Keating, Carr asked to heal NSW Labor"

BU:We've got an unprecedented situation at the moment where the leadership of Centre Unity (the predominant right wing faction in the NSW Labor Party) is undermining the Government of the state of NSW in the Premiership of Morris Iemma. Now, that's just untenable. I attended the party conference in May and the scenes that occured there I have never seen in my more than 50 years' membership of the party.

TM: Well, what do you mean? What kind of scenes are you talking about?

BU: Moving censures on the Premier and the party secretary giving leadership to the Centre Unity faction by actively campaigning and speaking against Premier Iemma. Now, Premier Iemma won the New South Wales elections last year, brought the Labor Party back into Office, continued the Labor Government that was commenced by Bob Carr back in mid-nineties and he should be rewarded for that - not attacked by the party administration as occurred at the conference.

TM: Well, it does seem a little unusual ...

BU: ... and as has occurred since then.

TM: ... mmm, and seems very destabilising.

BU: Well, I have been able to confirm that Parliamentary members in marginal seats have been brought to head office and, in effect, told that their preselections would be at risk if they didn't support support the directives of head office. Now, this is a democracy. The people of New South Wales elected the Government, not people down in Sussex Street (the head office of the NSW branch of the Labor Party). Now, I have been one of those apparatchiks. I know how the system works, and what I say is the elder statesmen of the Party should come together, have a look at what's happened to the party in this last 30 years - look at where it is at the moment - controlled by a group of younger, and in my view, inexperienced members, and look at the real issue. The real issue is keeping Labor in Government. The real issue is supporting a premier who won an election a little over twelve months ago, and will be in office for almost another three years, and all this talk about forcing the Premier to leave office and and searching for another candidate is not in the best interests of the Labor Party and I am just apalled that there are people in trade union leadership and also now in party leadership positions who are seeking to achieve that end.

TM: Forgive me, Mr Unsworth. Why - It seems obvious to me - Why isn't it obvious to these younger members that you're talking about that they're creating mayhem within the party?

BU: They haven't had the experience. I mean I have been reading some of their profiles on the weekend. They've been in the Labor Party for less than ten years and some of them are holding senior positions. I mean if they had looked back over history, they would realise that disunity is death, and if you destabilise the party you will be out of office and it's a lot harder to get back into office than it is to get out of office and I should know. Oppositions - they don't win elections. Governments lose them and having lost an election in '88, I can see the same situation occurring again in 2011 unless the party settles down, so it needs people who have had the experience, who were at the formation of Centre Unity such as those that I have nominated and I have nominated and spoken to John McBean who was party President and Michael Costa, who was secretary of the Labor Council, and both John and I were secretaries of the Labor Council. I know Paul Keating, because of the letter he wrote to the papers after the conference, is of a like mind and I have spoken to Bob Carr about the situation and I think that we've got to come together and give some direction.

I've spoken to delegates who were at the conference who were most uncomfortable with the direction they were given by the leadership of the Centre Unity at that conference. Some of them walked out and didn't vote and others voted, because they were under pressure, within their delegations and the leadership they were given was abysmal.

TM: It's twenty to nine on Mornings on 702. I am talking with former New South Wales Premier Barrie Unsworth about the current disquiet within the state ALP. Mr Unsworth, is this factional warfare playing into the hands of the Opposition?

BU: Obviously, it is! Obviously, it is! I made the point to the Premier, I think his popularity is at 28% - something like that, and I was editorialised once as "Mr twenty six percent", but I was able to claw back to 62%.

TM: That's just the media, isn't it?

BU: Well, I think ...

TM: (laughs)

BU:I think the media conducts the polling, and I've been in radio. I know a little bit about polling. Popularity comes and goes and it depends upon how you're treated by teh communication mediums and I think Premier Iemma has - he's got some very good policies. He's put in to action quite a number of them in the interests of the community in key areas such as health and transport and public security and this whole argument is just about electricity and I think it's an argument that has gone beyond its time because everywhere else in Australia electricity is conducted on the basis of a national market and there are some people - you would virtually call them Luddites in this state who can't comprehend that or don't want to accepet that times change. I was saying to someone yesterday: Where's the state dock yard? Where's the state abbottoirs? Where's the state brickworks? I mean those sort of things come from another era and, quite frankly, governments should get on with the jobs that they're entrusted to do and get out of activity which is no longer relevant.

TM: I gather that you have spoken to the Premier recently. How is he feeling about all this? He must be disappointed.

BU: I think that Premier Iemma shows great resilience and his public persona, I think, is tremedous because he's prepared to get on with the job and - sort of - brush off these frustrations, but i think we have got to send a message to the people who are white-anting the party that it's just not acceptable. It's not not just in the interest of the party, but all of the - you know - the millions of people in New South Wales that support the Labor Party that put them in office last year and expect them to do a job in the intersts of the people of this state.

TM: Mr. Unsworth, what would you say to those people who say, "Look, you've been around the block. You've had your time. It's now for the younger people, coming up through the ranks. If they make mistakes, so be it. Let them make mistakes. Let them learn.

BU: Well, you can't learn on the job. I mean, they should become a little more proficient. A lot of people that are in these positions today have never really worked. The system has changed. You have got a lot of staffers that get into these positions who have never had a job in industry. I mean, I - I am an electrician. I have worked as an electrician. I have come up through the ranks, and many of the people - and all of my contemporaries had that experience. You've got young inexperienced people now in positions of authority, and it's not just a question about "We've had our time". We've got the experience. We've got the runs on the board. We've been through all of these situations, the splits in the Labor Party, and we don't like it. And what we want to see is a bit of a steady-up. What it's all about is the egos of one or two individuals in the trade union movment and the ambitions of others in the party machine, who, themselves, want to see that they exercise parliamentary representative office.

TM: So, Mr Unsworth, if this factional issue isn't addressed before the next election, it's certainly going to have an effect on the results.

BU: Oh, huh. The next election's not for another three years. It'll be addressed well before then and I think it will have to be addressed again in the immediate future, because the Government has got to get on with the job, not be distracted by all this self-indulgent behaviour of a handful of people.

When do we let our political judgements be swayed not by a rational analysis of the facts, but by self-interest, wishful thinking, superstition or just plain irrational prejudices? Whether rapid climate change is taking place and is caused by human activity is surely a matter of scientific analysis, on which I suppose one may hold different perspectives, e.g. one may return from an unusually mild southern Greenland only to witness subzero temperatures in Madrid. One’s objective analysis during a Spanish chill may sway against the global warming hypothesis, but if one used one weather event selectively to discredit much more voluminous to the contrary that would be bias. Supposing, as a mainstream newspaper pundit, I wished to prove a majority of Iraqi people supported the US/UK liberation of their country despite all the trouble, with sufficient funds I could easily arrange for a group of pro-occupation Iraqis to acquiesce to a little public relations. Indeed I could simply choose my sample in an area renowned for its support of the US/UK invaders, such as the Kurdish north. What I’m alluding to is our ability to construct a reality that matches our aspirations and prejudices by picking the facts that suit our agenda,

Some of us might like to think only others are prone to biased constructions of reality. Indeed the very accusation of prejudice often serves as useful rhetorical weapon to defeat an argument, otherwise well supported. This often follows fuzzy logic, e.g. “You claim there are too many people in London. The BNP (xenophobic British National Party) makes the same claim. The BNP is irrationally racist. So are you. Therefore, I conclude only a warped racist could possibly believe London is overcrowded” or consider this “You claim we should take action to cope with climate action. So does the mainstream media representing big business, so you must be wrong”. Well let’s consider these assertions. First the portrayal many tend to exaggerate the arguments of their adversaries. A statement like “planet Earth cannot support six billion human beings at current rates of consumption in the long term” soon becomes simplified to “We’d better start culling excess humans now, so the rest of us can continue enjoy the same standard of living”. Next comes a bold assertion about a common bête noire, an extremist grouping or demonised tyrant with whom is simply not done to sympathise. Sometimes media may have been so successful at marginalising dissident idea that the bête noire in question may actually present rational ideas, but the existence of genuine extremists and assorted nutters serves the establishment’s mind control agenda very well. Suppose a small radical Islamic sect called for the liquidation of all US millionaires.

The Problem Reaction Solution and Counterreaction

The basic difference between the infamous Italian Mafia, Camorra and Ndragata clans running protection rackets and modern states lies essentially in their size, influence and control of the mainstream media, but effectively they act as immature microstates within states often offering many of the same services. Paying a pizzo or protection money to your local Mafia boss may seem extortion, but effectively it’s what we do when we pay taxes. Sure, to some extent, government money trickles back to the general populace providing many of us with jobs and redistributing wealth in an inherently unjust corporate economy. Here are just a few examples of classic problem reaction solutions:

• We have rampant crime, therefore we need more police, more surveillance and tougher sentencing.
• We have terrorists and political extremists in our midst, therefore we need more monitoring of people’s everyday lives and clamp down on hate speech.
• We have unsustainable immigration, therefore we need tighter immigration controls, more police, more social workers, more new houses, more money spent on integration etc…
• We are facing an environmental crisis, therefore we should trust our leaders to impose greater controls on our irresponsible behaviour as private citizens.

Thankfully many of us don’t buy this logic. Why should we accept greater hardships because of macro-economic decisions taken by remote business leaders and politicians? All the above problems, if indeed they are problems, are created by an absurdly unsustainable and unbalanced economic system hooked on perpetual growth. Instead of asking “how should the state combat crime?”, “how should the state deal with troublemakers?”, “how should the state control the migration of human beings in a never-ending rat race?” or “how should the state and big business address climate change?”, we should ask “Why do people turn to crime?”, “Why do people resort to violence and hateful ideas?” or “Why are we facing an environmental catastrophe?”. These more rational questions do not negate the existence or perception of real problems, but turn the questions raised by the mainstream media on their heads.

Nevertheless many of us react by negating the reality of the problems. A common notion on the liberal left is that “We don’t need Draconian legislation” (a conclusion I agree with) because crime has not risen recently and may have actually declined, a perception only possible if you live in a leafy suburb somewhere. Likewise we should value free speech, again a view I wholeheartedly agree with, because everyone is so tolerant and nice in these enlightened days, a perception only possible if you genuinely believe in the benefits of over twenty years of neo-liberal economics and social engineering. Next consider the conclusion that “we should not deport illegal immigrants, (and I would be loathe to trust the state to do so in anyone’s interests but their own), because we need more immigrants to boost our dynamic economy and do jobs we don’t want to do and besides this country can host tens of millions more (as long as we can continue importing cheap food)”. Once again this conclusion tends to appeal to those who are doing fairly well and can afford to steer clear of the adverse side effects of unplanned economically driven migration. We see two sections of the mainstream media engaging in a phoney debate over immigration with both sides supporting the unsustainable model of perpetual growth that drives immigration in the first place. Some on the left are simply incapable of admitting that overcrowding will exacerbate the very socio-economic tensions we wish to eradicate, hiding behind a façade of cultural diversity, interethnic tolerance and international solidarity while relying on a globalised economy controlled by a small number of supranational corporations.

