Melbourne on the path to ruin

Haven’t written for a while, though there have been quite a few articles on population issues; I feel disheartened that nothing ever seems to change regarding the problems faced, and that governments and business remain in denial of overpopulation’s negative effects.

“Fast-growing Melbourne heading towards becoming Australia’s largest city”, H-S, 3/4. Dismaying news for my home city, and this will completely destroy its livability, despite the positive statement of the apparently-delusional Premier. At 4.35 million now, traffic on the roads virtually grinds to a halt at times every day, and public transport is beyond capacity. Victoria’s population has also been growing rapidly as a whole (from overseas and interstate), currently at 5,768,000, most of whom head to Melbourne. It has become too popular and this is ruining it. But all Premier Denis Napthine does is “welcome” the strong growth.

“Mumbai: Bright lights, tight city”, The Age, 21/2: article from February on the extreme overcrowding in an Indian city. The situation is quite horrifying, and the people questioned are obviously unhappy about their situation – “We have already reached saturation point. We’ve got skin-to-skin contact on the trains. How much closer together can we live without going mad? There is nowhere to walk, nowhere to throw a ball or have a picnic”. It is obviously extremely unhealthy both mentally and physically. The proponents of high-density living in other countries (including those in Australia) should read this as a cautionary tale: an ultimate outcome of uncontrolled population growth and urbanization.

There has been a lot of recent attention on foreign buyers purchasing residential property in Australia – estimated at one-fifth of all buyers – particularly those from China. Our lax laws encourage this, and it is a major factor in driving up property prices to ridiculous levels, along with strong population growth. Canada recently (and sensibly) cancelled its own 28-year-old visa scheme designed to attract wealthy foreigners to the country, so Australia is now the next easy target for buyers. Of course such attention inevitably attracts criticism that such concern is “racist”, but a government’s priority should be toward its own citizens in providing essential services – shelter is a basic human right – and in this it is failing. The trend is also fuelling unwanted demolitions and inappropriate developments in once-pleasant suburbs, as a columnist laments.

Some collected letters:

Collected letters

Some recent letters concerning population growth projections in Australia (see my previous entry):

Growing out of control

Australia’s rapid population growth has had some media attention again in the last couple of months. As reported in the Herald-Sun, 25/9, Melbourne is the fastest-growing capital city and the downside of this is all too apparent:

A boom town

MELBOURNE’S population is booming, with 1350 people moving in each week, a government report says.

Victoria is expected to boast 5.41 million people by 2031.

Migration is the main factor behind the increase, according to the Growth Areas Authority 2012-13 annual report, released this month.

The growth is higher than any other capital city.

Melbourne has had the highest growth rate for the past 11 years, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

In 2011-12, after deaths and people leaving the state were accounted for, Melbourne’s population grew by 77,242.

Melbourne MP Kelvin Thomson is practically the only politician who is outspoken about population growth, and was reported to be launching an NGO concerned with the issue. He was also profiled in an The Age article. Comments from other politicians there, though, show how locked into the growth-is-good ideology they are.

As reported in The Age, a report released by the Productivity Commission last week projected Australia’s population to reach 42 million by 2060, with Melbourne and Sydney housing 7 million each. While modest by many countries’ standards, it is a lot for a relatively infertile and dry continent with a fragile environment that is still being degraded and damaged by human activity.

Another report for Victoria said that the state’s population is growing by 100,000 a year – most of whom end up in Melbourne, to its increasing detriment.

Unbelievably, the Working holiday visa scheme in Australia is to be expanded, despite there being a growing unemployment issue here. Many are from countries with high unemployment and are financially struggling. Australia is essentially being treated as a relief or escape valve for other countries’ problems – but it should not be our role to serve as this. It is another betrayal of citizens by the government here.

Oh, China, no!

China is considering allowing couples to have more than one child, due to demographic panic over an aging population and labor shortages – as well as wanting more consumers. This would result in 9.5 million additional births in an already very overpopulated
and polluted country. It will be an environmental disaster, considering that the country is already plundering other continents for resources (Australia and Africa being some).

