population

Humanity has struggled to survive through the millennia in terms of balancing population size with food supply. The same is true now, but population numbers have been soaring for over a century. The limiting factor has been hidden, but this factor -- oil and natural gas, or petroleum -- is close to or beyond its peak extraction. Without ample, free-flowing petroleum, it will not be possible to support a population of several billion for long.

Originally posted on Culture Change on 2 March 2010. Re-posted here by author Peter Goodchild.

Humanity has struggled to survive through the millennia in terms of balancing population size with food supply. The same is true now, but population numbers have been soaring for over a century. The limiting factor has been hidden, but this factor -- oil and natural gas, or petroleum -- is close to or beyond its peak extraction. Without ample, free-flowing petroleum, it will not be possible to support a population of several billion for long.

By Peter Goodchild. Originally posted on Culture Change on of 2 March 2010. Re-posted her by author Peter Goodchild originally as a response to article by Tim Murray, What Will The Dalai Lama Say When The Oil Runs Out?

Humanity has struggled to survive through the millennia in terms of balancing population size with food supply. The same is true now, but population numbers have been soaring for over a century. The limiting factor has been hidden, but this factor -- oil and natural gas, or petroleum -- is close to or beyond its peak extraction. Without ample, free-flowing petroleum, it will not be possible to support a population of several billion for long.

Famine caused by petroleum supply failure alone will result in about 2.5 billion above-normal deaths before the year 2050; lost and averted births will amount to roughly an equal number.

In terms of its effects on daily human life, the most significant aspect of fossil-fuel depletion will be the lack of food. "Peak oil" is basically "peak food." Modern agriculture is highly dependent on fossil fuels for fertilizers (the Haber-Bosch process combines natural gas with atmospheric nitrogen to produce nitrogen fertilizer), pesticides, and the operation of machines for irrigation, harvesting, processing, and transportation.

Without fossil fuels, modern methods of food production will disappear, and crop yields will be far less than at present. Crop yields are far lower in societies that do not have fossil fuels or modern machinery. We should therefore have no illusions that several billion humans can be fed by "organic gardening" or anything else of that nature.

The Green Revolution involved, among other things, the development of higher-yielding crops. These new varieties, however, could be grown only with large inputs of fertilizer and pesticides, all of which required fossil fuels. In essence, the Green Revolution was little more than the invention of a way to turn petroleum into food.

Over the next few decades, therefore, there will be famine on a scale many times larger than ever before in human history. It is possible, of course, that warfare and plague will take their toll to a large extent before famine claims its victims. The distinctions, in any case, can never be absolute: often "war + drought = famine" [3], especially in sub-Saharan Africa, but there are several other combinations of factors.

Although, when discussing theories of famine, economists generally use the term "neo-malthusian" in a derogatory manner, the coming famine will be very much a case of an imbalance between population and resources. The overwhelming cause of the imbalance and famine will be fossil-fuel depletion, not government policy (as in the days of Stalin or Mao), warfare, ethnic discrimination, bad weather, poor methods of distribution, inadequate transportation, livestock diseases, or any of the other variables that have often turned mere hunger into genuine starvation.

The increase in the world's population has followed a simple curve: from about 1.7 billion in 1900 to about 6.1 billion in 2000. A quick glance at a chart of world population growth, on a broader time scale, shows a line that runs almost horizontally for thousands of years, and then makes an almost vertical ascent as it approaches the present. That is not just an amusing curiosity. It is a shocking fact that should have awakened humanity to the realization that something is dreadfully wrong.

Mankind is always prey to its own "exuberance," to use Catton's term [2]. That has certainly been true of population growth. In many cultures, "Do you have any children?" or, "How many children do you have?" is a form of greeting or civility almost equivalent to "How do you do?" or, "Nice to meet you." World population growth, nevertheless, has always been ecologically hazardous. The destruction of the environment reaches back into the invisible past, and the ruination of land, sea, and sky has been well described if not well heeded. But what is even less frequently noted is that with every increase in human numbers we are only barely able to keep up with the demand: providing all those people with food and water has not been easy. We are always pushing ourselves to the limits of Earth's ability to hold us.

Even that is an understatement. No matter how much we depleted our resources, there was always the sense that we could somehow "get by." But in the late twentieth century we stopped getting by. It is important to differentiate between production in an "absolute" sense and production "per capita." Although oil production, in "absolute" numbers, kept climbing — only to decline in the early twenty-first century — what was ignored was that although that "absolute" production was climbing, the production "per capita" reached its peak in 1979 [1].

The unequal distribution of resources plays a part, of course. The average inhabitant of the United States consumes far more than the average inhabitant of India or China. Nevertheless, if all the world's resources were evenly distributed, the result would only be universal poverty. It is the totals and the averages of resources that we must deal with in order to determine the totals and averages of results. For example, if all of the world's arable land were distributed evenly, in the absence of mechanized agriculture each person on the planet would have an inadequate amount of farmland for survival: distribution would have accomplished very little.

We were always scraping the edges of the earth, but we are now entering a far more dangerous era. The main point to keep in mind, however, is that throughout the twentieth century, oil production and human population were so closely integrated that every barrel of oil had an effect on human numbers. While population has been going up, so has oil production.

Future excess mortality can therefore be determined -- at least in a rough-and-ready manner -- by the fact that in modern industrial society it is oil supply that determines how many people can be fed. An increase in oil production leads to an increase in population, and a decrease in oil production leads to a decrease in population. [editor's note: this is why hopes for a technofix of renewable energy -- almost always only for electricity -- is far off base regarding the huge present population's need to eat.]

In round numbers, global oil production in the year 2008 was 30 billion barrels, and the population was 7 billion. The consensus is that in the year 2050 oil production will be about 2 billion barrels. The same amount of oil production occurred in the year 1930, when the population was 2 billion. The population in 2050 will therefore be about the same as in 1930: 2 billion. The difference between 7 billion people and 2 billion is 5 billion, which will therefore be the total number of famine deaths and lost or averted births for that period.

We can also determine the annual number of famine deaths and lost or averted births. From 2008 to 2050 is 42 years. The average annual difference in population is therefore 5 billion divided by 42, which is about 120 million.

It is quite possible, however, that the decline in population will not exactly parallel the decline in oil. In other words, the peak of the population curve may well be a few years later than the peak of the oil curve. People might simply live with less oil per capita for a few decades, i.e. they will just sink further into poverty, with greater problems of malnutrition. In fact, as long ago as 1972, the first edition of The Limits to Growth in its Figure 35, "World Model Standard Run," showed a 40-year gap between the peak production of food per capita and the peak of population [7].

Many of those annual 120 million will not actually be deaths; famine will cause a lowering of the birth rate. This will sometimes happen voluntarily, as people realize they lack the resources to raise children, or it will happen involuntarily when famine and general ill health result in infertility [4]. In most famines the number of deaths from starvation or from starvation-induced disease is very roughly the same as the number of lost or averted births [3, 4]. In Ireland's nineteenth-century famine, for example, the number of famine deaths was 1.3 million, whereas the number of lost births was 0.4 million. The number of famine deaths during China's Great Leap Forward (1958-1961) was perhaps 30 million, and the number of lost births was perhaps 33 million.

The "normal," non-famine-related, birth and death rates are not incorporated into the above future population figures, since for most of pre-industrial human history the sum of the two — i.e. the growth rate — has been nearly zero. If not for the problem of resource-depletion, in other words, the future birth rate and death rate would be nearly identical, as they were in pre-industrial times. And there is no question that the future will mean a return to the "pre-industrial."

Nevertheless, it will often be hard to separate "famine deaths" from a rather broad category of "other excess deaths." War, disease, global warming, topsoil deterioration, and other factors will have unforeseeable effects of their own. Considering the unusual duration of the coming famine, and with Leningrad [5] as one of many precursors, cannibalism may be significant; to what extent should this be included in a calculation of "famine deaths"? It is probably safe to say, however, that an unusually large decline in the population of a country will be the most significant indicator that this predicted famine has in fact arrived.

These figures obliterate all previous estimates of future population growth. Instead of a steady rise over the course of this century, as generally predicted, there will be a clash of the two giant forces of overpopulation and oil depletion, followed by a precipitous ride into the unknown future.

If the above figures are fairly accurate, we are ill-prepared for the next few years. The problem of oil depletion turns out to be something other than a bit of macabre speculation for people of the distant future to deal with, but rather a sudden catastrophe that will only be studied dispassionately long after the event itself has occurred. Doomsday will be upon us before we have time to look at it carefully.

The world has certainly known some terrible famines in the past, of course. In recent centuries, one of the worst was that of North China in 1876-79, when between 9 and 13 million died, but India had a famine at the same time, with perhaps 5 million deaths. The Soviet Union had famine deaths of about 5 million in 1932-34, purely because of political policies. The worst famine in history was that of China's Great Leap Forward, 1958-61, when perhaps 30 million died, as mentioned above.

A close analogy to "petroleum famine" may be Ireland's potato famine of the 1840s, since — like petroleum — it was a single commodity that caused such devastation [6]. The response of the British government at the time can be summarized as a jumble of incompetence, frustration, and indecision, if not outright genocide. "There is such a tendency to exaggeration and inaccuracy in Irish reports that delay in acting on them is always desirable," wrote Sir Robert Peel in 1845. By 1847 the description had changed: "Bodies half-eaten by rats were an ordinary sight; 'two dogs were shot while tearing a body to pieces.'"

The news of the coming famine might not be announced with sufficient clarity. Famines tend to be back-page news nowadays, perhaps for the very reason that they are too common to be worth mentioning. Although Ó Gráda speaks of "making famine history" [6], the reality is that between 70 and 80 million people died of famine in the twentieth century, far more than in any previous century [4].

The above predictions can be nothing more than approximate, of course, but even the most elaborate mathematics will not entirely help us to deal with the great number of interacting factors. We need to swing toward a more pessimistic figure for humanity's future if we include the effects of war, disease, and so on. The most serious negative factor will be largely sociological: To what extent can the oil industry maintain the advanced technology required for drilling ever-deeper wells in ever-more-remote places, when that industry will be struggling to survive in a milieu of social chaos? Intricate division of labor, large-scale government, and high-level education will no longer exist

.

On the other hand, there are elements of optimism that may need to be plugged in. For one thing, there is what might be called the "inertia factor": the planet Earth is so big that even the most catastrophic events take time for their ripples to finish spreading. An asteroid fragment 10 kilometers wide hit eastern Mexico 65 million years ago, but enough of our distant ancestors survived that we ourselves are alive today to tell the story.

Somewhat related, among optimistic factors, is the sheer tenacity of the human species: we are intelligent social creatures living at the top of the food chain, in the manner of wolves, yet we outnumber wolves worldwide by about a million to one; we are as populous as rats or mice. We can outrace a horse over long distances. Even with Stone-Age technology, we can inhabit almost every environment on Earth, even if most of the required survival skills have been forgotten.

Specifically, we must consider the fact that neither geography nor population is homogeneous. All over the world, there are forgotten pockets of habitable land, much of it abandoned in the modern transition to urbanization, for the ironic reason that city dwellers regarded rural life as too difficult, as they traded their peasant smocks for factory overalls. There are still areas of the planet's surface that are sparsely occupied although they are habitable or could be made so, to the extent that many rural areas have had a decline in population that is absolute, i.e. not merely relative to another place or time. By careful calculation, therefore, there will be survivors. Over the next few years, human ingenuity must be devoted to an understanding of these geographic and demographic matters, so that at least a few can escape the tribulation. Neither the present nor future generations should have to say, "We were never warned."

REFERENCES:

1. BP Global Statistical Review of World Energy. Annual. www.bp.com/statisticalreview

2. Catton, William R., Jr. Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change. Champaign, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1982.

3. Devereux, Stephen. "Famine in the Twentieth Century." IDS Working Paper 105. www.dse.unifi.it/sviluppo/doc/WP105.pdf

4. Ó Gráda, Cormac. "Making Famine History." Journal of Economic Literature, March 2007. www.ucd.ie/economics/research/papers/2006/WP06.10.pdf

5. Salisbury, Harrison E. The 900 Days: The Siege of Leningrad. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Da Capo Press, 2003.

6. Woodham-Smith, Cecil. The Great Hunger: Ireland 1845-1849. New York and Evanston: Harper & Row, 1962.

7. Donella Meadows, Jorgen Randers, Dennis L. Meadows and William W. Behrens III. The Limits to Growth. New York: Universe Books, 1972.

* * * * *

Peter Goodchild is the author of Survival Skills of the North American Indians, published by Chicago Review Press.

GrowthBusters is showing this Wednesday in Melbourne (then Brisbane on Friday, then around Australia).

Synopsis:

GrowthBusters asks - How do we become a sustainable civilization?

Water shortages, hunger, peak oil, species extinction, and even increasing depression are all symptoms of a deeper problem – addiction to unending growth in a world that has limits. GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth goes way beyond prescribing Band-Aids to slow the bleeding. This film examines the cultural barriers that prevent us from reacting rationally to the evidence current levels of population and consumption are unsustainable.

It asks why the population conversations are so difficult to have. Why it's more important to our society to have economic growth than clean air. Why communities seek and subsidize growth even when it destroys quality of life and increases taxes.

Book at : www.populationparty.org.au.

Hope to see you there!

Regards

William

William Bourke
National Convenor
STABLE POPULATION PARTY
www.populationparty.org.au

Mark O'Connor (famous co-author of Overloading Australia) asks, should environmentalists resist Big Australia - and the densification of Melbourne? "In the long run, unless we can stop the endless growth of population and consumption, all environmental battles will be lost. Yet powerful vested interests distort our news and media to make us think growth is inevitable, and that we should live in ever more crowded cities. Mark O'Connor discusses how environmentalists can identify and defeat these forces." Look for the Sustainable Population Australia (Victorian Branch) stall there as well - all weekend and Friday.

Time:
Feb 17th 2012 Sustainable Living Festival, 4 pm

Place:
At one of the Talks Tents that has been re-named The SHED, Yarra Bank/Birrarung Marr near Flinders St Station

Title: Sustainability versus Australia's growth lobby.

Mark O'Connor asks Should environmentalists resist Big Australia -- and the densification of Melbourne?

In the long run, unless we can stop the endless growth of population and consumption, all environmental battles will be lost. Yet powerful vested interests distort our news and media to make us think growth is inevitable, and that we should live in ever more crowded cities. Mark O'Connor discusses how environmentalists can identify and defeat these forces. Mark, a widely-published poet, is also co-author of Overloading Australia, a book that re-ignited the population debate, and which Dick Smith sent to every Australian State and Federal politician. He blogs at http://markoconnor-australianpoet.blogspot.com/

Overloading Australia

How Governments and the media dither and deny on population
(Click book image for purchase details.)

Author: Mark O'Connor and William Lines

ISBN: 978-0-85881-224-6

Greenhouse gases going up. Oil and gas depleting. House prices exploding. Overloading Australia explains why – and how to stop it.

The press of numbers on this continent affects us all – those living, as well as those yet to be born. To talk of saving the environment or of climate change is meaningless if we won’t address population – a subject some think too hot for public debate. In a score of punchy chapters, authors Mark O’Connor and William Lines challenge the myths, expose the facts, and dent the denial industry.

They blow the whistle on population-foolish policies that lead to clogged roads, water shortages, scarce food, and no place for refugees; then provide new and fair ways to think about the issues and to limit Australia’s future population-size.

This is a book that will revolutionize the green debate, and the political debate, on population.

Price: AUD$19.95 (incl. GST), 248pp

In her marvellously lucid book, Wilful Blindness, Margaret Heffernan, writes about the institutionalisation of denial in the service of profit, the acquisition of wealth, and the defence of personally comforting ideologies. "Bandura has spent a lifetime dissecting the moral disengagement required for the perpetration of criminal and inhuman acts, a journey that has taken him from the tobacco industry, the gun lobby, the television business to the multiple industries implicated in environmental degradation. He has a deep understanding of the forces at work which encourage employees to be blind to their collusion in these processes. But nothing enrages him more than the economic justifications used to defend continued population growth."

'Wilful blindness' is an English legal concept that arose in a 19th century case where a person could not be convicted of stealing government property unless they either knew where the property came from or they had 'wilfully shut their eyes' to its origin. Modern travellers are asked to sign declarations that they are aware of the contents of their suitcases, which may then be used against them if illegal drugs come to light during customs searches. Not knowing was also no defence for the guilty in the Enron trials. Legally it doesn't matter whether or not your knowledge was unconscious, but outside the courts you can still get away with manslaughter and dispossession for commercial purposes by kidding yourself and you will find that most people in the community will back you right up.