We see the same fuzzy thinking behind the looming environmental catastrophe, except here we see a distinct trend towards outright denial or downplaying of the evidence before us. To some extent it would be easier to argue with some left-leaning climate change deniers, if the mainstream media denied its reality. Why should we rely on former Vice President Al Gore to warn us of a pending disaster caused by human hyperactivity in large part due to his own country’s grotesque overconsumption?Yet we have let TV, Cinema and commercial Web services dominate our lives to such an extent, some of us only ever believe something when Hollywood-style edutainment movies endorse it.

The Rense Dot Com Mindset

Personally I’d treat many articles promoted by http://www.rense.com with the same degree of scepticism as I reserve for the Daily Mail, the favourite newspaper of Britain's disgruntled middle class. They remind us of some home truths, correctly identify some social problems and then pursue their own agenda. Rense Dot Com has recently featured numerous articles challenging the notions of Peak Oil and manmade climate change, while simultaneously providing a platform for one of the US’s most vehement anti-immigration crusaders, Frosty Wooldridge. That unsustainable immigration is driven by unsustainable overconsumption does not really occur to a narrow conservative American mindset that just wishes to conserve their uniquely prosperous way of life threatened by low-paid immigrants and politicians attempting to increase fuel taxes.

The Greg Palast Mindset

I’ve covered the strange case of the Frank Füredi sect (RCP => LM Mag => Spiked Online) with their characteristic form of technocratic polemicism. However, much more commonly on the left we encounter an ideological refutation of environmental hard truths to support an unremitting optimism for the human progress. Such social optimists are willing to identify and expose the reactionary or unprogressive nature of today’s ruling elites. They rightly participate in the rhetorical crusade against Bush, Blair, the IMF/World Bank and the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, but somehow deep down still believe in the enduring myth of Western enlightenment capturing the hearts and minds of an oppressed underdeveloped world. Many on the left view the world in terms of good causes and are thus very susceptible to the emotional arguments of mainstream pundits promoting hidden agendas. Few could pretend life was easy for Afghani women under the infamous Taliban. I certainly would not like to live in a society in which women become little more than the property of their husbands kept in ignorance and under veil, but what right do we have to impose our worldviews on an autonomous community. Human rights is very relative concept with many trade-offs. When the warlords of the Northern Alliance gained power before the Taliban imposed its variant of Sharia law, women were regularly raped and many actually welcomed the protection these drastic laws claimed to provide, possibly in the same way many people in this country welcome the installation of CCTV cameras at every street corner, e-mail snooping and lynching of suspected paedophiles. The spectre of extreme misogyny served to dampen opposition to the invasion of Afghanistan and steer attention way from the true geopolitical goals of the exercise. Likewise leftwing immigrants rights campaigns fail to address the true causes of socially and environmentally unsustainable migration, often acting against the immediate interests of their own native working classes,

The Immigration Conundrum

The traditional difference between the left and right, at least in my simplified way of thinking, is that the former stands up for the rights of common people in general and the downtrodden in particular, while the latter defends the status quo often appealing to the forces of reaction against subversive and destabilising elements. In the fantasy world of the radical left working class British workers struggling to pay their mortgage or rent, forever in debt with their bank and doing overtime to settle bills and loan repayments, will, once politicised and enlightened, unite in struggle with the oppressed masses of the not-so-prosperous world. While we can cite many examples of Western European striking for better pay, improved working condition or against cutbacks or privatisation, we can cite few in which the same workers have taken industrial action in solidarity with much lower paid workers elsewhere. Indeed all evidence shows working class Europeans flocking to retail outlets to buy the very consumer goods whose deceptively low prices are only permitted only by favourable exchange rates or rather an injection of virtual money by banking cartels into high consumption economies. Whether you like it or not migration nearly always flows from economically and/or environmentally disadvantaged regions to more prosperous or more environmentally sustainable regions. The British didn’t colonise Australia just to get a suntan or enjoy a more outdoor lifestyle, but because by the late 18th century the growing population of Britain’s newly industrialised regions had become too much of a burden, so the excess population either died early through hunger or disease or emigrated. The same is happening today, except we see a movement away from countries currently undergoing structural readjustment to countries with plenty of virtual money, most of which have been or still are colonial powers. At the same time we see a smaller movement by the propertied classes away from the bustling metropolises of the wealthier countries to the greener and sunnier pastures of low-income countries. So while Poles, Romanians and Bulgarians flock to London, many Londoners are buying up properties at knock-down prices in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Qatar, France or Spain. However, in both cases we see the resurgence of 19^th century divisions between a servant class and their professional masters. This is just fine, if you happen to own a house in London (currently a modest four-bedroom semi can fetch around £500,000 in many boroughs) and you don’t mind retiring or relocating. Many opt simply to move to the surrounding home counties and rent their London property. Indeed whole residential streets are now rented out to London’s new migrant classes with several families often sharing a Lilliputian three-bedroom house. The new immigrant classes fill two key gaps in the labour market, traditional hands-on skilled jobs that fail to appeal to young Britons and low-paid service-sector-servicing roles. The latter category encompasses anything ranging from bartenders, childminders, care assistants, bus drivers to newspaper distributors, but the apparent gap in the labour market would cease to exist if the clientele had less expendable cash and more indigenous young people were prepared to do these jobs as they did until recently. Currently a high proportion of home-grown fruit and vegetables are harvested by migrant labour. If we paid home-grown farm workers a decent wage and sourced all crops suited to our climate locally, prices would inevitably rise even more than they are now as a result of fuel crops and soaring oil prices, but we’d adapt by consuming less junk. The immigration wave of the early 21^st century has in effect enabled an unsustainable consumer-led service-oriented economy to stay afloat. In one extreme case a Polish family doctor flew every weekend all the way from Poznan, Western Poland, to Glasgow, hired a car to drive all the way to remote area of Aberdeenshire to earn £2000 as a weekend general practitioner owing to a temporary shortage of qualified GPs willing to work in the area. As budget airline Ryanair announce cutbacks following recent rises in oil prices, we may wonder how long this absurdity can continue, burning umpteenth barrels of fuel to cope with the consequences of unsustainable hedonism and a rat race that attracts the best minds away from their provincial to the citadels of power and corruption.

The Sick Man of Europe

Back in the 1970s Britain, as we then called England + Wales + Scotland, was known as the sick man of Europe, strike-prone, inefficient and basking in the glory of a bygone era of imperial and industrial strength. Thatcherism proved a very bitter pill to swallow, with unemployment rising officially to over 3.5 million and unofficially to over 6 million and millions of manufacturing jobs gone forever. The economic resurgence of the mid and late 1980s saw mainly the growth of services and trade. While the early years of the Major government saw a brief resurgence in the manufacturing sector through inward investment and a low pound, the current administration has overseen the almost complete outsourcing of what remained of Britain’s manufacturing base. Besides services, three industries dominate UK industry, military hardware, energy and pharmaceuticals, all relying on imported components and raw materials. In an idyllic past each community had the right mix of professional farmers, manufacturers, craftspeople and service providers. We all need and expect housing, furniture, plumbing, electrical power, domestic appliances, food, restaurants, roads, public transport, schools and healthcare, yet for some reason the professions essential to the provision of these goods and services do not appeal very much to young Brits, by which I mean anyone who grew up mainly in England, Scotland or Wales. As a result numerous essential professions were by the mid 1990s severely under-resourced. On a simplistic level people management, sales, media and leisure-related professions appeal much more to a generation raised on TV, pop music, movies and now video-games and the Internet. However, on a structural level we can observe that many traditional professions only exist as human resources within a larger organisation rather than self-employed workers and small tradespeople offering services to their local community. Rather than encourage entrepreneurism, the gradual takeover of a handful of supermarket chains and retail outlets of not only the food supply, but also furniture, clothing, DIY and commodity appliances restricts the scope of small businesses to essentially franchisees or minor service providers, or rather contractors, of larger corporations. If you grew up in a sprawling suburban housing estate, went shopping once a week at large supermarket, while your parents worked as loyal enforcers in a state-corporate system to earn credit to buy readily available goods, you may be tempted to opt for the easiest and least stressful means of making money. Thus the prospect of becoming a baker or plumber only becomes attractive, if the potential earnings offset the enormous effort required to learn the tricks of the trade and other members of one’s extended family or local community serve as professional role models. Instead too many people in this country have grown to consider such tradespeople as simple low-end and easily replaceable human resources or possibly quaint characters portrayed on TV sitcoms or seen in exotic backwaters. TV chef, Jamie Oliver, recently took his healthy school meals campaign to the wilds of rural Lincolnshire, only to discover school catering staff unaware of local vegetable suppliers literally a stone’s throw from the school grounds preferring instead to visit their nearest supermarket. Yet down on the ground farmers are compelled to hire cheaper migrant labour in order to maintain the low prices that the big supermarket chain impose. As always there are two sides to a story. Polish smallholders have been driven off their land because foreign food chains like UK-based Tesco and the French Carréfour group have taken over large sections of the distribution chain preferring to buy from a smaller number of large agribusinesses rather than from thousands of smallholders that had until recently dominated Polish farming. The resulting conglomeration and restructuring inevitably caused rampant unemployment and a huge pool of cheap labour. Not surprisingly many Polish newcomers to the British Isles consider the natives here lazy, spoilt little brats.

Would not have been better for the English, Scots and Welsh to relearn the skills we need to fend for ourselves, and leave Eastern Europeans to develop independently and sustainably rather than emulate the ultimately soul-destroying and unsustainable Anglo-American neo-liberal model.

The ABC reported last week that the irrepressible Chris Peters of the ACT Chamber of Commerce and Industry had rejected calls for a cap on Canberra's population. Mr Peters is reported to have said: "We have the fastest ageing population in Australia and unless we grow our population with younger people ... unless we have an increase in population, there'll be no people left to provide medical, health or any services we need," According to Mr Peters, Canberrans age faster than other Australians - apparently in contravention of the accepted laws of human biology and space/time. But I think I get what he's trying to say. His message is that we have a significant number of people approaching retirement age; and that we should all be fearful about who'll care for us in our old age. Is he right, though? My own impression of Canberra is that a lot of public servants come here at a later stage of their careers. Having served in regional areas with Centrelink, Defence, border security agencies and the like at the start of their careers, many accept more senior administrative positions based in Canberra when they're into their 40's. This would tend to skew the age distribution of Canberrans upwards. But the other thing I've noticed is how a lot of retirees can't stand the cold. Many retire away from Canberra, either to the NSW South Coast or further north. So perhaps the flow out of Canberra at retirement goes some way to balancing the flow in when middle management public servants get transferred here? Well anyway.. Mr Peters prediction of Canberra filling up with doddering OAP's incapable of fending for themselves looks vulnerable to begin with. But what of his proposed solution? Grow the population. With young people only, presumably. After all - there's no point just bringing in a cartload of oldies. They'd just add to the problem, wouldn't they? Even people in their middle age are of limited value since they'll age too and soon become part of the problem. In fact, the only way to keep ahead of the problem in the longer term is to progressively grow the population - with young people - at an ever increasing rate to service the growing numbers of older residents encouraged to come here in previous years! Sound sustainable? Who cares?!? Think of the economic growth in the short term. No. What we really need in Canberra is exactly the type of migrant that succesive Federal Governments pine for - the sort that never ages. Peter Pan and Wendy. Stand by for Chris Peters next media release where he calls on the Rudd government to target skilled migrants from Neverland, with special categories of 457 visas for the Lost Boys. .