As soon as a country’s birth rate goes into decline, its government seems to go into panic mode and do everything to encourage more births, no matter how this may negatively impact them in the future (see Iran). Those from a baby boom will one day be old too, and the cycle repeats itself.

Humanity as a species just can’t seem to commit to sustained long-term planning for the future – looking decades or even hundreds of years ahead. The type of society that is dominant now – a capitalist consumer economy – seems to preclude this. All that is heard as a policy in Australia’s upcoming Federal election is the mindless mantra of growth, growth and more growth. Any other way of thinking is heretical.

23 million and counting

Australia’s population officially reached 23 million on 23 April; a milestone that was generally reported positively. The population is small compared to many other countries (as is pointed out with tedious regularity), but Australia does not have a great amount of habitable land, so most of the population tends to live along the coastline, and much of that is clumped into the major cities.

Melbourne is, unfortunately, leading the nation’s population growth, and the negative effects of this are ever increasing: chronic traffic congestion (is it a coincidence that road rage is on the increase?), increased housing prices, inappropriate high-density developments in suburbs, pressure on health care, public transport and other services … the list goes on. Little if anything about this manic growth is for the better. From my perspective – I live in a suburb of Melbourne – quality of life is definitely deteriorating and the stress from this is continual. The State Government makes nebulous promises about improving infrastructure, but at the same time they cut funding.

Much of that infrastructure seems to only involve building more environmentally-destructive roads – an example being this brief report from my local newspaper (also online):

Plants face chop

ENDANGERED vegetation will be removed to make way for the new Dingley bypass, despite objections from green groups.

Greater Dandenong Council has given VicRoads the go-ahead to rip out a large old tree and vegetation, classified as “of very high conservation significance”, from the 0.19ha swampy woodland in the Westall Rd reserve.

Four environmental groups have slammed the unadvertised proposal. They say an overpass should be built to protect them.

Engineering services director Bruce Rendall said the proposal was not advertised because no third party would suffer.

It is similar to the Westerfield heritage woodlands being bulldozed through in 2010 (see 10/7/2010, 24/10/2010 entries) for the Frankston bypass. Native bushland continues to be razed for so-called “progress” and one feels so powerless and frustrated that it can’t be stopped. The Australian Aborigines lived here for 40,000 years or more, but in all that vast span of time they never did as much damage as did the arrival of European settlers in the last 200 years. The estimated population of Aborigines before settlement/invasion was around a million or so – something the fragile landscape here could cope with.

Some recent letters:

Collected letters

Some letters saved from the last two months.

Colonization by stealth?

“The Unintended Consequences Of China’s One-child Policy”, io9, 3/10. I usually emit a groan when this topic comes up, as the critics of the policy come out in force. The article points out the issues with such a policy:

• Males outnumbering females due to a long-standing cultural preference for boys.
• “Surplus males” – men greatly outnumbering women, which can be an instigator of social unrest from frustrated males. This was “traditionally” (if not consciously) dealt with by war.
• The elderly outnumbering the young in a declining population.

As more than one commenter remarks there, however, what else was the Chinese government to do? If they allowed unrestrained reproduction the population would be even greater than the already huge figure (1.4 billion or so), with all the social problems and environmental damage that result (and still are afflicting the country, anyway). The policy does not apply to everyone, anyway – some ethnic groups, for example, are exempt (perhaps to keep them mollified?), and some cities are reversing the policy to address the aging problem (see previous entries with the China label).

Another traditonal way of dealing with “surplus people” is to export them, and China is certainly doing this – Australia is a popular destination. However this strategy can incite resentment amongst the host country’s citizens as they face increased competition for living space and jobs, as described this article: “In Africa’s warm heart, a cold welcome for Chinese”, Reuters, 18/9. Many African citizens are growing resentful of increased Chinese immigration there, as the latter can undercut them with cheap imported labor and goods. They also have no qualms about bribery when deemed necessary.

China is also, to put it bluntly, plundering the rest of the world for resources, such as Australia and Africa for minerals and farmland. This is also another potential source of conflict, though those raising alarm about this – such as recent controversy over the sale of a large cotton farm to Chinese investors – are invariably branded “xenophobic”. With future food and resource security at stake, though, why is this so unreasonable? I doubt the Chinese government has any scruples about their activities. In Africa’s case, China is effectively colonizing and exploiting the continent, as Europe did in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries – the term for this new version is neocolonialism.

