My published letter – 28/3

Response to the opinion piece mentioned in my previous (27/3) entry. Worded this much the same as the previous IVF letter, but with mention of the article.

More urgent needs for money

I couldn’t agree more with Jill Singer (“The IVF revolution is money badly spent”, March 26).

Infertility is not a disfiguring, painful or life-threatening condition. Taxpayers’ money should not be used to artificially bring more people who would not otherwise be here into an already overpopulated world.

There are far more urgent health and social programs that need funding.

“The rise of the little emperor: How the one-child family could soon be in the majority”, Daily Mail, 28/3. More parents in Britain are choosing to have one child for various reasons. The article writer sounds vaguely alarmed at this trend, but I can’t see it as a bad thing – small families should be encouraged (and large ones discouraged) to help combat excessive population growth. And I can’t comprehend why women actively want large families (aside from the pragmatic reason of having “backups” if one child should die).

IVF irrationality

A Herald-Sun columnist, Jill Singer, wrote an opinion piece on the negative aspects of IVF (“The IVF revolution is money badly spent”, 26/3. And has it aroused the ire of the “IVF lobby” mentioned in the article, if the comments are anything to go by! Clearly people with more emotion than sense; it seems that the reproductive urge brings out the worst irrationality in many. She notes some points that I did in my last (23/3) entry. I feel it is outrageous that taxpayers have to fund what is not a life-threatening, painful or disfiguring condition. She should not feel she should apologize for her views in the article, though!

No other country is as generous as Australia when it comes to pouring taxpayer dollars into the lucrative baby-making industry. We are subsidising the creation through technological intervention of more than 11,000 babies every year.

Medicare rebates cover the bulk of scheduled fees and the Medicare safety net kicks in to cover 80 per cent of out-of-pocket costs once a patient has spent just $1111.60 in any year (a mere $550 if you’re getting family tax benefits). What’s more, patients can elect to have an unlimited number of fruitless IVF cycles subsidised, regardless of their relatively advanced age or how many children they might already have.

Not surprisingly, the axe is hanging over the funding scheme for IVF as the Federal Government examines ways of reining in the annual $300 million safety net. Equally unsurprising is that IVF lobbyists are working overtime to ensure the status quo remains.

She notes that IVF children have a higher incidence of various defects:

All IVF carries risks for children, however. A systematic review of IVF studies conducted in 2005 revealed a 30-40 per cent increase in birth defects when comparing IVF and ICSI babies with naturally conceived children. The fact is that we are paying to create a faulty gene pool, turning Darwin’s theory about survival of the fittest on its head. What other species would be so foolish as to encourage this form of un-natural selection?

One commenter castigates her for advocating “eugenics”, but I can’t see anything wrong with that. It’s the same sort of irrational nonsense that the prospect of “designer” (genetically-engineered) babies arouses (“Fears over ‘designer’ babies leave children suffering”, New Scientist, 21/3). If I were to have a child (which I am not), I would make full use of genetic engineering if it were available (I would like to change a few things about myself).

“Population will pass 30 million by 2056”, The Age, 26/3. Disheartening predictions of Australia’s seemingly inexorable population growth, but no suggestion is made in the article that it should be reduced, only planned for. Another 3 million people in Victoria will make the state unliveable – it is bad enough now.

Even the most conservative estimates from the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ latest Social Trends report has the population skimming 30.9 million by 2056. That figure factors in a decline in the overall fertility rate from the present 1.8 babies per woman to 1.6, and a drop in overseas migration. Should more women suddenly start having more children and the number of migrants coming to Australia balloons to 220,000 a year, that figure could reach as high as 42.5 million by 2056.

A letter response from a member of the Public Population Forum:

We do have choice

Demographer Peter McDonald (“Population will pass 30 million by 2056”, 26/3) appears not to acknowledge that Australia does have a choice and can plan for what its future population will be. It does not have to be big. Mr McDonald talks up infrastructure as a way to prepare for a population 50 per cent higher than it is now in less than 50 years. No mention is made of any natural constraints to Australia comfortably supporting a significantly larger population. The question of the most critical resource – water – immediately springs to mind.

