Oh, China, no!

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

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

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

Collected letters

Herald-Sun:

The month of 7 billion

Sometime this month the population reaches an estimated 7 billion, the most people the Earth has ever had – and it continues to increase, at great detriment to the environment we all depend upon. I cannot feel optimistic about the future – i.e. that humans will manage to radically change their attitude and society. Things will likely continue on the same self-destructive path until the environment is devastated, and the world will look like the nightmarish hellholes depicted in Avatar and Terra Nova. I would like to be proven wrong, but given intractable human nature, I think I will be disappointed. (A post at the Dark Mountain blog echoes what I am feeling: despair.)

National Geographic online has a special section on the topic.

In unwelcome news, Australia’s population has reached 22.5 million, just over half that due to excessive immigration, the rest to high birth rates.

There was a report on A Current Affair a family with 15 children; I didn’t watch it on TV but have been unable to view the video due to some technical issue (not viewable on any of my browsers), so I don’t know if they are all biological or if some are adopted. If they are all biological the family is irresponsible in the extreme. Unfortunately Government child support encourages such extravagance.

There is a large families section in a parenting forum on The Age. The concept that educating and empowering women will result in smaller families seems to have bypassed the women there. A few of the posts seem defensive – well, they bring it on themselves by their excessive breeding! The women have no excuse but selfishness. They obviously don’t care for the environment – no matter how frugally they might live, every extra child born negates that. [Looking at some of the posts in that forum, is pregnancy and giving birth addictive for some women, bizarre as that concept may seem?]

Famine crisis

A famine has been declared in the Horn of Africa region, due to drought (possibly climate change-related). Around 12 million people are affected. Such a disaster shows what a liability high populations become when the food supply is threatened. Imagine this happening in a developed country – say, if the food supply was cut off for some reason – and the chaos that would ensue. As I have asserted before, the only way to avoid such emergencies is to keep population growth restricted even in times of plenty when the natural instinct is to reproduce profligately (as happens in the natural world – Nature’s “boom and bust” cycle). Then if a drought comes there will be enough food to go around. Therefore the long-term aid to the affected countries should include educating women, access to family planning and medical care so their children survive to adulthood. From one of the LA Times articles linked to below:

Women who have no schooling give birth to an average of 4.5 children; with just a year or more of schooling, the number drops to 3. As education increases, the number of births drops. Girls in Africa who receive some education will have fewer children and have them later in life. Their children will be healthier, and more educated as well.

There’s a series of articles about overpopulation in the 21/7 LA Times:

• Defusing the population bomb
• The world’s biggest problem? Too many people
• Overpopulation debate comes to one conclusion
• Decrease the birthrate, save the world?

Most commentators are in agreement that overpopulation is a real concern – a root cause of many of the other world’s problems – but gets little attention due to the topic being taboo. One though, Alex B. Berezow, disagrees and brings out the tired example of the problem being due to distribution not numbers. But a lot of land is unsuitable for habitation, or would require environmentally-destructive methods to make it suitable. Another has an opinion piece that bigger families are better. Maybe, if you want home-grown workers! Children in such families tend to get lost in the crowd as they recieve proportionally less attention with the more siblings they have (as some article commentators noted). I doubt there are any “good reasons” for women in developed countries to have large families; it’s just selfishness on their part.

I have read Dick Smith’s Population Crisis (reviewed at CanDoBetter) and found it an informative summary of the overpopulation issue. It is written from a layperson’s viewpoint, so is more accessible than an academic text. Possibly the only disagreement I have is his assertion that coercive methods of population control are not necessary as women “when given the choice, make sensible decisions about the size of their family”. From observation, quite a lot don’t – many Australian women seem to be having large families (three or more children).