Edit, 28/10: forgot to mention Tibet as an example.

Collected letters

Housing vs. farmland

“The fertile fringe”, The Age, 26/5. Melbourne’s future food security was the focus of this in-depth article on the weekend. The inexorable spread of population-growth-spurred housing developments are consuming the fertile farmlands around Melbourne like fast-growing cancers. It shows an utter lack of foresight and planning from State governments, who seem only concerned with shoehorning in as many people as possible rather than trying to stabilize population growth, and the influence of greedy developers who are only concerned about making profits. Another growing threat is coal-seam gas and other mineral mining developments.

Australia initially seems to be a big continent with lots of space, but – as has to be pointed out again and again – much of it is desert with little fertile land, as this article extract notes:

We are being cautioned, however, against complacency. The Prime Minister’s own Science Engineering and Innovation Council has warned that Australia’s food capacity faces a challenges with a population forecast to rise to 40 million as fertile land is undermined by factors such as land degradation such as salination, and urbanisation.

Australia is one of the driest continents on earth. Its soils are ancient and depleted, and just 6 per cent of its total area, 45 million hectares, is arable land. Most intensive agriculture occurs on the fertile soil on a relatively thin strip of land along the coastal fringe. It is an area heavily and increasingly contested.

Australia is also among the most urbanised countries on earth, with the vast bulk of its population huddled on this coastal strip, their homes competing for space with farms, roads, factories, offices, shops, car parks, golf courses, native forests, plantation forests, native grasslands and national parks. Victoria is the most densely populated state, with more than 1500 new residents arriving weekly.

Under the same coastal band are vast seams of brown coal that have provided the fuel to power Victoria for decades and are now being eyed for additional uses, including gas. […]

In his many journeys to and from Melbourne, Vizzarri often ponders what has been lost under the housing and industrial estates he passes. “Australia is a big country,” he observes, “but all its people are concentrated on the eastern seaboard and that’s also where our best land is. I’d prefer that food going to Melbourne is produced on the outskirts; it was once upon a time.”

(If you were paranoid, you’d think it were some conspiracy to make Australia dependent upon imported food.)

You certainly can’t say that authorities and businesses have not been warned. But they seem to prefer to stick their heads in the sand and pretend we can carry on with this reckless growth and development indefinitely with no consequences.

Contrast this to the idiotic statement PM Julia Gillard made a few weeks ago that “We can be food bowl of Asia”; also “No reason why we can’t become a global food superpower”.

We know that global demand for food will escalate dramatically in the coming years, as the world population heads for 9 billion, while scarce resources of arable land and fresh water will become even more scarce. It isn’t just about sheer numbers, however, it’s about the changing nature of these populations.

In China, it’s planned that a further 350 million people will move – the largest internal migration in human history - from the countryside to the cities by 2030. This means fewer farmers and more consumers. Of the 580 million people living in south-east Asia, a quarter do not yet have access to electricity. As an Asian middle-class rises, with its associated consumer needs, the demand for food, energy and other resources is going to dramatically escalate.

As a planet and as a nation, we don’t have a choice – we simply must do much more than is being done to help feed a hungry world, and notwithstanding the obvious challenges and the doomsayers, we believe that we can.

WTF? I don’t see it as our responsibility to feed that region or any other if countries can’t or won’t contain their population growth. They should take responsibility for their own self-inflicted problems, not expect other countries to bail them out.

Letters in response, 28/5:

Miserable Melbourne

The 7:30 Report for 27/4 featured an infuriating interview with Planning Minister Matthew Guy. Dismayingly but predictably, the only message he emphasized is finding ways to “accommodate” the increasing population, not try to reduce growth. Increasing population by immigration and birthrate is “sustainable” – yeah, right (not!) He and others in government and business are clearly trying to brainwash citizens into regarding growth as inevitable. Marvelous Melbourne is fast becoming Miserable Melbourne. An earlier article, “Make room: state population set to soar”, The Age, 24/4, gives no good news.