– Jill Quirk, East Malvern

“God ‘will not give happy ending’ ”, BBC News, 26/3. While I’m not religious, it’s noteworthy that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, feels compelled to warn of dire times ahead for the human race if it does not desist from harming the environment, and that no deity will intervene to save us from ourselves (save an Artificial Intelligence or aliens).

Speaking on Wednesday he said just as God gave humans free will to do “immeasurable damage” to themselves as individuals it seemed “clear” they had the same “terrible freedom” as a human race.

[…]

Without a change of heart, Dr Williams warned, the world faced a number of “doomsday scenarios” including the “ultimate tragedy” of humanity gradually “choked, drowned, or starved by its own stupidity.”

My published letter – 23/3

Got the IVF letter (22/3 entry) published in today’s The Age:

Needs versus wants

Lisa Campbell (Letters, 21/3) needs to learn the distinction between needs and wants (hers are the latter). Infertility is not a disfiguring, painful or life-threatening condition. Before IVF, people had to deal with infertility and find other means of fulfilment. Taxpayers’ money should not be used to bring people into an already overpopulated world who would not otherwise be here – there are far more urgent social programs that need funding.

A related article from 22/3 Herald-Sun:

IVF babies warning

British couples having IVF treatment will be warned for the first time that their children have a higher risk of genetic flaws and health problems.

IVF babies may be up to 30 per cent more likely to suffer from heart valve defects, cleft lip and palate and digestive system abnormalities. They also have an increased risk of rare genetic disorders such as Angelman syndrome.

One reason for infertility in older women and men is poor-quality eggs or sperm (which decline as they age), so they obviously should not be passing these defects on. Another reason for men:

Infertility caused by DNA defects on the Y chromosome is passed on from father to son. If natural selection is the primary error correction mechanism that prevents random mutations on the Y chromosome, then fertility treatments for men with abnormal sperm (in particular ICSI) only defer the underlying problem to the next male generation. (Wikipedia: Infertility)

“Britain set to become most populous country in EU”, Guardian, 22/3. Britain is going to be an increasingly unpleasant place to live in as it gets ever-more overcrowded. Exacerbating the problem is the thousands of refugees anticipated as a result of climate change.

In addition, there is the issue of humanitarian responsibility. Britain is likely to be one of the few nations to survive the worst effects of climate change while other nations, particularly those in the developing world, have their farmland and fishing grounds destroyed. It could be argued that the UK has a moral duty to provide shelter for as many refugees as our shores can support.

It could also be argued that Britain has a greater responsibility to its own citizens first and foremost, and should not take in more people than it can handle.

But many climatologists believe that by then life on the planet will already have become dangerously unpleasant. Temperature rises will have started to have devastating impacts on farmland, water supplies and sea levels. Humans – increasing both in numbers and dependence on food from devastated landscapes – will then come under increased pressure. The end result will be apocalyptic, said Lovelock. By the end of the century, the world’s population will suffer calamitous declines until numbers are reduced to around 1 billion or less. “By 2100, pestilence, war and famine will have dealt with the majority of humans,” he said.

One of the few places to survive the worst impacts will be Britain. “Our climate will be one of the least affected by global warming,” added Lovelock. “As a result, everyone will want to live here. We will become one of the world’s lifeboats. The trouble, of course, will be that, even if we wanted to, we will not be able to pick up everyone. There will be some hard decisions to make.”

If governments of the least-afflicted countries wish their societies to survive, they will have to be brutally pragmatic.

Sick of being lectured to!

“Call to respect migrant rights”, The Age, 21/3. If there is one topic that arouses my ire these days, it is being lectured to by the pro-immigration/multiculturalism lobby. Their self-righteous moralizing ignores the fact that as job opportunities decline, increased competition for those which remain will incite resentment, no matter how politically-incorrect this may be, and it is thus irresponsible for the Government to keep increasing immigration numbers. Australia cannot continue to import huge numbers of people without serious damage to the environment and social structure. (I sent a modified version of that view to the Letters section, so I’ll see if it gets published.)