In a book review or opinion piece (it’s not clear which) in the Australian, the reviewer dismissively remarks:

To the best of my knowledge this is the first time in history that an important scientific question is dominating national and international politics. It has occurred before but not in such a way as to permeate global awareness. For example, the fear of an all-out nuclear war, so strong in the 50s and 60s, possessed a strong scientific ingredient but the debate was generally viewed more as a military and political than a science matter. Likewise, periodic fears about overpopulation, and especially the Club of Rome’s warning in the early 70s that the world’s fast-multiplying population might soon be short of food and minerals, carried a scientific component, part of which was ultimately seen as slipshod. These fears engrossed only a small section of the population in Western nations, then they faded.

Er…no! Those fears concerning overpopulation are more acute and relevant than ever, and certainly haven’t faded.

Stop at two!

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

Is three the new two?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Letter sent in (not yet published):

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

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?

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.

Deceptive advertising

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

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

Anti-growth push

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

Collected letters

Herald-Sun, 7/7:

Birthrate the main culprit

The credibility of those who joyfully welcome the arrival of new members to their own families, yet oppose the influx of asylum seekers on the basis of a perceived ensuing strain on Australia’s resources, is untenable.

If increasing population levels are indeed stressing infrastructural sustainability, then the national birthrate is the chief culprit, as this is much higher than the modest rate of asylum seekers coming here.

Such a mindset, which celebrates a home-grown “happy event” while decrying the entry of often desperate boat people to these shores, betrays its own thoughtless selfishness and cultural prejudices.

– Co Purssey, Elstemwick

Overstayers the real concern

I would like to see the media present the facts about who we should let into our country.

It is not well known that, as a signatory to a United Nations convention, Australia has an obligation to accept people seeking asylum until they are found not to have a genuine case. The real illegals are backpackers and other holiday-makers who overstay their visas.

There are many more of them than asylum seekers, and yet we seem to tolerate their presence.

If today’s leaders led us on this issue, as Malcolm Fraser did with boat people from Vietnam, we could have some real debate.

– Helen Perela, West Heidelberg

8/7:

Too many people in crowded house

I will review my position re garding immigration and asylum seekers when I can have a shower without worrying about how much water I use, turn on a light and not worry about the cost of electricity, turn on a heater with out worrying about the cost of gas and when I can go out without worrying about getting bashed.

It suits the Government to hold an election at the drop of a hat when it gives them an advantage at the polls.

Let’s see if they have the same attitude in terms of holding a referendum about increasing the Australian population.

– Grant McKay, Pakenharn

Legal migrants do more damage

Why all this fuss about refugees? Don’t people realise that the people who are flooding our cities, inflating our real estate values and putting strains on our community facilities are the legal immigrants — 180,000 so far this year?

Why don’t politicians mention the 50,000 overstayers who come by plane, not by boat? Why not mention the uncontrolled access to Australia by New Zealanders?

It is the above groups who are overstressing our social and physical environment.

We certainly need a population policy for sustainable development rather than a policy of scapegoating the most desperate.

In any case refugees do not threaten our jobs: rather they will do the work that we do not want to do, just as poor migrants do all round the world.

– John Addle, Ringwood East

Thou shalt not breed

“Thou shalt not breed: Anglicans”, The Age, 9/5. The Anglican Church caused a minor flurry in May when it issued a statement saying that the baby bonus was environmentally irresponsible and should be scrapped (replaced by paid parental leave).

Wading into the population debate, the General Synod of the Anglican Church has warned that current rates of population growth are unsustainable and potentially out of step with church doctrine – including the eighth commandment, “Thou shall not steal”.

In a significant intervention, the Anglican Public Affairs Commission has warned concerned Christians that remaining silent “is little different from supporting further overpopulation and ecological degradation”.

“Out of care for the whole of creation, particularly the poorest of humanity and the life forms who cannot speak for themselves…it is not responsible to stand by and remain silent,” a discussion paper by the commission warns. “Unless we take account of the needs of future life on Earth, there is a case that we break the eighth commandment – ‘Thou shall not steal’.”

Approving letters, 16/5:

They’ve got it!