A future timebomb

“Sir Bob Geldof calls for women to have fewer children”, The National (UAE), 16/3. The musician and activist made these remarks during a visit to the United Arab Emirates, but the Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, rejected this suggestion:

“It’s not entirely clear to me that the way to succeed is to stop having children,” said Sheikh Nahyan, also at the forum. “They are the future.”

He said it would be better to focus on food production and consumption, as well as energy, water, pollution, deforestation, biodiversity, urbanisation and disease.

Sheikh Nahyan also quoted the UN as saying “we should not ask whether we are too many, but what can we do to make the world better”.

A foolish and short-sighted response. The Middle East generally has a large and growing population of young people, many of whom are impoverished, and even some of those educated have little in the way of job opportunities. This has been one unpublicized motivation behind the “Arab Spring” – venting anger and frustration at their situation.

Like China, Middle Eastern countries are facing a “perfect storm” of rising populations and dwindling resources, and are scouring the world to alleviate this, mainly by buying up farmland in countries such as Australia and Africa, something which understandably meets with resentment from many citizens there. Something has to give.

But Geldof called on the UAE to accept the harsh reality now and avoid disastrous consequences later.

“They either find a cultural way to make this acceptable or they’re going to have an anthropogenic critical event,” he said.

Global consumption is also expected to increase by 1,600 per cent in the next 90 years.

“I think the tipping point has been reached,” Geldof said. “There can’t be more people on the Earth than we can feed.”

They can’t say that they haven’t been warned.

Speaking of celebrities, “Cherryl Barassi on hoons, suicide pills and ratbags in sport”, H-S, 3/3. The wife of a well-known former Australian footballer had a few incisive things to say, including opinions on population growth. In the print article this was also included in a sidebar:

“Overpopulation and rabid consumerism are destroying our one and only beautiful little planet. Even the one-percenters who run the show can’t be happy in this climate of greed and denial. We are the ka-ching dynasty.

“How about we cancel public funding of the IVF program, and any other breeding incentives, and make it easier to adopt around the world?

“I’m tired of hearing about rights, the right to have 12 children, 12 cars and 12 televisions in one household. I’d like to hear more about responsibility.”

Humans vs. kangaroos

Last night an ABC documentary, Kangaroo Mob, was screened, about the increasing competition for living space between kangaroos and humans in Canberra. Predictably the kangaroos are on the losing end, their habitat being eroded by the expansion of housing estates over grassland. The comments about supposed kangaroo overpopulation in the narrative could equally be applied to humans! I kept envisioning some aliens coming to Earth and deciding to “hold an annual cull to ‘manage’ the problem by keeping [human] numbers at ‘sustainable levels’ ”! To quote from a PDF from the documentary site.) We certainly would not like it if that were done to us. I previously mentioned the hypocrisy around animal culls in my 7/7/2010 entry.

I was infuriated at a news item on ABC TV last night (I don’t have a link) about how property developers are lobbying the Bailleu government to remove environmental controls and release more land around Melbourne for development. They are loathesome parasites who care only about making profit, no matter at what cost to the environment. An article in The Age today, “Native grasslands suffer ‘death by a thousand cuts’  ”, describes the threat to the remaining volcanic plains grasslands around Melbourne which are a valuable ecosystem but are viewed by many as open space to be built over.

Letter in The Age, 20/2:

OUR number plates should now read “Victoria – a property developer’s paradise”.

– Margaret Ludowyk, Brunswick

Collected articles

I have a backlog of various articles from the last 4 months that I meant to comment on, so much linkage follows!

Australia as a relief valve

“When leaving home is the only way out”, The Age, 15/12. Economic migrants deserve no sympathy in my view. They should stay at home and fix their own problems!

Emigration has long been the Irish escape at times of greatest hardship. More than 2 million people fled the country during the Great Famine of the 1840s; half a million in the 1950s; and 200,000 during a downturn in the late 1980s. The Irish diaspora – of emigrants and their descendants – now vastly outnumbers the Irish at home and is estimated at more than 70 million people.