On the eve of Harmony Day, Laurie Ferguson also attacked employers who discriminate against new migrants because they lack local work experience. “Some employers think that someone who worked in an Australian factory for five weeks five years ago is a better guarantee than someone who has worked for 15 years in another country,” Mr. Ferguson said. “That’s just an incredible attitude and I hope it’s changing.”

Possibly because the first person is a citizen who speaks English and the second isn’t/doesn’t? That would be a reasonable “discrimination” in my view.

A similar article from earlier this week is “Welcome no longer”, The Age, 17/3.

The economic argument for maintaining a high level of immigration is that immigrants bring assets, and skills and education that improve the quality of the labour force. More migrants also help meet employer demand for skilled labour.

Maybe the Government should provide funded training programs for its own unemployed citizens instead? (I’d be one of them willing to take up such training!)

An example of the extremes invoked by such resentment were the riots in South Africa in May 2008 last year against the influx of refugees from Zimbabwe into already-impoverished communities. One cause given was “relative deprivation, specifically intense competition for jobs, commodities and housing”. (Wikipedia article) Those lecturing about “racism” totally missed the point.

“Booms in migrants and babies”, The Age, 19/3. Dismaying news! Australia’s population has jumped to 21.5 million, fuelled by the highest migration boom in almost 40 years, and population growth was the highest it had been since 1970. Victoria’s population is now 5 340 000, so no wonder the roads and public transport are not coping.

“Global crisis ‘to strike by 2030’ ”, BBC News, 19/3.

Growing world population will cause a “perfect storm” of food, energy and water shortages by 2030, the UK government chief scientist has warned. By 2030 the demand for resources will create a crisis with dire consequences, Prof. John Beddington said. Demand for food and energy will jump 50% by 2030 and for fresh water by 30%, as the population tops 8.3 billion, he told a conference in London.

Predictably, not a mention of reducing population growth, but only somehow accommodating the surplus numbers.

This letter (21/3) concerning IVF really aggravated me also as it is a blatant example of entitlement whinging:

Help to start family

I am writing to express my concern and dismay at the potential changes to means-testing of the Medicare safety net, which will affect IVF funding.

My husband and I are IVF patients trying to conceive our first child. We did not choose to take this path. No one chooses IVF, it is not a luxury, it is a need – a need to have a family.

There are two parts to our concern for all those who require IVF treatment.

Patients should not be required to undergo police checks to be eligible for IVF treatment and, second, means testing the safety net will put IVF out of reach for many people. This will result in only the rich being able to afford IVF.

– Lisa Campbell, Cranbourne West

I sent off a reply as a letter, also:

Lisa Campbell (“Help to start family”, The Age Letters, 21/3) needs to learn the distinction between needs and wants (hers is the latter). Infertility is not a disfiguring, painful or life-threatening condition. Before IVF was invented, people just had to deal with infertility and find other means of fulfilment. Taxpayers’ money should not be used to bring more people into an already-overpopulated world who would not otherwise be here – there are far more urgent social programs that need funding.

If it’s published, I wonder if I will get an irate phone call from her?

(I have a bit of PMT, so I am even more snippy and impatient than usual!)

(Some) migrant cutbacks

“Skilled migrants cutback”, The Age; “Skilled migrant intake to be cut by 14 per cent”, Herald-Sun, 16/3: In a rare display of common sense, the Federal Government is making some cuts to the absurdly high migrant intake – admittedly only small cuts to skilled migrants (18 500 over the next three months – 14% of the annual intake – from 133 500 to 115 000 for the 2008-09 financial year).

“My large family: Love multiplies”, Sydney Morning Herald, 5/3. I believe people who choose to have large families should be penalized, perhaps through added child taxes (from the third child onwards), or no access to child-support services. There should be a campaign so that having large families becomes a social stigma. Such a choice is environmentally irresponsible, and puts extra strain on resources. There is also the simple logistics problem of coping with such a large number of children. The mother makes some of the usual mawkish statements about “love” to justify her choice:

I believe we are capable of so much more than we allow ourselves to give. There is always plenty of love to go round in our home and that’s for everyone who ventures through our door, not just our own family.