Congratulations to the Anglican Church for its courageous and principled stand on population growth. Accumulated and overwhelming evidence over the past 40 years has highlighted the folly of human self-interest and arrogance as the species continues to breed unabated while totally disregarding its effect on the world’s finite capacities.

Without halting population growth, the environmental and resource problems cannot be mitigated. A stand-out example is global warming, where the effect of the projected growth in local and global population will completely negate any reductions in carbon dioxide emissions.

Sustainable development is an oxymoron in the face of population growth and it should be challenged every time it is uttered.

– Robert Boffey, Macleod

Curb the growth

The Anglican Church should be congratulated and supported wholeheartedly (on its call for a population curb in Australia).

Probably, this is the first time that a Christian church has taken such a momentous leadership direction. Most Western nations have near zero or negative population growth; but population growth is taking place in developing countries, by up to 5 per cent a year.

The biggest threat to world peace and civil society in the future will come from unsustainable population growth. People in most developing countries do not have sufficient water to drink or land to grow food, let alone materials to build shelter. In many poor countries, any economic progress they make is swallowed up by increasing population. Global warming and climate change will certainly make life more difficult in such countries. It is only a matter of time before large numbers of refugees from overpopulated countries seek to move to less populated countries. This will result in warfare, death and destruction.

It is to be hoped that all churches and political parties take the Anglicans’ lead and seek to curb population growth as a policy initiative around the world.

– Bill Mathew, Parkville

Thou shalt not mislead

The headline about the Anglican Public Affairs Commission discussion paper on population issues was misleading. Neither explicitly or implicitly does the paper argue that people should not have children. Rather, it suggests that the government incentive to have more children – the baby bonus – be removed and replaced by increased paid parental leave so as to strengthen the time parents are able to have with their babies.

The article also said that the paper came from the Anglican General Synod. In fact, it was prepared by the national Public Affairs Commission and will be considered by the General Synod at its meeting in September.

– Professor John Langmore, chairman, Anglican Public Affairs Commission

“Hoping for some gains amid the growing pains”, 12/5. This article aroused my ire as the couple profiled are displaying environmental irresponsibility by having so many children (four with another on the way).

Although Mrs Smith admitted money was sometimes tight for extra-curricular activities for the children, she said there were benefits to having a large household. “I love having a big family. There’s never a dull moment and always plenty of laughs, and a few tears,” she said. “Our aim was to start with two and then we quickly went to four and then we thought if we’re going to do it they can grow up together. When they are older they will be best mates.” Last year the budget brought some pain for the family – they were hoping this year would not be the same.

Well, if your budget is tight, stop breeding! Of course they expect Government handouts. A similar article featured a couple with five children and another on the way. What the hell is wrong with these people? We live in a society where most children can be expected to survive to adulthood, and contraception is readily available, so there is little excuse anymore to have large families. Such couples should also be classified as “environmental vandals”. They should be penalized from child #3 onwards, either actively with extra taxes, or passively by withdrawal of Government funding for extra children.

Australia is not the only nation promoting family growth; I came across this news item at the Kremlin.ru site: “Ceremony awarding the Order of Parental Glory to parents of large families”. Even if Russia’s population is declining, there is (as of 2002 census) just over 141 million – over 6 times that of Australia’s – hardly any reason to be concerned yet!

Crowding us in

“Two good to be true”, H-S, 14/3. Some scientific evidence demonstrating that smaller families (one or two children) are better for parents’ health!

“Overpopulation the great unmentionable in Queensland politics”, Courier Mail, 16/3. Queensland is one of the most populous states and the strain is showing (as with Victoria), yet its deluded politicians still promote growth.