Critics say this history has taught Ireland’s policymakers to rely, like Aesop’s lazy donkey, on a lightening of the load through emigration whenever times get tough. A study of 90 young unemployed people by the Youth Council of Ireland this year found that 70 per cent thought they would emigrate and many believed the government was relying on it.

“It’s a handy way for them to export the problem and to cut the costs [of welfare payments],” says one. Another says: “I am sure it is built into the economic projections for the next five years because there doesn’t seem to be any meaningful policies being developed to help young unemployed people.” Youth unemployment is running at 24 per cent.

It’s a similar situation with the financial crisis in Greece – “Call for visa reforms to attract Greeks”, 25/6/2011: a lot of people there are wanting to emigrate to Australia in hopes of securing jobs here. But why should they get special treatment, or expect to come here at all? Australia has its own problems with unemployment; having a huge number of migrants come only exacerbates the problem and breeds resentment. Countries should be made to suck it up and take responsibility for their own situations rather than expect to send their “surplus” citizens elsewhere. (Incidentally there was an article addressing the issue of surplus workers, “The Age of the Superfluous Worker”, NYT, 24/11 – no, it’s not a nice term but the brutally unpleasant truth is that quite a lot of people, myself included, could be regarded as expendable; another symptom of an overpopulated world.) Ireland’s situation also demonstrates the fallacy of a growth-based economy, in this case one based on an overinflated property market (as is the same situation in Victoria).

“Taxpayers wear burden of 60,000 illegal immigrants”, Herald-Sun, 21/11. It’s no wonder the welfare system is overburdened if this alarming report is anything to go by; the main culprits being visa overstayers. I would be extremely harsh with such parasites: if caught, they would be fingerprinted, DNA recorded, then expelled from the country and banned from returning. This is where I diverge from the more liberal types, who seem to want to throw the borders open to all. I get so exasperated with their views on this issue; they are idealistic fools. (An example in other places is at MetaFilter, a long-running U.S.-based community weblog; the clueless majority there are in favor of leniency towards illegal immigrants coming into their country despite the huge costs in terms of jobs and welfare.)

Most illegal immigrants arrive on tourist or temporary work visas. Documents released to the Herald Sun under Freedom of Information show three-in-four illegals came here on visitor visas. One-in-seven arrived as students and one-in-15 disappeared after winning temporary residency. Monash University migration expert Dr Bob Birrell said they were the extreme of an even larger group, mostly students, who gained bridging visas as they sought to extend their stay beyond their original visas’ expiry. Dr Birrell said many of the 332,000 overseas students had expected to gain permanent residency once they finished their courses, only to discover that rule changes in 2010 meant this was more difficult, or impossible. Those with bridging visas were allowed to work and were “ferocious competitors” with local youths for low-skilled jobs, particularly in a tightening market.

Can you blame citizens for being resentful of immigration when it means increasing competition for resources? I am not anti-immigration, but the current too-high rate (200 000+ per year – “Migrant arrivals numbers to rise”, H-S, 15/11) should be drastically reduced. The international student program should also be curbed (it is often used as a “back door” to immigration). If the universities, who rely on their fees, don’t like it – too bad.

Collected letters

Another truckload of letters!

Stop at two!

A dismaying article from last week’s local newspaper, Moorabbin Leader, not published on their site:

Is three the new two?

Going for number three? It seems more Aussie parents are opting for a third child

Many families are answering former Treasurer Peter Costello’s call to have one for mum, one for dad and one for the country. According to demographer Dr Rebecca Kippen from Melbourne University’s School of Population Health, having three children may be back in fashion.

“Our fertility rates have been dropping consistently for decades, but in the past few years we have seen that decline stop,” Dr Kippen said. “The average is between 2.2 and 2.5 children,” she said. And Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show the overall percentage of mothers giving birth to their third child increased from 12.2 per cent in 2007 to 14.1 per cent in 2009.

Dr Kippen said reasons for the “mini fertility boom” were an issue of great debate among demographers. “Has the baby bonus made a difference? Or is it because women who delayed having children in their 20s are now having them close together all at once in their 30s?”

For Mentone mum-of-three Stacey Ferguson, the image of a bustling household has always appealed. “My husband Justin and I are both from families with two children. Growing up we were both envious of friends with bigger families, it just seemed like a lot more fun and exciting,” Stacey said.

