An unnecessary expense

“IVF cuts result in 1500 fewer babies”, The Age. In this week of 7 billion, I look at that as a positive outcome – 1500 humans not born and adding to an already overstressed environment. Government funding for IVF treatments should be stopped altogether in my view; it is an indulgence that society does not need. Some comments from the article that agree:

• We have a global population problem, local population stresses, future issues of food and security, and you want me to pay my hard earned taxes to create more babies for people who, sadly can’t have babies without assistance? I’m sorry, but no. Yes, it’s sad that you can’t achieve your God-given human right to experience pregnancy and birth, but really, IVF is a rich Western luxury. In the scheme of things, with a finite health budget, I’d much prefer money to be spent on other things. It would be much better to push for better adoption laws. People can still have babies, but you don’t need to actually carry them in your tummy to have the loving bond, the happy family, and the maternal instinct that goes with nurturing a child. (Sorry but | Melbourne – October 26, 2011, 7:59AM)
• Marvelous sense of entitlement some people have. I want a child so other people should pay for it to happen. (Quantum of Solace | Melbourne – October 26, 2011, 9:01AM)
• Tax dollars should only be used to fund medical treatment where there is a clear clinical need to improve the person’s health. IVF does not fall into this category. It is sad that some couples cannot conceive naturally, but this should not lead to an expectation that the government should fund peoples wish for a family lifestyle. (MA | Melbourne – October 26, 2011, 9:20AM)
• Fiona: I don’t have “a child of my own” and I’m not in unbearable pain and I don’t feel like I am in an inescapable hell. These are your own extreme responses to what is a relatively common natural phenomenon. The world is full of people who have successfully adjusted to the less than optimal hand nature has dealt them. You can too. Not getting what you want is hardly a reason to plunge yourself into pain and hell. People who are unable to see, hear, walk or talk have a much more legitimate claim to being miserable yet I don’t imagine many talk about their lives as painful or hellish. It is only Western women with a sense of entitlement to have their every desire met who agonise like this over infertility, at the same time as they turn their cold, selfish hearts away from the millions of children languishing in orphanages around the world due to a lack of parents. Maybe nature actually knows what it’s doing! (M T Pockets – October 26, 2011, 9:23AM)

“7 billion reasons to rethink how we use the planet”, 17/10.

This has meant - in contrast to the many dire predictions that over-population would result in disaster - that population growth has also coincided with far greater longevity, and a much more comfortable and materially richer life than pre-industrial man could ever have dreamt of. A key reason that massive population growth has not led to disaster has been the extraordinary growth in agricultural productivity. However, while continuing dynamism in agriculture is likely, there are some indications that these benefits are starting to slow.

It’s industrialized food production that has enabled the human population to increase so alarmingly. But it is a precarious situation – if some virus were to wipe out the world’s main cereal food crops (rice, wheat, maize) it would be disastrous. There are reserves held in many countries, but these would only last a few months.

“Africa Blossoms: A Continent On the Verge of an Agricultural Revolution”, Time magazine, 31/10. This article dismayed me as it promotes the expansion of agriculture in Africa as a positive trend – but agriculture is already putting great pressure on animal populations and the few peoples living as hunter-gatherers. Commercial farming is a disaster for these groups, as is the buy-up of land by foreign countries and corporations (a practice that should be banned – and in Australia also).

Collected letters, 24/10:

Look after our own

ASYLUM-seeker families are expected to be fast-tracked into residential housing. Also, many could be released from detention on bridging visas and sent to regional towns with labour shortages (“Off the boat and into the bush”, 16/10). However, Australia already has a chronic housing shortage, including a severe shortage of emergency and other housing for our vulnerable and most disadvantaged citizens (“$46m help for the homeless”, The Age, 6/10). Charity begins at home; our citizens must take precedence over those not yet in our society. “Asylum” under the UN Refugee Convention was never meant to be interpreted to give a right to permanent settlement and should be decoupled from other migrant streams. Once asylum seekers and their families are embedded in regional towns, the reality is that they are likely to be fast-tracked to permanent residency rather than remain on bridging visas. This policy will only add to the pull factors that are already a problem.

– ARTHUR BASSETT, Blackburn South

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.

Bad decision

“Ageing China flags truce in one-child revolution”, The Age, 13/9. Some dismaying news that China is easing its 1-child policy because of alarm over who will look after their aging population. Perhaps they should consider alternatives such as developing helper robots. Their population is still growing, however:

By 2050 India is expected to have grown to 1.75 billion people compared with China’s 1.44 billion, according to the Population Reference Bureau. China’s population is now 1.34 billion and India’s 1.19 billion.

Ideally, I would like to see a 2-child policy implemented worldwide – but that would require a dictatorial world government to reinforce.

“Nation fertile ground for IVF”, Herald-Sun. IVF treatments in Australia are on the increase. I am adamantly against government funding for this procedure (on Medicare) and this should be abolished, though there would be an outcry as people get irrational when it comes to reproduction. There is no intrinsic “right” to IVF. With the world being already overpopulated, more people should not be created artificially.

“Strict curbs on IVF treatment a must, says Susie O’Brien”, H-S, 11/5. The taxpayer-funded treatment is being abused and should be reined in.

It’s made me realise that having babies through IVF is fast being regarded as a right, not a privilege. And this makes me profoundly uneasy.

