The effects of human population size on our standard of living, our environment, and our prospects for long term sustainability
population
Book Review: Immigrants: your country needs them by Philippe Legrain
Book Review: Immigrants: your country needs them by Philippe Legrain (Little Brown Book Group, UK, 2006) A$35.00 review by Mark O'Connor.
Some angst was caused in February 2007 when Philippe Legrain (with this book in tow) was featured at Perth Writers Week. The problem was not that a debate on migration was irrelevant to a literary festival but that there was no debate--and that the supposed expert (Legrain) seemed ignorant of Australian conditions.
I am struck by how little and how selectively Philippe Legrain has read in the area on which he claims to be an expert. Despite his Australian publicists' claim that he offers a lucid and enlightened account of "Australian policies, facts and statistics" the facts he states are frequently incorrect or slanted. His index is barren of references to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), which perhaps explains his bizarre claims that Australia's population is 19 million, that its net migration is some 90,000 a year (see p. 9), that births are not keeping pace with deaths (p. 108, in fact they are twice deaths), that immigration was slashed from 1996 by the Howard government (see p. 53) and so on. In fact we have never had such a high-immigration government as Howard's. Only in the immediate post WWII period, when most of our migrants were war refugees, has immigration been so high.
Australia, along with Canada and the USA is one of Philippe Legrain's three best examples of countries which have sought and accepted what is by world standards a bizarrely high level of immigration. For Australia, he seems to have relied on interviews with a couple of high immigration advocates (Stepan Kerkyasharian and Abdul Rizvi). The rest of his figures on Australia could have been gained from half-an-hour's googling---some time ago. Of critics of high immigration in Australia he seems ignorant. There are no references in his index to CSIRO's Ecumene project, to People and Place, to Sustainable Population Australia or even to the numerous publications of the Bureau of Immigration Research, which at least attempted a certain objectivity.
On the UK and the USA (his main market target) he seems only a little less ill-read. When referring to critics of high immigration he concentrates on Peter Brimelow and Samuel Huntingdon, but seems unaware of such important players as Britain's Migration Watch Committee or America's Federation for American Immigration Reform and the Centre for Immigration Studies. All of these have websites that could have provided him with an encyclopedia's worth of articles and information on relevant issues of which he seems ignorant. But I get the impression that Philippe Legrain is a gentleman who likes to make up his mind and then not disturb it by looking at inconvenient facts or contrary opinions.
A crucial document is the 1994 plenary resolution of the Australian Academy of Science on Australia's population options. This specified that our population should probably have been capped at 19 million, but must in any case be capped at no more than 23 million, and that net migration must therefore be kept below 50,000 a year.
1994 was also the year of the Cairo Conference on Population, in which the nations of the world pledged (with only a few selfish exceptions) to hold their populations in check, and not to use emigration as a way of unloading their population problems upon others. Needless to say, Cairo also is missing from Legrain's index. Nor does he mention the way in which the USA's immigration-fed increase has prevented its population stabilizing and made it dependent for its life-style upon a risky pursuit of foreign oil.
Nor does he mention the issue of the vast increases in greenhouse effect caused by migration from the low GHG to the high GHG producing countries. Most telling of all, against Legrain's irresponsible vision of open borders, is the fact that the two large-population countries that have had spectacular success in reducing their population growth (Iran and China) did so precisely because they had quarreled with the West and could not lean on it to take their emigrants. By contrast, those countries like Mexico and the Philippines, where families could hope that an extra child might be the lucky or talented one that would get to the US and bring in the rest of the family, have neither solved their own problems nor ceased to drive up population in the wealthier countries. Legrain complacently notes that the Philippines relies on remittances from its emigrants for something like 40% of its economy. (And still the babies keep coming.) By contrast, Legrain asserts (p. 20) that "freer migration is one of the best ways to help poor countries." For a capitalist economist Legrain is oddly naïve about the problems of population socialism. A visit to www.garretthardinsociety.org might trouble--yet expand--his mind considerably.
Legrain seems to share the common economist's delusion that growth can go on for ever, that there are no other species or environments to be considered, and that almost the only thing we lack (to fuel an eternal bonfire of growth) is more people.
Overall, this book, despite its parade of academic references, is not a serious attempt to examine the issues. It should be read as a piece of rhetoric: a first speech for the government in a student debate "That this house believes the world should have open borders". Legrain's 'lucidity', which some foolish reviewers have praised, is largely a reluctance to explain his economic modeling. He simply asserts. He claims at one point (p. 64, cf. p 19) that studies show freer immigration could 'potentially' make us all far richer--which is code for saying he won't explain the assumptions behind the calculation. [ revised: He offers no refutation--only an ad hominem put--down but no adequate refutation --of the detailed calculations of the Harvard economics professor George Borjas, a much more eminent economist, who draws the opposite conclusions. Legrain's calculations of the economic effect of immigration in the USA seem based on the assumption that one need only make sure that the supply of capital increases in proportion with the workforce. Then more immigrant workers simply make everyone better off. The inconvenient issues of resources, space, greenhouse emissions, and environmental degradation are ignored by Legrain (and one suspects by those economic studies he cites on his side). Perhaps Legrain knows he is writing for people who want a feel-good sense of moral superiority, and don't want to be bothered with inconvenient details. ]
Yet if Legrain can get us used to using cheap immigrant servants and cooks and nurses, he will then try to make us feel guilty about "the anonymous people whose existence you barely acknowledge . . . We just never bother to ask" (pp. 26-27). It doesn't make much sense. But as I say, Legrain is a rhetorician, not a thinker.
Perhaps most irritating is Legrain's glib sense of moral superiority--backed by his publisher's predictable assertion that he is offering an original "challenging and powerful" version of the open borders case. Not so. If the facts were as Legrain claims, and if the only issues to be considered were the ones he propounds, then everyone would come to his conclusions. Intelligence and moral superiority don't enter into it. Naivety and ignorance do.#
American Unions and their about-face on Immigration
Housing Affordability - the latest excuse to destroy the environment of South East Queensland
Australian Bureau of Statistics : Largest population increase ever
Why conservation efforts will not survive mass immigration
No population explosion in a classless society?
History records that Karl Marx had a fierce disregard for Thomas Malthus and his theory. Blaming the poor for their poverty was just not on for the socialist revolutionary from Trier, Germany. The system---capitalism---was to blame for everything. Dump capitalism, institute socialism, and people will presumably stop bonking. For Frederick Engels, socialism was like salt peter, it alone "makes possible that moral restraint of the propagative instinct which Malthus himself presents as the most effective and easiest remedy for over-population."
This attitude still can be found in contemporary Marxist literature. Joel Kovel, for example, in the introduction to his book The Enemy of Nature, anticipated that critics would fault him for not giving sufficient weight to questions of population growth. He made no apologies. "At no point (in the book) does overpopulation appear among the chief candidates for the mantle of prime or efficient cause of the ecological crisis.I see it as a secondary dynamic-not secondary in importance, but in the sense of being determined by other features of the system. I remain a deeply committed adversary to the recurrent neo-Malthusianism that holds that if only the lower classes would stop their wanton breeding, all will be well; and I hold that human beings have ample power to regulate population so long as they have power over the terms of their social existence. To me, giving people that power is the main point, for which purpose we need a world where there are no more lower classes, and where all people are in control of their lives."
The problem Joel, is that while we are waiting for your utopia to arrive, the world is adding 80 million people a year. We have to try to do something to stop that now.
And by the way, what was the socialist track-record in halting population growth in the third world, when "the people" were control of their lives (but apparently not of their hormones)? How did they do in Kenya, Tanzania, and Egypt under Nasser. How are they doing under the Marxist Mugabe in Zimbabwe? Why after trying their "classless" society did the Communist Chinese government find it necessary to institute a one-child policy?
Marxists still, after 150 years, engage in the fantasy that our species need obey no limits, that abundance is at hand if the world is rationally and democratically organized under "worker's control". "Malthus was right in asserting that there is always a surplus population; that there are always too many people in the world; he is wrong only when he asserts that there are more people on hand than can be maintained from the available means of subsistence."
Engels made that statement more than a century ago, before Peak Oil. Modern Marxists have no such excuse.
The second to last word goes to my comrade, Chairman Albert Bartlett:
"Modern agriculture is the use of land to convert petroleum to food."
The last word is mine, a corollary of the above:
"Oil depletion. The ultimate contraceptive."
What is this thing called "Progress"?
Racist-baiting of immigration reformers is left-wing McCarthyism
Everyone gets in a lather when we propose an immigration moratorium for Canada. We are racist xenophobes with a fortress mentality who think that a national "gated" community will seal off CO2 emissions from China and India. Instead we should drop our fence, welcome newcomers, and thereby send out a message of friendship so as to gain global cooperation in our plan to fight global warming, and yes, over-population, which after all are GLOBAL problems that Canada can't solve alone.