No room at nature's feast? How do governments deal with catastrophic mistakes?

How does a government deal in parliament with something embarassing but also catastrophic, like its total loss of control over a program for forced population growth? Only a few years ago, this was the kind of question one might apply to Mexico or Jakarta, but now, most unhappily, it applies to Melbourne.

Matter of Public Importance

On Wednesday, 16 April 2008, at a session known as "Matter of Public Importance" in Victorian Parliament, Ms Green, Member for Yan Yean set the topic.

Under the general heading of "Government: performance", Ms Green's "Matter of Public Importance," was:

"That this house congratulates the Brumby government for ensuring Victoria is the best place to live, work and raise a family for a million more Victorians."

Big Barbecue

In an understatement which should go down in history, Ms Green went on to describe how the way Victorian government's population drive has gone into massive overshoot was really like a big barbecue where too many guests came too early.

"At the outset I referred to the 1 million additional people coming to Victoria. In 2001, when we delivered our 2030 plan, we were planning for that level of growth to occur by 2030 but, because of the popularity of our state and what this government has done with its infrastructure and its people, it is now expected that the population growth predicted in 2001 is actually going to be here in 2020 rather than in 2030. To express it in terms that those opposite would understand - 2020 is only 12 years away - it is like 1 million people coming around to your place next Sunday and expecting a sausage at a barbecue. (...)."

She then burbled on to say that "We have to prepare for that growth. We have to be welcoming to those people who will come here. (...)"

"We" have to be welcoming

"We" have to be welcoming. Hmm. And just who invited all these people, Ms Green? Does the member for Yan Yean intend to put them all up in her back room or something? Is Mr Brumby going to lodge them all on his wife's farm? Maybe members of the Brumby Government are going to give out a million permits to camp in the treasury gardens. Mr Bracks and Mr Thwaites may have retired into big business, but they did send out a lot of the invitations to the barbie before they scootled. So they really do need to open up their homes to the overflow, and perhaps give up their children's places in schools and universities to newcomers, to show they are really welcoming. I am sure there would be plenty in the community prepared to help them pack and leave some room for the rest of us, and maybe a bit of democracy as well.

Ms Green continued, mentioning, among other things, that "Well-known and respected demographer Bernard Salt" has projected that "in the late 2020s Melbourne will again become Australia's largest city. This means that we have had to make some changes to our planning systems."

Bernard Salt is a salesman for growth to the people who market products, Ms Green. Will the Victorian people be able to hold him accountable for decisions which you and the rest of the government may make on his advice? Don't forget that, we, the people, on the other hand, have an entire department full or professional statisticians called the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Why don't you consult them? They are actually independent sources without any vested interest in growth. They are there to inform governments and we paid for them with taxes just so you could consult them.

Ms Green: I welcome the Premier's recent announcement of zoning changes ...

Ms Green continued. "I welcome the Premier's recent announcement of zoning changes and the speeding up of zoning within the urban growth boundary which will allow Melbourne to accommodate family growth. Those changes mean that about a year will be taken off the time required for building lots to come onto the market."

It sounds to me as if Ms Green has been introduced to some of the government's associates, possibly from the Property Council of Australia, or APop, or maybe she has had some contact with the Multicultural Foundation or the Scanlon Foundation, or ATSE (although they seems to be more for Federal Politicians).

This barbecue is sure going to cause us all a lot of inconvenience. I wonder if it's really worth it just to sell a lot more chops and sausages?

After a lyrical excursion into the wonders of a Stockland development where she had opened a new road called Mernda Village Drive, and the Catholic community there, the preservation of the river gums, (but not the kangaroos; this is an area known to the Australian Wildlife Protection Council as a wildlife-catastrophe zone) Ms Green (Yan Yean member) concluded her paean to out-of-control population growth:

"I commend this matter of public importance to the house. It is important that we are forward-looking and do not sit on our hands and say, 'Well, we will say “G'day” to these people coming round to the barbecue on Sunday'. We have to do more than be welcoming, although I know Victorians and Melburnians are welcoming.

With the usual logical irrelevance, she adverted to cultural diversity, marketed by successive Victorian governments as an unassailable justification for the high rate of immigration which has impacted in homelessness, wildlife devastation and the disorganisation of communities:

"We are a very culturally diverse community, which is another reason why people are moving to the state."

She insisted unreally: "We are a government that is forward-looking, investing in these people and being welcoming, while retaining our livability at the same time."

'Livability'; a vexed concept

Well, not everyone agrees on this point of retaining our 'livability'.

The member for Ferntree Gully, Mr Wakeling, exclaimed, "How disappointing that, with all the things the government could deal with in this house - the problems with public transport, problems with the health system, and the problems with education - the most pressing issue it can find facing this state at the moment is to congratulate the Brumby government on making Victoria the best place to live, work and raise a family.

"What a disgrace; what an absolute sham! For those people expecting this government to start listening to the concerns of the Victorian community and identifying ways to improve our services, this is the best that those opposite can come up with," he said, referring to the members in government as 'those opposite'.

(...) "I will tell members one thing: it is the worst place to live, work and wait for a delayed train. It is also the worst place to live, work and have reduced police on our streets; the worst place to live, work and be stuck on a trolley waiting for surgery; and the worst place to live, work and be educated by this country's lowest paid teachers. Those opposite should hang their heads in shame. While those opposite sit and laugh about the plight of teachers and about the problems besetting public transport, police and other important issues in this state, we on this side of the house are out there listening to the concerns of the community and expressing those concerns in this house. I call upon those opposite to follow the lead and to take on board the concerns of the Victorian community." (...)

"I will touch very briefly on the member for Yan Yean's comments about Melbourne 2030. What an unmitigated disaster! Melbourne 2030 is the planning blueprint to take the state forward to the year 2030, but the government made one slight mistake: it got the figures wrong. It was not one year out, it was not two years out, it was not three years out - -"

Mr Burgess (Member for Hastings) asked, "How many?"

Mr Wakeling replied, "It was 10 years out - in its own 30-year plan. What a disgrace! Melbourne 2030 is predicated on infill development and unit development in local communities. It was going to include the provision of upgrades to infrastructure - that is, public transport." (...) "My community got the worst of both worlds. It got the infill development and, more importantly, it did not get any public transport."(...)

Mr Northe, the member for Morwell, pointed out some more of the costs of population growth:

(...) "The assertion is that in the near future Victoria will have a population growth of some 1 million residents. That begs the question of how well Victoria is positioned to cater for those future additional residents, and from my perspective, what impact it will have on the growth of regional Victoria. Of course population growth equates to an additional demand upon essential services and infrastructure, and issues arising from that have been highlighted in recent times.

"They include the congestion on our roads, the overcrowding on our public transport, the waiting lists in our health system, the shortage of police resources, and disputes that are ongoing with the nurses, police and other public servants.

"An increase in population will create additional pressures in all these areas and will create increased demand for electricity, gas and water." (...)

"The Minister for Health (...) would be well aware of the growing waiting lists and the statistics that unfortunately are worsening with each revelation that comes out through the statistics. With population growth comes an additional demand on our health services. That is indicated by the population growth within Traralgon and the Latrobe Valley in recent times. It has put an enormous burden upon our hospitals and community health centres. That is indicated and verified by some of the statistics that are produced, not only by the Latrobe Regional Hospital, but also the Latrobe Community Health Service, and particularly the dental waiting list over time. It is very difficult for us to try to attract and retain health professionals in rural areas. So as the population grows it is imperative that we have systems in place to attract people to the health-care system in regional areas."

(...)

"Recently we have seen disputes with the police about the lack of police resources. I talk to police officers in my local area on a regular basis; they inform me they are struggling to make ends meet. They do not have the opportunity to be on the beat, where they should be, to protect the community, and they have grave concerns about that.

"An example is the town of Churchill, which has a population of somewhere in the vicinity of 5000 people, and does not have a 24-hour police station. That is of grave concern to the community of Churchill.(...)"

(...)

Mr Thompson (Sandringham): "'Victoria is a great place to live, work, raise a family and speak in clichés"

Mr THOMPSON, the member for Sandringham's speech indicated that he perceived a certain slickness in the Matter of Public Importance (which was, you may recall, "That this house congratulates the Brumby government for ensuring Victoria is the best place to live, work and raise a family for a million more Victorians"). He claimed that, "One of the great political lies perpetrated on the Victorian people in the last decade was the Labor promise that it would build the Scoresby freeway, the EastLink freeway, toll free. Victorians for the next 30 years will be paying an exorbitant amount as they commute from their local suburb. The matter of public importance (MPI) today really should be under the heading of a grievance motion. The topic is that the house congratulates the Brumby government on making Victoria a great place to live, work and raise a family for a million more migrants. Fundamentally it should be retitled 'a great place to live, work, raise a family and speak in clichés', because that is what the Labor Party regularly does and treats this house with disdain.

He gave many examples:

"We have seen other jurisdictions around the world where people speak in clichés. They speak in mottos - be it China, be it the Soviet Union or other regimes around the world. It makes a mockery of this Parliament to parrot these clichés on a regular basis. If one googles the phrase, one will find how many other countries around the world use the cliché, the phrase 'a great place to live, work and raise a family'. I could refer to the United States of America and the town of Annapolis, where the residents regard it as the 'greatest place to live, work and raise a family'. One could go to the area of Cary in the United States, where the locals promote their town and region as the 'greatest place to live, work and raise a family'. One could go to the township of Saskatchewan in Canada, where the state is promoted as the 'greatest place to live, work and raise a family'.

He went on to name more examples, finishing up with Amityville:

"(...) One could go to Amityville - I understand there is a film called the Amityville Horror - where again people find it to be the 'greatest place to live, work and a raise a family'. It may be from this very township that the spruikers for the Bracks and Brumby governments found the phrase in a Hollywood film script. (...)

"(...) The Labor Party is speaking in clichés. It makes an absolute mockery of this chamber. In terms of the matter of public importance before the house, we as Australians should value the opportunity to live in a wonderful country which allows us freedoms and advantages not experienced in many other parts of the world.

"(...)The member for Bentleigh was speaking about public transport, and it will not be long before the commuters going on the Frankston line through his electorate will not have room on board the train with the seats removed, and they will not have room anywhere else. They will have to climb on the roof and follow the New Delhi trains there by way of a precedent in looking at good public transport examples."

(...)

Thompson: "Do I believe this state has the capacity to absorb a million new migrants in the short term?"