[…]

And take the case of Victorian woman Kimberley Castles, who is serving three years in a minimum security jail for welfare fraud, and who is pushing to get IVF in jail. She has only seven months left before she turns 46 and becomes ineligible for in vitro fertilisation treatment. Although I don’t think any human rights should be denied to people in jail, this is one privilege that should not be granted to Castles.

Unfortunately the IVF was granted to her – despite her already having 2 children – because denying her treatment (and justly so, in my view) was a breach of her “rights”. What bullshit! There is no intrinsic “right” to reproduce, and certainly not at taxpayers’ expense while incarcerated, as in her case. In this society there is too much emphasis on rights and not enough on responsibilities.

“Big fall in IVF attempts as cost soars”, The Age, 13/8.

But instead they had increased the proportion of the total cost met directly by people seeking the treatment, said Sandra Dill, chief executive of the patient group Access Australia Infertility Network. “There are 1000 babies that won’t be born,” she said. “It’s not as if IVF’s a hit-and-miss thing. It’s highly successful.”

1000 people who won’t exist in an overpopulated world – that is a good thing!

IVF timebomb

“Infertility time bomb: IVF children have higher risk of infertility, obesity and diabetes”, Daily Mail, 23/2. There is some evidence that infertility problems can be passed on genetically for IVF-conceived children, as well as health problems caused by the procedure itself.

“There are genetic causes of infertility that you can pass on,” said Dr. Van Steirteghem. “It means that the next generation may be infertile as well and this is something all clinics should mention to the patients – that if there is a genetic origin that this genetic origin of infertility may be transmitted to the next generation.”

Fertility treatment is so common that one child in every primary school year group is thought to have been conceived in a fertility clinic. But the growth of IVF may have come at a cost to a small, but significant, minority of children. Studies have shown that test-tube babies are slightly more likely to suffer from birth defects. Because so many are twins and triplets, they are also at greater risk of low birth weight, obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure later in life. Doctors fear many IVF babies will also inherit the genetic mutations that caused their mother or father’s infertility.

So those are more problems that the public health system will pay for – which would have been unneccessary if IVF were never invented. That’s a major issue in the debate – this extra burden is preventable by banning IVF.

As usual the comments are heated (IVF brings out similar polarized opinions as abortion does). IVF in the UK and Australia is partly funded by the public health systems in both countries, which makes the issue more controversial. The point is usually raised that as various illnesses are paid for by public health care, why shouldn’t IVF be? The argument against this is that treating other illnesses don’t involve bringing another human into the world (who otherwise would not be there). IVF is unneccessary – it can’t be justified in an already-overpopulated world. At the very least, it certainly should not be taxpayer-funded.

A few comments (agreeing with my opinion):

There is a BIG difference betweem treating illness and having IVF. Yes, of course I have taken antibiotics, for ILLNESS. However, no-one has died from INFERTILITY!!! Your argument that just because people take treatment for illnesses means that IVF is necessary is ridiculous!

– linda Duncan-Adam, West Des Moines

This is what happens when humans tamper with nature – nature will always win. There are good reasons why a percentage of all mammals – including humans – are infertile. Having a child is a privilege, not a right as so any infertile couples seem to believe! Let’s hope sanity finally prevails on this issue. I resent my taxes going on NHS funded treatment for the infertile, it is an obscenity and an outrage when there are children starving in the world.

– Goldie, Sussex, 23/2/2010 4:23

Surely common sense (yet again) should prevail in this issue. Just why does nature let some couples conceive naturally and some not? Maybe because those who can conceive naturally and easily have the best genes to pass on. And maybe nature is telling those who can’t conceive naturally that there could be problems with any offspring if nature allowed them to do so. But of course, to some people, a baby is the ultimate “must have”, and so they will go to any lengths to have one.

– linda Duncan-Adam, West Des Moines

An entry on another blog annoyed me to the point of commenting – then I got castigated by some self-righteous females. Women like these seriously irritate me – they are of a leftist political view in which they think public health care should pay for everything. I am Leftist in many respects (and certainly support public health care), but my opinion diverges on this issue for previously-stated reasons. Such people are too focused on individual rights, and not on responsibilities to the society they live in.

I hate that term – “socially infertile”, as if someone who wants to become a parent so badly that they’re prepared to undergo the trauma of IVF has to justify why. It’s like the old debate on whether being gay is “genetic” or “chosen” – why on Earth does it matter? The point is that it’s not wrong, and that no-one should be discriminated against because of it. Same with those who, for whatever reason, cannot become parents without the aid of a particular medical treatment – they’re not going to apply for it unless they need it, are they? The reason is “I want to become a parent and can’t do so without this medical treatment”. It’s not a cosmetic procedure people are choosing to undergo because it sounds like fun, now, is it?

“Socially infertile” refers to lesbian couples and would-be single mothers who could otherwise concieve children naturally by mating with a man. There is no way IVF should be publically-funded for this – if they want children that badly, either adopt one – or mate in the normal fashion.

More IVF entitlement

“Arrivals are our engine for growth”, Herald-Sun, 29/7. Clueless opinion piece stating the usual argument that immigration is the cure for all economic ills. Young immigrants will also age, so even more younger ones will be required to sustain them, and so on until the population reaches absurd figures.