*Gags* Irrational and irresponsible are more accurate words to describe them.

“Double is trouble when caring for premature babies”, SMH 10/3. Babies tend to be the focus of excessive sentimental mawkishness. This article describes the social and medical costs involved in ensuring very premature babies survive (who might otherwise die), many of whom are multiples due to the use of IVF. I would legislate for a cut-off point (I am not sure what the viable age is – 37 weeks is the normal gestation), before which no medical care would be given (they would die or survive as nature intended). Something which would undoubtedly cause much outrage, but one has to be pragmatic – the health system is under much strain already. Prematures often have medical problems later on in life: “Many premature pupils ‘struggle’ ”, BBC News, 12/3. I’ll requote the comment back in my 28/1/2009 entry:

I’m sick of the baby fetish, and I’m sick of pretending. Natalism has become our nation’s most disturbing fetish.

Population disaster

“Population explosion ‘heralds disaster’ ”, The Age, 6/3. An Australian professor of reproductive biology, Professor Roger Short, gives his opinion on the overpopulation crisis: that things will get very unpleasant during this century should current growth trends continue, and that countries with high proportions of unemployable and disaffected young men make them prime recruits for terrorism.

This poster at the Public Population Forum provides an answer to the question in my last entry (2/3) of finding people to do unpleasant jobs (e.g. fruit picking) noted in my previous entry: innovate and automate!

Berg wonders whether laid-off Macquarie Bank alumni would be willing to pick pistachios, drawing on the same old tired rhetoric that immigration-as-a-cheap-labour-pool enthusiasts have used for decades. The answer to his question is that they probably would, if they were offered enough money. Which they certainly won’t be.

I know a fellow who grows nuts on a small/medium sized farm in the Southern Highlands of NSW. Using usual methods, he couldn’t gather and prepare his harvest for market by himself. Traditionally, he might have tried to employ pickers, for minimal wages, as some of his neighbours do. But the reality is that his margins are now so tight that pickers at almost ANY price would cost too much for the business to remain viable. This is where the “race to the bottom” hits rock bottom.

So, rather than sell out, or complain about a labour shoratge or how Australians won’t do certain jobs, he innovated. Drawing on his engineering background he built a machine for shaking the trees to drop the nuts ready for harvest. He built low cost and fairly low-tech machines for collecting the nuts, sorting and cleaning them, shelling them and bagging them ready for sale.

The bottom line is that he now runs the whole farm himself, without any seasonal workers. His farm remains viable. Cheap labour didn’t save it – innovation did.

The second part of SBS’s documentary on declining birthrates screened last night, this one entitled “Grey Tsunami”, about the hordes of old people who will comprise much of society in the next few decades, and the challenges entailed in preparing for this (which most governments haven’t). People will have to be prepared to work longer (which is fine if you have a fulfilling job or career, not so enjoyable if you don’t). Japan is looking at innovations such as robot helpers (I wouldn’t mind one of these!). Unless societies want to revert back to a system where women are forced to be breeders (as is the case in some countries), governments will just have to deal with the issue of aging. A society of mostly old people would likely be more peaceful and relaxed, so it is not necessarily a bad thing!

Keep migrants coming?

“Despite job fears, we must keep migration door open”, The Age, 1/3. An apologist argues that we should keep immigration levels high despite fears from some that this will increase jobs competition.

Critics of immigration conveniently forget that immigrants do more than just work – they buy houses and consume products too. Hell, they even pay taxes. Adding more people into the economic mix is a recipe for long term growth – this is as true when the economy is slowing down as it is when the economy is booming. After all, there are a lot of things to do in an economy, even during a recession.

But those extra immigrants will require taxpayer-funded health care, social security and so on, too. Growth in a country of finite resources can’t be infinite. And, yes, it is reasonable for citizens to resent the extra competition from immigrants in a time of increasing unemployment.