An amazing list of almost unbelievable (but well-documented) wilful blindnesses

Heffernan examines a remarkable list of wilful blindnesses that have caused innumerable deaths and other highly adverse circumstances. Most of her cases are huge and massively documented, yet a number were quite unknown to me. Her book is a remarkable document for that reason, of enormous use for the political and social researcher, as well as a jolly good read. Among the cases she examines in detail are:

- childhood cancer and foetal X-rays. The very strong link and occurrence was proven for decades yet doctors continued to X-ray pregnant women until the mid-1980s.
- Enron and how everyone there looked the other way
- asbestosis and how an entire town was moribund but refusing to face the cause in the local mine, instead ill-treating the only woman in the town who tried to fight the mine
- Greenspan before Congress, finally admitting his market-ideology was flawed
- Avoidable collisions of battleships where officers followed a captain's orders even though they knew these would cause two ships to collide
- Hospitals that protected an incompetent surgeon and ostracised the doctor who tried to stop him
- BP's remarkable record of ignoring safety regulations and orders and causing death among workers before it even came to Deepwater Horizon.

Margaret Heffernan asks why whistleblowers and Cassandras are so rare, when they save lives and communities often simply by stating the obvious over and over again. She writes on the several ways individuals become deliberately blind by denial of painful truths, interspersing her political and social case studies with records of psychological experiments and theory.

Wilful Blindness and the Population Growth Lobby

Hearing of this wilful blindness legal concept, before I read the book, I wondered how it might apply to those who maintain the growth lobby for their own and corporate profit against democratic wishes of the majority and in the face of costs it imposes on individuals and communities. On reading the book I was very interested to read the following about overpopulation, in which she quotes another clear thinker, Professor Bandura, of Stanford University.

“No one visiting Stanford University could fail to be impressed by its sheer scale or its wealth. Over twelve square miles, it's ten times larger than Vatican City and the vast avenues of palms leading to fountains and Spanish courtyards are reminiscent more of Renaissance papal power play than 21st-century cutting-edge research. Such lavish public buildings feel brash in their confidence, but their rooms harbour perpetrators of doubt and scepticism. At the heart of the campus, ensconced in an unremarkable lino-floored, booklined room, sits Albert ‘Al’ Bandura. In many respects, Bandura is the grand old man of psychology: its most cited living author, the father of social-learning theory and one of the first people to argue that children's behavior derived not just from reward and punishment but horn what they observed around them. That this seems such an obvious thought to us nowadays is testimony to how profound Bandura's impact has been on our thinking. The very phrase 'role model' would scarcely exist without him.

Much of Bandura's work has so seeped into public consciousness that we are barely aware that it is there, and his work has attracted scores of awards, honours and distinctions. But today, at the age of eighty-five, this hasn't stopped him working, nor has it rendered him complacent. For all his eminence, he's an engaging and accessible man whose mild manner belies a tenacious mind. And one of the issues he has wrestled with for years is the process by which individuals lose sight of morality in their need to preserve their sense of self-worth.

‘People are highly driven to do things that build self-worth; you can't transgress and think of yourself as bad. You need to protect your sense of yourself as good. And so people transform harmful practices into worthy ones, by coming up with social justification, by distancing themselves with euphemisms, by ignoring the long-term consequences of their actions.’

One of the most prominent ways in which people justify their harmful practices is by using arguments about money to obscure moral and social issues. Because we can't and won't acknowledge that some of our choices are socially and morally harmful, we distance ourselves from them by claiming they're necessary for wealth creation. Nowhere is this more dangerous, he argues, than in our attitudes to the environment and population growth. The easiest way for those who resist calls to curb population growth, and who oppose environmental controls, is to represent themselves as the good guys because they just want to make everyone better-off.

'To defend their positions, they can't say "Sure, we're the bad guys and we want to rape and pillage the planet",’ Bandura told me. 'They have to vindicate harmful practices that take such a heavy toll on the environment and the quality of human life-they have to make out that what's harmful is, in fact, good. And one way they do that is to use the notion of nature as, in fact, an economic commodity. So they see nature in terms of its market value rather than its inherent value.'

That's why, Bandura argues, those who claim to love nature can also support, for example, drilling for oil in Alaska. They can't see themselves as destroyers, so they position themselves as the rational liberators of natural wealth. In this vein, Bandura quotes Newt Gingrich: 'To get the best ecosystem for our buck, we should use decentralised and entrepreneurial strategies.' Similarly, when China signed a multi-billion-dollar deal with the Indonesian Government to clearcut four million acres of forest, in order to replace it with palm-oil plantations, a clan elder could not conceive of himself as doing the wrong thing. As he put it succinctly, 'Wood is gold.' It is, says Bandura, the economic justification that makes the environmentally damaging decision possible. Seeing nature as just a source of money blinds such decision makers to the moral consequences of their decisions.

Bandura has spent a lifetime dissecting the moral disengagement required for e perpetration of criminal and inhuman acts, a journey that has taken him from the tobacco industry, the gun lobby, the television business to the multiple industries implicated in environmental degradation. He has a deep understanding of the forces at work which encourage employees to be blind to their collusion in these processes. But nothing enrages him more than the economic justifications used to defend continued population growth.

'I went to a conference in Germany,' Bandura recalled, 'where a young African woman spoke about the tremendous difference that birth control and health education had had on her community. The fact that she and her peers now had control over the number of children that they conceived and raised had transformed their lives. And she spoke of this very eloquently. And there, in that audience of well-heeled Europeans, rich Westerners, she was booed!'

When he recovered from his shock, Bandura analysed what was going on in the minds of the audience. What drove them, he reasoned, was their recognition that Western birth rates won't pay for the pension requirements of the elderly; if the West doesn't produce more children, it can't produce the wealth needed to look after parents when they retire. Therefore, even though consumption and environmental degradation are clearly linked, the needs of the market trump the needs of the planet.

Nor was this a purely Western phenomenon. The need for money effectively positions infants as money-making machines.

In some countries (Bandura writes], the pressure on women to boost their childbearing includes punitive, threats as well. The former prime minister of Japan, Yoshiro Mori, suggested that women who bore no children should be barred from receiving pensions, saying 'It is truly strange to say we have to use tax money to take care of women who don't even give birth once, who grow old living their lives selfishly and singing the praises of freedom.' In this campaign for more babies, childbearing is reduced to a means for economic growth.

In this mindset, children are nothing more than money-makers in the eyes of politicians merely crunching the numbers, blind to the moral, environmental or humanitarian consequences of their policies. Market thinking has obliterated moral thinking on a grand scale.

So persuasive (and pervasive) has the economic argument in favour of population growth become, says Bandura, that all of the major NGOs have had to stand aside from it. Fear of alienating donors, criticism from the progressive left and disparagement by conservative vested interests claiming that overpopulation is a 'myth' served as further incentives to cast off the rising global population as a factor in environmental degradation. Population growth vanished from the agendas of mainstream environmental organisations that previously regarded escalating numbers as a major environmental threat. Greenpeace announced that population ‘is not an issue for us’. Friends of the Earth declared that 'it is unhelpful to enter into a debate about numbers'. The fear of losing money disabled those very organisations best placed to understand the ultimate consequences of thinking only about money.

What money does, Bandura argues, is allow us to disengage from the moral and social effects of our decisions. As long as we can frame everything as an economic argument, we don't have to confront the social or moral consequences of our decisions. That economics has become such a dominant, if not the prevalent, mindset for evaluating social and political choices has been one of the defining characteristics of our age. As long as the numbers work, we feel absolved of the harder, more inchoate ethical choices that face us none the less. We appear to have gone from having a market economy to being a market society (if that isn't an oxymoron) and it's an interesting thought that our obsession with economics has just been one long sustained phase of displacement activity.

Money is just one of the forces that blind us to information and issues which we could pay attention to - but don't. It exacerbates and often rewards all the other drivers of wilful blindness: our preference for the familiar, our love for individuals and for big ideas, a love of busyness and our dislike of conflict and change, the human instinct to obey and conform and our skill at displacing and diffusing responsibility. All of these operate and collaborate with varying intensities at different moments in our lives. The common denominator is that they all make us protect our sense of self-worth, reducing dissonance and conferring a sense of security, however illusory. In some ways, they all act like money: making us feel good at first, with consequences we don't see. We wouldn't be so blind if our blindness didn't deliver rewards: the benefit of comfort and ease.

But in failing to confront the greatest challenge of our age - climate change - all the forces of wilful blindness come together, like synchronised swimmers in a spectacular water ballet. We live with people like ourselves, and sharing consumption habits blinds us to their cost. Like the unwitting spouse of an alcoholic, we know there's something amiss but we don't want to acknowledge that the lifestyles we love may be killing us. The dissonance produced by reading about our environmental impact on the one hand, and living as we do, is resolved by minor alterations in what we buy or eat, but very few significant social shifts. Sometimes we get so anxious we consume more. We keep too busy to confront our worries, a kind of wild displacement activity with schedules that don't allow us to be as green as we'd like. The gravitational pull of the status quo exerts its influence and global conferences end when no one has the stomach for the levels of conflict they engender. In our own countries, no politician shows the nerve for the political battles real change would require.

We're obedient consumers and we might change if we were told to, but we're not. We conform to the consumption patterns we see around us as we all become bystanders, hoping someone else somewhere will intervene. Our governments and corporations grow too complex to communicate or to change and we are left just where we do not want to be, where our only consolation is cash.

This is wilful blindness on a spectacular scale and it would leave us abject with despair, were it not that, all around us, are individuals who aren't blind. That they can and do see more, and act on what they see, offers a possibility that we can be wilfully sighted too.”

Most interesting and alarming of all, despite all of these cases and situations being well known and recognised at academic or legal level, the general public remains in the dark because somehow, these lessons learned are never institutionalised for our collective good. With rare exceptions politicians, governments and the mass media, continue to maintain fictions blown apart time and again, because they have a vested interest. Somehow, somewhere, this time, they maintain, it will be different.

I was particularly struck, as an Australian, by how the following statement sums up what is happening in Australia:

"In this mindset, children are nothing more than money-makers in the eyes of politicians merely crunching the numbers, blind to the moral, environmental or humanitarian consequences of their policies. Market thinking has obliterated moral thinking on a grand scale."

And it has obliterated democracy in Australia - aided and abetted by 'moral' books that seem wilfully blind to the focused benefits that population growth brings to the growth lobby, like Ian Angus and Simon Butler's, Too many people, Haymarket Books, Chicago, 2011, published with the help of the US-based Lannan Foundation and the Wallace Global Fund. It seems true to say that, if you'll defend controlling population upwards, you can always find a wealthy sponsor.

Martin Collacott from the Fraser Institute looks at whether meaningful immigration reform is finally coming to Canada - video newslink.

Canada has even higher immigration numbers than Australia and its refugee rules are almost open house. These problems have been known for years, but, due to the presence of a huge growth lobby, almost all democratic demand for a slow down has been suppressed, unrepresented and sidelined.

Global economic turbulence and the prospect of deep recession as we move towards an energy crisis, presents huge challenge. There has been little forewarning and planning. Every local and national authority needs to start now to address these challenges seriously, yet still we carry on with our head in the sands, wasting resources on an epic scale.

According to a little noticed report in 2009 by the respected (US) Energy Information Administration, the supply of the world's most essential energy source is going off a cliff. Not in the distant future, but within two years. It says Production of all liquid fuels, including oil, will drop within 20 years to half what it is today, when energy demand is rising rapidly. And the difference needs to be made up with "unidentified projects".

If the EIA is right – and it has been endorsed by the US joint military command, we stand on the edge of a precipice, with no prior warning from either the industry or governments, which ostensibly protect the public interest.

A huge problem is nearly all alternative energy sources are poor energy performers because they need a high-energy input to provide a given energy return.

Already there is a crisis in ‘business as usual’ capitalism, with little sign of recovery, warns Robert Peston in his December 11 BBC programme, ‘The Party’s Over’.

Many world leaders are spending billions they haven’t got in a panic “to restore growth,” whatever it takes, in a world of rapidly depleting resources. Maybe we should be welcoming this warning for the endless "growth is good" mindset that will devour our planet. Do we plan for a secure and better life or do we carry on blindly toward a minefield of lethal limits?

The perpetual growth myth knows no ecological bounds. Damage to ‘the environment’ is considered to be a mere externality. Resource shortages can be relieved just through expanding trade and technology will find a substitute for any depleting resource. Perpetual growthists regard any critics as imposing a dangerous drag on the world’s growth-based pursuit of progress.

The crisis has revealed the fragile interdependence of the globalised economy, where many countries can be involved in the supply chain to produce a component manufactured in one of them. In a few years, the markets will face another major trauma when they realise that once plentiful oil supplies are running down rapidly and the 'globalised' economy this has supported will have to rethink completely.

A clear opportunity now exists to transform our economy and our society for the better. The current global recession should be an opportunity to forge a new economic system able to avoid the shocks and negative impacts associated with our reliance on endless growth. Where is the strategic thinking to build a dynamic, steady state economy in a sustainable environment?

The UK-based New Economics Foundation publishes a "Happy Planet Index," which shows that it is possible for a nation to have a strong sense of well-being with a lower consumption and ecological footprint.

Some Inconvenient Facts for Growthists
If prosperity depended on growing populations to feed economic growth, the Philippines and many countries in Africa would be rich, not poor.
According to the World Bank, the top ten wealthiest countries, as measured by per capita GDP, were, in order of wealth: 1. Luxembourg: 491,000 people. 2. Norway: 4.8 million people. 3. Singapore: 4.8 million people 4. USA: 306 million people 5. Ireland: 4.5 million people 6. Switzerland: 7.7 million people 7. Austria: 8.3 million people 8. Netherlands: 16 million 9. Iceland: 319,000 people 10. Sweden: 9.1 million.

Many countries have small populations and are quite prosperous and successful - New Zealand and Botswana are examples. Of the ten countries listed, all but one, the United States, have small total populations and The United States, with runaway population growth in the past two decades, has not been doing well of late.

Japan is often seen as a forerunner of all that is doomed in the economies of the euro zone and the United States because of its ‘ageing population’ and what is seen as a static economy. But look at Japan's economic performance over the past ten years and "the second lost decade", if not the first, is a misnomer. More than half its population is over 45, but most Japanese have grown richer. In part, because its population has shrunk whereas America's population has increased rapidly.

In aggregate, Japan's economy grew at half the pace of America's between 2001 and 2010. Yet if judged by growth in GDP wealth per person over the same period, then Japan has outperformed America and the euro zone.

Relationship between Growth and Prosperity in 100 Largest U.S. Metropolitan Areas (Eben Fodor, December 2010. www.FodorandAssociates.com)

Most cities operate on the assumption that growth is inherently beneficial and that more and faster growth will benefit local residents economically. The report examined the 100 largest metro areas, representing 66% of the total U.S. population, finding those that did best have the lowest growth rates.

The annual population growth rate of each metro area from 2000 to 2009 was used to compare economic well-being in terms of per capita income, unemployment rate, and poverty rate. The report found:

- Faster growth rates are associated with lower incomes, greater income declines, and higher poverty rates.
- The 25 slowest-growing metro areas outperformed the 25 fastest growing in every category and averaged $8,455 more in per capita personal income in 2009.
- The policy of pursuing growth is enormously expensive, costing local taxpayers more than a hundred billion dollars every year for the new infrastructure alone.

Australia’s GDP per person for the December 2008 quarter fell in every state – linked to population growth, says Dr John Coulter, former President of Sustainable Population Australia. Tasmania, with the lowest population growth, showed only a 0.1% fall per capita. Western Australia, with the highest rate of population growth, showed the second largest fall in per capita GDP at almost 2%. South Australia with a high rate of population growth relative to the economy had the largest decline in per capita GDP at 2.5%.

For centuries, before the industrial revolution humans have lived in a relatively steady state economy. There was virtually no interest in economic growth as a policy objective anywhere before 1950. Yet, by the 1960’s, rapid economic growth had bubbled to the top as the overriding objective of policy to remedy all the ailments of western economies.

Jobs
In 2010 the United States population reached 308 million and is (conservatively) predicted to grow to 430 million in the next 40 years – an increase of 122 million people. Taking a (modest) average household size of 4 people and a modest 1.5 jobs per household, this means an extra 95,000 jobs need to be created every month for the next 40 years just to meet minimum demand for new jobs. US unemployment is currently around 9% (officially) and unofficially significantly higher.