One of the comments below that article:

Well, SCOTTY OF QLD, have you ever lived in China? Or that skyscraper capital of the world, Hong Kong? Have you any idea what effect it has on people’s psyche to live like crabs in a basket? To constantly fight over resources and space? To bring up children in a tiny flat situated a hundred or more feet up in the air? Nah, I thought not. Well, you might want to live like that, but I’m damned sure I don’t want to. Nor do I want this for my kids and grandkids. Instead of comparing Australia with Third World countries (and saying, god forbid! that we should ape them), why not look at examples of intelligent population and lifestyle and resources management, such as we see in the Scandinavian countries? It is not our fault if countries choose to overpopulate. Likewise, it is simply RUBBISH to say that if overpopuilated Third World countries can scrape along, Australia (which has more than 76% desert, in case you hadn’t realised!) should be able to manage a huge population too. Why do you think migrants want to come here? To escape the overcrowded, chaotic countries they are leaving behind – duh!

Various developers have been making the usual alarmist statements about housing and land shortages (of course, they stand to profit from this). In “High-rise push to halt urban sprawl”, 16/3, some are promoting high-rise towers as a solution – not a desirable one for reasons stated in the comment above. I certainly don’t want Melbourne and its suburbs to end up as nightmarishly crowded concrete canyons. “Australia faces housing affordability ‘time bomb’: developer”, 17/3 – another developer pushes for smaller and more dense housing. There is only so much land, and covering it with housing estates is not acceptable – open space is necessary for environmental and mental health reasons. Crowding people into towers is not acceptable either.

Greens leader Bob Brown is pushing for a population strategy inquiry – at last his party seems to have realized it is a simmering issue that won’t go away.

“For a new generation, Alpha will be better”, The Age, 20/3. The generation born this year has been dubbed Alpha. Their future could be difficult, and shows how misguided encouraging a high birth rate is – it means more strain on resources, and competition for jobs.

The last of the Alphas will be born in 2024. Australian National University head of demographics Peter McDonald says they may be our biggest generation yet. He says the number of births could be higher in the future because of large numbers of migrants having babies.

In 2050, when the eldest Alphas turn 40, the population is predicted to reach 35 million. Professor McDonald refers to the “echo effect” – if there is a larger population that will trigger another baby boom because there are more people to have babies. Mr McCrindle, however, predicts one in three Alpha females will not have children. Professor McDonald says the bigger generations generally face greater competition in the labour force, but with Australia’s skills shortage this is less of an issue.

“The aging population scare debunked” at PublicPopForum. Quoted below:

Pamela Kinnear’s 2001 study for the Australia Institute, “Population Aging: Crisis or Transition?” concludes:

Conclusion: Alarm over the ‘ageing crisis’ is not justified by the evidence. The transition to an older population can be facilitated by promoting the well-documented benefits that accrue in societies that have equitable access for all citizens to healthcare, education, employment and retirement income. Policies should also focus on overcoming discriminatory attitudes to older people, ensuring security of employment over the life-course, and making a commitment to gender equity in both public and private spheres. Population ageing is not a threat to Australia’s future but an opportunity to ensure decent living standards for all.

Judith Healy’s Study for the Australia Institute 2004, “The Benefits of an Aging Population”:

Far from being net receivers of help and support, older people are, in fact, net providers, at least up to the age of 75 years. They provide childcare, financial, practical and emotional assistance to family members including helping people outside the household with the tasks of daily living. Such unpaid caring and voluntary work adds up to a significant proportion of GDP, around seven per cent on some measures (Ranzijn et al. 2002; De Vaus et al. 2003). Grandparenting has become an important social role in an age when people tend to have more living parents than children. Not only does it benefit grandparents themselves who find that grandparenthood is an important aspect of their lives, but it also appears to benefit grandchildren substantially.

In addition, it is likely that older communities will be more law-abiding communities since older people are less inclined to commit crimes against property and people. The Australian Institute of Criminology (2002b) estimates that homicide rates will fall by around 16 per cent between now and 2050 and there is likely to be less crime altogether resulting in substantial savings in prison and policing costs in the future. Older people are involved in the community as active members of clubs with a large Melbourne survey reporting that one-third of men and one quarter of women aged 55-75 years belonged to a sporting club (Howe and Donath, 1997). They also attend musical concerts, theatres and art galleries more frequent ly than younger people, read more and visit libraries more often. Thus it is probable that the arts will benefit from an older Australia.