“AMA head Dr Andrew Pesce in IVF row”, Herald-Sun, 2/8. The new head of the Australian Medical Association dares to suggest that single women and gay couples should not have access to IVF because they are not technically infertile. Last year the Victorian Parliament granted lesbian couples and single women access to fertility treatment under the controversial Assisted Reproductive Treatment Bill.

Dr. Andrew Pesce, elected AMA federal president in May, told the Sunday Herald Sun that IVF should not be a “lifestyle choice” and use of the treatment by same sex couples went against the “natural order”. “Fertility treatment is there to treat diseases that cause infertility, it shouldn’t be there as a lifestyle choice,” Dr. Pesce said. “For example, single women (who choose IVF) don’t have a disease, they just don’t have a partner. Same-sex couples, they don’t have disease but they are using an option that gets around the natural order of things.”

Of course, such an opinion brings out the “PC Nazis” in full force, who castigated him, and he later retracted his statement. He should have stood his ground; such IVF treatments should not be taxpayer-funded. (I sent in a letter, but it was not published.) This entitlement attitude has gone too far.

“ ‘No need to expand city’s boundary’ ”, The Age, 8/8. Yet another article saying Melbourne could accommodate millions more people if unused land was utilized and high-density developments encouraged. As usual, not a mention of restricting population growth so that open land can be kept that way.

“Reduce intake of immigrants, MP Kelvin Thomson says”, Herald-Sun, 8/8. He makes the reasonable suggestion that reducing the unsustainably high level of immigration will make it easier for authorities to identify dubious types trying to enter the country.

Dwindling supplies

An alarming article about our water supplies from The Age, 1/7:

Drought runs into 13th year

Melbourne has endured its driest first half year on record, with less than 50 per cent of the long-term average falling up until late yesterday afternoon.

The year’s rainfall up until 9am yesterday was 126.2 millimetres, 8 millimetres below the previous half-year record low of 134.5 millimetres set in 1967. The rain that fell later yesterday was not included in the half-year total, as the bureau applies a 9 a.m. cut-off time on the last day of the month when recording rainfall.

The bureau’s Victorian climate services manager, Harvey Stern, said Melbourne had not recorded above-average annual rainfall since 1996. “It is going to take many years of good rainfall to remove these deficiencies,” Dr Stern said.

Melbourne Water said the city’s dams had received about half the average inflow since the start of the year, with the reconnection of the Tarago reservoir last week providing the only real boost to water supplies this year.

I believe this “drought” is more climate change, and permanent – with dire implications for a city with an unsustainably-growing population. Reservoir storage reserves are at 26.5%, the lowest they have ever been.

“Melbourne suburbs are the best and the future’s in the west”, Herald-Sun, 7/7. A baffling opinion piece from Bernard Salt, who seems to think that Melbourne should keep expanding indefinitely and that population growth is a good thing.

Population growth supports job growth and business opportunity. Melbourne is growing at a record rate of 74,000 residents every year. Every 10,000 new residents expand the retail spending pie by $9 million and create demand for about 4000 new households. More jobs and rising business confidence are good for the future prosperity of this city and its residents.

Such growth puts pressure on resources, transport and utilities, and makes life increasingly stressful for residents. It can’t continue indefinitely.

Melbourne, and indeed Australia, must expand its population for two fundamental reasons. Developed nations have a humanitarian responsibility to accommodate a greater share of the world’s rising population. And with the imminent retirement of the baby-boomer generation (who first reach pensionable age in July 2011) we need to shore up the tax base by drawing young, fit, skilled migrants who can go straight into the workforce. Someone else has paid for these migrants’ education, health and defence: they arrive here, go to work and export tax to the rest of us. This is how we will fund the retirement of the baby-boomer generation.

We have no such responsibility – if other countries can’t or won’t contain their expanding populations, why should we have to cope with the fallout? The young migrants will eventually age and add to the strain on resources. And the baby-boomers will just have to look after themselves (or be euthanized!) – they have messed up the world for my generation and those following.

I sent in a rather snippy letter, don’t know if it will be published:

No, Bernard Salt, there are no positives in Melbourne’s population growth, just increasing strain on resources and utilities, as well as stress for residents. Australia has no responsibility to other countries who can’t or won’t contain their expanding populations – why should we have to cope with the fallout? And the baby-boomers will just have to look after themselves – they have messed up the world for my generation (Gen-X) and those following.

“Keep baby hope alive with IVF”, Herald-Sun, 7/7. Another entitlement whinge about how IVF is a “right” and should continue to be government-funded.

Surely having a baby is a basic right worth fighting for? Why, then, would we ever think of restricting access to IVF just to those who can afford it?

[…]

And so we must fight for the right of 11,000 babies to be born every year to parents who desperately want to have kids, but can’t for medical reasons.

Reproduction is not a “right”, and IVF certainly isn’t! People who can’t have children can find other means of fulfilment, and infertility is not in the same category as a life-threatening or disabling illness. IVF should not be taxpayer-funded! The world is overpopulated as it is.

A collection of letters from The Age, which often express opinions on various issues better than I can:

6/6:

A lottery no one wants to win

Mark Davis (Comment, 4/7) argues that Australia should triple its intake of refugees. Presumably, so should every other developed country. Irrespective of whether resettlement is doubled or quadrupled, the few who win the resettlement lottery hardly make a dent in the overall numbers of at least 35 million displaced persons/refugees in the world, with the numbers increasing.