Globally - present population around 7 billion, at a conservative estimate population in 2050 will be 9.3 billion - increase 2.3 billion, Assume five people in family unit instead of the four in the US calculation, and assume only one job per family unit. Based on those estimates we need to provide over one million new jobs per month for the next 480 months.

Can we really meet such relentless demand in a world of diminishing resources?

The world’s largest economy created 64,000 private sector jobs in September 2010 and lost 95,000 jobs overall. (US Labor Department). Over the last decade net job creation in the United States was zero.

UK data extrapolated from Summary of National Labour Force Survey Data Table 1.
United Kingdom Age 16+ (Thousands) seasonally adjusted
Total in Employment
Quarter January-March 1971 24,613,00m
Quarter February-April 2011 29,239,000m
Change in 40 years + 4.6 million
Of the total 29,239m, 7,953m worked part-time. 15.6% wanted but could not find full-time work. (Table 3)

The world was completely transformed by oil for the duration of the twentieth century, but if the EIA graph is right, within 20 years it will be vastly depleted as we face rising demand and trying to support over 4 billion more people in just 40 years. Here are just some of the issues:

- planning for the replacement of oil in its essential role in EVERY industry;
- planning how to replace cars and transport in our daily lives, and distribute agricultural produce and manufactured goods;
- manufacturing and installing millions of home energy installations to replace fossil fuel-sourced heating;
- planning how to replace and fuel the largest military establishment in history, almost completely dependent upon oil;
- supporting a global population that, at currently fertility rates, is heading for over 11 billion people by 2050 (UNPD) - without the "green agricultural revolution," made possible by the age of oil and where over two billion are already suffering from malnutrition;
- re-powering tractors essential to producing food on a large scale;
- securing imperilled water pumping and sewage plants, dependent on fossil fuel energy to work.

There will be few oil-burning ships transporting grain and other goods to the billions now dependent on them, or oil-burning airlines serving the world's major cities and the vital global tourist economy. Yet in September 2011 the Airbus Company predicted that the global passenger plane fleet will more than double by 2030. They are in dreamland.

– not least greater national food security, not more speculative office blocks on prime agricultural land. There is a vast amount that could be done without impacting on our quality of life. Some reductions many people would welcome. To name just a few:

- reducing unnecessary road lighting in the country and reduced but better lighting optics in our towns, along with cutting office lighting at night;
- cutting TV advertising screens in supermarkets and multiple TVs in bars;
- controlling the mass of unsolicited mail-shots falling out of papers and through our doors;
- cutting multiple daily flights on short-haul routes, by expanding high-speed train networks;
- cutting production of gas-guzzling performance vehicles.

Every local and national authority needs to start now to address these challenges seriously and examine services considered most vulnerable to long-term reduction in available fuel supplies. Still we carry on with our head in the sands, wasting resources on an epic scale. There has been little forewarning and planning. Our children won’t thank us for inheriting a world taken to an abyss.

Melbourne's environment is steadily deteriorating as rapid population growth continues but some are insulated by wealth against the effects of this.Article first published January 1, 2012 but republished after site damage on January 6, 2012. I had over 100 reads when it was lost.

In city and suburbs trees fall victim to greed,
Backyards are demolished for a so called need
Of people awaiting all our precious spaces
And we give them up and then turn on the *races.

Our surroundings decline as we stand by and watch

And try to explain it in terms in terms of *“hop scotch”
“If you move to there these ones can move in
Then cover your garden, it’s no longer a sin.”

We think ourselves rich but sometimes we wonder
When our Bay is “un-swimmable” after rain, hail and thunder,
Was it like this when we were all kids?
The Melbourne environment is now on the skids!

But to our weekenders, some of us go

To beaches and sun or to ski in the snow
It still seems to the lucky ones everything’s dandy,
While for the rest of the people there’s little that’s handy.

“Have you heard of Peak Oil ?” I hear someone say,
“No problem” ‘s the answer, “Make fuel out of hay!”
“There’s plenty of growth still there in the system,
It’s elastic, you know- build ‘em higher and list ‘em

On domains that take in the populous places
I care not about problems that everyone faces

When too many people chase scarce flats and houses
I’m content with my mansion and grey suit and trousers.”

*"races" broadcast horse racing in Australia a favorite diversion from anything serious.
*"Bay"-Port Phillip Bay, the shallow lake like sea that get's filled with ordure, a danger to health when it rains heavily.
*"hop scotch"-Old children’s game where players move around different parts of a diagram drawn into the ground

Santa is feeling the pressure of increased work as population and density of housing in cities increases. He sympathises with the nurses.

‘Twas the night before Christmas and Santa was stressed
His elves overworked but doing their best,
To keep up the good work which grew more and more
To satisfy children entitled by law,
To a visit from Santa on December 24
Down steep sooty chimneys and then out the door.

“There're too many houses and too many toys
To make and distribute to girls and to boys!”
Cried the elves overworked to skin and to bone ,
Stressed out of their brains while they talked on the phone,
Of how to deliver those millions of presents
When the moon on that night would be only a crescent

And since their last trip,10 million new houses
Awaited delivery of toys and of blouses,
They knew from last year the work had expanded
Crafting millions more toys e’er Santa landed
Back at the north pole from his twenty ten orbit,
Which took him so long he was candidly morbid

Crying “How can they ask for more work each year?
Productivity improvements come very dear
To us in our workplace we cannot do better
Please think of our health and do not send letters!
There’s too many of you and too few of us,
Our reindeer hang in there and don’t make a fuss

But when they look for a house and then they find eight.
Poor Santa gets worried as he’s running so late!
Those planners and pollies do not think ahead,
Not even to the night when their kids go to bed
Expecting one man to come to ever more homes
With wonderful trinkets and be-jeweled combs."

"It’s all very well for them and for theirs
I now have to climb all those millions of stairs!
I’m not getting younger and neither are they
But their superannuation will save the day.
Like all those dear nurses, I love what I do
But pressure from others just stuffs me up too.”

Wednesday 21st December 2011 - press release from Kelvin Thomson, MP.
You can reply here and you can reply on Mr Thomson's blog.

Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show that, with the exception of Singapore, during the last 5 years Australia ran far and away the biggest per capita migration program in the world – 11.1 migrants per thousand people per year. After us came Italy, with 6.7, Canada 6.6, Sweden 5.8, Hong Kong 5.1, the United States and the United Kingdom 3.3, and New Zealand 3.1. In fact we could cut our migration program to 74,000, rather than 174,000, and we’d still be running one of the biggest per capita programs in the world – as big as the UK, Italy and Sweden, and bigger than the US and New Zealand.

I believe the Australian people are instinctively generous and good-hearted, but their tolerance has been stretched to breaking point by the quadrupling of the skilled migration program over the past 15 years, which has generated competition for jobs and housing and put pressure on family living standards.

As a consequence the debate about asylum seekers is very divisive. It is doing nothing for our sense of national unity and respect for each other.

We should not expect the Australian people to accept an increase in the refugee intake in isolation. It should be part of a package where skilled migration is cut by 50,000. There are many good reasons to cut our migration program, and one of them is that it is likely to lift public support for an increased refugee program, which I think it’s something we have to bring to the table when we are working with our regional neighbours on the asylum seeker issue. Furthermore the Australian people have said over and over that they think our migration level is too high, so cutting our massive migration rate is giving the Australian people what they want.

In fact we could cut our migration program to 74,000, rather than 174,000, and we’d still be running one of the biggest per capita programs in the world – as big as the UK, Italy and Sweden, and bigger than the US and New Zealand.

Stable Population Party Australia has finalised its core values and posted them to their website. In 2012 they say that they will be calling for new policy suggestions that align with these party values. Take a look...

Philosophy, Objectives & Core Values

(Click here to go to the SPPA site.)
Australia has a rich tradition in migration and choice regarding family size. Long may this continue.

The Stable Population Party is made up of Australians from all backgrounds who support an ongoing, balanced and flexible migration program. We also reject government interference in decisions regarding family size, including offering irresponsible 'bonus' cash incentives for children. Responsible population policies are urgently required for Australia, in order to avoid draconian policies in the future.

Stabilising as soon as practicably possible will deliver us an optimum population target of around 23-26 million through to 2050. Australia's fertility rate, currently around two children per woman, and average life expectancy would largely determine the exact number. Population growth in Australia is a big problem but it is easy to solve, if our politicians have the courage.

Philosophy

The Stable Population Party is committed to a stable, sustainable, open and tolerant Australia.

Objectives

The key objectives of the Stable Population Party are as follows:

To stabilise Australia's population as soon as practicably possible, aiming for a population of around 23-26 million through to 2050; and
To provide leadership and support to other countries experiencing rapid population growth, so as to help them stabilise their populations, and thus help stabilise global population.

Core Values

To enhance the prosperity of all Australians, our children and grandchildren, and create a better quality of life for all, the Stable Population Party upholds the following core values:

1. Sustainable living

Australia should progress economically and socially using resources in ecologically sustainable ways to protect the environment and the natural world. The aim is wellbeing for all Australians, present and future, and to preserve the biodiversity of our ecosystems, with enough space and resources to live well and in balance with each other. A sustainable Australia starts with a stable population.

2. Egalitarian democracy

All individuals should have equal opportunity to take part in the democratic process. We are committed to honest administration that prioritises the public interest and does not pander to vested interests. Public policy should be based on objective evidence-based advice in light of wider social, economic, environmental, national security and cultural concerns. Importantly, we Australians must be allowed to democratically choose our own population size, mindful of our finite resource base and likely future global challenges.

3. Fiscal responsibility

Public finances and resources should be properly managed and accounted for, so as to ensure Australia lives within its means, without indebting our children and grandchildren or running down our environments. This includes properly accounting for the costs of population growth, like infrastructure, the depletion of our mineral and energy wealth and the growing impacts of our waste.

4. Global citizenship

Through partnership, example and assistance, Australia should help other nations to live well and plan their own future within their sustainable resource base. While welcoming our fair share of genuine refugees, we should acknowledge that overpopulation drives the resource scarcity behind most current conflicts and forced migration. By stabilising their populations through voluntary family planning and empowerment of women, nations protect their food security, improve infant and maternal health, maximise resilience to climate change, free up investment to build prosperity and avoid labour exploitation. All people should be able to live in peace and harmony in their homeland.

5. Productive innovation

We encourage innovation and sustainable development. In economic, environmental, social and cultural fields we advocate renewed investment in research, training and higher education. The aim is to support a skilled, productive and creative nation, allowing Australians to fulfil their potential.

Mary Drost of Planning Backlash and the Marvellous Melbourne website has picked up Matthew Guy's 'challenge' on population growth and comes back with the figures and this statement. We look forward to Matthew Guy's response.

Statement re Natural Population Increase of Melbourne versus the Additional Population Increase caused by Immigration

Minister Matthew Guy’s Challenge to me was that

"Figures show that Melbourne would still increase by 500 a week even if there was no immigration. So what do we do about that?"

Firstly, I understand Melbourne is actually growing by more like 1,800 a week (90,000 a year) so natural increase is less than a third of the problem.

This Challenge needed a response using figures produced by others than those representing big business, since they often present only those figures that suit their push for growth and development. Therefore I have consulted with the top names in Australia who have been studying the growth of Australia and Melbourne and below are their findings. I challenge the growth lobby on their biased stand, as evidenced by the fact that they appear to have given you only a misleading fragment of the picture.

The CPUR has prepared new projections for household growth in Melbourne. Given recent demographic developments (including the decline in overseas student enrolments in Melbourne). It is likely that Net Overseas Migration to Melbourne will average around 35,000 a year and that fertility will fall because of the record high price of entry level housing.

Given these assumptions, the number of households in Melbourne will increase by around 750,000 over the next 30 years.
Over the next decade (2011 -2021) the number of households in Melbourne will increase by around 286,000.

Less than a third of this would be needed with balanced migration (zero net migration), which is the world’s average.

There are two sources of growth in the number of households. One end is the young who want to get into the housing market. The other end is the growing older group as the baby boomers replace the currently much smaller number of retirement aged residents. But most of these older households will stay in their houses even though they become 'empty nests' and partners die.

High rise does not solve the needs of young families. They will want family oriented housing, preferably a detached house or if not possible a town house or unit in a suburban setting. Therefore the current forest of high rise apartments will be left high and dry, or will be filled with unwilling and discontented residents. Most of these younger families will have no choice but to move to the fringe because that is where affordable detached housing is likely to be located. Those who want to live in established suburbia will have to compete with immigrants for the limited dwelling units available, because most are occupied by baby boomers.

The burden on cities like Melbourne can be relieved by reducing Australia’s immigration quotas; otherwise the crisis of housing affordability young people already face will get worse. Further the burden on any government trying to solve the overloaded infrastructure problem while population grows freely is enormous.

PROJECTIONS OF AUSTRALIA’S POPULATION GROWTH to 2050 show that for the Big Australia projection (assuming net overseas migration of 180.000 a year – which is around the current outcome) will mean an increase from 22 million now to 36 million in 2050. Of this increase,
4 million by 2050 - will be from natural increase alone
10 million by 2050 - immigration plus children of migrants born in Australia

Natural increase is high at present because the baby boomer generation’s children are now in child bearing age. This is projected to decrease after a decade or so and eventually will stabilise so that births will equal deaths. So it is a short term issue. The biggest problem is the high rate of migration. State governments have a duty to point this out to Canberra. Handling even Melbourne’s current 20-25,000 a year natural increase strains its resources, so the federal government should be encouraged to reduce immigration.

Hence to claim that "growth is inevitable even without immigration" would be dishonest, unless one also mentions that the growth produced with balanced (net zero)  immigration would in fact  be temporary and fast diminishing.
 
Mary Drost

This information has been obtained from the current studies being undertaken by Dr Bob Birrell of Monash University and including discussions with Dr Tony Recsei of Sydney, Mark O’Connor of Canberra, author of Overloading Australia, Jill Quirk of Sustainable Population Australia and Kelvin Thomson MP.

See also Marvellous Melbourne

Why have many academicians apparently been rendered dumbstruck during my lifetime by what is all-too-obvious? Absolute global human population numbers can be clearly seen skyrocketing since the end of World War II. When I was born, 2.3 billion human beings lived on Earth. In a single lifetime of threescore and ten years (1945 – 2015) human population numbers are projected and fully expected to increase by 5+/- billion people. How can so many economists and demographers not see what is happening?
by Steven Earl Salmony (SESALMONY AT aol.com)

It is almost 2012. Why have many academicians apparently been rendered dumbstruck during my lifetime by what is all-too-obvious? Absolute global human population numbers can be clearly seen skyrocketing since the end of World War II. Experts are certainly not stupid, and yet I wonder if they are playing stupid? Have they been mislead by personal arrogance, extreme foolhardiness and wanton greed or overcome by a lust for influence, privilege and power? Or all of the above? Perhaps the cascading reports in the mass media of many too many so-called experts are governed by political convenience, economic expediency, social suitability, religious dogma and cultural conventions in the service of their shared ideology as well as their idolatry of the global economy. When I was born, 2.3 billion human beings lived on Earth. In a single lifetime of threescore and ten years (1945 – 2015) human population numbers are projected and fully expected to increase by 5+/- billion people. How can so many economists and demographers not see what is happening? Do their professional activities have something to do with science? I say no, definitely not.

I can find much preternatural[1] thought and unscientific research among the 'experts' in demography and economics, but cannot locate adequate scientific evidence that supports the idea of "human exceptionalism" with regard to the population dynamics of the human species. Although the idea of human exceptionalism is known to be specious from a scientific point of view, because it is of vital importance to ideologues and those who primarily benefit from the way the global political economy is organized and managed, human exceptionalism has not been the subject of sufficient scrutiny by scientists and consequently allowed to stand uncontested during my lifetime. Even today scientists refuse to identify the idea of human exceptionalism regarding human population dynamics as the false proposition it is. First class scientists remain electively mute when confronted with scientific research that directly contradicts the idea of human exceptionalism. Where is the scientific research to support the idea that human beings are somehow exempted from ecological "rules of the house" in our planetary home, as many so-called experts in economics and demography have regularly and adamantly proclaimed since the time of my birth.

