Breed for your country

“Trucking magnate Lindsay Fox urges Australians to have more children”, H-S, 25/5. Stupid remark from a greedy businessman whose company stands to profit from population growth. He has 6 children, so his environmental credentials are nil.

Herald-Sun, 25/5:

In 1900, when my grandmother was a young girl, the world’s population was about 1.5 billion. In 1950, when I was born, the world’s population was 2.55 billion. By 1985 when my children were born, it was 4.85 billion. Today, it is almost 7 billion. In just over four generations, the world’s population has increased almost fivefold, yet it took many millennia for the Earth to reach the first billion inhabitants. This is the crux of the carbon pollution problem. More people equates to more pollution, yet we still have leaders who say we must increase our population. These same leaders want a target on emissions, but not a target on population size. Population increases, coupled with a huge rise in consumerism in the developed world and aspirational consumerism in the developing world, have caused the rise in carbon dioxide emissions.

– Jacques Reed, Langwarrin

27/5, in response to the article linked above:

Lindsay Fox and his wife had six children by the time he was 30, and he says he would endorse that for everyone else. That made me wonder what would happen if the 5.5 million Australians aged between 20 and 39 decided to do as he recommends, and if their children did so too. Six children per couple means each next generation is three times as large. Then 30 years later, that next generation triples itself again. So in just 120 years there would be four triplings – that’s 81 times as many Australians of parental age, or about 445 million of them! And, since there would be more children than parents, the total population of Australia would be well over one billion…and ready to multiply itself roughly another 81 times in the next 120 years. It should be great for the trucking business, though I suspect they’d all be living on air.

– Mark O’Connor, Lyneham, ACT

“U.N. Forecasts 10.1 Billion People by Century’s End”, NYT, 3/5 (shorter article at The Age). A very alarming projection from the United Nations – 3 billion extra people! A nightmarish prospect. Educating women and giving them access to family planning is the main way to combat this, but as the article notes, it is a slow process.

“The idiocy of endless growth”, The Age, 30/5. An opinion piece from businessman Dick Smith (who has a book out on population, Dick Smith’s Population Crisis, which I have yet to see on bookshelves here).

This is why I am so disappointed that Australia has missed the chance to deal realistically with the challenges of an ever-growing population. Earlier this month, the federal government released its population strategy, and it is long on rhetoric and short on action. It mentions the word “sustainable” dozens of times – three times just in its title – yet never defines what this overused word means.

The report ducks entirely the question of just where we should be aiming in terms of our numbers in coming decades. This renders virtually meaningless any attempts we may make to plan for the future. How, for instance, can we expect to reach the government’s target of a 60 per cent reduction in carbon emissions by mid-century if we have no idea how many people we will have making those emissions?

The strategy makes grand statements about encouraging people to settle in regional areas, completely ignoring the reality that nearly all new migrants choose to settle in our major cities. Little wonder that federal Labor backbencher Kelvin Thomson described the report as a missed opportunity to map out a direction for Australia’s future.

To me, the report represents a wider malaise, which is the failure of leaders here and abroad to deal with the really big inconvenient truth: the impossibility of endlessly expanding our economy and population in a finite world. No politician or business leader dares mention that there are natural limits to growth, and that the evidence suggests we are already hitting against many of them.

Instead, they hide behind the near meaningless calls for sustainability, all the while accelerating us towards a precipice.

An article disagreeing: “Big population isn't a problem if we plan for it”, 31/5. Well, from observation, few if any governments manage to adequately plan for growth – it is usually a disorganized attempt to catch up, and they never quite manage to. Planners from decades ago seem to have been more competent than the sorry excuses for planners today. Melbourne was initially a well-planned city but subsequent generations are progressively destroying this.

We want freedom of movement between the states. We want the freedom to choose our family sizes. We need skilled migration at least until the superannuation changes are implemented in full in 2025, and we need to take our fair share of humanitarian arrivals. Our population will grow. We need to get over it and make some effective plans for the future of the city.

Disagree with most – if you want to retain livability, you can’t expect to keep growing in the ways quoted.

Victoria: open borders

“Interstate raiders buying up Melbourne properties”, 2/4. More unwelcome competition for housing – but Premier Ted Bailleu reveals his true colors in this remark:

Despite pressure on housing affordability from rapid population growth, Premier Ted Baillieu said he was not about to close Victoria’s borders. He said he would never “put up the stop sign” to curb population growth, but warned Victorians will have to “endure” the problems of a growth rate that saw Melbourne increase by more than 1500 people a week last financial year. “You’d like to think, in government, that you could invest for the future. We’ll be investing to catch [up] because the previous Labor government allowed Victoria to fall behind,” he said.

Well, Melbourne is ruined. No hope from him, then, of curbing growth – just the opposite, continuing the insane growth mania begun by Jeff Kennett’s government and continued by Labor. Melbourne’s population is closing in on Sydney’s.