"Do I believe this state has the capacity to absorb a million new migrants in the short term? I do not believe so. Why is that? I will outline why. We are still waiting on the delivery of better water infrastructure, better roads and better public transport, real tax reform, and a vision for manufacturing which will provide a fundamental employment base for Victoria, drawing on our energy reserves."

(...)

"(...)We have water shortages that have not been envisaged by the current government. It has been in office for 19 out of the last 26 years in this state. There was provision for better water infrastructure 25 years ago, but the Labor Party has failed to deliver."

(...)

"We need a plan for our electricity supplies and to make clean use of our coal resources, but we have seen recently a decline in the service reliability of power companies. A number of senior citizens in my electorate experienced power blackouts for 48 to 72 hours. We need affordable housing." (...) The Brumby government refuses to recognise the effect of the huge stamp duty windfalls as part of this process. We have the highest stamp duty in the nation. The government continues to collect the money and impose that burden affecting the fertility rate of the next generation and the ability of working families to maintain an affordable quality of life in addition to meeting their housing repayments.

"Looped into their mortgage repayments is the money borrowed to meet the stamp duty commitment.

"Public housing lists are blowing out, with no addition to the public housing stock. There is a disability housing crisis. We confront as a community increases in the cost of petrol, water, power and food, and these are adding to the household budgets of Victorians. The housing boom on the fringes of Melbourne requires hundreds of extra doctors and hospital beds and dozens of new schools as well as billions of dollars in infrastructure spending to supply new roads, public transport, schools, hospitals, shops and child-care centres, but there has been a lack of planning on the part of the Bracks and Brumby governments to provide appropriately for these needs." (...)

And so on.

Look, just before all the members of government give up their homes, and go out into the wilderness to make room for the guests at the big barbecue, could I suggest that someone responsible should consider putting a message up here, on the Government's immigration site, saying, "Immigration program cancelled indefinitely due to overshoot of oil, water, shelter, and soil?"

Source of parliamentary dialogue:
www.parliament.vic.gov.au/downloadhansard/assembly.htm, MATTER OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE, ASSEMBLY Wednesday, 16 April 2008, beginning at p.1274

“To bring about destruction by overcrowding, mass starvation, anarchy, and the destruction of our most cherished values—there is no need to do anything. We need only do nothing except what comes naturally—and breed.” (Isaac Asimov)

Environmentalists have been often accused of being prophets of doom. Now there is a new species of Catastrophists: they are political and economic commentators with a pervasive lament that the world faces exponential population decline, with a “Global Aging Crisis” that threatens to “stunt” economic growth.

Phillip Longman of the New America Foundation writes that current population trends also threaten to make military actions increasingly difficult for most nations. Pensions and health care will require increased funding. As the labour force stops growing, it will become more difficult for Washington to sustain current levels of military spending or the number of men and women in uniform.

Many commentators are concerned, more or less openly, with national or international prestige, not just economic, but military. It is not just about pensions; at stake is the decline of national prestige and of capitalism, which as rule have always flourished with population growth.

Governments, media, industries and business in general have switched from their previous 1970s preoccupation with uncontrolled population growth, to focus on the consequences of unplanned Western population decline. They fear the asymmetrical proportions of an ageing population in the developed world against the youthful force of Asian nations of the new coming world. The decline of the West is seen as tantamount to decay and loss of relevance on the international stage. It is the tragedy of Western extinction. Competition about power has got a new name: Fertility.

The Canadian political analyst Mark Steyn asserts that the West is in danger of extinction. “We’re pretty much awash in resources, but we’re running out of people, the one truly indispensable resource, without which none of the others matter.” In the face of his preoccupation with the ‘demise of Western civilization’, Steyn ignores questions about the abundance of every other resource.

Since the United Nations downgraded its assumption of global population projections, from 10 billion to slightly under 9 billion by 2050, the press have reacted as if Earth were on a fatal collision course with a giant asteroid. They have created panic among the Old Cornucopians and anyone else who believes that population growth is ‘No Problem’.

However, they shouldn’t worry, because, according to these predictions, population growth is still on course to add, by 2050, a new population nearly the current size of India, or almost five times the size of sub-Saharan Africa. The trouble is, the growth will be mostly in developing countries, in places where women average six or more children (Afghanistan, Angola, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, East Timor, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia and Somalia) and those where they average five or more (Congo, Ivory Coast, Eritrea, Guinea, Nigeria, the Palestinian territories, Sudan and Togo). India is projected to overtake China’s population by 55%, while Indonesia is expected to increase its population by 30% and Vietnam by 40%. And if Turkey joins the EU, with a projected increase of 30 million, it will count as the Union’s most populous member.

Different projection models, seen by some as pessimistic, and by others as optimistic - conclude that there is an 85 per cent chance that the world’s population will stop growing before the end of the century. There is a 60 per cent probability that it will not exceed 10 billion people before 2100, and around a 15% probability that, at the end of the century, Earth’s population will be lower than it is today. For different regions, the date and size of peak population will vary considerably. At the global level, old age will prevail: the proportion above age 60 is likely to increase from its current level of 10 per cent to around 22 per cent in 2050.

If trends were to be borne out, by 2050 the cohort aged 65 to 84 years old would reach 1.3 billion, while those aged 88 and over would number 175 million.

These projected numbers are feared likely to impose a destructive burden on society. Hence, for some, the prospect of an end to world population growth is welcome news for sustainable development. (Lutz,Sanderson,Scherbov)

The pessimistic view of a population decline depends on absolute faith in the benefits of population growth. The new breed of pessimists is the antithesis of the Old Cornucopians and a new mutation. Their literature is studded with references to the perils of ageing.

“Economists in the West have declared that it will be impossible to sustain the present system of old age pensions.” (Mullan). “The United Nations duly convened in October 2000, a group of experts to examine issues of population aging and decline, the twin most dreaded consequences of humanity’s biological success.”

Such fear is not new. As early as 1937, John Maynard Keynes assured us that the problem of overpopulation is old hat and in its place we have a different threat: lack of demand caused by a declining population. The nationalistic content of such preoccupations was reflected in the thinking of many and endorsed by the Royal Commission which reported in 1949 the danger of a steady fall in birth-rates from 1870 (Mullan).

The European Union (EU) has an ambivalent attitude: while promoting population control policies in the developing world, it would look stupid, not to say racist, in denouncing the danger of falling birth rates in the West.

For some commentators this worry is part of a more generalised alarmism, which touches every aspect of modern society: food scares, water depletion, climate changes, family crisis, terrorism, social fragmentation, immigration, AIDS, bird flu, civil and uncivil wars, football violence, unruly teenagers, destruction of forests, and so on, some of which are suspected to have been promoted by environmentalists in search of a visible platform.

The lack of growth produces a stationary society especially if older people are excluded from the labour market. The trend has become a cause for angst, paradoxically transforming the old image of the demographic “bomb” out of recognition. No more explosions, but implosion. “An older industrial world will inevitably be a slower growing one.” (Hamish McRae)

#economy" id="economy">It’s the economy, stupid

The author offers an interpretation for the existence of the New Catastrophists. Their insistence on gloom mongering is manipulative and follows deliberate ideological ends, the ideology of eternal Growth: The Golden Calf.

The ideology underlying the population growth model is inspired by Adam Smith, mercantilist/imperialist economics, and modern demand and supply theories. (A. David Coleman)

As life expectancy has increased in the entire Western world, it has been associated with longer and healthier life spans in the older population. A 60 year old today is not the same 60 years old of twenty years ago. As a result, people can either work longer or consume less.

Ah! Consuming less! This concept is anathema for the disciples of the New Dogma—the Growth Factor. No society today, rich or poor, of left or right government, will oppose this dogma, which has become a quasi-religious belief system. It follows that economic growth cannot do without population growth.

Among supporters of population growth, the late Julian Simon is the most extreme case. He advocated continued population growth long into the future, deserving Professor Albert Bartlett’s award of membership in “The New Flat Earth Society” because a flat earth is the only earth that has the potential to allow the human population to grow forever.

“We have in our hands now - actually in our libraries - the technology to feed, clothe, and supply energy to an ever-growing population for the next 7 billion years… Even if no new knowledge were ever gained...we would be able to go on increasing our population forever.” (Julian Simon)

How has this self-confidence in progress and everlasting human improvement, founded on growth, given way to gloomy predictions about the future?

Again, the word on which we should concentrate is “growth”. No population growth = no economic growth. It is simple. The faith of the Cornucopians in a radiant future is based on growing growth. To anticipate lower economic expectations, resulting from less people to feed, clothe, house, educate, mobilize, and serve in the army - even if this includes unemployment, crowding, pollution, cementification, and social conflict - goes against the conventional assumption that human inventiveness doesn’t accept biological limits and is the motor of progress.

The over-optimistic view that purports humanity’s capacity to overcome every difficulty, with time, technology and lots of human beings, has turned on its head, when confronted with the awful perspective of a diminishing population.

If humans are so deft in inventing new solutions to ever increasing problems, what then stands in the way of creating new solutions to the economic affliction of demographic decline, publicised by the press and governments as the ultimate tragic event?

Surely, the same race that has sent man to the Moon - an incredibly difficult task previously thought to belong to the realm of science fiction - can manage changes arising from the so-called demographic transition?

We are being instructed to believe that the problem is economic. Ecological concerns are not a priority, nor are related issues of resource depletion, energy availability, loss of biodiversity, plunder of our natural capital. The fact that many species are in danger of extinction is not a major concern, nor that natural beauty is disappearing under tons of concrete. Though it is undeniable that the density of human populations is responsible for environmental devastation, it is also evident that not everybody is concerned. Our governments obey the economist exhortations and rightly recognise that people are mostly interested in what is called “purchasing power”.

If people were better informed about the threat to their lifestyles they would take into consideration other factors: Peak Oil is already upon us and its scarcity is already affecting their purchasing power. And if they were to reflect further, they should recognise that a less populated world would have everything to gain in security, democracy, liberty, employment, resources availability, and so on.

#solutions" id="solutions">Solutions to the crisis

A report released on Sunday, February 19th by the English Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) the leading New Labour think-tank, claimed that Britain was at a “demographic fork in the road” and needed to increase its fertility to prevent future tax rises.

The answer ? “The IPPR report says, in effect, that we need more babies to pay for our pensioners but this ignores the fact that those babies will eventually become pensioners themselves,” said David Nicholson-Lord, research associate for the Optimum Population Trust. “When that happens, we will need - on the IPPR’s logic, at least - even more babies to support the even greater number of pensioners. Population would thus have to go on increasing ad infinitum - something the planet clearly cannot support.” (David Nicholson Lord)

Behold an Editorial from The Economist of January 7th 2006, the smartest most influential magazine in the world,” according to The Sunday Telegraph

“The new demographics that are causing populations to age and to shrink are something to celebrate. Humanity was once caught in the trap of high fertility and high mortality. Now it has escaped into the freedom of low fertility and low mortality. Women’s control over the number of children they have is an unqualified good, as is the average person’s enjoyment, in rich countries, of ten more years of life than they had in 1960. Politicians may fear the decline of their nations’ economic prowess, but people should celebrate the new demographics as heralding a golden age.”