The family of humanity appears to have been confused and harmed for many too many years by ideologically driven sycophants and absurdly enriched minions of the rich and powerful who have dishonestly been laying claim to scientific knowledge that they have not ever possessed. Demographers and economists are not scientists, the imprimatur of the IUSSP and the Nobel Prize Committee notwithstanding. These disciplines never have been fields of scientific study and never will be, at least not until demographic theories and economic models conform to the biological and physical laws of the world we inhabit, laws based upon the best available science. Science is. And whatsoever is is, is it not?

Extant scientific research of human population dynamics/overpopulation has been consciously and deliberately ignored by demographers, economists and even respected scientists with adequate expertise. All of them have failed to stand up for science and humanity by speaking truth to the greedmongering movers and shakers of the global political economy who rule the world in our time and appear dead set on ravaging the Earth and degrading its environs until the planet is an unfit place for children everywhere to inhabit. If my perspective could somehow be on the right track, then we are bearing witness not only to the greatest failure of nerve, intellectual honesty, moral courage of all time, but also to an incomprehensible loss of capacity to do the right thing, according to the lights each of us possesses.

Steven Earl Salmony is a self-proclaimed global citizen, a psychologist and father of three grown children. Married nearly 40 years. In 2001 Steve founded the AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population to raise consciousness of the colossal threat that the unbridled, near exponential growth of absolute global human population numbers poses for all great and small living things on Earth in our time. His quixotic campaign focuses upon the best available science of human population dynamics and human overpopulation of the Earth, in order to save the planet as a place fit for habitation by children everywhere. He can be reached at SESALMONY AT aol.com

Footnotes

1. Preternatural Pre`ter*nat"u*ral (?; 135), a. [Pref. preter + natural.]
Beyond of different from what is natural, or according to the regular course of things, but not clearly supernatural or miraculous; strange; inexplicable; extraordinary; uncommon; irregular; abnormal; as, a preternatural appearance; a preternatural stillness; a preternatural presentation (in childbirth) or labor.
[1913 Webster]

No sooner did Madeline Weld finish her CBC interview about human overpopulation, when the Green-Left brigade swung into action trying to douse the flames ignited by truth. But this time they were too late. The truth got out.

This is a podcast of the 20 minute discussion (and debate) between Madeline Weld and Robert Engleman.
http://www.cbc.ca/quirks/media/2011-2012/qq-2011-10-29_04.mp3

While I was not impressed by Engleman's dismissive and somewhat condescending tone----or with his arguments for that matter---- for an exercise in pure denial try this response from Canada's very own Ian Angus, who is allied with fellow ego-socialists like Australian Simon Butler of The Green-Left weekly and Derek Wall of the Green Party of England and Wales http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=5707 . Having just published a 'population-is-a-red-herring--and--old---Malthusian--myth' book and conducted a misinformation tour of Australia, these folks are in fever-pitch to fight off reality wherever it turns its ugly head.

Angus must be kicking himself though, because this time, it appears he and his smear network were asleep at the switch when the CBC invited Madeline to their show. Normally they are vigilant about upcoming media interviews with Malthusians and immigration-reformers and are quick to forewarn the producers, editors and journalists that we are racist, anti-immigrant, anti-women, anti-people and apologists for the rich and greedy. That's why we often find that the interview or op-ed that was promised to us has been cancelled without credible reasons given. This time, however, we slipped through before the blacklist could be made operational. This might prove that Angus might have a life after all. Maybe he was distracted by important things------ who knows. But he clearly let his side down on this one. Some Grand Inquistor he is. Writing a letter to the producer AFTER the fact is like closing the barn door after the horse has got away.

Ian, if you are going to fill Joe McCarthy's shoes you are going to have to put all you have into it. Silencing the population debate must be a full-time job. Letting us in the door to exercise our freedom of speech is simply unacceptable. What kind of blacklister are you, any way? I'll bet Betsy Hartman won't even speak to you now.

Never mind, its too late now. The damage has been done. Madeline Weld has spoken the truth and 500,000 Canadians heard it. At last.

Tim Murray

PS Mr. Angus thinks population concerns are purely ideological and without scientific merit. What one wonders then, is what exactly is scientific about his assertion that population numbers are irrelevant. I think he needs to visit an optometrist. He seems to have trouble seeing elephants at close quarters.

On October 29, CBC Radio's Quirks and Quarks featured two guests to discuss the world at 7 billion people, Robert Engelman, President of the Worldwatch Institute in Washington and Madeline Weld, President of the Population Institute of Canada.

Podcast of Quirks and Quarks program on World at 7 Billion

.

The United Nations estimates that on October 31st, the world's population will reach 7 billion. Although the actual number is not certain, it does underlie the fact that our population is growing at an alarming rate. It took until the early 1800's to reach the 1 billion mark, but the last 50 years alone have seen the births of 4 of the total 7 billion This rapid increase raises the question, how many more people can the earth sustain? Or have we already surpassed the earth's capacity? Among the many people asking questions like this are Dr. Madeline Weld, President of the Ottawa-based Population Institute of Canada, and Robert Engelman, President of The Worldwatch Institute in Washington. They discuss how various factors - including access to contraception, the empowerment of women, poverty, consumerism, and the environment - apply to our population growth, now and in the future.

According to WWF UK and most other environmental organisations like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, it is demand from wealthy nations that is the real problem and the world’s unsustainable population growth is not a fundamental concern, merely something to ignore, because it is an ‘inconvenient truth’.

This month WWF (formerly the World Wildlife Fund) celebrates its 50th year of work.

Launched in the UK in October 1961, WWF can be justly proud of what it has achieved, its dedicated volunteers and its ‘Living Planet reports’, published with the Global Footprint Network and the Zoological Society of London. But there is a profound challenge that WWF and many environmental groups choose to ignore - a problem that will soon become a disaster, unless we wake up.

Writing in the February 2011 ‘Action’ magazine for members, WWF UK’s chief executive, David Nussbaum, tells us:

“you can only achieve these successes if you have a trenchant grasp on the threats.” “Statistics aside, there’s one single pattern that stands out above all others: that demand from wealthy nations is driving the extraction of natural resources in poorer countries.”

According to WWF UK and most other environmental organisations like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, it is demand from wealthy nations that is the real problem and the world’s unsustainable population growth is not a fundamental concern, merely something to ignore, because it is an ‘inconvenient truth’.

Instead they like to tell us that ‘if only people in developed nations each reduced our environmental demand, human numbers would not be a problem. But our economic system, predicated on ever more growth, is driving us in the opposite direction. Even if all the efficiency and renewable alternatives could be implemented the savings would be quickly wasted if populations continue to grow.
In October 2011 WWF (formerly the World Wildlife Fund) celebrated its 50th year of work.

Launched in the UK in October 1961, WWF can be justly proud of what it has achieved, its dedicated volunteers and its ‘Living Planet reports’, published with the Global Footprint Network and the Zoological Society of London. But there is a profound challenge that WWF and many environmental groups choose to ignore - a problem that will soon become a disaster, unless we wake up.

Writing in the February 2011 ‘Action’ magazine for members, WWF UK’s chief executive, David Nussbaum, tells us: “you can only achieve these successes if you have a trenchant grasp on the threats.” “Statistics aside, there’s one single pattern that stands out above all others: that demand from wealthy nations is driving the extraction of natural resources in poorer countries.”

According to WWF UK and most other environmental organisations like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, it is demand from wealthy nations that is the real problem and the world’s unsustainable population growth is not a fundamental concern, merely something to ignore, because it is an ‘inconvenient truth’.

Instead they like to tell us that ‘if only people in developed nations each reduced our environmental demand, human numbers would not be a problem. But our economic system, predicated on ever more growth, is driving us in the opposite direction. Even if all the efficiency and renewable alternatives could be implemented the savings would be quickly wasted if populations continue to grow.

In a fund-raising message on December 1, 2011, Peter Seligmann, chief executive of one of America’s biggest environmental groups - Conservation International, invited supporters to watch a video saying: Right now, there are 7 billion people on Earth, all of whom need nature for food, water, clean air, energy, jobs and more. Yet we are drawing down our resources as never before. The need to provide for 7 billion people - and the 80 million more who join us each year - is our new reality. We are placing a crushing burden on Earth’s ability to support us. But there is hope. Conservation International has an ambitious plan to change the way the world thinks about nature.

It looked as if Conservation International had woken up to the population challenge, but, go to the video link and it is all about getting your donation to preserve natural habitat. Beyond the seven million tag, they don't even talk about the need to reduce population growth as part of the solution.

For several decades there has been a willful blindness in recognising that relentless human population growth is one of the pre-eminent problems we face. A problem that is driving the astonishing growth of fossil fuel use and its depletion, climate warming, bio-diversity loss and species extinction, the growing shortage of fresh water to meet human needs - and as a consequence of these changes – the prospect that agriculture will be unable to produce enough food to feed us

In most countries today existing populations are not living environmentally sustainably. If current birth rates persist, the United Nations Population Division warned in March 2009 that our population will exceed 11 billion by 2050.

It is not a question of ‘either or’ and who needs to act. We are in this together. Rich nations are consuming too much and populations continue to rise. Legitimate aspirations to raise living standards in high population countries like China and India are consuming ever-more resources. In many developing countries with acute water and food shortages, populations are projected to double or triple in size within 40 years.

In Australia, with most of the country desert, the population is set to double every 33 years, fuelled mainly by high immigration. America, Canada and the UK’s already high environmental impact is also growing due to rising demographic pressures.

Egypt's population, dependent on a small strip of fertile land in the Nile Valley increased from 10 million in 1900 to 85 million in 2010 and is projected to be 130 million by 2050. Madagascar's beleaguered rainforest is surely threatened not just by logging companies but by continuing high population growth, projected to more than double by 2050.

In Ethiopia people are suffering enormously from the fact that their ancestors stripped the country of its forests because they needed to grow more food and get firewood to cook it. Ethiopia’s population in 1900 was just 12 million. Its current population of 85 million is projected to rise to 174 million by 2050, despite well-publicised famines.

How will governments provide all the schools, jobs and the food to feed populations that are set to more than double and in some countries triple in size in the next 40 years? Governments will be struggling with millions of unemployed and hungry populations attracted to violence and extremism. You can try reducing consumption all you want, but when you keep adding 100 million and another 100 million, you simply drive every human to a lower and lower standard of living. You cannot escape that reality.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) assessment in October 2008 found a quarter of all mammal species on the planet are now under threat of extinction.

In evidence to the All Party Parliamentary Group in 2006, Sir David King, then UK Government chief scientist, warned: “It is self-evident that the massive growth in the human population through the 20th century has had more impact on bio-diversity than any other single factor.”

Since the 1970s WWFs high-profile Save the Tiger campaign has repeatedly asked the public for money. Yet 35 years later WWF tells us that tiger populations are in ever more drastic decline.

It is worrying that global environmental organisations like WWF, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and others appear blind to these warnings. Since the 1970s, most environmental organisations, for a variety of ‘politically correct’ assumptions on who not to ‘offend’, wilfully neglect their responsibility to talk about the subject.

When pressed with the fact that human numbers are in massive overshoot and impacting hugely on bio-diversity, WWF obfuscates and pretends that it is somehow sustainable – even cutting off debate in its supporter magazine. Not only are they deluding themselves by refusing to talk openly about the fundamental cause of our ever rising impact on the planet, they are deluding their supporters who fund them.

Even if areas dedicated to conserving plants, animals, and other species that provide Earth's life support system increased tenfold, it would not be enough without dealing with the big issues of population, over-consumption and inefficient resource use.

While the number of protected areas on land and sea has increased dramatically since the 1980s, now totalling over 100,000 in number, covering 17 million square kilometres of land and two million square kilometres of oceans, protecting bits of nature here and there will not prevent humanity from losing our life support system.

The report’s lead author Camilo Mora of the University of Hawaii points out that global expenditure on protected areas is estimated at six billion dollars per year and many areas are insufficiently funded for effective management. Effectively managing existing protected areas, he says, requires an estimated 24 billion dollars per year - four times the current expenditure.

One thing WWF doesn’t like to emphasise - except in an obscure footnote, is that the Living Planet Report’s regularly updated global human footprint calculation makes no allowance for set aside natural habitat to sustain bio-diversity and wildlife. Yet this was WWF’s primary mission.

They would do well to remember the words of WWF’s co-founder, Sir Peter Scott in his 1996 autobiography: “If the human population of the world continues to increase at it’s present rate, there will soon be no place for wildlife or wild places….But I believe that sooner or later man will learn to limit his overpopulation. Then he will become much more widely concerned with optimum rather than maximum, quality rather than quantity.”

He later remarked on a visit to an elephant project in Zambia: “You know, I have often thought that at the end of the day, we would have saved more wildlife if we had spent all WWF’s money on buying condoms.”

People should be asking whether major environmental organisations are ‘fully fit for purpose’? Are they instead, ‘rearranging the deck chairs and polishing the furniture while the planet is sinking? Is a generous legacy gift ultimately going to be a lost opportunity, unless global environmental groups start talking openly about population?

In early 2011 WWF produced a report with the Ecofys consultancy, claiming it was possible to cut emissions and move to a 100% Renewable Energy world by 2050. There were many sensible ideas in the report, but the potential for reducing population growth and the beneficial impact this would also have on emissions, energy demand and bio-diversity was never mentioned.

Part of the report’s solution was to persuade people to eat half as much meat to make the calculations realistic. It is amazing that so many 'green' groups promote this restriction as a 'highly desirable and necessary' option, yet refuse to contemplate the alternative of having less children, because it impacts on people's 'freedom of choice'.

The more crowded we become, the more governments will restrict our activities. There will be precious little choice of any kind left, if we go on multiplying with no thought for the future.

Saving the planet and greenwash

Green groups, like politicians, like to stress how alternative technologies will save the day. A huge problem is most alternative energy sources are poor net energy performers. Hydrogen provides only a quarter the energy as the same volume of petrol. Ethanol, produced from corn or sugarcane, contains 33 per cent less energy and competes with food production, while wind and solar are intermittent.

Apart from bicycles, there are virtually no functioning forms of transportation that are not powered by oil. Most jobs would cease to exist without it.

Governments now plan to spend billions by substantially increasing nuclear generation.
Experts say even doubling the number of reactors across the world could see commercially extractable uranium ore run out in just 20 to 30 years. Unless there is an unlikely breakthrough with fusion power and we drastically cut demand, we are on course to exhaust the energy we need in the lifetime of many people alive today.

The Stockholm International Water Institute calculated in 2008 that 1.4 billion people live in regions where existing water cannot meet the agricultural, industrial, municipal and environmental needs of all.

And then there is the impact of climate change. The accelerating icecap melt will make at least a metre rise in sea level probable by 2100 - threatening the world's major cities and fertile crop-growing deltas.

Population Matters

If governments and major environmental groups won’t talk population, then they are not serious about cutting emissions, managing the water supply, managing food supplies, and a secure quality of life for our people. Do we plan for a secure and better life or do we carry on blindly towards a minefield of lethal limits, trashing the planet and our children's future?

Unless green groups and others open their eyes to the key impact of population growth we will be swept aside when the ethics and politics of scarcity replaces the ethics and politics of transient abundance. When affordable oil and fossil fuel runs out and we find that the hope of renewable alternatives no way meet our ever growing demand.

We still have a choice. The world badly needs a grown-up, rational discussion of the population issue. The High Priests of the Green movement need to gain some courage. Al Gore and all the other Priests need to begin to speak openly and accurately about the critical role of our rapidly rising population on a planet of rapidly diminishing resources, to the large following of people who trust them.

It would be a tragedy if population growth became a catastrophe - a catastrophe we were too polite to talk about. Our children will not thank us for inheriting a world driven to the abyss.

Population analyst, Brian McGavin, writes about the silent crisis in our midst, of overpopulation. "Today there is a ‘Silent Crisis’ in our midst. The crisis, still largely unrecognised, is potentially greater than all the other problems that transfix our policy makers. For many decades now there has been a willful blindness in recognising that relentless human population growth is one of the pre-eminent problems we face. Rather than providing solutions and leadership, "More and more developed countries offering new ‘baby bonuses’ make it even less likely that we will achieve the lower figures being quoted in the media."

The Silent Crisis

Today there is a ‘Silent Crisis’ in our midst. The crisis, still largely unrecognised, is potentially greater than all the other problems that transfix our policy makers.