Letter from the H-S, 19/3:

I agree with Ian Thomas (50/50, March 17), the world should be practising zero (or even negative) population growth. Governments promote population expansion purely for monetary reasons, not the environment. The world cannot sustain such a large population.

– J. Meulblok, Buckley

Community disillusionment

I am increasingly irritated with the Childfree Hardcore LJ community. I posted an entry about a woman musing whether to have more children (a 4th). There have been similar entries from others concerning overpopulation and/or large families (example: “Octomom”), so I thought it relevant. Apparently not, according to some commenters.

I find it strange that a community that exists for people who do not wish to have children has become a place to post about anything regarding other people having children. This isn’t an anti-overpopulation comm, even though a lot of it’s members are VHEMT members and the like. How does this directly relate to you being childfree? Yes, having four children is selfish, and I’m sure we all agree on that. You’re kind of preaching to the choir, here.

Yes, I thought members might like to read and debate it?

I come to this comm precisely because I don’t have to pretend that I give a shit one way or the other if people have kids. Because I really don’t. As long as the sproggen don’t get up in my face or ruin a movie for me, I don’t care if you have one or a baker’s fuckin’ dozen. Just keep that shit away from me. And frankly, how is this about being CF (hardcore or otherwise)? I mean if you want to talk about whether her waffling makes it harder for others to seek sterilization, that’s relevant to those of us in the comm who have been bingoed and denied reproductive rights. But asking if her decision is greedy? If I’m going to ask parents to refrain from considering my reproductive choices to be “greedy” or “selfish” – I figure I owe them the same consideration when it comes to their choices. So long as she can afford the kid and isn’t going to abuse it horribly how is this our damn business?

Most community entries are gripes about various children’s bad behavior! Also reproductive choices – in this case, having a lot of children – do affect others, in that it means there are fewer resources to share, and taxpayers will end up supporting those children in some way, such as (in Australia) through the baby bonus or government-funded health care (Medicare).

The community is not “hardcore” enough for me anymore (as in Pentti Linkola hardcore). There is inconsistency on what topics can be posted, and posts may be deleted at the whim of the moderators. There is much complaining about how child-centric society is, how women are judged by whether or not they have children, rights to contraception and abortion, a lot of examples of bad parenting, and so on. All of which I agree with. But if topics such as forced sterilization are brought up (an example being drug-addicted women who keep having children while on welfare) it brings down the wrath of the community. Rule №9: “This community, along with being pro-reproductive rights and against fat wank, does not endorse the idea that a group of people are inferior, evil, scary, or generally deserve to have their reproductive rights taken away for the good of society.” I disagree with the “reproductive rights” – as society usually ends up paying for the actions of irresponsible mothers in the form of welfare, society does have a right in this case to take away her means of having children (or more children if she already has any). There is too much emphasis on rights – identity politics – and not enough on responsibilities in our society, an issue that seems to elude a lot of forum members.

I will not bother to post there anymore; a lot of members come across as snarky bitchy females. I encountered those types at school; I do not want to have to tolerate them on the Internet. I have yet to find a community to my liking (there are none on LJ that I know of).

[Edit: I deleted the entry then quit the community. Here is a screenshot of the entry, just over 1 MB.]

“Is it greedy to want a large family?”, The Age, 19/1. The original article which got me irate. To repeat what I said in the LJ entry: This columnist is mulling over whether to have another child (she has 3 already). My opinion: yes, it is greedy! She lives in a 1st-world country where her children are virtually guaranteed to survive to adulthood, and with access to birth control, so large families in this case are a selfish indulgence. Most people’s genes are not so special that they need to produce multiple offspring. There is also the damage multiple births do to a woman’s body. Most of her commenters (linked in the article) show the same selfishness, and encourage her to have another (there are a very few dissenting comments concerned about overpopulation).

Educating women and giving them access to family planning and contraception is generally supposed to result in them having smaller families (1-2 children), or no children. Unfortunately, in Australia this effect seems to be reversing!