Similarly, those Americans who propose building a more extensive and imposing fence along the Mexican border patrolled by more guards are called by similar ephithets. And their panaceas are ridiculed as unworkable. More border guards have been correlated with even more illegal alien intrusions. Ted Kennedy, using the tried and true vocabulary of the Quisling environmental movement, calls not for "open" borders but "smart" borders. That is, open borders that allow illegals to pour in at a more even pace. Kennedy wants to do the good decent liberal thing and crack down on the big bad employers who lure Mexicans into the United States. He has broad agreement on that. And he also wants to help the Mexican economy out with aid so that Mexicans will stay put. Good luck. But like so many, Ted Kennedy hasn't the backbone to face a Mexican and say "no". Like a 21st century Will Rogers he apparently never met an illegal alien he didn't like. This kind of hospitality is the univeral affliction of western governments, political parties, labour unions and environmental NGOs. And it is killing us.
What is interesting is that wherever migration is debated on any continent, the race card is played. Hispanic leaders complain about the overt racism of anti-immigration reformers. White liberals, socialists and greens indulge in the same psychologizing, which Sidney Hook long ago described as the classic trade-mark of the politically correct. Rather than deal with your arguments, they put you on a psychiatric couch and impugn your motives. But notice these soft-greens and socialists only target white European cultures that are under threat. They scream about Bush's Mexican border fence, but do they ever mention that Mexico has a shoot-to-kill policy regarding illegal immigrants on ITS borders with Central American countries? Or that India is completing a fence of several billion dollars to keep 150 million Bangledeshi's from overwhelming and despoiling what remains of India's wilderness? Did they ever mention, decades ago, when they were crying ad nauseum about the wicked "White Australia" policy, that Australia's regional neighbours were not allowing any immigrants into their countries no matter WHAT their skin colour? Did we ever hear of a "Yellow Japan" or a "Yellow Indonesia" policy?
It seems in the left-green universe only "people of colour" are permitted to control their borders. Some are even allowed to control the flow of people WITHIN their borders without much comment from the politically correct. Internal passports were not uncommon in the Marxist-Leninist orbit.
Our critics do not hold the moral high ground when debating these issues. Their stance smacks of nothing less than hypocrisy and inconsistency. And their attempt to intimidate and shut down discussion with name-calling is contemptible McCarthyism in fashionable left-wing clothing.
Home dream waning
ONE in four Wyndham home owners is struggling to cover mortgage repayments every month.
Australian Bureau of Statistics census data for the federal seat of Lalor, which includes Wyndham, have revealed a staggering increase in the number of households experiencing mortgage stress: those who are paying more than 30 per cent of their gross income in repayments.
All up, 6242 or 27.8 per cent of Lalor households with a mortgage are struggling with their monthly repayments in 2006 an increase of 147.8 per cent since 2001.
Quarterly national figures released by the Housing Industry Association have revealed housing affordability has substantially decreased across Australia within the past 12 months.
The housing affordability index dropped 2.7 per cent in the June quarter 6.5 per cent lower than the same time last year.
Monthly loan repayments on a typical first-home mortgage increased from $2387 to $2506.
Mortgage repayments now account for 30.8 per cent of an average first-homebuyer's income a 0.8 per centrise on the previous quarter.
"The Australian economy is performing well, yet an increasing number of people are being left behind as the degree of housing stress on both mortgage holders and renters continued to intensify," HIA managing director Dr Ron Silberg said.
He said affordability was continuing to move in the wrong direction, but there had been no meaningful response from the Federal Government to address the issue.
Federal member for Lalor Julia Gillard criticised the Federal Government's refusal to appoint a minister to tackle housing affordability.
"With so many Wyndham residents losing sight of the great Australian dream, it's shameful that housing is a policy-free zone for the Government," Ms Gillard said.
The Lalor MP said eight consecutive interest rate rises had only exacerbated the problem.
But Sustainable Population Australia Victorian branch vice-president and population and land-use planning sociologist Sheila Newman said Victoria was experiencing a land affordability crisis, rather than a crises in housing affordability.
"The planning system has been tweaked and turbo-charged by the State Government's Melbourne 2030 to drive up demand for land through government-stimulated population growth.
"Victorians were neither adequately informed nor consulted about M2030. The underlying assumption of M2030 is that growth was inevitable, rather than a political decision.
"The politics and policies of engineering growth remained outside the discussion and slow or no growth were not presented as options."
Ms Newman said that by implication of this policy, a socially marginalised class of people had been created in the outer suburbs of Melbourne where they were vulnerable to interest rate hikes and volatile petrol prices.
"Can Australia continue to pay the environmental, affordability and livability consequences for this kind of dog-eat-dog economic?"
Western Metropolitan state Liberal MP Bernie Finn said exorbitant stamp duty was an impost on home buyers and urged the State Government to cut the tax. "Stamp duty adds to the mortgage woes of people who go to the banks with their cap in hand to borrow money," he said. "It is a pure tax grab by the Brumby Government. They should slash this tax on private ownership."
Destruction of environment no solution to housing affordability crisis
Sustainable Population Australia Victorian branch Media Release, 12 September 2007
Sustainable Population Australia Victorian branch vice-president and population and land-use planning sociologist Sheila Newman said Victoria was experiencing a land affordability crisis, rather than a crises in housing affordability.
"The planning system has been tweaked and turbo-charged by the State Government's Melbourne 2030 (M2030) to drive up demand for land through government-stimulated population growth," said Ms Newman.
"Victorians were neither adequately informed nor consulted about M2030. The underlying assumption of M2030 is that growth was inevitable, rather than a political decision.
"The politics and policies of engineering growth remained outside the discussion and slow or no growth were not presented as options."
Ms Newman said that by implication of this policy, a socially marginalised class of people had been created in the outer suburbs of Melbourne where they were vulnerable to interest rate hikes and volatile petrol prices.
"Can Australia continue to pay the environmental, affordability and livability consequences for this kind of dog-eat-dog economics?" she asked.
Beattie call for 50 million reflects vested interests
Sustainable Population Australia Media Release, 5 Sep 2007
Queensland Premier Peter Beattie's call yesterday for an Australian population of 50 million echoes those by vested interests of the housing, construction and real estate industries, according to Sustainable Population Australia inc (SPA).
National President of SPA, Dr John Coulter, says that this is not surprising given the very large donations that members of these groups make to political parties.
"But far more important than this distortion of democracy is the clear lack of any concern for the natural environment," says Dr Coulter.
"The most recent work by the Hadley Centre in the UK indicates that global temperatures are likely to rise sharply in the next few years as natural cycles augment the increase in greenhouse gas emissions. Eastern and southeastern Australia will be prone to even worse 'droughts', water shortages and crop failures than experienced in the last few years," he says.
"The industries that Beattie and his fellow travelers in both major parties want to establish to support this larger population will all add to the severity of climate change and make Australia less able to support even its present population."
Dr Coulter claims that Beattie, Rudd, Howard and the political parties they represent are caught in a time-warp.
"Their push for ever more population and economic growth is a recipe from the 1960s. It ignores the reality that humanity and its economy depends on the natural environment. And the environment is telling us, loudly and clearly that this continual growth is no longer sustainable.
"Fifty million in Australia is not achievable. But the attempt to bring it about will progressively destroy any possibility of making Australia environmentally sustainable. Far from being leaders these people and their parties are strongly inhibiting the transition to a new and sustainable relationship with our supporting natural environment.
"Science is warning that we have little time left to respond. Beattie has shut his ears to the message," Dr Coulter concluded.
Does Anybody Know What Melbourne 2030 Is Producing?
Beattie to consult Queenslanders on dams, building projects, population growth?
The following letter, sent by myself, was printed in the Courier Mail Newspaper of Saturday 18 August. The story to which it refers is included below.
Printed letter:
Dear Editor,
Premier Peter Beattie's suggestion that people be given "a vote on issues that
really matter" ("Beattie hijacks poll ploy", 17 Aug) is an excellent one.With any luck, Queenslanders can soon expect to be consulted not only about council amalgamations, but also about the Traveston Dam, the ongoing deluge of construction projects that are destroying communities and the natural environment of Queensland, and population growth, the symptoms of which which these projects are supposed to alleviate.
James Sinnamon
Original letter:
Dear Editor,
Premier Peter Beattie's suggestion that people be given "a vote on issues that really matter, on issues where he really can make a difference" ("Beattie hijacks poll ploy", 17 Aug) is an excellent one.
With any luck, Queenslanders can soon expect to be consulted not only about council amalgamations, but also about the Traveston Dam, the ongoing deluge of construction projects that are destroying communities and the natural environment of Queensland, and population growth, the symptoms of which which these projects are supposed to alleviate.