He does have a point that undesirable jobs (e.g. fruit-picking) tend to have high job vacancies. I don’t know what the solution for this is.

Sure, there are now a lot of people actively seeking work since the global financial crisis really hit six months ago. But there have been unemployed people since before then, and those jobs in the fruit-picking industry have long been unfilled.

Only when the finance industry’s brightest sparks begin seeking agricultural employment should we start denying farmers the labour force they need – and denying eager migrant workers the opportunity to earn. Ever since the First Fleet landed, Australia’s most pressing economic problem has been our population size. Our labour force has always been small, our consumer base small, and the size of our national market small.

Small is beautiful! Australia is mostly infertile land (desert) and cannot support a high population – it is already straining to support the 21+ million now occupying it.

Compounding this has been the fear of an inexorably ageing workforce. But the credit crunch has presented long-term opponents of immigration with an opportunity to flog their favourite dead horse. Even more erroneous is the belief held by many opponents of immigration that we should limit the entry into Australia of certain non-Western religions because our cultures are incompatible.

Probably because religious fanatics who advocate blowing others up with suicide bombers tend to make citizens rather nervous!

Anyway,we have a moral necessity to maintain a high immigration intake. Much more than foreign aid, charity, Live Aid wristbands, and even the bulk-purchase of fair trade coffee, the most effective way we can help somebody living in the third world to crawl out of poverty is allowing them to move to the first world.

An even more effective and preventative method would be to help those impoverished countries become normal functioning ones so their citizens don’t feel such a pressing need to emmigrate.

“Young mums grab bonus”, Herald-Sun, 2/3. This reports the not-very-surprising news that the baby bonus has encouraged teenage pregnancies. Obvious solution: ban the BB for under-18s! Even better: scrap it altogether. I would instead not object to, say, government-funded 6 months’ maternity or paternity leave at minimum wage, which seems a reasonable compromise to me (a year, as some want, is too excessive to fund).

Also annoying is that IVF gets a Medicare rebate!

“Medicare rebates for IVF births in the same period were $295,000, which works out at less than $20,000 for each baby,” said Professor Robert Jansen, a director of Sydney IVF.

Infertility is not a painful, life-threatening or disfiguring condition, and should not be government-funded! The money could be much better used elsewhere (e.g. funding the health care system).

“Despair and rage among Gaza’s youths”, BBC News, 27/2. Another not-very-surprising report on the overcrowding in Gaza, this focusing on the Angry Young Men who are a symptom of this, and the social unrest that results from boredom, hopelessness and unemployment among such – and who are prime recruitment material for militants. Israel should start air-dropping contraceptives (or put them in the water supply, if there is one)!

“How to survive the coming century”, New Scientist, 25/2. A worst-case scenario of how climate change might affect the environment this century, if the temperature rises by 4°C.

The good news is that the survival of humankind itself is not at stake: the species could continue if only a couple of hundred individuals remained. But maintaining the current global population of nearly 7 billion, or more, is going to require serious planning.

Well, obviously, we shouldn’t – it’s overpopulation that has got us into this mess!

So if only a fraction of the planet will be habitable, how will our vast population survive? Some, like [James] Lovelock, are less than optimistic. “Humans are in a pretty difficult position and I don’t think they are clever enough to handle what’s ahead. I think they’ll survive as a species all right, but the cull during this century is going to be huge,” he says. “The number remaining at the end of the century will probably be a billion or less."

Others believe that the large population can be relocated to still-fertile areas of the world and crammed into megacities:

Imagine, for the purposes of this thought experiment, that we have 9 billion people to save - 2 billion more than live on the planet today. A wholescale relocation of the world’s population according to the geography of resources means abandoning huge tracts of the globe and moving people to where the water is. […] These precious lands with access to water would be valuable food-growing areas, as well as the last oases for many species, so people would be need to be housed in compact, high-rise cities. Living this closely together will bring problems of its own. Disease could easily spread through the crowded population so early warning systems will be needed to monitor any outbreaks.

That does not seem like a desirable way to live, though!