For many decades now there has been a willful blindness in recognising that relentless human population growth is one of the pre-eminent problems we face. A problem that is driving the astonishing growth of fossil fuel use and its depletion, climate warming, bio-diversity loss, the growing shortage of fresh water to meet human needs - and as a consequence of these changes - the prospect that agriculture will be unable to produce enough food to feed us.

Nothing to celebrate

In 1950 world population was barely over two billion. As we pass seven billion at the end of October, it is nothing to celebrate.

In most countries today existing populations are not living environmentally sustainably, yet even if the UN’s assumptions of birth-rate decline in developing countries happens, global population will rise to 9.3 billion by 2050. Less reported is that if current birth rates persist, the United Nations Population Division warned in March 2009 that our population will exceed 11 billion in just 40 years.

More and more developed countries offering new ‘baby bonuses’ make it even less likely that we will achieve the lower figures being quoted in the media.

We have to start thinking about a ‘genuinely sustainable’ rather than ‘endless growth’ economy – an economy that is already faltering around us. Politicians focus on reviving economic growth and stimulating spending, but in an era of rapidly depleting resources, the ‘business as usual’ economy will need to be radically rethought to keep our complex society functioning, with a transition to a dynamic, self-supporting economy that satisfies our needs.

Growth Lobby

The growth lobby is pushing two great myths: That our ageing populationwill be a disaster unless we have higher birth rates and, despite rising unemployment, there is a terrible shortage of labour that only high immigration can supply. Both claims have been repeatedly shown to be either false or grossly exaggerated. They have huge long-term costs on our infrastructure and environment. Young people get old too and have higher dependency costs. Politicians don’t emphasise this.

In Africa, the UN now admits that it won’t meet its Millennium Development Goals but fails to explain the underlying causes for pessimism. Many countries in Africa already have massive unemployment and not enough food. How will they provide all the schools, jobs, hospitals and food to sustain populations that are set to more than double and in some cases triple in size in the next 40 years?

Governments will be struggling with millions of unemployed and hungry people attracted to violence and extremism. Look at the problems already in our news in countries like Haiti, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and Afghanistan – all countries on constant food aid, with exploding populations and increasingly scarce resources – yet population growth is never mentioned!

In Australia, mainly arid and with a water crisis, the population is set to double every 33 years, fuelled mainly by high immigration. America, Canada and the UK’s already high environmental impact is also increasing due to demographic pressures.

Saving the planet and greenwash

Most environmental organisations tell us that ‘if only we each reduced our environmental demand, population growth would not be a problem’. But our economic system, predicated on growth, is driving us in the opposite direction. Even if all the efficiency and renewable alternatives could be implemented the savings would be quickly wasted if populations continue to grow.

You can try reducing consumption all you want, but when you keep adding 100 million and another 100 million, you simply drive every human to a lower and lower standard of living. You cannot escape that reality.

Most experts now agree we will pass ‘peak oil’ production in 2012 and production of all liquid fossil fuels will drop within 20 years to half what it is today. Yet, forecasts project energy demand will grow by 60 per cent between 2002 and 2030. (Sources: (US) Energy Information Administration and chief executive, BP oil).

A huge problem is most alternative energy sources are poor energy performers because they need a high-energy input to provide a given energy return. Wind and solar power are intermittent, while Hydrogen is only as clean as the fuel source used to produce it and provides only a quarter the energy as the same volume of gasoline. Ethanol, from corn or sugarcane, contains 33 per cent less energy than the same amount of oil and competes with food production. Already, 18 per cent of U.S. corn now goes to producing ethanol, but provides only one per cent of the liquid fuel used in the U.S.

Charles Hall, professor of Environmental Science at the State University of New York, warns that apart from bicycles, there are virtually no functioning forms of transportation that are not powered by oil. Most products are made with petroleum and most jobs would cease to exist without it. Renewables (other than hydropower or wood) currently provide less than one per cent of the energy used in the world, but the annual increase in the use of most fossil fuels is far greater than the total electricity production from wind turbines and photovoltaics.

Governments now plan to spend billions by substantially increasing nuclear generation. Apart from potentially critical contamination risks, even doubling the number of reactors across the world could see commercially extractable uranium ore run out in just 20 years.

According to some energy analysts, the energy commitment required in mining, waste storage and disposal will shortly make the nuclear industry a net user of energy, just when the energy famine begins to hit hard. Unless there is an unlikely breakthrough with fusion power and we drastically cut demand, we are on course to exhaust the energy we need in the lifetime of many people alive today.

Professor John Beddington, UK Chief Scientist, warned in March 2009 that: “Our food reserves are at a 50-year low, but by 2030 we need to be producing 50% more food, we will need 50% more energy, and 30% more fresh water. They are dramatic problems, and they are all intimately connected”

Water

The Stockholm International Water Institute calculated in 2008 that 1.4 billion people live in regions where existing water cannot meet the agricultural, industrial, municipal, and environmental needs of all and only 2.5 per cent of the world’s water is fresh. Today, one person in five across the world has no access to safe drinking water, and one in three lacks safe sanitation.

Around 19% of US energy demand goes into food production. Fossil fuels to meet this demand are declining and many regions are already reaching the limits of their water resources, according to the UN’s World Water Development Report in 2009.
And then there is the impact of climate change. The accelerating icecap melt will make at least a metre rise in sea level probable by 2100 - threatening the world's major cities and fertile crop-growing deltas. Freshwater glaciers that feed major rivers used for irrigation are shrinking.

If governments won’t talk population, then they are not serious about cutting emissions, managing the water supply, managing food supplies, and a secure quality of life for our people. We can secure a way to genuine sustainability and a fairer use of resources, but we have to recognise the problem and act quickly.

It is not a question of ‘either or’ and who needs to act. We are in this together. Rich nations are consuming too much and populations continue to rise. Legitimate aspirations to raise living standards in high population countries like China and India are consuming ever-more resources. In many developing countries with acute water and food shortages, populations are projected to double or triple in size within 40 years – driving social unrest and migration on a massive scale.

There are several key challenges we have to talk about and face. In particular, ensuring development aid from donor countries delivers fully accessible and properly funded reproductive health care for all, along with equal access to education for girls and women. In many countries there are still barriers to this. We also have to start incentivising welfare systems to encourage fewer births rather than more.

Moral values?

Some people believe they have a right to have as many children as they want, whether they can look after them or not and fail to understand or just ignore the consequences of human population growth. Many commentators wilfully promote an ever-larger population in the name of freedom of choice. There will be precious little choice left if we go on multiplying with no thought for the future.

Others claim their religion as an excuse for actions that impact on others: Have large families "in the name of God"; Over-consuming resources? "God will provide” - so we don't need to think about the ecological consequences; and when the day of reckoning and collapse arrives - "It is God's will" - a religious opt-out from moral responsibility.

We have superior intellect to understand the consequences of our actions and the ecological and social devastation that will run like a scourge of misery for billions if population keeps increasing. Do we plan for a secure and better life or do we carry on blindly toward a minefield of lethal limits?

Rights come with responsibilities. Governments ‘incentivise’ many aspects of our lives for a common good, but the more crowded we become the more governments will police our behaviour and restrict our activities. We still have a choice. The world badly needs a grown-up, rational discussion of the population issue - without blame, abuse and hysteria.

It would be a tragedy if population growth became a catastrophe - a catastrophe we were too polite to talk about. Our children will not thank us for being driven to an abyss.

Originally submitted as, "The Silent Crisis,"
by Brian McGavin, writer and analyst, dated September 2011.

Click on the picture above to respond to the poll in the Age for 17th-18th October which asks your opinion on the question, "Can climate change be solved without population control?"

Picture showed result at around 2330 hrs.

Most objections to Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard's Carbon Tax are founded on the apparent belief that it is possible for human society to continue its wasteful consumption of non-renewable natural resources and destruction of our natural environment without posing any risk to the life support system which exists in this tiny corner of a Universe, mostly barren of life.

However, compared to what can be done and what must be done if human civilisation is to hope to further endure for a period which even remotely approaches the 32,000 years since our ancestors left evidence of intelligence probably equaling our own in the in the Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave of the Ardèche department of southern France, the proposed Carbon Tax is a joke in extremely poor taste..

At best, the Carbon Tax is token gesture by Government and its corporate masters to be acting to protect our future. At worst, it is another paper economy scam that will allow wealth to be gouged from the rest of us by unproductive members of society whilst weighing us down with yet more more red tape.

This article was adapted from a #comment-159465">comment I made in response to A long time coming … an article by Professor John Quiggin written on 13 October. It has yet to draw a response there. If any visitors to candobetter.net decide that this article is more worthy of a response than visitors to johnquiggin.com have so far indicated, comments, whether critical or supportive, are most welcome.

I have sympathy with very few of those who are so stridently denouncing Julia Gillard's Carbon Tax.

True, the way she went about introducing it is questionable from the standpoint of democratic principles, but those who are against the Carbon Tax seem to want us to believe that Earth is not facing an environmental crisis which could well threaten threaten the life support system that sustains human life.

Without getting into the scientific argument, when the conditions which support life are so rare in the Universe and those which support the sort of complex life forms which exist on Earth are rarer still, it defies common sense to think we can materially change our planet as much as we have done in the last three centuries and continue to do so at an an even faster rate without putting at risk the very conditions which sustain life.

We have substantially altered the concentration of the Earth's atmosphere by having dug up and burnt much humankind's nonrenewable endowment of fossil fuels that took at least tens of millions of years of sunlight and terrestrial biological and geological to produce.

How anyone can know for a fact that these changes to Earth's protective atmospheric blanket won't cause runaway global warming is beyond me. Given that our very future and the future of our children and descendants is at stake, it is surely most imprudent to assume that we can continue to quarry and export coal iron and other non-renewable natural resources at the accelerating rate that the likes of Qld Premier Anna Bligh and our leading 'free market' economic ideologues would have us do.

My own problem with the Carbon Tax is that it is, at best, a small fraction of what needs to be done to make human civilization truly sustainable.

If the Carbon Tax were to be adopted, even if comprehensively at the international level, does anyone seriously imagine that it will somehow induce the market to reduce, to any worthwhile extent, activities that are now consuming non-renewable resources?

Just go to the rubbish tip and ask for how many more decades they believe we can continue to extract the resources necessary to manufacture all the artifacts -- thrown out hi-fis, computers, TVs, fridges, cars, furniture, toys, etc. --- and packaging that has ended up there?

How is this going to stop manufacturers continuing to manufacture and sell, at an enormous cost to our natural capital, so many artifacts that are designed to fail after only a few years and which become inoperable when parts and batteries are lost because they refuse to make these compatible with similar artifacts?

Does anyone imagine that we could go on the way we are for more than a hundred more years?

David Montgomery's "Dirt - the Erosion of Civilisations" of 2007 shows how past civilisations -- Mesopotamia, ancient Greek civilisations, Rome, the Chaco Anasazi of North America. etc., which did not dig up dug up coal, oil and metals still only lasted hundreds of years, so could not be considered sustainable.

If they had dug up and wasted coal, oil and metals and deforested at the same rate as 21st century human civilisation does they could not have even lasted that long.

Any Government which does not attempt to make human civilisation at least as sustainable as those past failed rural civilisations once were is not serious about sustainabilty.

Gillard's Carbon Tax is only a token pretence of an attempt to achieve sustainability and nothing more.

Any serious sustainability policy would comprise at least:

1. Reuse of food and drink containers rather than the phony recycling schemes that our council rates are wasted to pay for.
2. Inducements, possibly including laws, to force manufacturers to cease planned obsolescence and the deliberate manufacture of artifacts with incompatible parts, particularly cables and batteries. If cars and motorcycled built at the start of the 20th century can still be run today, why, with the improvements in science and technology can't cars be built to last centuries? Why can't cars and motorcycles be handed down to our children and grandchildren instead of being consigned to the tip or scrap metal?
3. Real town planning so that it is not necessary for so many to spend as much of their days and waste so much petroleum traveling to and from work, educational institutions and amenities.
4. Proper planned public transport so that we don't have to own our own car to commute. End the Taxi license plate speculation scam so that taxis can be affordable to ordinary people and taxi drivers can earn a livable income in a 40 hour week and not a 72 hour week.
5. Outlawing the destruction of native forests to manufacture paper.
6. Preservation of bio-diversity. Stop destroying forests and other natural habitats, which other species need for their survival.
7. End the population growth/mass immigration Ponzi scheme. It is a lie that Australia's prosperity needs more people. Any honest measure of people's wellbeing would show that our prosperity, on average, as well as our sustainability, decrease as we add more people. Only a small minority, including property speculators and landlords, gain through population growth and they gain at everyone else's expense.

This is a response to Sheila Newman's comment Marxism is the other side of Capitalism

Few political groups and individuals who wear the label 'Marxist' (including this one) in 2011 are not working to serve the same ruling elites they claim to oppose or are not duped by those who are, but this was not always so.

Through much of 19th and 20th century history, a good many who labeled themselves 'Marxist', 'socialist', 'communist' or 'Trotskyist' were truly engaged in a struggle for a more equitable and democratic world.

Had they succeeded, the vast majority of humankind would today be in control its own destiny and not manipulated to serve the, short-sighted interests of the small selfish global elite.

If humankind were in control of its own destiny, as it could have been, there is no way that it would have allowed its population to grow to levels so much higher than the carrying capacity of this planet.

However, the elites of Europe and America and elsewhere prevented their people from emulating the example of the 1917 Russian Revolution in their own countries, notably in Germany in 1919, 1920 and 1923 and Great Britain in 1926 (as shown in the last episode of "Days of Hope" of 1975).

The isolation of the Russian Revolution led to its corruption by Stalin and in turn to the corruption of the whole international Communist movement.

In 2011, it's evident that this corruption has spread even to socialist groups which originated from the fight against that original corruption of the Communist movement. Not one of these groups in the US the UK or Australia even attempted to organise opposition to NATO's criminal war against Libya, See for yourself. Try to find any mention of Libya on any of these web sites: Green Left #fn1_7378" id="fn1_7378_text">[1], Direct Action #fn2_7378" id="fn2_7378_text">[2], the Socialist Alliance. #fn3_7378" id="fn3_7378_text">[3]In the UK, one group, Workers' Liberty has actually supported NATO's war against Libya(!!?).

Would those, who have so miserably failed to act to prevent NATO's destruction of Libya and mass murder of Libyans, have us truly believe that they give a damn about people from other countries?

If they appear to care for a tiny fraction of people from those countries, that is, those seeking to immigrate to First World countries, it is only because high immigration suits the interests of the very elites they claim to be against.

Footnotes

#fn1_7378" id="fn1_7378">1.[#fn1_7378_text">back] As of Saturday 8 October 2011, there is no mention of Libya on the main page, ...

#fn2_7378" id="fn2_7378">2.[#fn2_7378_text">back] One mention ostensibly opposed to the war dated 26 September, six months after the war began?! No other mention in its whole 'anti-war' section. No mention of silence of other 'Trotskyist' groups about Libya, nor of support for bombing of Libya by UK Workers' Liberty group with an Australian affiliate. If they truly oppose NATO's bombing of Libya, why cover up the shameful behaviour of other supposedly 'socialist' groups?

#fn3_7378" id="fn3_7378">3.[#fn3_7378_text">back] One mention dated 18 March 2011 on the main page.

In a brilliant new paper released this morning, Labor MP Kelvin Thomson has proposed his "Witches' Hats" theory of government -- a theory that places central importance on rates of population growth.

Democratic politicians, says Kelvin, are often bluffed by lobbyists who convince them that what is good for business is good for their or their governments' political longevity -- and that since population growth is good for business (or at least for big business, since it provides more customers) it must good for the Parties they belong to.

The reverse is the case, he says. It's not just in unstable states that rapid population growth is bad for political stability. Even in securely democratic countries, population growth destabilises leaders and governments.

One striking example is the amazingly rapid fall of Kevin Rudd, the (once) extremely popular Australian prime minister who pushed Australia's annual population growth in 2009 to 2.1%, nearly six times the average for industrialised countries, told the electorate "I support a big Australia" and had a meteoric fall in the opinion polls -- and from office. But Kelvin Thomson argues in his The Witches’ Hats Theory of Government: How increasing population is making the task of government harder that this connection is far more widespread than politicians and political analysts have yet recognised.

Why? Because staying in power, and keeping the electorate happy is a little like an advanced driving course, one in which a government is required to thread a kind of slalom course between a series of witches' hats -- meaning the orange inverted cones that mark out the course. These hats, which the government, like the driver, needs to avoid knocking over, include such things as keeping electricity and water costs down, reducing hospital queues, keeping housing affordable, preserving the environment, providing full employment, restricting inflation, etc.