It's a shame that neither the privatisation of Telstra nor Peter Beattie's own privatisation of Suncorp, contrary to a previous election promise, were not also put to referenda.
James Sinnamon
PETER Beattie has moved to turn the tables on John Howard's green light for council merger referendums by saying he may hold polls on federal policies.
Prime Minister John Howard yesterday unveiled new legislation to strike down laws which gave the State Government power to sack or fine councillors who
polled their ratepayers on the issue.
Federal Labor leader Kevin Rudd quickly backed Mr Howard's plan, ensuring the legislation would soon become law - widening the division between federal and state Labor.
Queensland will be the battleground state in the upcoming federal election and strategists on both sides believe anger over mergers could shift votes in key regional seats.
But Mr Beattie said late yesterday:
"If the Prime Minister really wants to give people a vote, let's give them a vote on issues that really matter, on issues where he really can make a difference."
He proposed several referendum options, including polls on upgrading the Bruce Highway in Townsville and a nuclear power plant on Bribie Island.
Mr Beattie also said Mr Howard offered false hope, but the Prime Minister said:
"My message to the Premier of Queensland is let your people speak. "It is outrageous for the State Government to punish people for wanting to express a view."
...
Greens Make Call On The Evidence - Dam Should Be Scrapped
Queensland Greens Media Release
16 August 2007 - Today's Senate Standing Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport majority report into water supply options for South East Queensland produced recommendations that don't go far enough, with only the additional comments by Greens Senator Rachel Siewert applying the evidence before the Inquiry and recommending that the Traveston Dam be scrapped.
"The Senate inquiry was presented with overwhelming evidence that Traveston Dam is a high-cost, high-risk approach to South East Queensland's water supply, which will not ease the current drought" said Australian Greens lead Senate candidate for Queensland, Larissa Waters.
"Yet the majority report and the additional comments by other Senators all stopped short of calling for the dam to be scrapped. Greens Senator Rachel Siewert made a call on the evidence and recommended that Traveston Dam should be stopped.
"The Greens have decried this foolish proposal since it was proposed. I have consistently said, and the evidence to the Senate Inquiry demonstrates, that Traveston dam is the most expensive, least reliable and most environmentally destructive water supply option for our region.
"It is not environmentally, socially or economically sustainable and it will do nothing to solve the short term water crisis.
"The reduced rainfall expected because of climate change means the dam is unlikely to retain much water, and 30% of what little water it would ever hold would evaporate given the mere 6 metre depth of the proposed dam.
"If we are to get serious about sustainable water supply for South East Queensland, we must do two things:
- invest in demand and supply management, rainwater tanks, water recycling, stormwater harvesting, evaporation reduction and water efficiency, and
- ensure that #population" id="population">population growth in our region is sustainable. We should refuse to grant new development approvals unless the proponent can demonstrate that the necessary water is available and that planning processes address sustainable water supplies" said Ms Waters.
The Greens water supply solutions put to Queenslanders in the 2006 state election have now been backed by a February 2007 report by consultants Cardno, which found that with a combination of groundwater abstraction, source renewal, desalination, indirect potable re-use and demand management, Traveston Dam is not necessary to ensure South East Queensland's water security.
For more information:
Larissa Waters
Australian Greens Lead Senate Candidate for Queensland
larissa waters|AT|qld greens org au
Complaints about Melbourne 2030: record of submission to Planning Minister 16-8-07
The submission below about Melbourne 2030, which is a radical populate and develop plan imposed on Victorians, was made by Sustainable Population Australia Inc., Victorian Branch to the Minister for Planning, Justin Madden, re Melbourne 2030 August 2007 for meeting with community groups 16 August 2007.
Points made covered the following areas.
- #PopulationGrowth">Melbourne 2030's raison d'etre of population growth,
- #VictorianGovernment">Victorian Government's role in affecting and effecting the rate of population growth,
- #Consultation">Melbourne 2030 and population growth - style and content of consultation with people of Victoria,
- #Information">Quality of public information from Victorian Government regarding Melbourne 2030/population growth,
- #Effects">Effects of Melbourne 2030 and its Population growth.
#PopulationGrowth" id="PopulationGrowth">
1. Population growth and Melbourne 2030
Melbourne and outer areas do not have the option of stabilizing in any way as population growth is programmed into our future. In 2002 The Bracks Government and other stakeholders held a 'summit' in Melbourne to discuss the need or otherwise of a population policy. The then Premier, Mr. Steve Bracks, in his keynote introduction pre-empted the outcome of the conference yet to happen! He made the absolute assumption that experts would converge on the desirability of increasing Victoria's population. Many in the audience had huge reservations and objections to this path mainly on the grounds of environmental sustainability.
Melbourne 2030 is about a commitment to social engineering in the form of forced population growth.
#PopulationGrowth" id="VictorianGovernment">
2. Victorian Government's role in affecting the rate of population growth.
Excluding net increase from international and interstate migration, Victoria's population is increasing by more than 30,000 p.a. It will be more than this with the current baby boom. This fact should be well known, but it is not.
In the year to March 2006, the additional increase from net overseas migration was 37,068 . The total increase in Victoria's population annually is in excess of 60,000 people. The Victorian government has given itself a role in affecting this number. One way it achieves this is via its $6 million skilled migration strategy which includes international and domestic marketing (see www.liveinvictoria.vic.gov.au).
In the 12 months to March 2006, there were 65,700 extra Victorians, or in other words, an additional Ballarat.
The Victorian Government is not a passive recipient of population growth. It actively seeks it. Victoria only needs radical planning because it has very high population growth by western standards, of which more than half is not through natural increase.
#Consultation" id="Consultation">
3. Consultation with the Victorian people regarding population growth and Melbourne 2030.
Many people have told me that Victorians were not consulted on Melbourne 2030.... but we were. Glossy books and pamphlets were delivered in all letter boxes with invitations to attend public meetings which were facilitated to funnel ideas from the public to the master of ceremonies at each meeting. People were separated onto tables of about 8 people each and if there was sufficient volume of opinion of a particular aspect of Melbourne's future on any one table then that idea got up and was promoted to the end distillation of ideas. The underlying assumption however was that growth was inevitable rather than a political decision. The politics and policies of engineering growth remained outside the discussion and slow or no growth were not presented as options.
There was goodwill and cooperation at the meeting I attended in Moorabbin as people enthusiastically put forward their priorities apparently thinking they were having a significant say in the Melbourne which was being shaped for future generations.
I suggest that the audit of Melbourne 2030 must seek the attitudes of Victorians to the politics of population growth and to population growth itself. Adequate consultation thereto would rely on good information about what planning decisions are necessitated by population growth - in terms of amenity, environment and economic well-being of the average citizen.
#Information" id="Information">
4. Information re Melbourne 2030 and Population growth from the Victorian Government.
Please make clear in public statements what is actually happening to us. It is a fact that adverse changes are occurring very rapidly to our surroundings and many people express bewilderment over this. They look at housing estates covering what used to be farmland and ask "where are all the people coming from?"
We have a longstanding approximately 2:1 birth to death ratio which means our population is growing without any immigration. On 15 August 2005, the then Premier of Victoria Mr. Bracks told the Melbourne Jon Faine morning show audience that in Victoria we had a naturally decreasing population and that deaths exceeded births. I wrote to the Premier asking him where he got his figures from and told him that the reverse was true. He never replied to my letter and as far as I know never corrected this misinformation.
#Effects" id="Effects">
5. Effects of population growth
Most new settlers in Victoria go to Melbourne. Melbourne is full. Extra population puts pressure on land, there is pressure to intensify development. "Opportunistic infilling," (Dr Bob Birrell's expression) occurs in random fashion as houses come up for sale and private buyers are out-bid by developers.
There is pressure on public land. It is lost to the public (e.g. Royal Park lost 20 ha to private development plus 85 million cash) Trees and open space are taken from both private and public spheres including gardens, parks, reserves and roadsides.
Urban consolidation is not enough to accommodate the current level of population growth. This growth puts pressure on the outer areas, on wildlife, on open space. Melbourne 2030 standards are applied in what are essentially country areas, resulting in dense developments often unpopular with incumbent residents.
Wildlife - development occurs in areas inhabited by wildlife with an ensuing conflict over territory between humans and animals. This is often only managed when brought to the attention when locals complain vigorously to the authorities. It is never resolved in favour of the animals. They always lose. e.g. Somerton kangaroos.
We ask for a wildlife assessment to be done before any development takes place and for all planning to incorporate wildlife corridors in cooperation with the Coalition for Wildlife corridors - see http://www.awpc.org.au/newsite/documents/proposal_to_link.pdf
Water - we don't have enough for current needs. Melbourne 2030 and population growth exacerbate this situation. Any savings we make will be consumed by population growth.
Pressure on house prices is increasingly caused by population growth, in which demand exceeds supply. This causes prices to rise as we have observed particularly over the last decade, when we have had very high immigration.