Notwithstanding the congratulating tone of this article, about the happy consequences of the lengthening of life, due to a limitation of births, the general reaction is of dismay and hand wringing. Some reactions are obsessively concentrating on a narrow issue. It is called: pension funds, or the preoccupation of providing funding to a growing number of older people.

Nobody seems to be able to find a solution, in spite of the proclaimed inventiveness of the human race.

According to certain UN figures “The ‘population bomb’ is now, officially, a dud…. The Population Division of the UN has now published a report titled ‘Replacement Migration: Is it a Solution to Declining and Aging Populations?’ that claims to address a problem population doomsayers did not predict: that within 50 years many countries around the world will be suffering from underpopulation. The report explicitly states, ‘Among the demographic trends revealed by those figures [generated], two are particularly salient: population decline and population aging.’ The report predicts that by 2050, Japan’s population will have dropped by 18 percent, Italy’s by 28 percent, and Europe as a whole by 13 percent,” according to Joseph Klesney a policy analyst at the Acton Institute.

The UN Population Division continues to worry: if the United States hopes to maintain the current ratio of workers to retirees over time, it will have to absorb an average of 10.8 million immigrants annually through 2050. At that point, however, the U.S. population would total 1.1 billion, 73 percent of whom would be immigrants who had arrived in this country since 1995 or their descendants.

Just housing such a massive influx would require the equivalent of building another New York City every 10 months. (Longman)

Europe is also deemed to need mass immigration to fix the support ratio between workers and pensioners. Britain, for example, is recommended to take a million immigrants a year to 2050, just to maintain the balance, which would bring the population to 120 millions…

Some European countries try to ignite more pro-natalist propaganda.

In extremis, some demographers recommend more immigration, in order to pay for our pensions.

But this is a theme for another, more ad hoc article.

Feeding reciprocally these up-down fears of economic decline = population decline, one of the most active and fundamentalist proponents of population growth is Ben J. Wattenberg, Fellow of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative institution supported by Big Business. And it is not strange that Big Business should support a rise in population, even through immigration, as businesses depend on a growth of their customer base. Just think how depopulation would play in favour of the construction industry.

Wattenberg “believes in the dire economic and emotional repercussions consequent to the “birth dearth”: shrinking markets, wrenching economic dislocation and great personal costs for millions of young people who decide not to raise families. (Wattenberg)

He then puts his foot in it, by bringing in scenarios of the Black Death, to support his theories. While recommending not investing in Europe, he compares our situation to “that plague demography, losing about a fifth of its population by 2050 ”.

Back in 1348, Europe suffered the Black Death or Plague, the second worst catastrophe in recorded history, which reduced the estimated European population by about a third.

It also brought stability, progress and freedom from want to the people who escaped death. As the distinguished scholar David Herlihy pointed out, the great reduction in population created opportunities for the survivors and those who came after them; there were fewer people, more jobs and a higher standard of living. (David Herlihy and Samuel K., Jr. Cohn)

Another historian agrees that, before the Black Death the continent “was caught in a Malthusian deadlock” in which “the balance between people and resources had become very tight.” After the plague, Europe “emerged from the charnel house of pestilence and epidemic cleansed and renewed, like the sun after rain.”(John Kelly)

Moreover: “Serfdom declined more rapidly. The status of women rose. Wages rose for common people. Talented young people were able to advance faster. The power of the kings declined more rapidly.” (Norman Cantor ) It is an indisputable fact that the sudden population decline stimulated labour-saving technologies that transformed the economy.

It would be nice if future population decline were not the result of tragic circumstances, but rather the consequence of many factors, all signs of progress in medicine, economic progress and cultural deliverance from old customs.

#optimists" id="optimists">Where are the Optimists?

The writer John Seager, currently writing a book on the effects of population trends around the world, asks: “Is this so-called ‘birth dearth,’ as Wattenberg puts it, really a problem? It is not. In fact, smaller families represent a great potential opportunity. The world is beset with social, political, and environmental challenges and crises;many caused by rampant population growth.” (John Seager)

Most invectives against population growth come not from straight environmentalists but from scientists:

“If there is ever a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in population until the natural state of starvation and misery restored.” says the biologist Richard Dawkins,

and:

“It is a simple logical truth that, short of mass emigration into space, with rockets taking off at the rate of several million per second, uncontrolled birth-rates are bound to lead to horribly increased death-rates. It is hard to believe that this simple truth is not understood by those leaders who forbid their followers to use effective contraceptive methods. They express a preference for ‘natural’ methods of population limitation, and a natural method is exactly what they are going to get. It is called starvation.” Richard Dawkins

Most environmentalists appear less concerned with overpopulation. They concentrate on poverty, global warming, human rights, and many other ecological and sociological fears, but they shy away from overpopulation, which is the underlying reason for these problems. They may fear to lose many of their supporters, who believe that the real problem lies elsewhere, mostly in overconsumption by the rich.

Dr Madsen Pirie, President, Adam Smith Institute, said it: Do not worry: you said it all. We will get over this hump of population decline, go through the difficulties and come out the other side, happier and with better living conditions. The benefits of any given situation depend on good policies. (News night’s David Grossman Aug 2003 BBC)

Exponential growth cannot go on eternally and more so population growth plus economic growth.

As noted by The Economist, higher life expectancy goes hand in hand with better health, and better health may improve worker productivity and savings, and puts pressure to introduce new technologies to boost workers’ efficiency.

Policymakers should focus on the advantages of the median income on a per capita basis, which would make more individuals better off, rather than on the gross national product or national income.

If Governments hate a shrinking population is because it restricts their power status, but what matters is GDP per person.

A slowly shrinking population will bring a more egalitarian society, lower unemployment, elimination of costly and obsolete infrastructures, a stimulus to economic modernization, like the use of robots as substitute for menial labour, and improved living standards.

Although, realistically speaking, we recognize that every economic regime has its problems, population growth seems to have accumulated more than enough: they include increased import dependency for food and raw materials, increases in housing costs, congestion and crowding, marginal population ignored and exploited, balance of payments problems, inhibition of productivity growth and real income, an abundance of young people of working age, which can result in unemployment or underemployment, accompanied by political instability, elevated rates of crime, and the deterioration of social capital as a possible further consequence.

The “greying” of developed nations will provide opportunities as well as challenges. The real crux of the population question is the quality of people’s lives; the ability of people to participate in what it means to be really human; to work, play and die with dignity; to have some sense that one’s life has meaning and is connected with other people’s lives.” (Cohen, J.)

Let’s be optimistic for a change and look forward to our old age, when we will all be wiser, reasonably healthy and still active in contributing to society.

What better challenge for Cornucopians? So why not apply the famously sceptical environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg’s cheerfulness as medicine: emphasise the possibilities of technology and human creativity! (“The fact is human ingenuity has conquered every problem so far.”). I didn’t include him in my review because he is an unreconstructed optimist, the True Original Cornucopian. Because he thinks that everything is just a management problem, we shall call on him to fix things whenever they get a bit too difficult.

Dear Cornucopians who have lost their sense of reliance on technological fixes and market forces, consider that even Wattenberg and Co will come up with some extraordinary solution to our new predicament, new technological advances, and man’s creativity will rush to the rescue in a world of sprightly octogenarians, with the added benefit of living in a cleaner, peaceful and greener environment. And with a New Cornucopian suit fitted to their leaner new frame, we can celebrate together the Age of Increasing Opportunities.

References:

1. Phillip Longman, May/June 2004,The Global Baby Bust”, Foreign Affairs. In “The Empty Cradle: How Falling Birthrates Threaten World prosperity and What to do About it” New York Basic Books, 2004, he urges that policies in the USA and other rich countries encourage more children.

2. Wolfgang Lutz, Warren Sanderson &amo; Sergei Scherbov, 2 August 2001” The end of world population growth”, NATURE vol. 412www.nature.com 543 27. Sunderland, Massachusetts.

3. Phil Mullan,2002 “The Imaginary Time Bomb” I.B. Taurus Publishers, theorises that Ageism is a form of discrimination

4. Hamish McRae 1995, OECD Economic Outlook.

5. A.David Coleman 2006, The prospect of population decline, University of Oxford, Round table discussion on the economic financial and environmental implications of over-population, OPT London 15 Feb

6. (Julian Simon L.) 1995, “The State of Humanity” Cato Institute and Blackwell Publishers.

7. David Nicholson Lord, 2006, Optimum Population Trust, News Release: Baby Shortage A Myth

8. Ben J. Wattenberg “The Birth Dearth” New York: Pharos Books.

9. Ben J. Wattenberg, 1997 “The Population Explosion Is Over”

10. The New York Times Magazine

11. David Herlihy and Samuel K., Jr. Cohn , 1997,” The Black Death and the Transformation of the West” (European History Series), Kirkus Associates,Harvard University Press , Cambridge Massachusetts)

12. John Kelly 1002, “The Great Mortality : An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time “ Harper Collins Publishers,10 East 53rd Street , NewYork )

13. Norman Cantor 2001,”In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made “, New York Free Press.

14. John Seager 2004, Why Anxiety Over Low Fertility? Population Connection, (Fact Sheet From The Reporter)

15. Cohen J. ,1998,” How many people can the earth support? “New York Review of Books.

Original article from Macedon Ranges Residents' Association (www.mrra.asn.au)

(16/7/08 - SG) How do we know if our politicians, councillors or decisions have been bought? The short answer is, we don't.

We need look no further than New South Wales and the Wollongong scandal for confirmation that money can buy governments and decisions, particularly planning decisions. Yet NSW has an Independent Commission Against Corruption [ICAC], something we don't have in Victoria.

So how bad is it in Victoria, where accountability in any form no longer seems to kick up as one of the State's strong points?

In the past week, 3 articles have appeared in the Age newspaper - shocking and revealing stuff. Written by veteran journos Royce Millar and Kenneth Davidson, the articles snap the spotlight onto Victoria's lack of an ICAC, lack of accountability, and shifting views on and stubborn political denial that there's a problem when it comes to who is paying who in politics. From these articles, it seems Victoria's Premier sees political donations not as potentially corrupting influences but just part of a healthy democracy. Like kissing babies, perhaps?

You can access the Age articles by clicking the following links:

• In a healthy democracy, influence cannot be bought, Royce Millar, The Age, 7/7/08 at
  http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/in-a-healthy-democracy-influence-cannot-be-bought-20080710-3d4i.html
• Money is the root of all Political evil, Kenneth Davidson, The Age, 10/7/08 at
  http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/money-is-the-root-of-all-political-evil-20080709-3cji.html
• A Little Bit of Give and Take, Royce Millar, The Age 16/7/08 at
  http://www.theage.com.au/national/a-little-bit-of-give-and-take-20080710-3d51.html

MRRA Says:

In the first article, Millar takes the discussion to the next logical step, and raises the issue of political donations and sponsorship in local government. And what a good discussion it is.

Anyone who thinks buying influence doesn't happen in local government should think again. It's bad enough if it's happening at Federal and State levels, but in those arenas there is more scrutiny and access so potentially more public pressure, and more chance of being caught.