The couple got what they wanted and today have their hands full looking after Lachlan, 6, Kye, 3 and Tameika, 18 months. “After having two boys we were definitely keen to try for another,” Stacey said. “We would have been more than happy with three boys but trying for a girl was certainly a motivating factor.”

Stacey said jumping from two to three children meant a new car was needed, an education savings account was opened and it was harder to find one- on-one time with the kids. “We’re outnumbered now.” she laughs. “And of course we’re back to sleepless nights and nappies — but it’s all worth it.

“I love hearing the sound of laughter through the house as the three of them play together.”

Dr Kippen, co-author of the study “Taking Stock: Parents’ reasons for and against having a third child”, said parents considered the pros and cons when deciding whether to have a third child. Pros include trying for a different gender, wanting to replicate their own large family dynamic, or wanting a bigger family than they grew up in. Cons include the extra financial pressure, the need for a bigger house or car or the prospect of kids outnumbering parents.

Blackburn mother of two Giselle Jesse can certainly relate and is debating whether to go for number three. Giselle and husband Shaun are parents to Ethan, 4, and William, 2, and are “tempted” by the idea of a bigger family. “We never intended to have three children and trying for a girl is not really an issue because I’m quite a tomboy and relate well to the boys,” Giselle said. “But Shaun and I both had large age gaps between us and our siblings and we would have loved having playmates close to us in age.” Giselle said having three children would add an extra dynamic to the family unit and reduce the chance of favoritism. But she’s also concerned about being able to give each child enough attention and the extra financial pressure on the family. “And of course the idea of getting up in the night to feed a newborn isn’t thrilling — but I’m not getting that much sleep now so maybe one more won’t make much difference.”

Please reconsider? The world is already 0verpopulated, large families are unnecessary in Australia as most children will survive to adulthood, and they are environmentally irresponsible. Transporting them and other activities can be a logistical nightmare. Children in large families tend to get “lost in the crowd” as they get less individual attention. I was one of two children in my family, and found that quite satisfactory! My maternal grandmother came from a family of 13, and that was a major reason she had only 2 children (Mum and my uncle) – she saw the toll a large family took on her mother.

Letter sent in (not yet published):

With the world already overpopulated, the apparent trend for Australian women to have 3 or more children is dismaying. There seems to be no consideration of the environmental impact of each extra child in the parents’ decision. One more does make a difference!

Livable – for now

Adelaide was voted Australia’s most livable city, with Sydney getting the most negative votes. Population growth has contributed to the latter, and Melbourne is not far behind in increasing unliveability. The surveyors were the Property Council of Australia, a body which has a vested interest in promoting growth. Adelaide has a comparatively small population – a major factor in its livability – but if the PCA has its way (one representative on a TV news report was all but foaming at the prospect of the city’s growth), the city too will be ruined by inflated house prices, overdevelopment and lagging infrastructure.

“Baillieu Government releases land for two new Melbourne suburbs”, Herald-Sun, 23/1. This gets me foaming at the mouth in rage – the Liberal Government is continuing the reckless growth policy of its predecessors. More open land (and carbon sinks) around Melbourne will be smothered in housing estates, contributing to the environmental degradation of the region. It won’t result in lower house prices, not with investors and developers looking to make profits. It also further jeopardizes the city’s food security, with arable land disappearing under housing estates.

“Population 7 Billion”, National Geographic, January 2011. An overview of the world’s population numbers, but the article optimistically suggests that reducing consumption and good old “human ingenuity” will solve our problems rather than reducing growth.

But one can also draw a different conclusion—that fixating on population numbers is not the best way to confront the future. People packed into slums need help, but the problem that needs solving is poverty and lack of infrastructure, not overpopulation. Giving every woman access to family planning services is a good idea—“the one strategy that can make the biggest difference to women’s lives,” Chandra calls it. But the most aggressive population control program imaginable will not save Bangladesh from sea level rise, Rwanda from another genocide, or all of us from our enormous environmental problems.

But aggressive control certainly would help mitigate such disasters! Only a totalitarian world government could implement such a policy, though.