Uprooting these people from their own culture and resettling them into an alien one is not the answer. In desperation they cling to their own communities and form a culture within a culture, which makes neither them nor the host country happy.

The problem requires an in-situ solution. Almost all conflict arises from an excess demand for the planet’s scarce resources – in other words: too many people crowding each other out on a planet that is fixed in size.

Time is overdue for global leaders to recognise this population explosion issue, take it seriously and afford it highest priority. The Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December would be a good starting point.

– Margit Alm, Eltham

30/6:

Wild about the west

I support Justin Madden in shifting the growth boundary in the west. I, like a lot of other people, do not want to be forced into living in overpriced, small high-rise living, where you can hear and smell what your neighbours are cooking.

The do-gooders, who usually live in the east, are trying to force their ideals on the working class; these snobs do not even know how to get to the west.

The land in the west is infertile and useless for farming. The so-called native grasslands are scattered and you cannot tell the difference between native grass and weeds. Native grasses will be catered for in the proposed growth extension in a more controlled way.

Some also want to stop population growth. Next they’ll want to limit families to one child. What comes first, the greenies’ ideals, or affordable land for hard-working families who want to build affordable housing on their own little block? The west is a great place to live; bring it on, Mr Madden.

– Lance Hughes, Melton

[Totally clueless. The “do-gooders” want to preserve liveability and open space – and stopping population growth is the only way to ensure Melbourne has a sustainable future, and that people don’t have to live crammed together in high-density apartments.]

Only way is up

Let me get this straight. High population growth encouraged by the Government is causing high levels of greenhouse gas emissions, price rises for water and power as we run low on supplies, rate rises up to three times the inflation rate to pay for new infrastructure, loss of productive farm land due to urban expansion, and loss of open space and tree cover in or near urban areas as they are infilled. Could someone remind me again how this is benefiting us?

– Jennie Epstein, Little River

1/7:

Disaster in waiting

Reports that 10,000 people are in Malaysia and planning to “migrate” to Australia using people smugglers are a cause for concern. The debate about whether the Government’s softened stance is causing this problem is irrelevant. The reality is that it is happening.

Refugee advocates who would throw open the doors to all comers need to recognise that even more will follow by example, regardless of whether these potential immigrants are “refugees” or not.

The world recession and continuing political unrest will further exacerbate the situation to the point of impossibility.

Like Grocery Watch and FuelWatch, the Rudd Government will soon have to abandon another election undertaking and further tighten immigration controls to avoid this potential catastrophe.

– Greg Angelo, Balwyn North

2/7 – a sarcastic letter about rising house prices, which are almost always reported positively, but in reality these only benefit greedy investors, developers and speculators:

Great, let’s party

Attention students, pensioners, the unemployed and low-income workers. It is time to celebrate the “housing recovery” (The Age, 1/7). Rental “yields” will continue to “climb”, the “damage” of cheaper housing is undone, and Melbourne prices have “soared” the fastest, “eclipsing” everywhere else in the country to reach “record highs”.

– Scott Fisher, Kiama, NSW

4/7:

Ask tough questions

Will extending Melbourne’s population solve the water shortage imposed by climate change? Will extending housing onto dwindling arable land feed those who live there?

Will exploding global population create the resources to support it? Won’t Government funding for first home buyers merely force up house prices?

Isn’t it time our politicians, and those who vote for them, think about the real questions we must confront? Answers are easy; it’s the questions we don’t ask that matter.

– Eric Mack, Eltham

A site called Hard SF has an opinion page, Can Space Colonization End Overpopulation? I have griped before (12/5/2009 entry) about Conservative/Libertarian “Space Cadets” who think humanity can solve all its problems by expanding into space and continuing as before with its destructive and wasteful behavior, as there are supposedly unlimited resources in the solar system and beyond. The article makes clear the absurdity of transporting large numbers of people off-world.

Suppose, in order to accomplish all of these necessary projects it took 75 years rather than 50. At a 1% population growth rate, the Earth’s population in 2083 would be 13.8 billion with 138 million more each year. Suppose, all of this took 100 years. At a 1% rate, by 2108, the population would be 17.7 billion. It would be necessary to take 177 million people off-planet every year just to maintain Earth at 17.7 billion. If we consider 17.7 billion too many and want to reduce Earth’s population, it would be necessary to transport even more millions to other habitats.

I do not believe our current population growth will permit us enough time for this to be a practical solution. It seems that by the time we may be able to accomplish the technological marvels that would be required, the Earth’s population would already be at too great a state of crisis. Other means are needed that can help us avoid such a huge population which can be implemented in a shorter period of time.

Hidden resentment

In recent weeks there has been several attacks on international students from India. The letters below suggest additional reasons other than racism (which is undeniably a factor):

Hidden resentment

With regard to assaults on overseas students, dare one raise possible underlying reasons without being assailed with the usual ideology-based BRIX (bigot, racist, ignorant, xenophobe) discussion-stopper?

Is there a hidden concern that immigration is out of control? That, with an unknown population-carrying capacity, our nation is placing at risk its environmental capital, clearly limited by factors including fresh water availability, declining soil fertility and increasing salinisation?