In comparison, it can go almost unseen and undetected at local government level. A nod, a wink, a quiet word; rarely anything as crude as a brown paper bag or a pair of white shoes. Delivering 'favours for mates' can be something as subtle as promising to vote for what another Councillor wants if they'll vote for you this time, overlooking a conflict of interest, or orchestrating noisy albeit minority support for pet projects. These are just some of the ways private agendas can be delivered.

Millar raises an interesting point: while Councillors have to declare donations received during an election campaign, they don't have to declare them until well after the election. Their sponsors remain anonymous when you go to vote. It's all a secret, until they start to vote.

MRRA finds it a very relevant subject, given the recent invention of Macedon Ranges Residents' Secretariat Limited, a company representing development interests, possibly even political party interests, that seems intent on trying to confuse the Macedon Ranges' community into thinking it's us, MRRA Inc - i.e. a 'good guy' acting in the interests of the wider community - to the point of even pinching most of our name! Flattering, but...

MRRA estimates that to date, MRRS Ltd may have spent something in the order of well over $10,000 launching itself and its agenda (the latest effort being a survey sent to all households in the Shire, replete with reply paid envelopes - who could afford that!!!). Not to mention the individual numbering on each "ballot paper" (survey form) which must have cost a fortune to print. But wait, there's more! No, not a free set of knives, but MRRS Ltd is even giving away an expensive free meal - and free transport to and from home - to tempt residents into playing its game. And the feeling in our water is that neither the 'spend' nor the 'big sell' is over yet...

What could be worth that type of investment by business, development and real estate interests? And who exactly are all those interests? What do they want? Will all be revealed anytime soon?

Which leads us to the next question. Is the long-term objective of MRRS Ltd to get people elected onto council who will do what MRRS Ltd wants? Is that why MRRS Ltd says on its survey form, "MRRS offers assistance to potential candidates prior to elections and post elections, when elected..."? [our emphasis]

And how does MRRS Ltd's invitation to residents to become members work? MRRS Ltd has already publicly stated its recruitment will be through hand-picked secondment of like-minded people by its directors. In any event, don't you usually have to buy shares to be a 'member' of a company? MRRS Ltd is a public company, so do residents need a stock broker to become a 'member'?

Crickey, it's all too convoluted and complicated for us, but then MRRA is just a grass-roots community group used to its members joining up normally - they make a written application and pay an annual fee.

The grubby world of buying political influence is one where decisions are consistently made to serve self- and vested interests. Merit and 'public good' doesn't come into it. Is there really that much at stake? You betcha. There's big, big money in buying governments and influence (look no further than Wollongong, for example), and in stacking Councils with 'like-minded' mates to ensure favourable outcomes. Under the right conditions, it can spread like an aggressive cancer. Does Macedon Ranges have the disease?

Today, on 16 July 2008, Victorian Greens MP, Sue Pennicuik, called it,

“... another sign of the sad state of our democracy that the state government and Port of Melbourne have pursued another community for daring to oppose their actions."

She explained that, "While Justice North may have had no legal option to the awarding of costs against Blue Wedges for taking court action, he made it clear that he disapproved of the Government arguing for scalps to hang on the fence so that other community groups would know what to expect when they challenge government decisions in court."

Ms Pennicuik warned, “It is imperative that government decisions that can profoundly affect the community and the environment, like channel deepening and the desalination plant, can be challenged by the community without the sword of Damocles hanging over their heads."

She said, "It’s bad enough that developers and corporations are able to gain access to ministers and political influence through donations, but it seems pretty clear that access to the courts is only for those with deep pockets." In her opinion, "If the community can't take action in the courts against poor government decisions then we effectively have government by Executive."

She denounced government ethics, saying that, "The modus operandi of this government, in publicly insulting and attempting to discredit community groups and then pursuing costs against them, is appalling."

She pointed out that the environmental laws give activists for the public welfare few if any options outside the courts:
"The earlier judgement by Justice North regarding the Blue Wedges case already showed that our state and federal environment laws don't protect the environment...", said Sue Pennicuik.

But, the Courts cannot protect the environment either, and activists are penalised for attempting to bring their arguments to the public via the court process. "The awarding of costs yesterday, while technically legal, is a sign of how the legal machinery may silence critics of the government and PoMC."

Rightly, Ms Pennicuik reminded the government of its obligation to listen to and act on public criticism in a positive democratic manner. "The community is not the enemy and the government would do better listening to what people have to say rather silencing critics," Ms Pennicuik stated.

In conclusion, she expressed concern, "... about the implications of the current legal system for justice and democracy,"
and announced that she would "be looking at ways to prevent governments from squashing community voices."

Bravo Sue! Victoria needs your voice and others to join their voice with yours.

From a Greens Media Release 16 July 2008
Further information: Sue Pennicuik 0409 055 875

Our state's population grew by a record 82,430 last year, the boost in numbers caused mostly by people coming from overseas. A policy of zero population growth may "hurt" the economy, and cause some short-term inconveniences, but an "ageing population" should not be a rationale for continually replacing our retirees without ecological suicide! Our economy supports the supply of goods and services, but our ecology supports all life and our very existence on the planet! Thirty percent of Victoria's animals are either extinct or threatened with extinction. Our state has been losing its endangered grasslands at a rate equivalent to more than three football fields a day. So-called "sustainable" industries such as intensive farming, irrigation, native forest woodchipping, and overgrazing are pushing the endurance of Nature to new and dangerous limits. Our climate change figures are predicting the worst-case-scenario! Our biodiversity is not a "service" but part of a system that supports all life and can't be quantified monetarily. This is our government's short-coming! Our Brumby government is intent on economic and population growth for Victoria, on making more freeways, growth corridors, and industries while leaving the mammoth task of repairing the damage for the next generation! We can't have continual growth on finite resources. The above article was originally published on 25 June 2008. It is front-paged here in view of Cardinal Pell's comments among other pertinant events.

The man I’ve heard jokingly called ‘Pel Pot’ has come out saying that ruthless commercial forces are against procreation.

“Cardinal George Pell, speaking after the Pope's arrival in Sydney for World Youth Day (WYD), said Western nations were producing too few children as the institutions of marriage and procreation came under attack.” July 14, 2008, AAP (Murdoch press)

Since my own research has revealed to me that ruthless commercial forces are pouring billions of dollars into boosting Australia’s population, via births and immigration, I was amazed to read this.

Further reading of the article made me think that Cardinal Pell is actually worried about the marriage rate and thinks a decline in this will bring down the birth rate. I don’t know what he uses as a norm for the birth rate; Australia’s is pretty high for a first world country.

I would like to know if Cardinal Pell actually has any evidence for his fears that ruthless commercial forces are out to slow down the birthrate. Because, if such ruthless commercial forces exist, I would like to know what on earth they see in promoting small populations when every major commercial force I know of will do anything to push up the number of consumers of land, resources, mortgages and disposable products, no matter what miseries result.

If I knew what was in it for big business to depress the birth rate and the rate of immigration, you can bet I would be grateful for the information.

In the mean time, I can only assume that the press are publishing Pell’s unmitigated nonsense because they are among the forces which want to keep on driving population growth upwards. And Pell’s strange pronouncements will help to keep the public confused about what is really happening and who the real community enemies are.

I cannot help wondering if Cardinal Pell is performing for friends in the big end of town as a way of cooperating in order to reduce coverage of his own embarrassing attitude to the prosecution of pedophiles within the church.

The Catholic Church has for a long time been in the business of land-speculation and encouraging high immigration and birth rates. It must have made plenty of powerful friends through these habits.

If Pell is truly worried about fewer marriages and consequent reduction in very large families, he should consider the stress placed on family life by the corporate forces which profit from international property speculation and ensure that families are mortgaged to the hilt. (Banks, developers etc.) Who, with a working brain, would consider marriage and a family in such a situation?

If Pell is actually worried about drug taking and promiscuity, then perhaps he might consider that those habits accompany social precarity and that social precarity is an outcome of the policies which drive continuous diasporas within this country. In fact, the corporations which push up population growth very successfully in this country also manufacture the the commercialised culture that vehicles binge-drinking, recreational drug-taking, and predatory sex.

I can barely resist telling Dr Pell that if he is so concerned he should not be encouraging celibacy among priests. I can only be thankful that he does.

by Sheila Newman and Richard Laverack

Why build more roads now?

Why on earth, with petroleum supplies not meeting demand and oil prices through the roof, are we still engaging in public-private partnerships with road builders???

Australia is currently set to be criss-crossed by new roads, tunnels and tollways. A case in point, which we have studied is the SEITA Eastlink tollway, which is being built by ConnectEast in a private-public partnership with the Victorian Government.

So, why is Victoria engaged in massive road construction just now? And, why are we persisting with Eastlink, all the way down the Mornington Peninsular when we could simply stop it now?

We found some strange answers to our question towards the end of a SEITA document called, "Frankston Bypass Environment Effects Statement, Strategic Transport Modelling Technical, dated 3rd March 2008, in "Clause 5.7 - Impacts of Fuel Price Changes."

"The MITM adopts current estimates of vehicle operating costs (fuel maintenance etc) on a per kilometre basis in order to assist in determining route choice behaviour. However, these estimates remain constant for forecast years (2011, 2021 and 2031) since vehicle operating costs are unknown. However, it is worth investigating the elasticity of traffic demand with respect to fuel price in order to gain insight into the effects on traffic demand if fuel prices were to change in the future.

"Table 17 shows both short and long run elasticities of demand for fuel consumption and Vehicle Kilometres Travelled (VKT) with respect to fuel price. In the long term, and elasticity value of - 0.29 for VKT with respect to fuel price would mean that a 10% increase in fuel price would result in a 2.9% decrease in VKT. However, in reality motorists adjust much more to fuel price rises in relation to fuel consumption, either through more fuel efficient vehicles or better driving techniques to conserve fuel. This situation is likely to be even more relevant for the Frankston Mornington region where limited alternative transport options exist.”

SEITA then lists its source as Goodwin Dargay and Hanley (2003), referring to "Elasticities of Road Traffic and Fuel Consumption with respect to Price and Income: a review," ESRC Transport Studies Unit, University College London.

Let's analyse those statements.

Note that, In 2002, when the 'research' into trends for that review would have been done, oil was $22 a barrel. 10% of $22 is $2.20.

If all we had to cope with now was a $2.20 increase on $22, a freeway might still make some kind of sense. Now, however, only 6 years later, oil is over $140 a barrel. This is about 6 times the 2002 price of oil and represents a rise of 536% !

What has happened here? Well, we cannot say for sure, but what usually happens is that projections are based on past trends, and, since from 1987 to 2002 prices did vary more or less only by about 10%, to assume they would go on doing so would be to base one’s projections on past trends.

But those were not the only trends in the past.

Between 1973 and 1987 prices rocketed, but SEITA and the Victorian Government are proceeding as if the 1987 to 2002 trends will last for at least another half century.