“No 11 - and yes, it was the milkman”, H-S, 21/1. If this isn’t a flagrant abuse of government-funded IVF, I don’t know what is! 11 children – plus 3 from a previous marriage (natural or IVF is not stated) – and she still wants more. Apparently she’s got nothing better to do than contribute to overpopulation. Educated women supposedly want smaller families – that is one of the benefits stated for family planning aid in developing countries – but Australia appears to be going backward in that regard. Whether the children are “wanted” or not is irrelevant – her having so many is selfish and irresponsible. Removing government benefits for having 3 or more children (i.e. the 3rd child onward would not receive benefits) would prove a big disincentive, as well as providing IVF funding only for a woman’s first child. No government seems to have the courage to do that, however.

The year of 7 billion

2011 marks a dismal milestone, in that the estimated population of humans will reach 7 billion, a near-unimaginable number for which the Earth’s environment is suffering. World population estimates at Wikipedia shows the huge growth in the 20th century: in 1900 there was an estimated 1.6 billion; only 101 years later that has increased nearly seven times (despite various wars and revolutions killing millions). Despite claims population growth has slowed or is in decline, the projection is still 8 billion in 2025 and 9 billion in 2050 – given current rates, those numbers will probably be reached sooner.

“Asia tells its young: love is in the air”, The Age, 15/1. Despite various Asian countries having huge populations, their governments are getting in a lather about falling fertility rates and so are trying to reverse this through various policies. Well, when you educate and empower women, that’s what is supposed to happen!

In the category of “I shouldn’t say anything, but I can’t resist” is a response to this blog entry, “Oh, restricting IVF will save us from overpopulation, pestilence, war and famine?”. (I used to enjoy his blog, but not so much anymore.) I thought the one who originally emailed him had some valid points, but he equates access to IVF as a “human right”; that Medicare funding for it is as valid as doing the same for, say, a hip replacement operation. I think this comparison is spurious at best (as I have said in previous IVF-tagged posts).

“Burke rejects population goal”, The Age, 17/12/2010. Predictably, the Federal Government is avoiding setting a population target.

“Cities getting less liveable”, The Age, 20/12/2010. Population growth has increased house prices, strained services and is generally making life miserable for citizens. But the Government won’t address this.

“China faces up to growth cost”, The Age, 30/12/2010. China’s rapid population and economic growth are destroying its environment. Something’s got to give.

“Urban sprawl aided Aussie torrent: experts”, The West, 14/1 (also here). Deliberate encouragement of population growth and the accompanying urban sprawl helped make the disasterous Queensland floods even worse than they otherwise might have been. I believe that I can safely predict that governments will do nothing to remedy this, and the next floods will be even worse.

Land grab

If there is one job occupation I have come to loathe and despise above all others, it is that of property developer. Opportunistic scum who care nothing for the environment or sensitive architectural design and are only out to make a profit – I would like to see them rounded up and burned at the stake! My neighborhood, like nearly all others, is being ruined by developers buying up homes, razing them and their established gardens and building enormous eye-gougingly-ugly monstrosities (I have a website page about this). On a wider scale, the open land around Melbourne is being concreted over with new housing developments by developers; this has future implications for food security (prime farmland being built over) and the environment (the loss of vegetation). The city is growing like a metastasising cancer and nothing is being done to stop it – yet again, population growth is the prime cause of this.

Some articles from The Age on this topic:

“In defence of the suburbs”, 12/10/2010. The loss of backyards barely rates a mention in urban policy, but they provide valuable room for vegetation and wildlife.

“State's boom on ‘shaky ground’ ”, 28/10/2010. Victoria’s recent growth has been due to population growth and construction – neither of which can be sustained indefinitely. “But the researchers warn this population increase to approximately 90,000 people coming to Melbourne each year has ‘led to delusions of endless growth’ within the Brumby government and the business community.” And residents are paying for this dearly as quality of life degrades.

“Developers scramble for land”, 6/11/2010. Developers are greedily buying the land released by the expansion of the urban growth boundary. “RMIT associate professor of planning Michael Buxton said sprawling cities were energy-consuming, economically inefficient, environmentally destructive and led to social polarisation. ‘The Victorian government has abandoned planning and is handing the city over to developers,’ he said.”