Is there also a loss of social capital, with resentment at an influx of students seeking to use local qualifications to gain permanent residency for themselves and relatives, supporting with their fees a tertiary education system seemingly unwilling to accommodate all non-full-fee local applicants?

To what extent are such concerns, if widespread among their parents, being manifested among youth gangs by attacks on students from overseas? If so, remediation will require open discussion, not its suppression by hurling BRIX-type abuse at anyone concerned at current levels of immigration. In the longer term, debate can be less dangerous than its denial by ideology-based imputations of racism.

– John O’Connor, Cottles Bridge, 30/5

One agreed with him (below); two other letters didn’t:

Numbers just keep adding up and up

John O’Connor (Letters, 30/5) is to be congratulated for his prescience and willingness to look beyond the obvious racial bigotry and pinpoint the true causes of the assaults on overseas students and concomitant social problems. Tim Colebatch reported (The Age, 9/5) that immigration is soaring under the Rudd Government to record levels of about 300,000 a year. Perhaps 90 per cent of these new arrivals are moving into Sydney (no room) and Melbourne (no water).

Many people are concerned at these numbers and want, at least for a time, the system to slow down. Governments, state and federal, show no concern for community feeling and a pressure-cooker atmosphere now exists in the community, with racial attacks and rampant everyday violence.

This frustration will almost certainly reach its apogee here in Victoria next year when the Brumby Government seeks re-election. Should the rains fail this spring, then the high-population Brumby Government will face an electorate as mad as hell about why it has dried-out gardens and must wash in and drink muddy water.

– Tony Davidson, Glen Waverley, 1/6

And another in support:

Populate and perish – we must ask why

In response to the misrepresentations of Alex Njoo and William Maley (Letters, 1/6), two blindingly obvious points seem appropriate. Australia has been a nation of immigrants for some 60,000 years. Today, all Australian citizens must treat one another inclusively, and with due regard for our country’s sustainable future, while being wary of tendencies to divide into ethnic-based pseudo-tribes.

It emphatically does not follow that immigration at its present levels should be immune from questioning. We all need to know: what is Australia’s longer-term sustainable-population carrying capacity? What limiting factors may have already been exceeded? Should our tertiary education sector continue to act as a de facto immigration agency, additional to a large official intake?

We need a rational debate on this, the most important single issue facing us all. Refutation of population concerns is not even on Australia’s political radar. It should be.

– John O’Connor, Cottles Bridge, 2/6

International students (from India and elsewhere) are a lucrative income source for many universities, which have to substitute for decreased government funding. Personally I have little liking for universities and believe the IS program should be drastically curtailed; it is, as pointed out in the letters, another form of immigration. With resources such as water under strain (reservoirs are at their lowest-ever level and there is no prospect of good winter rains this year), why are we encouraging more and more visitors to come?

“Babies we must afford”, Herald-Sun, 1/6. Dumb opinion piece saying IVF should be supported because it creates more future taxpayers. Considering the expenses and medical complications IVF-created children can incur, it is a poor bargain!

Overgrowth

A few articles collected during this week, so I’ll list them by date order.

“Higher immigration not an economic magic bullet”, SMH, 4/2. Article from February saying that increasing immigration has some benefits but also some negatives.

“Getting a UK job a song and dance”, The Age, 4/5. The UK is tightening its immigration requirements for foreign workers (Australian ones in this case) due to rising domestic unemployment. Some of those skilled Australians are needed back here!

“Melbourne needs to grow up and end urban sprawl”, The Age, 4/5. This editorial asserts that Melbourne’s urban sprawl must be contained – no disagreement there – but by accommodating the increasing population in high-density developments, not by restricting population growth:

The ABS outlook represents even more rapid growth than anticipated in the State Government’s Melbourne 2030 strategy, which has made little headway in preparing for the city population to expand by a third. A revolution in planning is needed because the urban area has already spread across 100 kilometres from south to north and east to west. A city this big – and a 10,000-square-kilometre footprint is big by any standard – is reaching the limits of growth. The Government is already struggling with the challenges of connecting and servicing the whole city, much less ensuring its sustainability. Some argue that the answer is to cap the population, since the forecast growth is based on assumed annual immigration intakes of 180,000 (slightly below recent levels). Yet how else will Australia sustain its economy and tax revenue as its ageing workforce, dominated by baby boomers, retires?

Maybe we should adapt a different outlook – a steady-state economy, not a forever-growing and unsustainable one? A few letters were published in response. Most disagreed, but the third one, from the so-called “Friends of the Earth” organization, thought the plan a good idea, using that word I have come to loathe, “vibrant” – which apparently means having huge numbers of people swarming about. A lot of people are concerned about Melbourne’s unsustainable population growth, but the State Government just does not want to listen. We will know who to blame when Melbourne degrades into a nightmarish megacity in a decade or so.

Too much of this good thing will come at a price

Melbourne does need to grow up, but not in the way suggested. A mature city, as with any organism, does not grow, but develops sustainably. Growth is like a cancer – you can have too much of a good thing. We should not be enslaved by the economy, but use it as a tool to improve our quality of life, shifting resources to where they are needed – to support the elderly, the ill or the environment – instead of using it for baby bonuses and freeways that encourage higher population growth and car use, leading to yet more overcrowding and congestion.