Recommendations:
- A real effort to keep the public accurately informed of demographic changes in all relevant government documents and public statements. Make information clear so as not to confuse or obscure data.
- 2. Seek public opinion on the underlying assumption, that we must boost our population. Does population boosting benefit the majority and, if so, in what ways? What are the negatives? How to they weigh up?
- Real Estate spokespeople now connect house prices with population growth when speaking publicly. Government should do likewise.
- Planning policy puts economic growth above environmental concerns. This needs to be redressed. Planning policy must take in the Precautionary Principle where growth compromises our environment.
- High density living in the outer areas of Melbourne which are poorly served by public transport leaves communities vulnerable to being marooned in terms of basic requirements and transport by declining oil affordability / availability. In addition, tiny lot sizes remove most opportunity for self sufficiency in food provision. To remedy this the Government should make zoning changes. R1 allows very small lots in regional towns and outer suburbs (with potential for higher population density than in Singapore and Berlin). We need to keep outer suburbs open and spacious. SPA suggest a new Residential zone 3 with a minium of lot sizes at 500 square metres and above, plus minimum permeable area of 50% per lot.
- More space for large trees in inner and outer suburbs is essential to maintain transpiration and microclimate, and to keep temperatures down. In the past 150 years increases in population and activities have impacted thermodynamically to raise city temperatures. (For instance snow rarely falls in cities anymore).
- The expected effects of oil depletion should be taken into account in planning- i.e. the layout of the city and suburbs, transport needs for commuting and provision, delivery of food and degree of opportunity for self-sufficiency.
Jill Quirk
President, SPA Victoria
with Sheila Newman, Vice President, SPA Victoria
Koala Preservation Society warns: Koala endangered in South East Queensland
Deborah Tabart, Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Koala Foundation has written to the Queensland Environment Minister (see #letter">below) asking the the status of Koalas in the South East Queensland bio-region be upgraded from their current listing of 'vulnerable' to 'endangered' as a result of the alarming recent increase of Koala deaths. Deborah Tabart wrote:
In Redland Shire alone a total of 362 koalas were taken into care, only 96 animals appear to have survived. A shocking 73.5% death rate. What is more disturbing from these statistics is that the deaths appear to be mainly disease related, which is clearly an indication of stress, which could well be caused by habitat loss. Although many blame cars and dogs as a primary cause of koala deaths, these statistics indicate that those deaths were minor, compared to the diseased animals. This is a disturbing trend.
The letter concluded:
Given these high death rates, it is hard to imagine that koala births in the Redland's Shire are outweighing the deaths, a sure sign of impending localised extinction.
I call on you to immediately upgrade the koala listing to Endangered and give South-East Queensland's koalas a better chance for survival.
Human population growth driving Koalas to extinction
The underlying driver which threatens the Koala with extinction has been the population growth deliberately encouraged by successive Queensland Governments. Since 1974, Queensland's total population has more than doubled from 2 million in 1974 to well over 4 million today. So, it should be little wonder that with their habitats encroached upon by residential estates, roads, industrial estates, quarries, power lines and other infrastructure that the numbers of Koalas and other Australian native wildlife has declined steeply.
Yet, in spite of this, the growing water shortages, the strains on electricity generation, traffic congestion and the overall decline in the quality of life for the human residents of Queensland, the Queensland Government persists with its reckless policy of encouragement of population growth. The latest episode in this saga are to be the planned Work, Live and Play in Queensland" expositions in Sydney from 17-19 August and in Melbourne from 5-7 August. This is to in order to fulfil the plans of the Queensland Government decreed in its 2004 South East Queensland Regional Plan to cram another 1 million into South East Queensland alone by 2026, presumably to suit the property development sector, which funds the Labor Party even more generously than the trade unions.
Unless this population growth is stopped the fight to save the Koala, as well as to preserve what quality is left in the lives of ordinary Queenslanders is doomed.
What you can do
- Write to Lindy Nelson-Carr Queensland Minister for Environment and Multiculturalism to support the Australian Koala Foundation's call to have the Koala listed as 'endangered' in South East Queensland. (E-mail EandM|AT|ministerial qld gov au or see #letter">below for phone numbers or postal address.)
- Become a supporter of the Australian Koala Foundation
- Join the Australian Wildlife Protection Council at www.awpc.org.au/newsite/join.php
- Participate in protests by the 'People Power' group against over development in Redland shire. To Contact the 'People Power' group e-mail people_power |AT| hotmail . com. (For further information visit /SaveMountCotton)
- Contact the Queensland Government and demand an end to their policy of encouraging population growth
- Contact the Commonwealth Government and demand an end to their policy of population
growth through:- High immigration (currently at an unofficial, but real, record annual rate of 300,000 up from 68,000 in 1996 - see Ross Gittins' article "Backscratching at a National Level" of 12 June in the Sydney Morning Herald
- Treasurer Peter Costello's $3,000 baby bonus
- Vote against politicians who fail to protect Australian wildlife or who encourage population growth
- Set up an account on this site, if you do not already have one, by visiting /user/registerso that you can contribute your knowledge and ideas. (You may still post comments anonymously but you may have to await the approval of the site administrator, before they are published.)
1st August 2007
Hon Lindy Nelson-Carr,
PO Box 15155
City East 4163
Via fax 3227 6309
Dear Minister,
RE: UPGRADE OF KOALA LISTING TO ENDANGERED
On behalf of the Australian Koala Foundation (AKF), I am writing to ask you to instigate your Ministerial powers under the Nature Conservation Act and list the koala as Endangered throughout the South-East Queensland Bio-region.
As you know a previous Queensland Minister for the Environment, Mr Dean Wells, listed the koala as Vulnerable under the Nature Conservation Act in 2003, and the Beattie Government has subsequently instigated a Koala Conservation Plan.
Although I appreciate the fact that the Koala Conservation Plan has only been in full legislative operation since October of 2006, it is clear from the latest death statistics from both hospitals that koala numbers are plummeting.
I met with your Director General, Mr Terry Wall today and since leaving that meeting I have evaluated one set of koala hospital data for 2006 given to the AKF for the Redlands Shire.
The figures are alarming and overall a decline in koala populations is apparent. In Redland Shire alone a total of 362 koalas were taken into care, only 96 animals appear to have survived. A shocking 73.5% death rate. What is more disturbing from these statistics is that the deaths appear to be mainly disease related, which is clearly an indication of stress, which could well be caused by habitat loss. Although many blame cars and dogs as a primary cause of koala deaths, these statistics indicate that those deaths were minor, compared to the diseased animals. This is a disturbing trend.
My rough estimates for Redlands Shire 2006 data only:
Brought into care | Euthanized or dead |
Presumed to have survived |
Death Rate |
|
Cars | 108 | 88 | 20 | 81.5% |
Disease | 234 | 158 | 76 | 67.5% |
Dogs | 20 | 20 | 0 | 100% |
Total | 362 | 266 | 96 | 73.5% |
Given these high death rates, it is hard to imagine that koala births in the Redland's Shire are outweighing the deaths, a sure sign of impending localised extinction.
I call on you to immediately upgrade the koala listing to Endangered and give South-East Queensland's koalas a better chance for survival.
Yours sincerely,
Deborah Tabart
Chief Executive Officer.
The conspiracy of silence at the British, Australian and Canadian Broadcasting Commissons
Is there something endemic in state broadcasting in the Anglophone world which makes it taboo to discuss the population question and to air views that are critical of immigration? …
Since the early seventies, “a steady and insidious process among governing circles, opinion-formers, the greater bulk of the media, including the BBC, has built a powerful and near universal censorship, by consent…that the absolutely fundamental ecology question, the need for a sustainable balance between numbers and resources---is almost totally ignored. The sad corollary of this is that mass migration---since it has a major and obvious impact on the overall population situation---cannot be rationally discussed either.”
Is there something endemic in state broadcasting in the Anglophone world which makes it taboo to discuss the population question and to air views that are critical of immigration? If so, where is it coming from: the journalists, the presenters, the researchers, the producers or the administrators? Is state media more a captive of political correctness than the private media?
In attempting to answer some of these questions, it is useful to look at two fascinating accounts, one about the British Broadcasting Corporation (the BBC), another about the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (the ABC) and finally to summarize the disgraceful record of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).
In “The Treason of the BBC” , the late Jack Parsons argued that “The BBC has been systematically excluding virtually all material on the question of basic population policy.” For example, BBC reporters allowed Beverly Hughes, a former Minister of Immigration, to “blandly repeat, unchallenged, the government’s mindless policy of continued mass immigration to meet the alleged needs of the economy.” Also, it granted a free pass to former Home Secretary Charles Clark to say that there were ‘no obvious limits’ to net migration and rapid growth. At the same time, the BBC did not question the fact that “our present government has adopted a policy (without discussion or mandate) of deliberately increasing our numbers by about one million every five years,” making Britain the fastest growing country in Europe with a population density almost twice that of China.