And the faster a country’s population is rising, the harder it is to do this, says Kelvin Thomson. It’s like trying to negotiate the course at double speed.

"Countries with stable populations, like the Scandinavian nations, tend to have stable governments. I’m suggesting that the life-expectancy of a democratic party or a particular Prime Minister may be crucially affected by how fast the population is growing. Governments that preside over rapid population growth tend to have short honeymoon periods, and soon find themselves on the nose with the electorate.

"I recently headed a parliamentary delegation to the Solomon Islands and Samoa. At the time of independence, the Solomon Islands had a population of 170,000 – now its population is three times that, over 500,000. It has seen frequent changes of Prime Minister, and the other countries in the region have troops stationed there to keep the peace. Its Parliament has not met this year, and our Delegation was told that this was because the Prime Minister was afraid of a Parliamentary vote of no-confidence.

"Samoa by contrast has had a relatively stable population of around 170,000 to 180,000 for decades. It has had the same Prime Minister for nearly 20 years, and the same governing Party for nearly 30 years."

"So when politicians are puzzled by their ratings and ask “Why don’t they like me?”, the answer might well be that they are driving the car too fast and knocking over those witches’ hats. They should slow the car down and focus on solving people’s real-life problems."

Contact Kelvin at [email protected] or phone +613 9350 5777

Mark O'Connor's email address is [email protected] His website is at www.australianpoet.com

There has been another sizable drop in employment. Greedy employers continue to put out claims that there is a terrible shortage of labour in Australia, because they know that the larger the pool of unemployed the less the market rate for labour will be. (Also, by pushing up immigration on the false plea that we are short of labour, they hope for more customers, more extreme house prices, and other changes by which the big fish benefit over the small.)

We have 885,000 unemployed! -- Roy Morgan

Big business has long abused its influence with the media, and has also taken advantage of various well-funded lobbies,fronts, and think-tanks (Committee for Melbourne, Urban Task force, Australian industries group, and other names for disguised lobbies) as well as the pro-business stance of the Murdoch Press and other media, to spread this disinformation.

Yet ordinary Australians know this is untrue, particularly if they have a teenager in the family trying to get his or her first job, or an older person who is been retrenched. (Employment agencies say it's hard even to get a job interview for anyone over 35, and if approaching retirement almost impossible, because employers are so spoilt for choice.)

According to Roy Morgan:

Australian Employment drops by record number in July to 10,802,000 (DOWN 418,000) as Australian workforce shrinks, and unemployment rate is up 0.6% TO 7.6%

* In July 2011 Australia’s total unemployment as measured by Roy Morgan was 885,000 (7.6%), up 40,000 (0.6%) from June 2011, and up 148,000 (up 1.3%) since July 2010.
* The Roy Morgan July 2011 ‘underemployed’* estimate was virtually unchanged at 859,000 (7.3%), down 3,000 (but up 0.2% as the workforce shrunk) from June 2011 and down 81,000 (0.8%) since July 2010.
* In total in July 2011 an estimated 1,743,000 (14.9%) of Australians were unemployed or ‘underemployed,’ up 36,000 (up 0.8%) on June 2011 and up 66,000 (0.5%) since July 2010.
* As stated, there was a large drop in the Australian workforce in July, down 378,000 to 11,687,000 which is virtually unchanged from a year ago (up 42,000) and slightly higher than in March 2011 (up 23,000).
* Overall full-time employment in Australia for July is 7,421,000 (down 219,000 since June 2011 but up 30,000 since July 2010) and part-time employment is 3,381,000 (down 199,000 since June 2011 and down 136,000 since July 2010).

Gary Morgan says:

“The July 2011Roy Morgan employment estimates was down 418,000 in a month to 10,802,000 with the falls consistent across both full-time employed — 7,421,000 (down 219,000) and part-time employed — 3,381,000 (199,000).

“This month’s fall in employment followed four straight months of rises and takes Australian employment back to the levels of February (10,770,000) and March (10,800,000) as school-leavers began to join the workforce after Summer holidays at the beginning of the new financial year.

“This is the biggest monthly fall in Australian employment ever recorded by the Roy Morgan employment measure and shows that the RBA’s decision to ignore commentators calling for an interest rate rise this week was the correct one.

Unemployment now stands at 7.6% (885,000, up 40,000) while underemployment is virtually unchanged at 7.3% (859,000, down 3,000).

This is an overall level of unemployment and underemployment of 14.9% (1,743,000, up 36,000).

“In addition employment in July is now down 106,000 on a year ago in July 2010. This is the first time employment has fallen year-over-year since October 2009 (10,385,000) which fell compared to October 2008 (10,400,000) — when the Global Financial Crisis began and dropped employment.”

For Full Tables & Release: http://www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2011/4692

Take a look at the One Child Policy nonsense at the Australian Democracy Museum site! Today Candobetter.net received a communication from the Australian Museum of Democracy. At first we thought that a bunch of Australian revolutionaries with a sense of humour had contacted us and we immediately went to their website, as they advised us to, to comment. We were disappointed to realize that this is just another face of Australian government propaganda and the Growth Lobby is well-ensconced. The website belongs to the Australian Museum of Democracy, which is owned and financed by taxpayers, but controlled by the government. So, what do you find when you go and make that visit to the website to “have your say” about democracy as encouraged? Update 5 Aug 2011: My comment now published on democracy site.

Today Candobetter.net received a communication from the Australian Museum of Democracy. At first we thought that a bunch of Australian revolutionaries with a sense of humour had contacted us and we immediately went to their website, as they advised us to, to comment.

We were disappointed to realize that this is just another face of Australian government propaganda. The website belongs to the Australian Museum of Democracy, which is owned and financed by taxpayers, but controlled by the government.

So, what do you find when you go and make that visit to the website to “have your say” about democracy as encouraged?

Well, firstly, you find that the site promotes Australian democracy as a given. Secondly, if you try to post, you will discover that democratic speech is moderated at the Museum of Democracy. Thirdly, it purports to educate us about the value of this so-called democracy by evoking four different indicators of what it calls undemocratic governments. The indicators are: Curfews, Prevention of Public Assembly, One Child Policies, and National Identity Cards. Australians are supposed to congratulate themselves that the government apparently doesn't impose these policies. Hmm, and we also don't have public floggings and women are allowed to go to school, so everything in the garden of democracy in Oz is lovely - not!

Enough with the spin, already.

1. Curfews.

Okaaay, so we are still allowed to stay up late and catch scarily neglected public transport home (if there is any).

2. One Child Policies.

We don’t have such policies, yet. But we are working on it with our big population policy. We are currently free to have lots of children, but who has the time or money when we are all working to pay huge rents and mortgages as the cost of living skyrockets due to that big population policy we all hate that’s supposed to make us all rich.

3. Prevention of public assembly.

Then again, there is no civil right to public assembly. If someone threatens you with violence for holding a meeting, they have to actually hurt you before the police will step in. It is actually illegal to hold a democratic protest in many places in Australia because public space has become privately owned. Joe Toscano tries to educate people about this scandalous abrogation of democracy again and again. Check out his podcasts on 3CR. And, if you want to meet in city square or one of those big malls that have replaced normal town centers and streets, you need permission, and you will have to say who will take responsibility for the gathering.

4. National Identity cards

Yes, well, all you have to do is go to the bank and your movements are electronically traceable. You don’t even have the choice of receiving your wages in cash these days. You HAVE TO have an electronic footprint. This isn’t freedom. (The popularization of mobile phones and the lack of public phones is another traceable consumer-trap, not to mention facebook, which more and more people are conditioned to bare their soles on – but you are not forced to engage with these.)

Australia's poor record on Human Rights and even worse on Civil Rights (Democracy)

Australia recently held, with much fanfare, a “National Human Rights Consultation,” overseen by a Catholic priest with a strong commitment to communitarianism, questionably famous for his involvement in Aboriginal communities, and with little interest in civil rights. The outcome consisted of, to paraphrase the Attorney General, “reaffirming a commitment to our human rights obligations; the importance of human rights education; enhancing our domestic and international engagement on human rights issues; improving human rights protections, including through greater parliamentary scrutiny [by Murdoch-controlled parliament, sure]; and achieving greater respectfor human rights principles within the community.

The Attorney General went on to say, apparently without any conscious irony, that “A legislative charter of rights was not included in the Framework as “the Government believes that the enhancement of human rights should be done in a way that, as far as possible, unites rather than divides our community.” !

My submission to the Democracy Museum awaiting moderation - now published

Under “One Child Policies,” in response to “Population control is not an issue in Australia and no attempts are made by government to limit births—in fact they are encouraged!”at 13.55 today, August 3, 2011, I placed the following comment. At 21.09 the same day it was still “awaiting moderation.” On 5 August I saw that it was published. Nonetheless, moderation is a fraught concept on a democracy blog and there should be some explanation at the democracy page, for instance, that they will publish anything except stuff that breaks the laws, including material that is critical of laws.

I wrote,

Thank you for your democracy initiative. I edit an Australian website for reform in democracy, environment, population, land use planning and energy policy. It is at http://candobetter.net
Your claim that “Population control is not an issue in Australia…” is false. It is a major failure of democracy in Australia that the government, at state and federal levels, is artificially stimulating population growth upwards by forcing high levels of immigration on Australians against the small amounts of protest our defective ‘democratic’ system affords and polls which show over 70% of people are against this. It is clear that the major movers of this undemocratic population control policy are corporate members of the Growth Lobby, who have financial interests in growth (notably in property development and allied industries) and that they find support from the corporate and public media, the ALP and the Liberal Party. I wrote my research thesis in environment and population sociology on this and it has been strikingly predictive. You may find it at The Growth Lobby in Australia and its Absence in France. There are many women fighting Australia’s growthist policies. You might like to promote some of my articles about Australian activists against growth and its impacts, particularly this one about how women lead democratic actions in Victoria, Australia against an undemocratic parliament: “Anti-Growth Lobby: Women in politics: why don’t more participate – or do they? (Melbourne, Australia)” At http://candobetter.net we have a whole page assigned to democracy: http://candobetter.net/taxonomy/term/13.

There are also many other policies in Australia – and laws – which are in place – such as the laws on terrorism – which are dangerous to freedom.

The official democracy blurb

Here is what is being sent round by the Museum of Australian Democracy:

“Have your say day August 10th 2011

“A recent survey conducted by the Museum of Australian Democracy shows that two thirds of Australians say they don’t understand the relevance of democracy to their everyday lives, even though we live with it everyday – from our own personal values, to the way we interact with our family and our local community, down to the choices we are free to make.

These are freedoms enjoyed by citizens of a democracy.

That’s why on Wednesday August 10 the Museum of Australian Democracy is holding a “Have Your Say Day”.

On “Have Your Say Day” we want to encourage all Australians to speak out and be a part of democracy.

How can you participate in “Have Your Say Day”

We want you to share with our nation, what you love about the freedom of our country and importantly, discuss an issue you feel passionate about.

Below are 10 steps on how you can get involved in “Have Your Say Day”:

1. Contribute to the “Have Your Say Day” dialogue by visiting www.ourfreedom.com.au
2. Join a group with a cause
3. Tweet about it using #moadhaveyoursayday to join the conversation
4. Find out who your Member of Parliament is at the Australian Electoral Commission website: http://www.aec.gov.au
5. Go to your favourite newspaper’s website and make a comment about a news story, or write a letter to the Editor
6. Start a blog of your own or participate in a blog or forum online
7. Call a talkback radio station and voice your opinion
8. Discuss democracy or some of the issues in today’s news with your family and friends – what are their thoughts and opinions?
9 Post a note in your Facebook status or create your own Facebook poll
10. Post a video to YouTube and tag it “Have Your Say Day” and encourage your friends to do the same.

You can also take a visit to your state’s parliament, or come and visit the Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House in Canberra – www.moadoph.gov.au

For more information on “Have Your Say Day” – visit www.ourfreedom.com.au

Try it.

For their media contacts the Democracy Museum of Australia lists a commercial company, Fenton Communications, which is a slick ‘cause’ marketer to and for the mainstream.

The Museum of Democracy, in its Annual Report for 2009-2010, included among their “Key performance indicators” to “Increase awareness of the new role of OPH as a museum exploring the past, present and future of Australian democracy” and to “Be acknowledged as a pre-eminent and innovative cultural institution” and to “Extend OPH’s profile and partnerships with other institutions, academics and cultural innovators.”

So, Australians, let this Museum know you are out there and that you expect more, much more of an institution purporting to represent your voices.

NOTES

For the record, when I first published this article, I was very critical of the moderation and failure to promptly publish my comment about the one child policy. I feared that it would not be published, however it now has been, so I do eat my words and pay my respects to the democracy blog, even though I still regard the examples it gives as indicative of growth-lobby bias. At least I was able to criticise this.

So, for the record: I had written:

"As I said,
Under “One Child Policies,” in response to “Population control is not an issue in Australia and no attempts are made by government to limit births—in fact they are encouraged!”at 13.55 today, August 3, 2011, I placed the following comment. At 21.09 the same day it was still “awaiting moderation.”

I wrote,

Thank you for your democracy initiative. I edit an Australian website for reform in democracy, environment, population, land use planning and energy policy. It is at http://candobetter.net
Your claim that “Population control is not an issue in Australia…” is false. It is a major failure of democracy in Australia that the government, at state and federal levels, is artificially stimulating population growth upwards by forcing high levels of immigration on Australians against the small amounts of protest our defective ‘democratic’ system affords and polls which show over 70% of people are against this. It is clear that the major movers of this undemocratic population control policy are corporate members of the Growth Lobby, who have financial interests in growth (notably in property development and allied industries) and that they find support from the corporate and public media, the ALP and the Liberal Party. I wrote my research thesis in environment and population sociology on this and it has been strikingly predictive. You may find it at The Growth Lobby in Australia and its Absence in France. There are many women fighting Australia’s growthist policies. You might like to promote some of my articles about Australian activists against growth and its impacts, particularly this one about how women lead democratic actions in Victoria, Australia against an undemocratic parliament: “Anti-Growth Lobby: Women in politics: why don’t more participate – or do they? (Melbourne, Australia)” At http://candobetter.net we have a whole page assigned to democracy: http://candobetter.net/taxonomy/term/13.

There are also many other policies in Australia – and laws – which are in place – such as the laws on terrorism – which are dangerous to freedom.

Oh, I get it, this is the museum of moderated democracy.

Is it easier to tackle a vast global population problem than it is to save a suburb from overpopulation or a city from population induced water shortages?

Global vs Local

"My concern is the global issue of population" the international aid worker declared in a somewhat self righteous manner. "Australia is nothing," she continued, "Our population is nothing at only 22 million, it is the world that matters!"

The activist she was addressing had been aware of the global population issue since his late teens when he was one of just over 3 billion people on the planet. Now he is one of nearly 7 billion people. He has no children of his own and is unlikely to have any, nor grandchildren.

What more can he do about global population? Presented with a problem as vast as all of global humanity, the problem could seem overwhelming and he could feel tempted to give up. The aid worker's tone was accusatory with the smugness of one who has claimed the moral high ground. The activist was left to contemplate his selfishness in having turned his attention that afternoon to his own sphere of influence.

A medical doctor joined in . "Population is a global issue" he announced as a small audience gathered around. It was as though he were alerting the gathering to something of which they had no idea hitherto. Was he in the midst of an unread, untraveled, insular, unsophisticated self interested, self selected group of NIMBYs ? Well probably not. They were a group of environmentalists, thinkers and activists with an intelligence quotient at least as high as the average in the community. Several were academics and widely read on the subject of population.

Australia in 1971: Melbourne activists try to protect local environment and quality of life by campaigning against overpopulation

In both cases the assertions were a sort of reprimand for anyone concerning themselves with local issues or even one's own country.

I would argue that adopting an international concern to the exclusion of attending to local issues is the line of least resistance in the population "debate" and could well be the easiest option for anyone claiming to be trying to change the world's terrifying population trajectory!

One can take it either way- the population problem as we hurtle to 9 or 10 billion within the lifetimes of many of us here now is overwhelming if one actually aims to have an effect or on the other hand it is easy if one accepts that little will be achieved. With an international focus one does not often have to identify and face the enemy, so no-one is really threatened. The problem is always elsewhere, amongst people we don't know personally. There is status in this position, which can also become an expensive habit as it involves traveling and mixing with other global representatives. Global population activism has an aura of sophistication, internationalism and ministering aid.