– Jennie Epstein, Little River

Get off this wheel

Your editorial (4/5) does not appear to take into account that Bureau of Statistics projections of high immigration-fuelled population growth depend on past and present assumptions of immigration intakes.

If the Federal Government continues with its immigration policies, then future population growth projections will become a political self-fulfilling prophecy – and so will the need for ill-founded radical solutions to be forced on a disenfranchised electorate.

– Arthur Bassett, Blackburn South

Done well, it’s a solution

The issue of urban infill is such an emotive one that it can be hard to come out in support of Melbourne “going up rather than out”. Therefore, congratulations should go to The Age for yesterday’s editorial.

Urban infill is a key way we could finally rein in the seemingly endless urban sprawl that has Melbourne stretching for more than 100 kilometres from east to west. As anyone who has travelled to Western Europe will know, compact and dense cities can be beautiful, vibrant and liveable. Allowing for greater density in suitable locations should be encouraged. To achieve this we will need to be able to convince people that this doesn’t mean open slather for property developers, a legitimate concern. We need to ensure that growth planning gets this right.

At last week’s COAG meeting, the states signed up to uniform six-star energy ratings for new homes. This is a good start but still far short of what is technically possible and economically viable.

We urge the State Government not to rush forward with speeding up housing development without giving serious consideration to improving energy ratings in housing and channelling much of the new construction into infill rather than the urban fringe.

– Cam Walker, campaigns co-ordinator, Friends of the Earth, Fitzroy

Look after our heritage

It is true that the people of Melbourne will be unlikely to tolerate the imposition of developers in the process of increasing urban density.

What is also true is that the people of Melbourne seem to have no say at all in what developments of any kind look like. How is it that our political representatives are required to seek expert opinions on technical matters and not on the visual aspects when buildings are being created?

Melbourne is being subjected to a rash of buildings that look cheap, impermanent and ugly. I love modern but believe it must, and can, have grace and charm. I love “green” buildings but they must also offer peace and beauty to the people who live in them, and they must offer connections to the visual-scape around them.

We have a right to expect that our leaders will ensure that we enhance our heritage, modern or not. At the moment, we have multi-storey boxes copying historical styles, Lego-like concrete boxes with cheap-as-chips decoration and large, wiry public extravaganzas dominating our vanishing visual heritage.

Imagination, courage and a genuine desire to contribute to the whole community has been conquered by the big dollars that belong to only a few. Melbourne should not be for sale.

– Carol Oliver, Daylesford

RIP democracy

Your article spells out exactly what I have been predicting (“Rudd millions may bypass planning system”, The Age, 4/5). The Rudd billions (actually our taxpayer cash) is going to be put into the hands of the developers to build anything, anywhere.

The move to centralised planning that is obviously where Mr Brumby is taking Victoria will bring about the death of “marvellous Melbourne” and democracy. They don’t want to hear council or resident voices. Their planning zealots know better than us, the great unwashed.

Mr Brumby, give the people a voice. Have an open and honest discussion about how many people Melbourne can actually have without becoming unliveable. There are alternatives to overcrowding. If you lose touch with the people, it is time to go.

– Mary Drost, convener, Planning Backlash, Camberwell

“Quake survivors start bittersweet baby boom”, The Age, 6/5. Survivors who lost their children last year’s earthquake in China’s Sichuan province are being permitted to have another child. Yet again there is implied criticism of China’s one-child policy.

The motives are not purely humanitarian. The Government needs to quell resentment over its unpopular limits on family size. Sichuan has long been a battleground over the policy, with the Government strictly enforcing the one-child limit. (In many other parts of China, farmers can have a second child if the first is a girl, but not in Sichuan.) Among Sichuan’s predominantly rural population, most people have no retirement plans other than the ingrained Chinese tradition that children care for their elders. “The earthquake very much highlights the vulnerability of the one-child policy,” said Gu Baochang, a professor of demographics at the People’s University in Beijing. “These people are not covered by any social security program. They rely completely on their children for elderly support. And it’s not just money. Once they are old, without children they have no place in society.”

Introducing a social security scheme would seem an obvious solution!

“Migrant figures jump the slump”, The Age, 9/5. Another study of Bureau of Statistics figures showing Australian immigration has increased – but another report on the same day says the skilled immigration figures will be cut again (but not by very much):

Skilled migration intake to be slashed

Australia’s skilled migration intake will be slashed for the second time in the past two months.

Next week’s federal budget will cut the general skilled migration intake for the next financial year by about 7,000 people to 108,000, Fairfax reports. The government’s move follows a decision taken in March to shed 18,500 places.

The total reduction of 25,000 places will constitute a 20 per cent cut to the program. The cuts are the deepest since the previous recession, Fairfax reports.

The move is expected to go ahead despite figures released this week which show the unemployment rate fell from 5.7 per cent to 5.4 per cent, or 27,000 jobs, last month.

According to this letter-writer in the 8/5 The Age, advocating population control is “dangerous” because it encourages urban sprawl!

Destructive fantasy

In the debate over planning, a dangerous furphy has emerged – that of eliminating population growth as a “solution” to urban growth woes.