I wonder if one solution might be to introduce some sort of residential permit – that if a person wishes to live in Melbourne, they would need to apply; if there were no room they would be refused. Preference would be given to Australian citizens, and then long-term residents of the city first. The State Government should, ideally, refuse to issue any more land releases to developers, and set a firm boundary to limit expansion. I doubt anyone would have the courage to take those measures, though – there would be an outcry of “We should be able to live where ever we want!” A hotel, though, can’t accommodate an infinite number of people, and neither can a city – not if it is to stay liveable rather than turn into an overcrowded slum.

Trying to get people to move to regional centers is no solution – these are often poorly serviced and, despite vague Government assurances, will remain so for a long time. Most people thus tend to want to live in well-serviced areas, which the established regions of Melbourne provide. Successive governments have done a poor job of managing growth – it is a game of catch-up, and they never quite manage to.

Dick Smith suggested that families be discouraged from having more than two children, though the Herald-Sun article linked was something of a misquote, according to this post at PublicPopForum. Some clueless fool did respond:

MacroPlan economist Brian Haratsis said Mr Smith was an alarmist. A population of 40 million was inevitable and that “the only choice is if we want a really big Australia of 40 million to 80 million”. He said population debate in Australia had been stolen by “anti-growth people with a Green sentiment”.

80 million? What has he been smoking? Much of Australia is infertile desert, so populations are mainly limited to thin strips of land along the coastline. Where is he planning to fit them all, and where will their food come from?

Seven billion and counting

With dismaying inevitability, the world’s population is to officially to top 7 billion in 2011 (The Age/NYT), and continue climbing to 9 billion by mid-century. (The SBS TV channel will have to update its slogan, “Six billion stories and counting…”) Yet they are still worried about an aging population! It’s a demographic hump that will just have to be dealt with – increasing the birthrate and a temporary supply of younger people is not a solution (they in turn will grow old).

The Australian Federal election is to be held on Saturday 21 August. Both candidates (Julia Gillard of Labor and Tony Abbott of the Liberals) have made some statements about their population policies (“No ‘top-gear’ rush to population growth: Gillard”, 18/7; “Population: focus turns on middle ground”, 19/7) but one has little confidence about their real commitment to sustainability.

“India’s population poised to top China’s”, 14/7. India is predicted to have 1.6 billion by 2050 – a social disaster as there is already poverty in parts of society and no social security. (National Population Stabilisation Fund)

I got a Facebook notice that Businessman Dick Smith ran an advertisement in Tuesday’s The Australian (which I missed as the message came the next day).

“Growth is good and a bigger Australia brings real social and cultural value” – The Australian editorial 21 July 2010

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A Message from Dick Smith

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The prime obligation of the Murdoch media is to maximise profits and returns to shareholders by supporting endless economic growth.

The Murdoch media has no obligation to show leadership in values such as our quality of life, sustainablility or a safe future for our children and grandchildren.

Please note this when you read all articles and, particularly, editorials in the Murdoch media.

www.dicksmithpopulation.com.au

For another view on the growth debate, see my documentary, “Dick Smith’s Population Puzzle” screening on the ABC at 8:30 p.m., Thursday 12 August. DVD available 13 August.

Dick Smith’s $1 Million Wilberforce Award will go to a young person who shows responsible leadership by communicating the impossibility of endless economic growth in a finite world. Details on the DVD.

Wilberforce Award Endless growth is not sustainable.

The editorial the next day countered, “No apologies, Mr. Smith, growth is good”. I strongly beg to disagree!

“Big business wants ‘Big Australia’ ”, The Age/SMH, 1/8. Opinion piece by Dick Smith.

The supporters of a “Big Australia” are mainly big business, who find it easier to increase profits by supporting an ever-expanding population. As a businessman, I’ve benefited from such lazy thinking – good for wealthy people like me, but downhill from now for most Australians. It is growth that comes with tremendous long-term problems and it’s vital that we start planning for the long-term future of this country.

Of course it would be foolish to argue that as a nation we have not been enriched by immigration. We are nearly all migrants to this country. But many studies have shown that high levels of immigration have a downside for the people already living here.

The economic wealth of the nation cannot be continually divided among more people without most having less. We live in a finite world and sooner or later we will have to stop growing. I believe we are rapidly reaching our limits in this extremely dry continent, where barely 6 per cent of the land is suitable for food production and water is scarce.

Population political party

“How many is too many? Australia’s people problem”, SMH, 19/2. A Sydney businessman named William Bourke is, like Dick Smith (see 26/1/2010 entry), concerned with overpopulation, to the point where he says he is launching a population-focused political party, named the Stable Population Party of Australia (some details at this entry in the PublicPopForum; they have an as-yet-unused site registered).

“Grey expectations not nearly as alarming as climate change”, The Age, 3/2. Criticism of the alarmist hype made by some politicians about Australia’s ageing population.

But even the remaining 40 per cent of the increase can’t be attributed to ageing. It includes allowance for the expected growth in the population from 22 million to 36 million. Obviously, 14 million extra people means (greatly) increased spending on healthcare, but this has nothing to do with older people’s increased need for healthcare purely because they’ve got older.

36 million is not inevitable! Such a population increase can be prevented if politicians have the will too (which none currently in power do).