Local population concerns tend to be demoted in the population activism fraternity, with international concerns taken more seriously, as the sphere of the big guys and girls. What's more, global actions are more easily digested by the "intelligentsia" and well off of our society than are attempts to rectify the more direct and local effects of damaging and undemocratic forced population growth on oneself and one's descendants at home.

There is a belief amongst the cognoscenti that modern western medical science can come to the rescue internationally. They believe that it is a matter of being given the go ahead to distribute throughout the world the fruits of modern technology- the contraceptive pill, I.U.D.s and condoms to the people in far away countries who so badly need them. The cognoscenti have the solution to our woes, if only they could find the way through the layers of International governance to distribute them !

The global position is safer

The safest position to take in the area of population is to ignore local population related issues, cast your eyes towards the horizon and say it's a global issue.

Why is this safe?

"Safe" is a relative term when we are talking about probably the greatest challenge facing life on this planet since the dinosaurs went extinct: The prospect of most other animal species becoming extinct or just lonely exhibits in zoos. that is, unless they are employed directly for human benefit or enjoyment and the suffering of other creatures in the service of humans are dismaying. Equally dismaying is the prospect of ever increasing numbers of humans facing starvation as their massive populations collide with the depletion of fossil energy, the fire under the massive growth of humanity over the last 200 years.

There is a perception that the "third world " needs to be brought up to the present day; to start on the road to progress that "we" are on. Almost counter-intuitively the credo is that as modern life comes to the third world, and people no longer live in fear of starvation, lack of water and other basic necessities, their populations will drop because women will then chose to have fewer children. This is what we observe in a snapshot of the world as it is today. After all, women in the "developed countries" tend to have fewer babies and they are better off than their sisters in the "third world." Being better off must cause a drop in fertility or does a drop in fertility make one better off? Consider the following, however : A young couple in Australia are faced with the prospect of needing to wait 10 years on 2 salaries to start buying a house. Are they more or less likely to have children during this period than if they could buy a house immediately and had a manageable mortgage which could be serviced on one salary? Consider also a wealthy family which can well afford to feed, clothe and send 4 children to the schools of their choice. Is this family more or less likely to have those 4 children than if they could only afford to provide for 2?

Are the demographic rules really so different in the "first" and "third" worlds?

I raise these examples to call into question the relative value and "theoretical" basis of efforts that are made both locally and internationally to mitigate the unfolding population calamity. Are there really different forces at work in the "first" and "third" worlds where being better off in one would be expected to facilitate reproduction whilst having the opposite effect in the other? The single minded notion that solving world poverty and making modern contraception available will bring down birth rates, thus achieving two "goods" in one exercise, is I have to admit, extremely comforting. Few of the "intelligentsia" would argue with this kind of foreign aid, which is a recognized "good." On the other hand, taking up the cudgels with one's own governments is stressful and energy sapping. Fighting local issues where population growth is the excuse to destroy much loved nature and heritage, amongst many much more serious minuses, such as placing the security of fresh drinking water in jeopardy for the local population and making the case against high immigration-driven population growth is largely a recipe for frustration, frequent defeats and attracting disapproval.

Which one would you choose, when the thin end of the wedge is ready to cast asunder the two sides of what is really only one coin?

Jon Faine's Conversation Hour featured a debate between growthist Bernard Salt of KPMG and Australian businessman and author, Dick Smith, who argues against growth. The only possibility of commenting was by SMS. There was no phone-in. My own experience of debating population growth on the conversation hour with ex-Premier Steve Bracks was that people later tried to make comments on the internet page associated with that debate, but the page was dysfunctional and quickly fell into total disrepair. I am therefore creating this page in the hope of getting some representation of public opinion on this matter. Comments on these mens' respective books are also welcome.
You can access the debate here, immediately, and here on ABC, eventually.

Hear Dick Smith talk about his book on the Allen Jones show, NSW.
Buy the book, Population Crisis, The Dangers of Unsustainable Growth
for $19.99 here.

Population growth increases costs of retirement - Sheila Newman, Population Sociologist

This is what I wanted to say, and which I finished up emailing to the station under a general heading "Jon Faine Conversation Hour with Salt and Smith."

Bernard Salt's main argument is that we will need more young workers to pay for the retirement of elderly baby boomers. He overlooks the fact that population growth makes us uncompetitive because most of our labour goes into paying for the rising cost of land in the form of high rents and huge mortgages. Without these rising costs people would need very little money in retirement and young people would not have to work so hard and would be easily able to purchase or inherit housing. I think that Bernard Salt's policies are dangerously anti-social, anti-democratic and promote an unsustainable economy.

Here, by the way, is the link for the debate I had in April 2010 with Steve Bracks, when the phones went absolutely wild - as Jon Faine commented excitedly - yet the web-site for comments was not viable. (I retested it recently and it was still not working. Potentially thousands of comments were prevented.) In this most recent debate on a subject marketed with pro-growth bias by all the mainstream media, phone-ins were simply not possible. Will there be a page for comments?

Salt misrepresents himself as small target - debating tactics - From Ilan G.

I thought Bernard Salt successfully presented himself as a small target by agreeing with Dick Smith too often, but as far as I am concerned this is a rhetorical device for hiding his extremist views. I felt he (Salt) misrepresented his real personal views.

What I am trying to say is that someone sitting on the fence of the population issue would have probably been reassured by Salt and seen Smith as more alarmist. Salt used a platitude about business people being concerned about the future which was total rubbish and not at all a reflection on the way they behave. If you have no concept of peak oil and want to think that climate change is not an issue, the things Salt was saying sounded reasonable.

This was illustrated when they talked about population targets for 2050. He made out that Smith's target based on 80,000 NOM (I think) would reach 29M and his (Salt's) higher immigration for this decade before coming down to Smith's level would end up at 32M. So his point was we are talking a difference of only 3 Million or around 10%, which Salt suggested was a marginal difference that will hardly be felt in 2050. But Salt uses every other opportunity to promote population growth and economic growth in general, he never presents any arguments about needing to slow down in the future. If we still have "business as usual" in 2020 and Salt is still around I am sure he will still be advocating increased immigration.

I would like to see Kelvin Thomson debate Salt. Thomson is quicker on his feet and always seems to have the statistics at his fingertips. I witnessed the debate between Thomson and the Committee for Melbourne (CFM) CEO Andrew MacLeod. Like Salt, the MacLeod guy agreed to much with Thomson and said things that he would never otherwise say to any other forum, but Thomson always had really good answers.

So the conclusion is that the growthists are taking note of our arguments and are now using "small target" tactic by agreeing with many things the other side of the debate says, but this only happens in direct confrontations. When they are speaking at a business breakfast or any other corporate talk-fest, they repeat the same mantras that have long been refuted

Australia's population is now rising by a million every three years. It used to grow by only 200,000 a year. The increase has not been driven by natural increase, refugees or family reunions. It has been driven by an increase in skilled migration from 24,000 in 1996 to over 100,000 now. (Kelvin Thomson - Member for Wills electorate, Victoria, Australia)

The source of this article is a Speech by Kelvin Thomson, delivered to the House of Representatives on 24 May, 2011, in response to the Government's Budget. You may find the original source here: House of Representatives Bills, Appropriation Bill 2011-2012, Second Reading, Speech, Tuesday, 24 May 2011, House of Representatives Chamber Speech, Mr KELVIN THOMSON (Wills) (19:48): Note that we have included several paragraphs which time constraints engineered by the [Liberal] opposition caused to be cut off the end of the speech.

"I do not agree with raising the skilled migration target to a record level"

I do not [...][2] agree with raising the skilled migration target for the 2011-12 financial year to 125,850-a record level.

I have seven objections to increasing skilled migration.

First objection: Immigration drives rapid population growth

The first is that it is the principal driver of Australia's rapid population growth. Only recently our population used to grow by 200,000 a year; now it is rising by a million every three years. The increase has not been driven by natural increase, refugees or family reunions. It has been driven by an increase in skilled migration from 24,000 in 1996 to over 100,000 now. This is the main reason net overseas migration is now 180,000 per annum and the main reason Treasury is using net overseas migration of 180,000 per annum to project that Australia's population will rise to 36 million by 2050. That is, it is giving us big Australia.

I have set out in numerous speeches in the parliament and at public meetings my objections to big Australia: cost of living pressures and pressures on food,water,land and energy supplies, carbon emissions, housing affordability, traffic congestion, species extinction, loss of open space et cetera.

Second objection: Australian unemployed should have priority

My second objection to increasing labour force migration is that there are people in Australia who want work and we should be getting them jobs. There are 500,000 people on Newstart allowance and 800,000 on disability support pension. These people should be our first priority. In the last decade the numberofpeople receiving disability support pension grew around six per cent per annum in real terms.

As Budget Paper No.1 outlines: Past growth … reflects increases in the number of beneficiaries arising from population growth and changing composition of the population … Population growth will continue to contribute to sustained real growth in the cost of this program.

As I mentioned earlier, I support the steps that seek to move people from these benefits to employment, but there needs to be jobs for them to go to. Cutting back workforce migration numbers will ensure there are jobs for them to go to.

Third Objection: Many skilled immigrants unemployed or working as unskilled labour

Included among the people who are out of work and are deserving of our attention are quite a few skilled migrants already in Australia who are either not working at all or not employed in areas for which they are qualified. As reported by Michael Quin in the Melbourne Times Weekly, a local newspaper which circulates in my electorate, four out of five skilled migrants in Melbourne are unemployed or underemployed, according to a recent survey. The article outlined the case of Preston skilled migrant Natalia Garcia, who has applied for 17 engineering jobs in the past four months without getting an interview or feedback, despite speaking advanced English and holding an engineering degree and seven years industry experience in Colombia.

Ms Garcia said: We were told Australia was desperate for engineers and that we would find a job in a maximum of two months, Ms Garcia is working as an office cleaner, and said most skilled migrants she knew were doing the same.

It is highly revealing that a qualified engineer with seven years industry experience should be working in Australia as a cleaner. I suspect that quite a few of the business leaders who bang the drum incessantly about skilled migration know about this kind of outcome perfectly well. They are not so much interested in the skills of migrants as their potential to provide cheap labour in occupations such as cleaners and taxi drivers and in providing personal services like house cleaning and chauffeuring at cut price rates. So my third objection to the skilled migration increase is the treatment of, and outcomes for, many skilled migrants.

Fourth Objection: Skills shortage overstated and abused to undermine wages and conditions

My fourth objection is that the skills shortage is overstated and is abused in ways which undermine the wages and conditions of Australian workers. National Secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, Dave Oliver, believes the skills shortage issue is overstated and that successive federal governments have failed to deliver an adequate labour market testing system, which means employers can exploit the system. The AMWU has launched a skills register to give skilled workers and young people seeking apprenticeships the opportunity to register for work before employers are allowed tobring inworkers on 457 visas.

As Dave Oliver has said: "We do not deny that skills shortages exist in some areas, but they are being exaggerated by employers seeking to use 457 visas to undermine local wages and conditions and avoid the cost of investing in apprenticeships."

With apprenticeship completion rates below 50%, the long term answer to our skills problems cannot be importing workers from other countries on a temporarybasis. Employers can't complain about skills shortages while they are dropping their investment in training.

I encourage people who have skills which are not being made use of to make contact with the AMWU to get their details put on the skills register.

Fifth Objection: Australian economy overdependent on immigration

The fifth objection I have to increasing skilled migration is that we have become addicted to it.

We need to do more to educate and train our own young people. Going back two or three decades, governments and employers dropped the ball on training.Governments closed technical schools and cut back on technical education. Private employers lost interest in taking on apprentices. We started outsourcing our requirement for training. This has been an addictive, self-fulfilling circle and we need to break the habit. Those countries which do not run a big migration program put more effort into educating and training their young people, and they have better participation rates as a consequence.

The Sixth Objection: High immigration feeds vulnerable overstoked commodity economy

The sixth objection I have to increasing skilled migration goes to the claim that this is necessary to avoid capacity constraints and bottlenecks in the resources industry.

The truth is that running the resources boom as fast as possible has a number of economic consequences, not all of which are positive. Using the resources boom as a reason to ramp up skilled migration and staking a lot of our economic prosperity on Australia's high terms of trade overlooks some of the negative ramifications of the two-speed or multispeed economy. For example, as reported in the Australian in early May, hundreds of fruit processing workers face the sack if Coca-Cola Amatil goes ahead with plans to close parts of its SPC Ardmona division and capitalise on the strong Australian dollar by importing food from Indonesia.

CCA chief executive Terry Davis has said one or two of SPC's three plants in central Victoria could be closed due to the strong Australian dollar putting pressure on the business. He said that the current strength of the dollar severely limits the potential for SPC Ardmona's export business, which produces some of the country's best-known canned fruit brands.

The strong dollar has been cited by the Reserve Bank as impacting adversely on manufacturing and tourism.

A report in 2006 by the Victorian Department of Treasury and Finance on the previous mining boom used modelling to determine its impact on non-mining states and found that there were adverse consequences for Victorian exporting and import-competing firms.

Their modelling results showed that the Victorian and New South Wales gross state products were about half a per cent lower. Most industries in these states contracted, apart from the mining industries.

Australia needs to ensure it doesn't become a 'one trick' economy

I believe the relentless rise of the Australian dollar as a result of the resources boom presents a real challenge to the Australian economy. The current mining boom mark 2 represents the highest terms of trade in 140 years, so the pressure on manufacturing and other trade exposed industries not directly benefiting from higher commodity prices is severe. Retail, manufacturing, building and tourism are labouring under the weight of subdued sales, weak profits and low orders. We need to ensure that we do not become a one-trick economy and that the structural changes that occur as a result of this boom do not leave ordinary people behind.

If the resources boom generates growth levels that cause the Reserve Bank to lift interest rates, then many Australian households and small businesses will suffer.

As a nation, we need to be more sophisticated than simply trying to run the resources boom full throttle.

The Seventh Objection: Immorality of Skilled immigration

The seventh and final objection I have goes to the question of the morality of skilled migration. Last week I participated in a debate[3] on Sky News TV Channel on the program known as The Nation, with the Member for Mayo, the former Member for Cook, and Geoff Gallop, the former Western Australian Premier. We were talking about migration, and Geoff said he thought it was a moral issue, that Australia had a moral obligation to take large numbers of migrants from poor countries. Now Geoff is a great guy, a fine Australian who has made a very valuable contribution to this country. But skilled migration is not a moral duty.

It is not about Australia being unselfish. It is about us being utterly selfish, taking the best and brightest from poor countries and denuding them of the people most likely to lift them from conditions of poverty. When we take a poor country's doctors or nurses, we damage their health system. When we take a poor country's engineers, we damage their capacity to build infrastructure. It is a moral question alright, but there is nothing moral about what we are doing.

In closing I welcome the measures in the budget on improving workplace participation but I am concerned that the government has bowed to industry calls for higher migration.

We need to ensure that the right policy settings are in place that will not leave behind those industries, individuals and households who are not benefiting from the mining boom mark II, and avoid short-term policy 'fixes' that cater to the vested interests who shout the loudest.

Kelvin Thomson MP Federal Member for Wills

NOTES

[1] In order to focus quickly on Kelvin's incisive contribution to critical analysis of Australian economic policy, this article has left out the beginning of the speech as delivered to the House of Representatives. Here is the text we left out:

"I wish to commend the Australian government on this budget, which continues our tradition of sound economic management. It stands in stark contrast to the opposition's troubling lack of insight on this core issue.

Peter Costello is on the record as saying that an opposition leader's responsibility consists of going through the budget saying what the opposition agrees with and what it does not agree with; putting forward alternative tax proposals and saying when they would start and how they would be paid for; and saying what the opposition would do if it were bringing down a budget. Peter Costello was scathing of any budget reply speech that was short on detail or full of motherhood statements and cliches, which he believed let the Australian public down. What, then, are we to make of the opposition's budget reply?

The opposition say they would bring the budget to surplus sooner than Labor, yet they oppose and run interference on all of our savings measures, they produce no savings measures of their own and they even come up with more spending measures. They are not serious. Family payments is a classic example. The government will maintain higher income thresholds for certain family payments at their current levels. When the government announced similar measures two years ago, the opposition leader said they were soft and wanted the government to go harder. Now he wants to talk about the 'forgotten families' on $150,000 or more!