It is not simply that this is unachievable. It is dangerous because it perpetuates a destructive fantasy – that we can continue to help ourselves to what we want (quarter-acre sprawl) without having to face the inevitable consequences (an unsustainable, unliveable urban mess). The recession demonstrates how the Western world deluded itself that the good times would roll on without end. We now find ourselves bewildered because we refused to acknowledge that getting what we want would eventually exact its price.

Planners have known for decades that car-dependent sprawl would end in choked roads and destruction of liveability. We cannot simply switch off urban growth just because we have realised the costs of doing it badly.

We need to transform our city into one that is capable of providing for our future. The one-dimensional sprawl we have pursued for 60 years is incapable of doing this.

– Kris Hansen, Ringwood

A reply I emailed in (not yet published):

Kris Hansen’s odd assertion (The Age, Letters, 8/5) that controlling population growth is “dangerous” because it encourages urban sprawl is lacking in logic – a low population density will contain such sprawl while ensuring people can still enjoy their quarter-acre blocks and gardens. Forcing people to live in high-density apartment towers is not an acceptable substitute, and is an environmentally-unfriendly solution.

“IVF a future investment”, Herald-Sun, 10/5. The virulent IVF lobby gets another hearing on Mother’s Day.

If the speculation of cuts to IVF funding is true, such treatments will be out of the financial reach of many Australian couples from next week. Having a baby could become a luxury. I’m appalled a Labor government would let that happen – making money a deciding factor in who has children. Infertility is not nature’s way of eliminating unworthy parents. Nor should it eliminate those with limited incomes.

In some cases, infertility is Nature’s way of eliminating genetically-defective parents (if IVF treatment is given, that infertility can be passed to the next generation). And if people can’t afford to have children, well, that is self-evident!

IVF entitlement fanatics

“IVF baby is priceless, but who pays?”, The Age, 12/4. This article gives some details of the costs of IVF treatments, 80% of which is funded by Medicare. There is talk of paring back such rebates as part of budget cuts, but again the selfish irrationality of the lobby group, Access Australia, is evident:

But Access Australia, which represents IVF consumers, is taking no chances. It has been encouraging its members to flood the offices of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Treasurer Wayne Swan with angry emails. Sandra Dill, Access chief executive, argues that infertility is a medical condition like any other funded through Medicare and should not be singled out.

These fanatics seriously anger me. As I have said before, while infertility is a medical condition, it is not life-threatening, disabling or disfiguring – an infertile person can lead a normal life and perhaps find other means of fulfilment. Some ideas for curbing funding:

• Funding for one child per woman.
• No funding for women over 40 (when fertility declines and risks of birth defects increase).

“Water cut off in Mexican capital ”, BBC News, 10/4; “Dry Taps in Mexico City: A Water Crisis Gets Worse”, TIME, 11/4. Mexico City is currently enduring a water supply crisis. It has a growing population of nearly 9 million (and ~10 million in the outer region), so you can imagine the ensuing disaster should supplies dry up altogether. This is an ominous warning for other drought-prone cities, such as those in Australia.

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.

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!

Two is enough

It was revealed that the woman, Nadya Suleman, who recently had octuplets by IVF already previously had 6 children (also conceived by IVF). There is some public outrage. I find this comment irksome, though:

“A number of commentators are saying a woman with six kids should not be allowed medical treatment to have additional ones, and I think, at a common sense level, that makes good sense,” Mr. Tipton said. “However, to make that work, that means someone is going to start deciding for other people how, when and why they can have children. That’s a very big step and one that we might not be prepared to take.”

Well, “someone” damn well should decide! In my view she should be compulsorily sterilized! At the very least, she should not receive any government (taxpayers’) assistance with her family, as this only encourages others. People who chose to have large numbers of children are selfish as this adds to the competition for resources amongst an already too-large population.

(I found a photo of her during her pregnancy – seriously scary! Her abdomen looks ready to explode! I shudder at the damage 14 pregnancies have done to her body.)

“Green GP refuses to help women have large families”, Times Online, 1/2. “Dr. Pippa Hayes, a Devon GP, has a conscientious objection. She believes couples should restrict their families to two children – and says she would not help to provide fertility treatment for women who want to have exceptionally large families.” Someone with the right mindset and a sense of social responsibility! In the same issue, a U.K. environmentalist, Jonathon Porritt, said that there should be incentives to have no more than two children, and those who chose to have more are irresponsible (“Two children should be limit, says green guru”). Yes, this is social engineering, but if you want a livable society, such engineering is necessary! Making the choice to have a large family should become regarded as socially unacceptable.

“One last chance to save mankind”, 23/1, New Scientist. Environmentalist James Lovelock is critical of the government attempts at being green (which I share the same cynicism for):

Not a hope in hell. Most of the “green” stuff is verging on a gigantic scam. Carbon trading, with its huge government subsidies, is just what finance and industry wanted. It’s not going to do a damn thing about climate change, but it’ll make a lot of money for a lot of people and postpone the moment of reckoning. I am not against renewable energy, but to spoil all the decent countryside in the UK with wind farms is driving me mad. It’s absolutely unnecessary, and it takes 2500 square kilometres to produce a gigawatt - that’s an awful lot of countryside.