“Growing pains: Victoria’s population explosion”, 20/11/2010. An overview of why Victoria has had so much growth. The author regards it as a positive. I certainly don’t – being popular is not a good thing in this case as it is making life increasingly stressful for residents.

“Labor’s high-rise dystopia”, 24/11/2010. One reason that the Labor government was voted in was that they promised to discard Jeff Kennett’s free-for-all urban planning. But they well and truly reneged on that promise, and proved to be just as bad as the Liberals in favoring developers.

“Design trend takes child’s play out of backyards”, 25/11/2010. As house sizes have increased, backyards have all but vanished. Playing in the backyard was one of my favorite activities when young.

“Land shortage, price hike link a myth, claims academic”, 6/12/2010. Claims by developers that more houses need to be built because of shortages are misleading; the main factors are negative gearing that favors investors, readily-available home loans and the first home owners’ grant are factors.

“Planning must be for people, not developers”, 6/12/2010. Both the Kennett and Bracks-Brumby governments were influenced in planning policy by developers, who donated to both parties (a law should be brought against this!). Unfortunately the new Premier Ted Baillieu is also developer-friendly, so the ruination of Melbourne and its surrounding lands looks to continue.

“Melbourne heads north to Kalkallo”, 8/12/2010. More of the depressing same. Future generations are going to curse us.

Deceptive advertising

Haven’t been posting a while for the usual reasons, so I have another backlog of articles. I just get so frustrated that so many people, including those in power, are in denial about the population issue.

Found an organization, PopDev, through a blog entry. At first glance they appear to be concerned about population growth, but reading through it reveals they are more the opposite – namely that growth is not the issue, that population control is a violation of reproductive “rights”, that starvation is caused by unequal food distribution rather than numbers, that sterilization is eugenics by stealth, opposing excessive immigration is racist, and so on with the usual fallacious arguments. Groups like this are just as bad as the more blatant growth advocates such as those in business and politics. The blog entry itself, by some female, predictably associates opposition to excessive immigration with racism. I have come to loathe many leftist/liberal/feminist women because of such views, which are diametrically opposed to mine (though I consider myself feminist and liberal in some other areas) – see my 4/2/2010 entry.

Anti-growth push

A grassroots movement against population growth has emerged as more people feel free to debate immigration without being called racists, says a new study. Up to 87 per cent of Australians now reject further growth, according to an analysis of opinion polls by Swinburne University sociologist Katharine Betts. Growing concern over crowded cities and environmental damage had led to a new openness in discussing population, she said. Dr Betts said the latest polls showed that between 50 and 87 per cent of Australians wanted an end to growth. Her study will be released today in People and Place, the journal of Monash University’s Centre for Population and Urban Research. (Herald-Sun, 1/11/2010)

“Big families damage Australia – survey”, H-S, 27/10/2010. One in 3 Australians in a survey think that families should limit the number of children they have to minimize environmental impact. The informal website vote, though, indicates more out of the 476 who voted think the opposite.

“Stem the population growth – Australia’s already full”, Advertiser, 5/11/2010. Interview with Professor Paul Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb. He says that the general public is more aware of population-caused problems than politicians and businesses.

“Aboriginal population booms”, 26/9/2010. I have mixed feelings about this: it’s good that their culture is not dying out (as was though it would in more racist times decades ago), but alarming that so many younger people (teenagers) are falling pregnant, with the attendent social problems – I doubt they would have education/access to birth control in remote communities. Given the neglect of Aboriginal health in general, I suppose it’s not surprising.

“Foreign investors buy up Australian land”, Yahoo News, 15/11/2010. Of food security concern is the ownership of agricultural land by foreign businesses. Perhaps if things get dire the government could seize back the land – they should take responsibility for their own food supplies and not expect to be able to strip other countries for these (again, population growth is a cause of this).

“PM has to think big on population, warns Treasury”, 14/11/2010. With dreary inevitability it looks as though the Prime Minister will not hold to her election promise of reviewing Australia’s population policy. A big Australia is not inevitable; the government could take measures to restrict growth.