Stop breeding!

“Dick Smith says Australia should cut population by slashing immigration and encouraging women to have only two babies”, H-S, 26/1. A businessman who is against population growth is a rarity! The well-known entrepreneur has incited controversy by his comments, but discouraging large families should be a key population policy. While banning is probably a bit strong (and would probably evoke resentment), more passive measures could be used: no government benefits after a woman’s second child (and, more drastically, no access to government services for child #3 onwards), no baby bonus after two children, making large families socially unacceptable, and so on. Those who chose to have three or more children would have to financially support those extra ones themselves.

We live in a first world country where virtually all children are guaranteed to survive to adulthood, so the redundancy argument is no excuse to justify large families here. Most people’s genes are not so special that they need multiple copies of themselves. Those who have many children are also taking more than their fair share of resources.

The ageing population is brought up again as a problem – namely, supporting them. Population increase to solve this is only a short-term solution, as those extra people will in turn need to be supported by an even larger population, until numbers reach ridiculously high levels. A line has to be drawn at some point. Perhaps euthanasia will have to be legalized as an option – it does seem preferable and more dignified in comparison to withering away in a nursing home, senile and incontinent. Developing robot helpers and exoskeletons are also another solution.

Unfortunately, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd wants a “big Australia” so no guidance can be expected from him. In his Australia Day speech he raises the usual alarm about an ageing population and states as a fact that our population will increase to 36 million (a nightmarish prospect).

In the newsprint article (which was a bit different in wording) there was criticism from “family groups”:

Football identity and father of eight Grant Thomas has joined family groups in attacking Mr. Smith’s suggestion to discourage women from having more than two babies.

[…]

Thomas, the former coach of St. Kilda, was shocked by Mr. Smith’s comments. […] He said his big family brought him much joy. “Dick’s a much better man than me. I couldn’t face going through life only having made love to my wife twice,” he said.

This ignoramus obviously hasn’t heard of contraception, judging by the ridiculously large family he has. How can anyone justify having 8 children in a First-World country?

Family Council of Victoria secretary Bill Muehlenberg said it was scaremongering. “We had Paul Ehrlich in the 1960s saying exactly the same thing, that in the ’70s and ’80s millions of people would die of famine and starvation. Really, I would take him with a grain of salt.”

There are millions dying of starvation; does he not watch the news? These family organizations tend to be conservative religious fanatics, so they should not be listened to.

“Australia ‘must plan new city’ to cope with population”, The Age, 26/1. Demographer Bernard Salt, whose opinion is of dubious value, asserts that we need another city in the north, and that we are obligated to take in more people:

By 2050, the global population is set to grow to 9 billion from about 7 billion today. As a nation of 22 million with the resources of a continent, Australia had a moral imperative to take its share of migrants, Mr Salt said. “We need to project that we are a generous nation,” he said. “You might get away with no growth for the next 10 years, but then those pressures build up. “The rest of the planet says, ‘We’re drowning in poverty and here’s Australia sitting on 22 million people, and they don’t want to accept migrants because it compromises the quality of their lifestyle’.”

Bugger that! Much of Australia is arid desert, so a large population is unsustainable – its environment is already severely damaged with the numbers we have. Other countries should take responsibility for their own problems and not expect to keep exporting their surplus people.

“Populate and pollute”, H-S, 20/1. An obvious way for Australia to cut its emissions levels is to reduce immigration levels.

The report said the Government was unlikely to meet its target of cutting year 2000 emissions by 5 per cent by 2020 if high population policies continued. “The Government is in a diabolically difficult policy situation,” the two demographers wrote. “The implication is that it regards population growth as more important than the achievement of greenhouse abatement targets.” Dr. Birrell and Dr. Healy said the Government had limited power to control fertility rates, but it could take decisive action on the migrant intake.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has been unapologetic about his support for a much bigger population, branding himself a “big Australia” man. “I think it’s good…for our national security long term, it’s good in terms of what we can sustain as a nation,” he said recently.