Parsons asks, “How can BBC claims about the carrying capacity of the prison system and its “overpopulation” be made so openly, so effortlessly, so devoid of fear and moral opprobrium, while not the slightest hint can ever be allowed to slip out vis a vis the vastly more important case of the carrying capacity and numbers of the nation as a whole?”
He accuses those who run the BBC of “colluding in a very Great Betrayal, fostering the myth that human numbers have so little consequence that there is no need to take them seriously.” “The charge I am leveling at all executive levels of the BBC as a corporate body concerns what I am convinced is coercive, institutionalized bias which for years has prevented virtually all BBC news of, and discussion about, a literally vital object, the long-term balance between human numbers, resources and the quality of life…; this was not always so, but has been the case for at least 15 years."
The signs of population myopia were apparent to Parsons in 1967 when he asked the BBC why it was so concerned about the Tory Canyon Oil-Tanker Spill disaster, but so unconcerned about the doubling of the world’s population in 30 years. Since the early seventies, “a steady and insidious process among governing circles, opinion-formers, the greater bulk of the media, including the BBC, has built a powerful and near universal censorship, by consent…that the absolutely fundamental ecology question, the need for a sustainable balance between numbers and resources---is almost totally ignored. The sad corollary of this is that mass migration---since it has a major and obvious impact on the overall population situation---cannot be rationally discussed either.”
Parsons, in a letter to a BBC Complaints Unit, asks, “Dare one hope that, one of these days, someone in the higher echelons of the BBC will screw his/her courage to the sticking point and actually issue and follow through on a set of instructions that free the BBC---and hence the nationfrom this appalling and near-totally disabling taboo.” He is given to wonder “Why does this large, wealthy, powerful, highly prestigious institution…cringe so abjectly at the very idea of free speech in the realm of discourse?” And why the taboo? “Has there been an explicit but secret directive to all producers to steer clear of the subject? Has this policy been built up by means of nods, winks and frowns on high; or does it stem from tacit acceptance by all concerned at the prevailing orthodoxy in the wider society?”
According to Parsons, four things are needed to reform the BBC. Firstly, there needs to be major change in ‘media Zeitgeist’ (thinking) that will permit an open discussion about population. Secondly, the BBC needs to “stop cowering beneath its cloak of political correctness” and, by honest analysis, foster the emergence of a mature, ecologically informed electorate. Thirdly, the BBC needs to hire reporters who are population experts. “Some BBC presenters, who have an overweening confidence in their qualifications, start laying down the law on those population topics which are allowed a mention, and in the process frequently display their ignorance…They pick up and mindlessly repeat half-baked notions about alleged labour shortages and pension problems, and swallow hook, line and sinker any free-floating opinions about how much better things will continue to become as numbers inexorably swell.”
Fourthly, it would be nice if the BBC followed its own Producer Guidelines. “Due impartiality lies at the heart of the BBC. All BBC programmes and services should be open-minded, fair and show a respect for truth. No significant strand of thought should go unreflected or unrepresented at the BBC.”
Until then, however, its Motto will remain that of the Three allegedly Wise Monkeys: See no population problem! Hear no population problem! Speak no population problem!
Mark O’Connor, poet and one-time Vice-President of Australians for an Ecologically Sustainable Population (AESP, re-named SPA), has made a similar assessment of the ABC. In his upcoming book, "Overloading Australia", O’Connor concedes that the ABC is critical to Australian democracy and is able to speak to the people---“and often does”. “But the ABC has in some parts of its news and current affairs sections failed to provide objectivity or fairness to portray debates or news coverage relating to population, immigration or economics." It is living the Comfortable Lie: that growth is good and sustainable, and that the mass immigration that fuels it must continue. “The fact must be faced. There is something deeply wrong in some parts of it.”
But O'Connor is unable to locate precisely where the fault lies. Whether researchers withhold information from presenters, or presenters refuse to use the research provided to them, or whether producers, strategy planners or management dictate programming, is a question outside observers can't answer. "But there certainly is a bias," he asserts.
He offers some examples of this bias. During those years when Australia had the highest per capita immigrant intake of any country in the world, the ABC refused to challenge propagandists who illogically and brazenly claimed that Australia's high immigration intake was "shamefully low" and "proof of racism". In addition, the ABC collaborated with both the government and the opposition party to promote high immigration by ignoring inconvenient facts like the one about Australia's high per capita immigrant intake and suppressing most of the debate. And while going after the jugular of the One Nation Party as if it were alone in its call for a zero net immigration policy, “among its many acts of censorship, ABC TV News suppressed the fact that the Australian Conservation Foundation and the Australian Democrats (two other parties) had long been calling for zero net migration."
O’Connor speculates as to why the ABC behaves in this manner. “The ABC’s failure through nearly three decades to deal with population issues the most important matter facing Australia today--- may have less to do with individuals than with a pervasive institutional culture.” Nevertheless, “if there are such persons blocking the debate, then it is assuredly time they were persuaded to move on to other areas where their biases will do less harm.”
He concludes, “The ABC has a problem with its news service and current affairs programs. It may not be able to rectify past unfairness, but it needs urgently to offer guarantees that the censorship will cease, and that at least in future those who disagree with high immigration or with ‘birth-bribes’ will receive equal time on its programs.” New ‘balance and accountability’ guidelines announced by management in October of 2006 “will not address ABC News’ pro-growth, pro-natalist, pro-conventional economic views.”
Can what has so far been said of the BBC and the ABC be said of the CBC as well? In one word, yes, and more. While some regional centres have attempted to bring more balance to immigration issues, CBC Radio, especially the National centre in Toronto and the Vancouver centre, have emphatically not. In general, the CBC (like the ABC previously) has refused to engage the public on the two questions that critics keep asking: Why is the government importing more people per capita than any other country in the world? And what effect is this infux, which gives us the highest growth rate of any G8 nation, having on our economic, cultural and environmental health?
Timidity and cowardice are not the exclusive province of CBC journalists, but the fact is that only the private media outlets have on occasion exposed abuses of the immigration system and questioned the country’s high immigration intake. The CBC, on the other hand, has done what it can to promote mass immigration on the basis of its misinterpretation of its 1991 legislated mandate to promote “multiculturalism”. Somehow, CBC logic equates the stated “CBC Vision” (to reflect “the cultural diversity of our people”) with support for mass immigration. In addition, to the CBC, the promotion of a diversity of cultures displaces the promotion of a diversity of opinions.
Those very many Canadians who voice negative concerns about immigration are simply denied airtime by the people they subsidize. As Immigration Watch Canada has noted, the CBC sees no contradiction between holding out one hand to ask for public funding while clenching the other in a fist to drive into the mouth of the taxpayer who dares to challenge the CBC line on immigration. Furthermore, the CBC allows generous airtime and interviews with pro-immigration groups, so that they may in turn, as a quid pro quo, advertise for the non-commercial CBC. So to partiality and deceit, one can therefore add corruption to the list of CBC immigration vices.
So what then is the remedy? Suffice it to say that the CBC’s commitment to mass immigration and multiculturalism comes at the cost of balanced, honest journalism. The House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage can obviously rectify this situation by ordering the CBC executive to answer for this conflict of interest. It can further help by demanding that the CBC terminate the corporation’s corrupt arrangements with the immigration industry, its blatant pro-immigration advocacy and the employment of its employees who engage in it.
Such measures would seek not to curb journalistic freedom, but to end shameless CBC journalistic abuse---and return public broadcasting to the public. As with the BBC and ABC, our National Broadcaster should be offering a forum where indeed “no significant strand of thought should go unreflected or unrepresented”. The exclusion of topics or the shunning of voices should be foreign to its corporate culture and democratic mission.
The BBC, ABC and CBC conspiracy to silence critics of immigration and population growth has been an insult to democracy and to the public that has had to put up with it. The conspiracy has to end now.
On housing affordability
Thanks Professor Quiggin from supplying that quote#fn1">1 from our PM. It confirmed that renters do not count amongst John Howard's concerns and that is why they are forced to subsidise, with their taxes, the cost of private home ownership. This includes, amongst many other things, the first home owners' grant and rental assistance for welfare recipients. In both cases the money simply helps further fuel the housing hyper-inflation rather than help to make housing affordable.
I think this debate largely misses two other key factors which have been even more critical in forcing up the cost of housing in recent decades.
1. Much of the cost of housing is in fact the result of the privatisation of the housing market begun by Menzies.
The government-owned Housing Trust of South Australia never cost South Australian taxpayers a cent, yet for decades was able to provide affordable good quality housing to all sectors of South Australian society. Money that would have been unproductively invested in property speculation in the Eastern states was, instead, directed towards establishing viable manufacturing industries in South Australia.