He believes that humans will eventually learn to regulate their behavior, but things will get very unpleasant before that:

I’m an optimistic pessimist. I think it’s wrong to assume we’ll survive 2°C of warming: there are already too many people on Earth. At 4°C we could not survive with even one-tenth of our current population. The reason is we would not find enough food, unless we synthesised it. Because of this, the cull during this century is going to be huge, up to 90 per cent. The number of people remaining at the end of the century will probably be a billion or less. It has happened before: between the ice ages there were bottlenecks when there were only 2000 people left. It’s happening again.

“Tehran’s Health Patrol”, TIME magazine, 29/1. Despite the bad press Iran gets, it seems to be doing something right with health care, including enabling women access to family planning. In this regard, Iran is more socially progressive than many of its neighbors!

Women Health Volunteers arose out of a mix of necessity and pragmatism as well as a fundamental belief, expressed by Malek-Afzali, that “women are the axis of health development and health is the axis of sustainable development.”

[…]

Perhaps the program’s most crucial success was to introduce family-planning to revolutionary Tehran, an effort that has brought down the birthrate per female, from six children to two, with the full support of religious leaders. They at first urged Iranians to boost the ranks of the “soldiers of Islam” but then promoted contraception to stop the alarming growth in population. The lower birthrate is critical to a nation like Iran as its economy evolves. About 7,000 women went door-to-door in Tehran and talked to mothers about the benefits of smaller families, informed them of the different types of birth control and handed out condoms and pills. “I must give credit to Iran’s religious leaders for a pragmatic and creative approach to family-planning,” says Dr. Mohamed Abdel-Ahad, an Egyptian who is head of the United Nations Population Fund in Iran.

“Water – another global ‘crisis’?”, BBC News, 2/2. Population growth is briefly mentioned as a factor in worldwide water shortages, but not the solution of reducing such growth!

A more populated world – and there could be another 2.5 billion people on the planet by 2050 – is likely to be a thirstier world. Those extra people will need feeding; and as agriculture accounts for about 70% of water use around the world, extra consumption for growing food is likely to reduce the amount available for those basic needs of drinking, cooking and washing.

“Planetary demographics and space colonization”, The Space Review, 2/2. There is a belief amongst some spaceflight enthusiasts that the overpopulation problem on Earth can be solved by sending off the excess people onto space colonies or other worlds. This is a foolish fantasy as:

• The development of sustainable space colonies could be centuries away – I can’t see it happening this century at least, unless there is some radical technological breakthrough.
• If the negative attitude towards regulating populations (i.e. “social engineering”) doesn’t change, then the off-world colonies will eventually face the same problems as on Earth – depletion of resources from overpopulation. So colonization is only sending the problem somewhere else (i.e. delaying the inevitable).

The very real problems of environmental degradation from overpopulation need to be solved this century if we want a still-habitable planet by its end.

My published letter – 28/1

First letter of the year in The Age, 28/1 :-). A response to an opinion piece about the book Overloading Australia, the subject of “Population Australia’s ‘big threat’ ”, The Age, 24/1.

It’s all about impact

For Brigid Delaney (Comment & Debate, 27/1) to imply that those who oppose excessive immigration are racist misses the point of the book Overloading Australia. The reason for limiting numbers is that Australia (or any nation) cannot continue to import huge numbers of people – no matter where they come from – without harmful social and environmental impact (already evident in Victoria). If we want to keep Australia liveable in future, we must reduce population growth.

– Suzanne McHale

Growth is the issue

Brigid Delaney trots out the usual spurious arguments against Overloading Australia.

The authors focus on immigration simply because it is the main driver of population growth, and it is population growth, not immigration per se, that is the problem.

No one who supports the basic thrust of the book denies that immigrants have made a contribution to this nation. No one wants to end immigration.

What we want is immigration that approximates emigration in size so you still get a flow of new people that can enrich our society, but not so many as to overload it in environmental terms. We are certainly on a trajectory for overload, if we have not passed it already. We should stop living “high on the hog” but, as well as getting off the hog, we need to get our numbers stabilised (and even reduced) as soon as possible.

– Jenny Goldie, president, Canberra region, Sustainable Population Australia, ACT

Sheila Newman also has a response on her blog: “Growthist responses to Overloading Australia”.

“Eight Is Enough”, New York Times, 27/1. A woman recently gave birth to 8 premature infants, no doubt with the assistance of fertility treatment. There is an option to reduce (abort) the extra foetuses. Creating such pregnancies is an irresponsible use of medical science as it puts great strain on the mother, as well as the taxpayer-funded medical system that is obligated to take care of the usually ill and sometimes defective infants. I agreed with this comment:

There is no way that people who push litters of fragile humans into our nation, society, and ecosystem should be accoladed and rewarded. I am weary of paying for this sort of thing, then facing demands that I also jump up and down and coo.

Repeal the tax deduction for adding more humans to the planet. If people want to be rewarded for breeding, then let them prove when their ONE kid is 25 that they raised a productive, healthy contributor to society. Then we can pay them a successful parenting annuity for 18 years amounting to what the tax break/deduction would have been.

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

– Michael

I hate to think of the damage such a pregnancy inflicts upon a woman’s body:

The mother was initially admitted to the hospital at about her 23rd week of pregnancy – which is fairly early – because she was suffering from severe back strain. “Her stomach was huge, indescribably huge,” Dr. Henry said. “At a certain point, we don’t even measure.”

As an example of such damage, a photo montage (possibly NSFW) of a woman who is “merely” pregnant with triplets!