Analysis by Commonwealth Securities suggests that, on an Australia-wide basis, families with incomes above $150,000 are among the better-off families in the country. The average male income is currently around $57,500, with the average female income just over $38,000. Only three per cent of all taxpayers have an income above $150,000. In 2012-13, the number of people who will cease to be eligible for family payments will be less than two per cent. You would think, based on the scare campaign of the Leader of the Opposition and shadow Treasurer, that the government is running an assault on all families' standard of living.
As Tom Dusevic identified in his article of 14 May in the Weekend Australian on the coalition's position:

Abbott and Hockey have lost the plot on the basic tenet of Liberalism. Unlike Menzies, who saw government handouts as helping hands to the destitute, the Liberals became the chief advocates for unsustainable middleclass welfare, which grew out of the revenue boost from the first phase of the mining boom.

Absolutely right.

I would like to acknowledge the measures in the budget to boost workplace participation and expand the economy's productive capacity. I agree with the Prime Minister that we do not want to see a situation where the economy is booming but where we still have long-term unemployed people who do not have a job and people on the disability support pension who want to work, who do not have the opportunity of a job.

And the Treasurer is right when he says, 'Our economy can't afford to waste a single pair of capable hands.'

In my electorate of Wills there are at present 1,397 very long-term unemployed people who have been without work for two years or more.

To help them prepare for and find work, the Labor government has provided in the budget an additional $2.7 million over the period 2012 to 2015 to support local employment services in Wills. This will provide them with training and work experience. Additional funds have also been provided for a wage subsidy to support employers who give the very-long-term unemployed a job.

An investment of over $1.6 million for Australian Disability Enterprises in Wills is also welcome. It will support the work of the Brunswick Industries Association, North West Employment Group, the Trustee for The Salvation Army Victoria Property Trust, and Yooralla.

The budget initiative establishing the $558 million National Workforce Development Fund will assist in responding to the most critical emerging skills needs facing Australian industry. This will deliver 130,000 new training places over four years. The fund will be supported by the establishment of a new National Workforce and Productivity Agency, from 1 July next year, which will work closely with industry to identify critical skill needs and build a more skilled and capable workforce. The Labor government is improving support for Australians with a disability to help them into work where possible. I support these significant reforms to address the issue of workplace participation and skills shortages."

[2] The very first line of this paragraph as delivered in the House of Representatives ran, "I do not, however, agree with raising the skilled migration target for the 2011-12 financial year to 125,850-a record level."

[3] - The rest of this speech is the text which Kelvin intended to deliver, but which was abuptly cut off in the House of Representatives because the Opposition called a quorum and time ran out.

Inside also link to Kelvin Thomson's blog response to Government's Population Strategy (Have your Say).

Kelvin Thomson is the Labor MP who continually calls his party to issues of democracy and environment. You can also comment on Mr Thomson’s Blog, "Response to the Government’s Population Strategy (have your say)"

The video linked to below records Thomson's reaction in an ABC interview to Minister Burke's shameless exercise in using public money and social capital for a pretend inquiry. Thomson's words are relatively restrained. Others think that Burke has no right to remain in parliament for selling the Australian public out so badly.

In the TV debate of April 12, 2011, the leaders of Canada's four parties with parliamentary seats demonstrated that beneath the phony left-right dichotomies, parliament is ideologically monolithic in the most important sense. All of them believe in the necessity, desirability and possibility of continuing economic growth, and that immigration-driven population growth is its necessary concomitant and driver. But how could it be otherwise? Politicians do not effect change, they respond to it. And the environmental movement---and its political arm in the NDP and the Green Party, has done nothing to create a constituency of awareness that population growth in Canada is unsustainable, an awareness that if widely shared, would compel political parties and their leaders to address it. Most culpable is David Suzuki, who could move mountains if he would publicly say what he has said of Australia: that in relation to our resources, we are in serious population overshoot.

Protecting Nature While Ignoring Immigration?

Take a look at Nature Canada's website http://www.naturecanada.ca/election2011.asp, and their "questions to ask " politicians in this federal election, and then you will understand what is wrong with Canada's environmental and conservation movement. They have taken the "P"( for population) out of the IPAT equation, the foundational formula of the environmental movement in the 1970s, essentially, environmental impact is a function of population levels and average consumption of each individual. Nature Canada, Nature Conservancy, the David Suzuki Foundation and the Sierra Club, the Green Party of Canada and the fake greens in the NDP all would have you believe that we can add 350,000 consumers to our population every year, year after year--- one metro Toronto every decade----without negative ecological impacts! And if challenged, they will tell you that we can shoe-horn tens of millions more into this country by strict land use planning (aka "smart growth"), preserve greenfield acreage and minimize their energy use. Aside from the fallacy of this contention, it is intellectually dishonest. Land use planning is in the hands of local government, and as Professor Robert MacDirmid of York University has documented in "Funding City Politics", local governments are controlled by developers.

Here are some questions to ask Nature Canada and their politically correct green clones:

1. Why won't you, Canada's green NGOs?make public your corporate funding sources? Why do you hide your corporate benefactors from your own members?
2. Why do you accept money from corporations like RBC, the Toronto Dominion Bank, the Walton Group, Encana, Atco etc etc? What do they want from you? What have you not said or advocated in return for their patronage? What is the going rate for your silence?
3. Can you explain the 'coincidence' that you have not taken on immigration-driven population growth in Canada when that is a major goal of corporations like RBC who fund you?
4. Can you seriously argue that we can "decouple" population growth in Canada from environmental degradation, from farmland and habitat loss and carbon emissions?
5. Why have you not pushed for an environmental assessment process for the government's immigration and pro-natalist policies? Do you honestly believe that renewable energy can be "scaled up" to meet the demands of a Canadian population that grows at over 1.08% per annum? Do you understand what exponential growth is? If you think a population level of 34 million for Canada is sustainable, at point would you concede that it isn't? 44 million? 54 million? 84 million? At what point along the road to ruin would you be prepared to call for a Population Plan for this country, as did Dr. Michael Healy and his UBC research team in their federally commissioned report, “Prospects for Sustainability”. As the Science Council of Canada warned in 1976, Canada must limit and stabilize its population.

Population Myopia Is An Outrageous Omission

The population-myopia of Canada's environmental movement is an outrageous omission that smacks of political correctness and outright corruption. Species loss is not something that only happens in some distant wilderness. The real killing fields are right here on the perimeters of Canada's growing urban centres. That is why Walton International, a land banking corporation, finds that it makes good business sense to give donations to Nature Conservancy for high profile land acquisitions far away from the farmland that Walton likes to purchase at the edge of cities like Calgary. When that land is rezoned to 'urban' use and housing development, Nature Conservancy stays mute, as it has when other patrons like RBC underwrite urban sprawl or bankroll the tar sands. Then, when Nature Conservancy "saves" a wetland or valley 500 miles away, these corporate donors can share the bragging rights. The new parkland is then declared parkland "forever". Forever, that is, until oil hits $250/barrel or minerals critical to our economy are in desperate shortfall. Until then, however RBC, the TD bank and Shell Canada can show off their credentials as good green citizens and paragons of corporate social "responsibility".

Where can nature be found on the ballot? Why won't Suzuki speak out against Canadian population growth?

Nature Canada implores us to "vote for nature" in this election. But where, on any federal election ballot in any constituency, can "nature" be found? The counterfeit "Greens", along with the NDP and the Liberals, actually want to hike Canada's immigration quota from its current 285,000 to 340,000!!!! Canada already vies with Australia for the dishonour of having the highest per capita immigration intake in the world, and has the highest population growth rate in the G8 group! Privately, according to some sources, David Suzuki has called this process of converting third world immigrants to "hyper consumers" in Canada as "madness", but will not say soon a major media outlet. He has, however, bravely gone on ABC radio in Australia to tell Australians that Australia is overpopulated. But Australia already has Tim Flannery and the Australian Conservation Foundation to tell them that. Will we have to invite an iconic Australian environmentalist here to say the same thing about Canada? In what way has Canada not overshot its carrying capacity to the same degree as Australia? Why the silence, Dr. Suzuki? Why be frank 'down under' but be seized with demographic lockjaw in your own country? Does the David Suzuki Foundation customize its policies to suit its benefactor, RBC, whose Chairman Gordon Nixon has lobbied for an immigration intake of 450,000?

Nature Canada is right in one important respect. In their words, "we cannot afford to allow nature and the environment to be ignored." So why are they ignoring population growth?

Tim Murray

Nature Canada Asks Us To Ask the Candidates

:

What will you do to make sure Canada does a better job of enforcing our laws to protect wildlife like caribou, whales, and migratory birds?

How will you make sure nature is really protected in all federal parks and protected areas?

What will you do to protect more lands, waters, and oceans for nature and future generations?

How will you do a better job of using federal regulations and environmental assessments to prevent environmental disasters?

My hard-earned tax dollars are going to subsidize big oil and gas companies and our Canadian lakes are being handed over to mining companies to dump their waste. What will you do to end these dirty subsidies?

What is your party’s plan to really move Canada to a green economy powered by renewable energy?
Canada urgently needs an ambitious national plan to protect nature for wildlife, for us to enjoy, and for future generations. What will you do to show national leadership and give Canada an ambitious vision and a plan to protect nature for all?

Tell Canada’s leaders where you stand – vote for nature in 2011!

Suzuki says Australia is overpopulated:

David Suzuki - Interview with radio station 6PR, 22 Sept 2006:

Suzuki: You know I was shocked to find that you have got a Minister in the Federal Cabinet here (Treasurer Peter Costello) who is encouraging Australians to have more and more children. Why? Because everybody thinks that in order to keep the economy growing forever you have got to have a growing population to keep that economy growing.

And so no one ever asks what is the cost of adding more people to Australia, a country as far as I am concerned that is already overpopulated because the demand of each Australian is so great?

Journalist: So you are saying Australia is overpopulated?

Suzuki: You bet.

Postscript: The National Leaders Debate of April 12, 2011

Last night a TV debate was held between the leaders of Canada's 4 main parties. All of them proceeded on these assumptions:

1. Continual economic growth is necessary, desirable and possible.
2. A growing population is necessary to fuel economic growth.
3. Continued high levels of immigration are necessary to replace and increase our existing population level.

The only difference between them was whether a higher or lower proportion of those immigrants should be drawn from the "family class" category. And even here, Prime Minister Harper argued that his government had remained faithful to the concept of "family reunification". Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe joined the chorus in favour of more and more immigration, but stated that multiculturalism "does not fit Quebec", which has a duty to ensure that immigrants be fully integrated into a francophone society that represents only 2% of North America's population.

Needless to say, none of the leaders questioned the justice or the sense of pro-natalist policies and child-benefits packages, or the lunacy of the Quebec government subsidizing couples' IVF treatments to the tune of $7,000 a piece.

And it should be added, that Green Party leader Elizabeth May would have been in emphatic agreement with these leaders had she participated in the debate.

We are passengers on the HMCS Ecological Titanic led by a captain and aspiring captains who believe that we should pick up more passengers, and remain ignorant about the perils ahead. Has anyone one of them read James Howard Kunstler, or Richard Heinberg, or Michael Ruppert, or even one article in the vast archive of material that is available on overshoot?

Tim Murray
April 13/ 2011

See inside for terms of reference and contact details. We also cite some of a contribution from the Property Council of Australia, which urges the government not to put koalas profits and lets them know that it will try to get laws to compensate landowners if development is hampered by koala protection. The council is big on relocation and would probably expect any actions to save the koala to be delayed pending better counting.

See Submissions here: http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/ec_ctte/koalas/submissions.htm.

The Property Council's submission is big on relocation and would probably expect any actions to save the koala to be delayed pending new counts. The problem here is that the government will probably avoid truly comprehensive statistics, so the community needs to demand these be obtained before any new development. In the end, there is already so much development that blind Freddy could work out that koalas must be threatened and one would suspect that the PCA realises this and therefore expects to have some of its ventures blocked by governments, State and Federal usually supine to its demands. PCA's submission here in pdf form.

Terms of Submission

"Regulatory Issues
If it is found that the koala population is indeed under threat, the five issues outlined below must be considered as part of any regulatory or planning change.
• Preservation of Existing Land Use and Development Rights
If further regulation is seen as the appropriate mechanism, it needs to protect and not interfere with existing land use entitlements and development rights, whether or not further development approvals are required. It is unacceptable for existing land use
entitlements and development rights to be eroded without just compensation. The Property Council cautions against approaches that will see the basic rights of land holders removed without compensation."

Inquiry into the status, health and sustainability of Australia's koala population
Terms of Reference
On 17 November 2010 the Senate referred the following matter to the Environment and Communications References Committee for inquiry and report by 1 June 2011, with effect from the first day of sitting of 2011:

The status, health and sustainability of Australia's koala population, with particular reference to:

1. the iconic status of the koala and the history of its management;
2. estimates of koala populations and the adequacy of current counting methods;
3. knowledge of koala habitat;
4. threats to koala habitat such as logging, land clearing, poor management, attacks from feral and domestic animals, disease, roads and urban development;
5. the listing of the koala under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999;
6. the adequacy of the National Koala Conservation and Management Strategy;
7. appropriate future regulation for the protection of koala habitat;
8. interaction of state and federal laws and regulations; and
9. any other related matters.

For further information, contact:

Committee Secretary
Senate Standing Committees on Environment and Communications
PO Box 6100
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
Australia
Phone: +61 2 6277 3526
Fax: +61 2 6277 5818
Email: [email protected]

When I recently re-read my article
Murdoch media contradicts itself on immigration of 18 Feb 09, I found that the articles in the Murdoch Press I had cited and linked to from that article were no longer available on-line. (See also, my comments at the end of that article.) If publishers are not prepared to preserve copies of documents published on the Internet, then why should others be prevented from doing so by the copyright laws?

When I recently re-read my article
"Murdoch media contradicts itself on immigration," of 18 Feb 09 I found that the articles in the Murdoch Press I had cited and linked to from that article were no longer available on-line.

As the title of the article suggests, it showed contradictory information about immigration in three different articles in the Murdoch press. The articles were:

• "Honour for Frank Lowy, king of the malls" in the Australian of 6 Feb 09
• "Rupert Murdoch urges Aust to open door to migrants" in the Courier Mail of 5 Feb 09
• "English expats make Moreton the only Bay in the village" in the Courier Mail of 10 Jan 09

The first two were unambiguously pro-immigration. The first was of a supposed immigration success, Frank Lowy, whose principle contribution to Australia is the building a vast empire of shopping malls which have replaced the publicly owned markets where small retailers could once sell their wares to the public and make a decent living for a fair day's work. Today, small retailers are charged phenomenal rents to able to do business in Lowy's vast concrete mausoleums. The second was a report of the Courier Mail's owner's public lobbying for more immigrants.

The last story, whilst seemingly also of the successful immigration of English immigrants to Australia might have caused many readers to wonder, if high immigration and high population growth were so beneficial, then why did it seem to cause people from a country which had opened its doors to immigration to want to flee from there?

Not wishing to be in breach any copyright laws I limited the amount of material I quoted from those articles in my own.

That was fine, when interested readers could check the articles in full for themselves. However, these excerpts are now all that is left of those articles that candobetter site visitors can easily access. So, they are unable to get more information available in those articles about how the Murdoch organisation has been seeking for some years to impose high immigration on Australia and they are unable to view the article on English immigrants in Moreton Bay in order to better verify my claim that the article bears out my argument that high immigration to the UK has been detrimental to UK residents.

It seems that one effect of copyright laws is to allow important historical documents that could well embarrass some powerful vested interests to go missing.

Perhaps it should be made a condition of granting copyright that the owners of the copyrighted work undertake to preserve the work and on-line access to it at least until such time as anyone who had expressed to the copyright owner interest in having a copy of the work had been given an opportunity to obtain his/her own copy. If the person seeking copyright is not prepared to give such an undertaking then copyright should be refused.

Note: None of the Murdoch newspaper articles, linked to in this paragraph, were available online when I checked just now on 25 Mar 11. It seems that important historical documents that could well embarrass some powerful vested interests have gone missing. Many who would like to retain such records for future reference may not be able to do so legally, because of copyright laws. Perhaps it should be made a condition of granting copyright that the owners of the copyrighted work undertake to preserve the work and on-line access to it at least until such time as anyone who had expressed to the copyright owner interest in having a copy of the work had been given an opportunity to obtain his/her own copy. If the person seeking copyright is not prepared to give such an undertaking then copyright should be refused.