The reality is that, since 2003, prices have increased continually, and have gone well beyond any previous levels in 2008, with little sign of ever coming down to the kind of trends relied upon by the Victorian government and ConnectEast to make the tollway a profitable, worthwhile or sensible transport option.

Have a look at trends in oil prices in the graph below:

(Source is "Oil Price History and Analysis," WTRG Economics' Energy Economist Newsletter, http://www.wtrg.com/prices.htm. Prices are in 2006 dollars.)

Now why would an engineering company like ConnectEast, in the business of making roads, be unaware of the rising oil prices? Oil prices severely impact on the cost of the construction materials and the fuel used by roadmaking vehicles. Building Eastlink must be costing more every day. "Well in excess of 90% of the total construction budget has been spent," already in February 2008, according to The Age, in Simon Mann, "Long and winding road nearly ready to roll", February 16, 2008.

It would be strange if all ConnectEast's engineers and other staff, and SEITA's government advisors, were not aware of oil production curves and theory.

What of the Victorian Government - ConnectEast's partner - in tollroad ventures?

The government has received submissions and press releases from various groups about petroleum depletion projections and oil prices and there has been a Senate enquiry into oil depletion.

The Australian CSIRO study by Barney Foran and Franci Poldan, Future Dilemmas: Options to 2050 for Australia's population, technology, resources and environment, published in 2002, was already flagging problematic trends. See Chapter 4, "Natural Resources and the Environment".

The VAMPIRE study from Griffith University, Queensland, drew attention to Melbourne for its oil-reliant transport vulnerability.

Apart from that, explosive oil prices and depletion fears are constantly in the news. One would therefore be entitled to expect the Victorian government by now to be aware that business as usual has gone completely off the radar.

One has only to go to Amazon com to find a hundred or so books written in the last ten years about the coming energy and fuel crisis, most restating and reaffirming projections made for peak oil production and then decline to start around about now.

If that were not enough, in the past few days, on July 11, 2008, the CSIRO came out again and warned that the cost of petrol could rise to $8 a litre in the next 10 years.

Yet SEITA and the Government still seem to be basing their traffic projections for the next 30 years on a series of totally obsolete oil price trends. On this achronistic basis they openly state that they forecast 30,000 additional vehicles to be travelling along Moorooduc Road in five years time.

What sort of reasoning is this? How can spending $700,000,000 dollars be justified in these circumstances? And how can all the suffering by people and animals who live in the path of this freeway be justified?

After allowing for a 10% increase on $22 a litre fuel price of 2002, which they think might reduce the number of kilometers motorists might travel by 2.9%, SEITA diminish this feeble concession to reality with the rationale that motorists will deal with higher prices by using more fuel efficient vehicles or better driving techniques:

“However, in reality motorists adjust much more to fuel price rises in relation to fuel consumption, either through more fuel efficient vehicles or better driving techniques to conserve fuel.”

But, over the last six months motorists have flocked to public transport. So much so that Connex has ripped the seats out of trains to make standing room only! The metropolitan public transport network is at breaking point. There is no argument about this. The state has asked the Federal government to put funds into public transport.

What will happen if the Frankston and Mornington Peninsular region doesn’t get better public transport?
Is the poor public transport situation from Frankston down through the Peninsular one that ConnectEast, with its shareholders in mind, hopes the government will preserve? This would partly protect ConnectEast's investment. SEITA write, for a project meant to serve the Peninsular for more than thirty years into the future:

“This situation is likely to be even more relevant for the Frankston Mornington region where limited alternative transport options exist.”

This notion is problematic on a few grounds – to say the least. It would mean leaving the public to wear high petrol costs with no reliable public transport option, so that, if people could not pay for petrol, they would not be able to travel to work, shops, doctors, schools, hospitals. Presumably people would, as SEITA hopes, prioritise petrol costs in order to continue to travel for vital and income earning reasons.

SEITA does not canvas, and neither has the government, openly, the logical corollary to continuing very high petroleum prices. It is this: high petrol prices will bankrupt many businesses and leave many people unemployed or underemployed. In the short term businesses will cut whatever costs they can and pass costs on to consumers. The first cost-cut will be wages. Higher costs for products, higher costs for private transport, and lower wages and more unemployment, is a recipe for a sustained, possibly permanent economic depression. Some might describe such a situation as an economic and social collapse.

Colin Hampton,Frankston Councillor/SEITA advisor pushes for tollway through Pines Flora and Fauna

It looks like this tollway project, which SEITA says was on the Melways maps 40 years ago, has just gone out of date and should be abandoned. We could save ourselves the trouble of the last 50km or so. Yet, only a week or two ago, Colin Hampton, Frankston councilor and member of SEITA advisory council, at meeting with low attendance, pushed through support for SEITA’s Option 1, which is the one that goes through ecologically sensitive territory and divides the Mornington Peninsular in two, severely curtailing the few remaining chances for viable wildlife corridors.

What's what:

SEITA stands for the Victorian Southern and Eastern Integrated Transport Authority which was formed by the Victorian Government to manage private public tollway-construction ‘partnerships’. SEITA managed the selection of the private sector bids and now oversees the State's ongoing commitment to this project. In October 2004, ConnectEast was awarded the contract to fund, design, build, own and operate EastLink for a period of 39 years. ConnectEast was listed on the Australian Stock Exchange in November 2004.

Who's responsible

The members of the advisory council to SEITA was set up with John Nicol, as 'Independent Chair'; Janet Holmes à Court, Deputy Chairman; and Frank Corr, Northern Community Representative; Norman Galbraith, Central Community Representative; Geoff Griffiths, Southern Community Representative; Cr Mick Morland, Casey City Council; Mr Tim Tamlin, City of Greater Dandenong; Cr Colin Hampton, Frankston City Council; Mr Ian Bell, Knox City Council; Ms Lydia Wilson, Manningham City Council; * Cr Tony Dib, Maroondah City Council; Cr Craig Shiell, Monash City Council; Cr Tim Rogers, Mornington Peninsula Shire Council; Cr Chris Aubrey, Whitehorse City Council.

The responsible minister is John Pallas, Minister for Roads and Ports.
Your Victorian leader is John Brumby.

(See also: “What Can YOU Do To Stop Road Tunnels Destroying Royal Park and Democracy?”
“Roads to wildlife extinction,”
“Wildlife Campaigner: "SEITA preferred Frankston bypass route will severely impact wildife"”)

Aerial View of Royal Park Showing proposed Road Tunnels in white, drawn by Dr Jan Scheurer.

The extension of the Eastern Freeway in tolled road tunnels through Royal Park was announced in Sir Rod Eddington’s report on “Investing in Transport - East West Link Needs Assessment” released on 2 April 2008. The State Government then called for public submissions on the Report.

The closing date is next Tuesday 5 July 2008. If you have not already done so, could you make a submission? To assist, there is a proforma letter for you to send urgently, published at the base of this article.

Click here to see a map of Royal Park before Australand, Commonwealth Games and proposed Road Tunnels.

Construction of Road Tunnels through Royal Park, as proposed in the Eddington Report, will devastate the Park and badly affect residential West Parkville.

The Road Tunnel starts at Hoddle Street; goes under the Melbourne General Cemetery; and proceeds underground until it comes to the surface to form a T junction in Royal Park, adjacent to the State Netball and Hockey Centre (SNHC). This huge junction area will be a quarry for 5 to 10 years and, although said to be constructed by "cut and cover" methods may never be "covered" due to security concerns.

The southern spur of the Tunnel heads south under Flemington Road, emerges in Holland Park in Kensington and exits at the Port of Melbourne. The northern spur carves its way through Royal Park sports grounds, wetlands and underground water storage areas and exits in the middle of CityLink.

In the last ten years we have seen massive land grabs for the SNHC, the Games Village and, recently, the Royal Children’s Hospital.

To the left is the Candobetter artist's rough interpretation of what is happening and the recent past. The white lines are the new tunnel. Highlighted in red is the approximate area of 20ha given to Australand by the State government a couple of years ago.
More accurate drawings are welcome.

Road Tunnels are the final nail in the Park’s coffin. And you might as well bury democracy in that coffin, along with a lot of other nice things.

See in the top illustration, the aerial photo with graphics drawn by Dr Jan Scheurer of RMIT. This is the only graphic representation to show exactly where the Road Tunnels with 4 lanes of traffic will go in Royal Park. (The Eddington Report’s little line drawings fail to graphically present the reality and the enormity of this project.)

The dotted lines represent tunnels with open cut-and-cover construction and the filled-in lines the underground tunnels. The fine lines represent walls or fences around exit and entry points and the one line to the south of the SNHC is a roadway needed to drive around the perimeter of the Road Tunnels junction.

Roads Minister Tim Pallas is reported to have said at a meeting with the Kensington Association on 25 June 2008 that it was “not possible to construct major infrastructure without impacts, and that some had to be tolerated for the wider good”. Are you willing to sacrifice Royal Park for Road Tunnels?

What’s Been Happening?

The Royal Park Protection Group Inc. (RPPG) has been involved in the campaign to oppose Road Tunnels together with a number of other community organisations and political groups. These are (in alphabetical order): The Coalition of Residents and Business Associations – Melbourne (CORBA); Carlton Residents’ Association; Flemington Association, Great Public Transport not a Tollway Tunnel and Freeway (a Western suburbs group); Greens (particularly MP’s Greg Barber and Colleen Hartland); Kensington Association, Mount Alexander Road Campaign Group (MARCG); and Yarra Campaign Against Tunnels (YCAT).

Significant Recent Events in the Campaign Opposing Road Tunnels:

25 May: “No Tunnels” Rally at Debney’s Park organised by RPPG and MARCG.
3 June: “No Tunnels” Rally outside Melbourne Town Hall prior to Planning Committee meeting.
18 June: Meeting of Western Suburbs groups in Footscray organised by Greens.
21 June: “Hands off Holland Park” Kensington Association Rally in JJ Holland Park, Kensington.
24 June: “No Tunnels” Rally outside the Melbourne Town Hall prior to the Council meeting.
4 July: Eastern Transport Alliance Forum at Manningham Council on Public Transport esp. rail.
5 July: “Climate Emergency Rally” City Square then march to Alexandra Gardens.

Coming Events:

Friday 11 July: The Premier is going “Live on Line” re Eddington Report. www.premier.vic.gov.au
Tuesday 15 July: D Day - Closing Date for Submissions to Eddington Review.
Tuesday 15 July: “No Tunnels” Rally outside Yarra Council Meeting 6:45 pm Fitzroy Town Hall.
Monday 4 August: Meeting Public Transport not Tunnels 7 pm 10 Hyde St. Footscray.

OTHER NEWS:

Dispute over Commuter Cycle Path through Royal Park

The long saga of the cycle path proposed for the Park next to Macarthur Road ended at the Planning Committee meeting of 8 April 2008. The Committee decided as follows: "that the Planning Committee resolve to … grant a Planning Permit for the construction of the shared path subject to conditions… to this report keeping the pathway as close as possible to Macarthur Road with a minimum of three metres separation from the road without widening the path or decreasing the number of trees." Sounded clear enough to us. But we discovered that, over the long weekend in June, a path was being carved through the Park up to 17 metres away from Macarthur Road and that 23 trees were being felled. Correspondence ensued with the CEO, Councillors and Council officers and we were told that it was all a matter of “interpretation.” Could have fooled us! It appears to us that Council staff call the shots at the Town Hall.