2. That high housing costs are a consequence of high immigration
High immigration now at unofficial, but real and stratospheric href="http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/backscratching-at-a-national-level/2007/06/12/1181414298095.html">300,000 per annum deliberately brought about by the supposedly 'strong border control' Howard Government to suit the needs of property speculators, property developers and dependant industries. There is abundant evidence for this coming out of the mouths of the land speculators themselves. For example read www.realestate.com.au or read this from a 1973 submission by a property developer to the National Population Inquiry:
A large number of industries, including the building industry could not have developed to their present size without the immigration policy ... Population growth promotes expansion in building activity.
This is the mainstay of our economy, which as opposed to that of Japan, is substantially concentrate on national infrastructure rather than purely on export industries.
- cited in "The Growth Lobby and its Absence : The Relationship between the Property Development and Housing Industries and Immigration Policy in Australia and France" p114 of Sheila Newman's Master's thesis of 2002 downloadable from candobetter.org/sheila
As Queensland Deputy Premier Anna Bligh recently put it :
"The only way we could really (stop population growth) is to put a fence up at the (Queensland) border, or to cancel or freeze all new home building approvals," she said.
"That would have a very serious impact on the construction industry that a lot people rely on for jobs."
Remember, this is the 'left wing' female ex-student-activist Deputy Premier of the 'Smart' State speaking.
So we need to grow population in order to provide jobs for those already living here. And of course, tomorrow all of today's new arrivals will depend upon yet more new arrivals in order to create jobs for them. And the day after tomorrow all those newer arrivals will depend upon yet more new arrivals to create jobs for them, and so on until we are all only permitted to consume 5 litres of water a day each and are living stacked on on top of each other all the way up to the mesosphere in concrete boxes.
And, of course, as Professor Quiggin has pointed out, those who have invested in the hyper-inflated housing market expect the value of their investment to be at least maintained, if not increased. How else is this to be achieved without a constant flow of immigration?
How could anyone possibly question the economic capabilities of the various Governments which have brought about these circumstances?
---
Footnotes
#fn1" id="fn1">1. Prime Minister John Howard said in 2004:
I haven’t met anybody yet who’s stopped me in the street and shaken their fist and said: "Howard, I’m angry with you, my house has got more valuable."
Are nuclear fusion, fission and 'renewables' viable alternatives to fossil fuels?
Andrew Bartlett's articles, as well as attracting posts from people, like myself, who are critical of his pro-population-growth stance, also attracts critical posts from extreme market fundamentalist anti-environmentalists, who object even to Bartlett's flawed and limited pro-environmental stance as well as his progressive humanitarian values. One of those contributors, 'alzo', posted the comment:
"Fission reactors should tide us over until fusion reactors become a reality. There are lots of possible energy sources."
This is my response.
Alzo, today we seem no closer to realising the dream of unlimited supplies of energy from nuclear fusion than we were thirty years ago. According to one scientist, who has worked on nuclear fusion, the nail in the coffin of nuclear fusion will prove to be the lack of sufficient supplies of the necessary hydrogen isotope tritium. For further information, see the forthcoming second edition of "The Final Energy Crisis" edited by Sheila Newman (http://candobetter.org/sheila).
Hazards of nuclear fission
In regard to nuclear fission, it is obviously a more viable source of energy that just may, if we are extremely careful, provide a bridge towards a more sustainable future whilst stocks of Uranium and Thorium last, however it has a very considerable environmental cost. If we increase the scale of nuclear power generation to the extent necessary to fill the gap power the environmental risks we currently face will be multiplied many times. The Chernobyl disaster. which could have been far worst if not for the quick thinking of those courageous workers on the spot is one illustration. On top of the hazards of nuclear fission electricity generation, even more environmental threats are posed by mining of uranium, enrichment, reprocessing and disposal of nuclear wastes. A likely consequence of the expansion of uranium mining in Central Australia is that the Eastern seaboard stands to be exposed to clouds bearing poisonous radioactive uranium and other toxic metals blown from the mine tailings dumps (see David Bradbury's film "Blowin' in the wind" for a graphic illustration of this threat). In the past, the long-term containment of tailings from mining operation has been problematic and, more often than not, fails in the longer term (as Jared Diamond has illustrated in describing past mining operations in Montana in Chapter 2 of "Collapse" pp35-41). I don't hold out any greater hope that the mining companies will do any better a job containing the mountains of tailings from the planned expanded Uranium mines.
Practical limitations of nuclear fission
Another problem with nuclear fission is that it can only be used to generate electricity. In order to operate transport or run factory machinery or mine milling equipment, the electricity has to be either somehow stored chemically, or transported directly as electricity using power lines, transformers and other expensive infrastructure. In the former case, energy is lost, in creating, for example, hydrogen from water, and the containment of hydrogen necessitates the fabrication of particularly strong and well-sealed containers. In the latter case, large quantities of non-renewable resources, particularly copper, are required, and it is expected that the world's production of copper will begin to decline next year (http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=000CEA15-3272-13C8-9BFE83414B7FFE87).
Practical limitations of other 'renewables'
The other "lots of possible energy sources" are essentially derived from solar energy or geothermal energy. All require the use of equipment, the manufacture of which now requires non-renewable rare metals, petroleum-derived plastics and fossil fuel energy. The problems in building renewable energy generators, on a scale necessary to indefinitely meet global society's demands, as well as to provide the necessary additional energy to build replacement generators and infrastructure, without reliance upon fossil-fuel energy, appear to be overwhelming. It seems unlikely that this can be done on a scale anywhere near the scale we have been able to do thus far relying on our finite endowment of fossil fuels.
Applying the precautionary principle
So, I would suggest that it would be extremely imprudent to continue to consume natural resources at our current rate, let alone to increase our rate of consumption, and to go on trashing the world's ecology as we are doing now on the assumption that we can find an easy replacement to so much of that conveniently packaged solar energy captured over tens of millions of years that we have found buried under the ground. It would be far more prudent to assume that our current practices are unsustainable, and to begin now to reduce those levels of consumption.
Those who are consuming the most whilst contributing the least to society, such as property speculators and financial advisers should be amongst the first to be made to do so.
Mayor's 'bunkum' misleads and disturbs
MEDIA STATEMENT 12 July 2007
The opinions of Cr Henry are not necessarily those of Redland Shire Council/
Division 3 Councillor Debra Henry is challenging the Mayor's dismissive remark that rapid population growth in the Redlands is 'bunkum' (Bayside Bulletin 10 July, p 2).
Labeling his comments as misleading, Cr Henry has called for him to "come clean on a growth rate that is putting environmental and social services under immense pressure".
"Comparisons with Ipswich, Caboolture and elsewhere are irrelevant. The people of the Redlands have persistently identified Redland's natural features and relaxed lifestyle as valued assets to maintain and enhance. But these are quite obviously being eroded by rapid growth" said Cr Henry.
Cr Henry is concerned that the Mayor remains fixated with growth and refuses to grasp the realities of the Shire's growth. "It's simple mathematics" she says "Even what appears to be a small percentage (2%) when applied to a large number, grows quickly".
"A two percent growth rate equates to a doubling in 35 years. With a population of 135,000 two percent growth means the Shire's population will increase by another 135,000 in 35 years. It is exponential growth and never before have we faced growth of this magnitude. The Mayor's refusal to acknowledge this is disturbing" Cr Henry said.
But she believes there is a questionable agenda behind the Mayor's dismissive remarks.
"The Local Growth Management Strategy (LGMS) recently passed 6-5 by this Council and now with State Government for approval is a planning document of the highest order. It will lock the Shire into high growth for the next two decades and with his cries of 'bunkum' it appears the Mayor is trying to detract from the significance of this document" said Cr Henry.
"If approved, the LGMS will result in at least another 60,000 people in the Redlands in less than 20 years. It will result in amendments to the Redland Planning Scheme and the State's SEQ Regional Plan. It will give legal rights of development, and compensation would apply should hindsight indicate the land zonings are inappropriate".
Cr Henry considers it ironic that some of the Councillors supporting the LGMS have lamented some land zonings at Mt Cotton, saying the decision made some 20 years ago locked us into approvals, no matter how inappropriate that decision is in hindsight.
"Let's learn from the past, and use some foresight here. We can negotiate levels of growth, and we don't have to commit vast tracts of land to non-negotiable development".
Cr Henry, who has posted an "e-Petition" relating to the LGMS on www.parliament.qld.gov.au added that the Mayor's "flippant response to a serious situation, is a hindrance to democracy and a threat to sustainability".
Debra Henry
Councillor Division 3
Cleveland South - Thornlands
Redland Shire Council
crdebrah |AT| redland.qld.gov.au
07 38298618
0439 914631
South East Queensland over-allocation of land and resources must be reversed
Media Release
Wednesday, 11 July 2007
South East Queensland residents are using World Population Day, 11th July, to urge the Queensland Government to reverse the over-allocation of land and resources committed to development in the region.
According to the South East Queensland Branch of Sustainable Population Australia (SPA), concerned citizens are sending an appeal to the Premier that the Local Growth Management Strategies required under the SEQ Plan be delayed until biodiversity, climate change, natural resources, ecological services and quality of life issues are addressed.
"The government has committed South East Queensland to a level of development that will destroy its biodiversity," said a spokesman for the South East Queensland branch. "We are destroying our natural environment, both through the use of land for housing and infrastructure and through the consumption of natural resources, such as water and building materials."
"Quarries are already having an enormous impact on SEQ's biodiversity, destroying koala habitat and rare and threatened species; and with the increasing demand for building materials we will see even greater destruction," he said. "If the Environmental Protection Agency allows quarrying in 'of concern' regional ecosystems - those types of forests that are already down to less than 30% of their original cover - we will see massive losses of this region's species diversity."
"The South East Queensland Regional Plan was based on high projections and planning from the early 1990's, with little regard for the natural assets of the area," said the spokesman. "The Queensland Government has mapped almost all the vegetation left in the Region as being of state and regional significance for biodiversity, yet it has failed to protect this biodiversity from housing, tourism, rural industry and other impacts."
"We are asking that a moratorium be imposed until the over-allocation of South East Queensland land for development is reversed and sustainable outcomes are guaranteed," he said.
For more information about this important issue:
Sheila Davis, Secretary, SPA-SEQ, Mob: 0423 305478
Populate and Perish
Citizens arrest
Tackling climate change is now a worldwide crusade - so what's stopping campaigners driving its simplest solution?
David Nicholson-Lord
Wednesday July 11, 2007
The Guardian
The simplest truths are sometimes the hardest to recognise. This month, according to the UN, world population will reach 6.7 billion, en route to a newly revised global total of 9.2 billion by 2050. The latest housing forecasts for England predict that we will need about 5m more homes in the next two decades. The economist Jeffrey Sachs devoted this spring's Reith lectures to a planet "bursting at the seams". And the most recent Social Trends analysis from the Office for National Statistics painted a picture of a Britain driven mad by overcrowding. Meanwhile, Gaia scientist James Lovelock has been warning about ecological collapse and world resources able to support only 500 million people, with many extra millions driven to take refuge in the UK.
In the midst of all these alarms is a very quiet place where the green lobby should be talking about human population growth. Today has been designated World Population Day by the UN, but you will not see any of the big environment and development groups mounting a campaign on population. Indeed, you will be lucky if they even mention the P-word. Earlier this year, Nafis Sadik, former director of the UN's population fund, berated such non-governmental organisations for being more concerned with fundraising than advocacy. Their silence on population, she observed, was "deafening".
Mainstream concern
So why isn't the green movement talking about population any more? In its early days, back in the 60s and 70s, population growth was a mainstream concern. Groups including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth (FoE), WWF and Oxfam took well-publicised positions on population issues - endorsing the Stop at Two (children) slogan, supporting zero population growth and publishing reports with titles such as Already Too Many (Oxfam). These days, Greenpeace declares that population is "not an issue for us" and describes it as "a factor [in] but not one of the drivers of" environmental problems.
FOE last year tried to answer some "common questions" on the subject, including: "Why isn't Friends of the Earth tackling population growth?" Oxfam, which as recently as 1994 published a report entitled World Population: The Biggest Problem of All, now does not list it among the dozen or so "issues we work on", and nor does it figure in the "What you can do" section of WWF's One Planet Living campaign.
The green lobby's main argument is that numbers do not matter so much - it is how we live and consume that counts. FoE even remarks that "it is unhelpful to enter into a debate about numbers. The key issue is the need for the government to implement policies that respect environmental limits, whatever the population of the UK". It is a statement that seems to treat population and environmental limits as entirely separate subjects.
There are two powerful counter-arguments to this. One is common sense: that consumption and numbers matter and that if a consumer is absent - that is, unborn - then so is his or her consumption. The second is the weight of evidence. Sir David King, the government's chief scientist, told a parliamentary inquiry last year: "It is self-evident that the massive growth in the human population through the 20th century has had more impact on biodiversity than any other single factor."
The increase in global population over the next 40 years, for example, is roughly what the entire world population was in 1950. The UK, currently around 61 million people, is on course for 71 million by 2074, by which time England's densities will have outstripped those of South Korea, which, by some measures, is currently the world's second most crowded country - second only to Bangladesh.
The Optimum Population Trust today publishes a new report, Youthquake, that warns - echoing Lovelock - that environmental degradation caused by the number of humans may force more governments to follow China's lead and introduce compulsory limits on family size.
Many suspect other motives for the green lobby's neglect of the population issue. It is a sensitive subject, bound up with issues on which the progressive left, which most environmental groups identify with, has developed a defensive intellectual reflex. These include race and immigration - the latter accounts for more than 80% of forecast UK population growth, for example - reproductive choice, human rights and gender equality. Calls for population restraint can easily be portrayed as "anti-people" - surely people are part of "the solution"? It is far easier to ignore the whole subject; let somebody else - or nobody - deal with it.
Verbal contortions
This often involves intriguing verbal contortions. The 70s organisation Population Countdown, having morphed into Population Concern, in 2003 rechristened itself as Interact Worldwide - under its former name, consultants told it, its funders, and future, would dry up.
Faced with escalating forecasts of housing need - one recent government projection says we will need 11m more households in the UK by 2050, an increase of over 40% - the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) proclaims itself in favour of "development that protects the countryside and the environment" and ignores the fact that the main cause of forecast housing growth, responsible for 59% of the total, is population increase.
So why does the CPRE not campaign on the issue that poses the greatest threat to rural England? "If we did," says Shaun Spiers, CPRE's chief executive, "it appears unlikely that our actions would have any effect on population growth, and that would lay us open to the charge of misusing our charitable funds."
How to categorise such reactions? Pragmatism? Cowardice? Sensible tactics? Or an overdose of organisational self-preservation? Whatever the reason, it is infectious - the media (and politicians) take many of their awareness cues from NGOs so the silence on population becomes society-wide. As a result, family size is seen as an exercise in individual lifestyle choice: few people consider the consequences for the planet of their fertility decisions. That means fertility rates in the UK rise, and the population keeps on growing.
· David Nicholson-Lord is an environmental writer and research associate for the Optimum Population Trust. The Youthquake report is available at optimumpopulation.org
· David Nicholson-Lord is an environmental writer and research associate for the Optimum Population Trust. The Youthquake report is available at optimumpopulation.org
· Email your comments to society |AT| guardian.co.uk. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication"
World Population Day 11th July - growth out of control in SEQ
Media release
Tuesday, 10 July 2007
Water crisis, housing crisis, transport infrastructure crisis, hospital crisis and continued destruction of open space and bushland are all the hallmarks that show growth is out of control in South East Queensland, say environmentalists.
A spokesman for Sustainable Population Australia - South East Queensland Branch, said that World Population Day#fn1">1 is a time to focus on commitment and action to ensure our population is sustainable.
"However, SEQ's population is not only unsustainable, it's out of control," he said. "Every week the growth rate is driving water, energy and transport infrastructure and ecosystems deeper into crisis."
"What a way to celebrate World Population Day! SEQ is in a dismal state of affairs. It's a great example of what not to do," said the spokesman. ?While there are cries of climate change, falling fish stocks and loss of biodiversity, governments fail to tackle the root cause of these problems, unsustainable growth.?
"Never in the history of the planet has the Earth had to support a human population of over 6 billion," he said. "And neither has Australia had to support a population of over 21 million."
"A growing population demands ever increasing amounts of resources to supply it with the goods and services it needs. It also produces ever increasing amounts of waste," said the spokesman. "Our demands on the planet are depriving other species of their habitat and crippling the ecosystems that support life. Quite simply, we are living like there is no tomorrow. It is morally and ethically wrong."
"What is happening globally is being played out in SEQ. We struggle to support further growth and our lifestyle and environment degrades. If we are genuine about saving the planet, SEQ is a classic example of what not to do because growth in SEQ is out of control," he said.
For more information about this important issue:
Sheila Davis, Secretary, SPA-SEQ, Mob: 0423 305478
Sustainable Population Australia - SEQ Branch, Box 199, Mudgeeraba Qld 4213
Footnotes
1. World Population Day, 11 July, was designated by the United Nations in 1987 to raise consciousness about the impacts of overpopulation on the world and to mark the arrival of the five billionth person on the planet. Twenty years later, in 2007, there are an additional 1.6 billion people and the world is headed towards a population of 9 to 12 billion by 2050. The Earth's population has skyrocketed from 1 billion in 1880, to 2 billion in 1930, and now to 6.6 billion.