Dispute over Dogs-off-Leash in Royal Park

At a meeting of 8 July 2008 the Environment Committee of the City of Melbourne considered the proposed new areas for Dogs off Leash in Royal Park. Unfortunately Councillors appear to have been swayed by arguments put up by Minister Bronwyn Pike, Member for Melbourne and Patron of the Royal Park Dogs Group, and Minister Dick Wynne whose wife is a member of the Dogs Group. Thus means that an extensive area of parkland of high habitat value populated with ground nesting birds has been confirmed as a Dogs off Leash area. This threatens many species of birds documented recently in a professional birds’ survey.

Minister Bronwyn Pike is reported to have said at a meeting with the Kensington Association on 25 June 2008 that she was: “working assiduously with her Government colleagues to alert them to possible impacts of such a proposal (i.e. road tunnels) on Kensington and other parts of her constituency. It was not possible or practicable for her, as a Government Minister, to rule out any specific aspects of the Eddington proposals … Rather, she believed that she was best able to serve her constituents by working 'from within', rather than by excluding herself from the process by prematurely condemning the proposal.” (We have heard the self same words over the Games Village and the Royal Children’s Hospital)

Editor's comment: Apart from the tactics, obviously overpopulation in Melbourne is forcing indigenous animals to compete with dogs, and dogs to compete with local people, and locals to compete for parkland with developers and the new populations of consumers which they have imported, and which are the cause of these new roads.

We can all only lose.

Minister Bronwyn Pike should be protesting to stop the freeway because it will take away from dogs and humans as well as from trees and indigenous animals. It is tragic that this park, which goes back to the time of early settlement, is being sacrificed for very transient benefits to a few people. These tunnels and roads will become monuments to folly and vested interest in the face of oil depletion.

The Royal Park Protection Group is an incorporated organization and its objectives are as follows:

1. To protect, regenerate and conserve the Royal Park as a unique, indigenous, central city park for present and future generations, consistent with principles of the 1987 Royal Park Master Plan; and
2. To oppose alienation of parkland by government, commercial, sporting and other bodies to ensure public access consistent with the terms of the establishment of the Royal Park.

The group has learned close up of the erosion of democracy over the past few years. Their experience seeded the formation of the peak body, Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc (PPLV).

SUBMISSION PROFORMA

The Chief of Staff
East-West Transport Options Review
Department of Transport
GPO Box 2797
Melbourne 3001
Email address: eastwestyoursay[AT]doi.vic.gov.au

Dear Sir

I wish to make a submission to the East - West Road Transport Review.

I am totally opposed to the construction of road tunnels as proposed in the Eddington Report. Here are the points I wish to make to support my argument:

1. This proposed project involves construction of 4 lane freeway/tollway concrete road tunnels for 18 km., which will blow out Victoria’s green house emissions at the very time a “climate emergency” has been declared by the Federal Government.

2. Major parks - Royal Park and Holland Park - will be destroyed as they will be turned into major tunnel construction “staging” sites for 5 to 10 years. Open parkland and sports fields will be ripped up and community facilities removed. The Royal Park wetlands, developed with a $5 million grant from the State Government plus its water storage facility under the adjacent Ross Straw Field, will be obliterated as they are in the path of the Road Tunnel. The north of the Road Tunnel will exit on CityLink, which will be widened by two lanes over the Moonee Ponds Creek and Travancore Park.

3. Residential amenity of inner city neighbourhoods along the Road Tunnels route will be seriously compromised and heritage streetscapes threatened. Compulsory acquisition of residential properties along the route of the tunnels is inevitable.

4. The Road Tunnels are, in reality, a city by pass for trucks from the Port of Melbourne. There will be massive traffic congestion on surface roads as most traffic off the Eastern Freeway is headed for the city yet there are no outlets for commuters.

5. Vent stacks 12 storeys high will be built at the entry/exits (“portals”) of the Road Tunnels and every 3 kms. on their route. An example of these obtrusive polluting chimneys - the Burnley Tunnel vent stack – can be seen outside the Malthouse Theatre in Sturt Street, South Melbourne.

6. The $10 billion of funds designated for the Road Tunnels should be diverted into public transport, in particular rail extensions to Rowville and Doncaster and upgrading the Belgrave-Lilydale rail line.

I trust you will take account of my concerns over the proposed Road Tunnels. I would be pleased if you can acknowledge receipt of my submission.

Yours sincerely

Name:
Address:
Phone:
Email Address:
Date:

Update: Kelly denies Govt considering Snowy Hydro sell-off from ABC Online News 11 Jul 08 (see #update">below)

The Canberra Times has reported that the Rudd Labor Government is now planning to acquire the Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric Authority in order to privatise it. This is in spite of fierce public opposition which forced the previous Howard Government to abandon its own privatisation plans and Rudd's own pledge before the 2007 elections to keep it in public hands.

The Rudd Government maintains that it is "opposed to outright privatisation as such''. Instead, it plans to lease the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Corporation to private industry. However, as NSW anti-privatisation campaigner Greens MP John Kaye pointed out in a #JohnKaye">media release of 10 July, "There is no practical difference between Kevin Rudd's long term lease and John Howard's sell-off. Both would see control of the water in the scheme pass out of public hands to large multinational corporations."

John Kaye has warned that if NSW Treasurer Michael Costa succeeds in the privatisation of NSW's electricity assets, in the face of the strong opposition of 79% of the NSW public, that the Rudd Government may well feel encouraged to proceed with the sell-off of the Snowy Hydro.

According to the Canberra Times, the, by now, wholly familiar rationale for privatisation has been offered, that is, that it has to be privatised in order for the $800 million in investment said to be necessary can be raised by the private sector. No reason as to why the money couldn't, instead, simply be raised directly by the government either from general revenue or through loans was offered.

An impetus to privatisation also come unexpectedly in last week's Climate Change Review Draft Report. The report made the claim that ownership of the Snowy scheme by three governments NSW, Victoria and the Commonwealth could restrict future development and competitiveness in the national electricity market.

However, local community opponents to privatisation pointed out that Garnaut had paid no regard to the fact that the Snowy Hydro was a regulator of water. As former chief engineer with Snowy Hydro, Max Talbot, had written in a letter to the Prime Minister earlier this year after hearing that privatisation was being considered, Snowy Hydro was ''worthless as a business'' without its water licence.

''The licence is weighted towards the use of water for electricity production and trading rather than optimisation of the use of the water as an invaluable resource for irrigation, communities and the environment.

''It does not adequately regulate Snowy Hydro and contains compensation clauses that would result in the payment of hundreds of millions of dollars by governments to private owners should the licence need to be amended during its 75-year term.'

So if privatisation, in the guise of a long term lease were to proceed, the Australian community may be faced the unpalatable choice of forgoing vitally needed water or paying prohibitively for an breach of contract to the private operators of the Snowy Hydro.

Alpine Riverkeepers spokeswoman Acacia Rose was also critical of the Garnaut report's comments on privatising Snowy Hydro.

''The Snowy scheme is vital for water security and must be re-positioned for water storage and management despite the recommendations of Garnaut that focus primarily on energy generation,'' she said.

With diminishing rainfall for south-eastern Australia there will be less water available for energy generation.''

The fact that Ross Garnaut has so inappropriately used his authority to promote privatisation when privatisation has had such a disastrous track record and when it has been so emphatically opposed by the public, may be cause to question his preference for market forces, even if operating within the constraints of his carbon credits trading scheme, as the solution to global warming.

#update" id="update">Update

The ABC reported on 11 July that Federal Member for Eden-Monaro Mike Kelly has put an end to speculation that federal Labor has done a backflip on its opposition to privatise Snowy Hydro.

In response to the abovementioned Canberra Times article Mr Kelly said that his Government has not changed its opposition and he stands by his election pledge to keep the corporation in public hands.

He claimed that the Canberra Times report was misleading.

Comment: The report didn't account for the inconsistency between the Federal Government's support for the privatisation of NSW's electricity and its professed opposition to the sale of the Snowy Hydro.

#JohnKaye" id="JohnKaye">Appendix: Media Release for John Kaye, NSW Greens MLA

NSW power sell-off would renew Snowy Hydro privatisation push

10 July 08

The Iemma government's attempt to sell the state's electricity industry has become a test case for privatising the nation's largest hydro-electric and irrigation scheme, according to Greens NSW MP John Kaye.

Commenting on a story on page 1 of today's Canberra Times (''Snowy power may go private'

), Dr Kaye said: "Federal member for Eden-Monaro Mike Kelly has let the cat out of the bag.

"The Rudd government is carefully watching NSW Treasurer Michael Costa's push to sell off the state's retailers and generators.

"According to Mr Kelly, if Treasurer Costa is successful, the Commonwealth government will implement their secret plan to take over the Snowy and lease it out.

"It looks like a reincarnation of John Howard's privatisation plans that came to a sticky end in 2006 after massive public opposition.

"There is no practical difference between Kevin Rudd's long term lease and John Howard's sell-off. Both would see control of the water in the scheme pass out of public hands to large multinational corporations.

"The ante on the NSW sell-off has just been upped. The Iemma government's proposed sell-off is an environmental, social and economic disaster. It just got worse.

"The issue is no longer confined to the state's coal-fired power stations and retailers. It now includes Snowy.

"The state member for Eden-Monaro, Steve Whan, needs to get onto the phone to his federal colleague and reiterate the arguments he used in 2006 to oppose the sell off.

"No doubt Mr Whan will now be regretting his support of the Unsworth Inquiry recommendations to sell off the state's power industry.

"He will not be happy to see he has unwittingly become part of a renewed push to privatise Snowy.

"Mr Whan knows that this will be even more detested in his electorate than the already deeply unpopular power sell off," Dr Kaye said.

For more information: John Kaye 0407 195 455

Rich get richer; middle class is out-sourced ...

Letter to the editor

Senior public servants - earning hundreds of thousands of dollars already - received an up-to 19% pay increase; those earning minimum wage got a mere 4% increase, an additional AU$21 per week swallowed by increasing petrol and food prices.

Providing a five-fold percent increase to those already earning more than five-times minimum wage exacerbates the disparity at both ends of income. It's a veritable slap-in-the-face to those struggling to make ends meet and to get ahead, to those performing some of our most unforgiving, thankless jobs.

Even 457-visa holders must be paid at least 50% more than minimum-wage Australian citizens. This award structure ensures that "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer," and the middle class is increasingly populated by temporary residents, not Australians.

What's happened to Labor's advocating "wage restraint"? To the Australian "fair go"? We risk our future by "out-sourcing" our middle class, and separating our "haves" and "have nots" to ever-increasing extremes.

See also: article Will Rudd Government's high immigration program turn Australia into Argentina? which originated as a comment on this article.