Environmental consequences of Chinese and Indian growth frankly discused on radio panel discussion
The Dependence on Nature Law
I have been a researcher for over fifty years. I am used to trying to look into the minds of writers to understand their views of complex operations. I know that even the brightest and most informed people have a limited zone of understanding. And this limitation is more restricted by the difficulty of converting the mental image into the written word. It follows that there is very appreciable uncertainty about what civilization has done to the operation of its life support system, the environment. Many different perspectives are put forward. Often they express opinions without providing the supporting arguments and facts. There is increasing concern amongst informed people about current trends, especially as the gulf between the rich and poor grows rapidly and climate change becomes more noticeable.
I know that any article I may write about the unsustainable nature of the current operations of society would contrast with many others, often seemingly authoritative because of the skill of the writers. I may be able, in my mind, to critically weigh up their selective arguments but that serves little useful purpose. The general view will roll on.
I decided some years ago that in view of my limited zone of understanding, I would concentrate on getting a sound understanding of what civilization has actually done to the environment. I have done that. It is summarized by what I call 'The Dependence on Nature Law'.
I then set out to explain why this sums up what human operations have done. It is quite long because I found it necessary to define many terms I use and to clarify many of the common misunderstandings. It presents some novel perspective that needs thinking through to appreciate. 'What went wrong? The misdirection of civilization' is my attempt to articulate what has happened in a form that the non-technical can understand while showing the scientific basis.
I believe it is unlikely that many will take the trouble to think through the message in 'What went wrong' in the near future. However, I do believe that it does make a major contribution to understanding of what has happened. I do expect that in due course it will be recognized as pioneering a novel view of the impact of civilization on the ecosystem. A view that will help some in society adjust to the decline ahead. I expect that there will be increasing bewilderment as over population, climate change, water supply problems, investment failings, food shortages, petrol price rises, health problems, a long lasting recession, more global conflict and natural disasters combine with other stress factors to dim future prospects. Those who gain the understanding in 'What went wrong' could well contribute to the Earth Revolution that eases the crisis.
Denis Frith
Melbourne
Australia
17 June 2007
#DependenceOnNatureLaw" id="DependenceOnNatureLaw">The Dependence on Nature Law
The freedom of humans to be creative and innovative is acclaimed - by us. This is the positive side of the uniquely human attribute. There is, however, a negative side that is not generally recognized.
Humans employ a huge range of transient operations they have installed that invariably involve using and abusing natural resources. Each of these operations provides something deemed of value to society during its lifetime. Each of these operations incurs an irrevocable, un-repayable ecological cost. We are irreversibly drawing down on the irreplaceable natural bounty.
I argue in 'What went wrong? The misdirection of civilization' that this Dependence on Nature Law is soundly based but that society generally does not weigh up worth against eco cost realistically. A natural law is the summation of what invariably happens during natural operations. It is therefore appropriate to classify the dependence of the material operations of civilization on what is available from the environment as a natural law. Natural operations are also dependent on what is available but generally they draw down on natural bounty income only. The consequence of society's exuberance is unnecessarily rapid degradation of our life support system, the bounty available from the ecosystem. There are too many people consuming too much of what nature has left to offer and then providing irrevocable waste. This holistic consumption predicament is exacerbated by the demands on the bounty to maintain the aging foundations of civilization. It is made worse by the gluttony of the powerful. The spree is unsustainable. It is a plague coming to its end. Catabolic collapse can only be avoided by a wise power down. Even then, there is the problem of maintaining cultural benefits even as the population declines.
The conventional economic growth paradigm is based on the fallacious argument that the materialistic structure and operations of our civilization can occur without exacerbating this holistic malaise, consumption of the natural bounty. So growth is being fostered even as the available bounty is declining more rapidly. This is an unsustainable double whammy exacerbated by the need to look after the structure of civilization.
The Dependence on Nature Law really does under lay the operation and maintenance of the foundations of our civilization. Appreciation of that fact makes it much easier to understand how it is that current trends are based on false premises, so are unsustainable. It explains what went wrong.
South East Queensland growth must be reconsidered to protect nature
Conservation groups throughout South East Queensland are asking the State Government to review the SEQ Regional Plan so that it reflects environmental concerns and sets sustainable levels for dwelling targets and habitat protection.
Gecko – Gold Coast and Hinterland Environment Council spokesperson, Lois Levy, says that members have concerns that the projected figure of 1.2million residents has not been updated to reflect the carrying capacity of
South East Queensland.
"The projected Gold Coast figures show that we are being asked to accommodate the second-highest growth figures in the region," said Ms Levy, "when considering the biodiversity of the area, the Gold Coast is already overpopulated."
"The targets in the SEQ Regional Plan are based on past poor planning figures conceived in the early 1990's," said Ms Levy. "They do not take into account current knowledge about the biodiversity of our region nor do they consider climate change and its ramifications.
"Further, recent mapping of fauna and flora habitat does not reflect the extent of encroachment by development into these areas and the amount of habitat needed to sustainably support flora and fauna in South East Queensland," said Ms Levy.
The Queensland Government requires all 18 local governments in SEQ to prepare Local Growth Management Strategies under the Plan to accommodate by the end of June; however, many have been deferred pending reviews of state interests.
Lois Levy 07 55343706 or 0412 724222 or
Sheila Davis 07 5530-6600 or 0423-305-478
Gecko - Gold Coast and Hinterland Environment Council (www.gecko.org.au),
139 Duringan Street, Currumbin Qld 4223
Phone: (07) 5534 1412 Fax: (07) 5534 1401 Email: info |AT| gecko.org.au
Mayors of South East Queensland seek help from developers to push growth plan
Sustainable Population Australia South East Queensland Branch Media Release Monday, 25 June 2007
A recent publication of the Council of Mayors South East Queensland highlights that the mayors of SEQ are seeking help from developers to push the Local Growth Management Strategies (LGMS). These are legal planning documents that force each local government area in South East Queensland to accept unsustainable growth.
The COMmunique#fn1">1 22 June 2007 states:
“The Council of Mayors (SEQ) will seek the support of the Property Council and Urban Development Institute of Australia to lobby the State Government for a communications campaign to promote key messages regarding the intent and purpose of local growth management strategies under the South East Queensland (SEQ) Regional Plan. Although acknowledging the issue, the State Government has yet to commit to a broad based and high profile campaign.”
“Local government mayors recognize they cannot sell unsustainable growth to their constituents, so they are seeking help from those who desire it most,” said Baltais.
“What is most appalling is that they want this unholy alliance to pressure the Queensland Government to spin a story for them,” said Baltais.
“We urge the Queensland Government to resist this pressure and engage the community in planning for its future with a total review of all targets in the SEQ Regional Plan in light of recent studies and current knowledge.”
Footnotes
1. See document at www.councilofmayorsseq.qld.gov.au/.../20070622_communique.pdf (43K)
Stop the Queensland growth treadmill!
The Queensland Government does not pursue its environmently reckless course of encouraging endless population growth with the support of Queensland's existing population, who are overwhelmingly opposed. Rather it is being done to suit the interests of property developers and land speculators and dependent industries who are able to paradoxically exploit circumstances, in which all members of society must necessarily, on average, become poorer, in order to enrich themselves.
It accedes to the wishes of this parasitic growth lobby, because it is financially dependant upon stamp duties generated from real estate transactions and because developers, rather than trade unions, have become the principle source of contributions to Labor Party coffers.
On 22 April, the Age newspaper reported that the Queensland Government had rejected a call by the group Sustainable Population Australia to cap the south-east corner's mushrooming population to help save its dwindling water supplies. Deputy Premier Anna Bligh stated:
"The only way we could really do that is to put a fence up at the (Queensland) border, or to cancel or freeze all new home building approvals," she said.
"That would have a very serious impact on the construction industry that a lot people rely on for jobs.
In other words, Bligh was stating unapologetically that the Queensland economy was not being run to meet the needs of Queensland's existing population, rather that it was necessary to keep importing more and more people in order to keep existing Queenslanders employed. Evidently, she had never paused to reflect on how those new Queenslanders would, in turn, gain employment. One could only conclude than even more people would have to be imported in order to provide further employment opportunities for the new arrivals. In turn, those newer arrivals would would require yet more even newer arrivals.
In the meantime Queensland's existing population would be made to pay ever more for its basic sevices such as water water as Goverenments would find it necessary to depend upon energy-intensive technologically complex alternatives such as desalination and sewage recycling to provide the necessary water. Communities such as that in the Mary River Valley and at Wyaralong are to be face destruction as more dams were built in order to store the necessary water.
Clearly this stituation is unsustainable in the long term. The longer it is allowed to persist, the more difficult it will be for Queenslanders to cope in future with environmental crises, both global and localised, and looming shortages of natural resources. The sooner this cycle is broken the better.
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