A collection of published letters from The Age:

18/1:

Population fantasy

John Bayly (Letters, 16/1) is living in cloud cuckoo land if he thinks that Australia can sustain a population of 70 million, even if the “dead centre” can provide solar and geothermal energy to support people living on the habitable fringes of the continent.

Day-to-day life for ordinary folk in Melbourne is fast becoming intolerable due to failure by the Brumby Government to provide efficient public services, plus pressure of increased population: more than 2000 settlers are arriving here each week. We are seeing the breakdown of public transport; regular road traffic jams; water shortages; overstretched hospital accommodation; unaffordable housing; and loss of residential amenity with increased density. All this is being compounded by climate change with extremes of weather, such as record high temperatures with threats of bushfires.

Just how many people can Australia sustainably support without destroying the environment and without affecting our standard of living?

The new warning “populate and perish” should be broadcast to all state MPs.

– Lewis Prichard, Hawthorn

No road to utopia

Michael Danby (The Age, 14/1) implies perpetual population growth is the pathway to utopia, but on what planet?

Time and time again, Mother Nature has wreaked revenge on those who forget that humans are but a small part of the world’s ecosystem, wiping out whole civilisations whose leaders acted like grasshoppers rather than ants, living for today and forgetting about tomorrow.

Profligate squandering of her resources has created sterile moonscapes where once there were verdant forests.

History has shown we live beyond our means at our peril. Yet Mr Danby and his ilk want Australians to grow ever larger and richer.

Dying rivers, rising sea levels, diminishing soil fertility, intolerable traffic congestion, sprawling urban development, increasing social alienation - no problem. All we need is a bit of smart planning and a desal plant.

Money, money, money, must be funny, in a rich man’s world.

– Rosalie Counsell, Harkaway

19/1:

Michael Danby, here’s a novel idea. Why don’t we better train more people who are already here so we don’t need to bring in so many extra workers?

– Lorraine Bates, Surrey Hills

20/1:

Rudd warns that the ageing population will “drag” down our growth rate. How disgusting that he considers ageing to be a threat. Nobody stays young, and even the young migrants he lures here will age. Older people may not add to the gross domestic product - but if they worked most of their lives, they have contributed to the economy. Also, many retirees are self-supporting, and they often care for the elderly and children, as well as do volunteer work. The economy is supposed to serve us, not be our master to devalue people as unproductive burdens when they are no longer doing paid work.

– Vivienne Ortega, Heidelberg Heights

21/1:

A simplistic view

Peter Cosgrove, there are many valid reasons for wanting to stop the population growing that have nothing to do with racial tolerance. Water, for example, or some of the world’s worst species extinction rates, or how ongoing urban sprawl is eating up farmland and green space, or the inability to reduce greenhouse gasses while increasing the population. None of these are perspectives born of racism, yet any suggestion that we should limit our population to help deal with these problems is described as racial intolerance. I look forward to the debate about our population moving beyond this simplistic level.

– Graham Parton, Stanley

Poor, poor boomers

Thanks, Kevin Rudd, for asking younger generations, particularly “working families” to work harder for the older one. Let us work harder for the baby boom generation, who had free tertiary education, had their property values explode, milked the pension system dry and left the planet’s environment on the verge of disaster. It is becoming tiring being part of a generation that is held ransom for another generation’s voting population.

– Sarah and Brett Wilson, Ashwood

22/1:

Show us respect

Planning Minister Justin Madden has been charged with overseeing “the Government’s Respect Agenda, which aims to reduce alcohol-related violence” (The Age, 21/1). If Madden and John Brumby respected what Victorians value about our cities and environment and planned for future generations, young people might be inspired to follow their “respect agenda”. Protect our grasslands, forests, heritage, green wedges and streetscapes from developers who are the main objects of Government respect.

– Rosemary West, Edithvale

Small is happy

“One and only: singled out for the special treatment”, The Age, 10/5. This article says that single-child families are increasing (which would seem to conflict with the increasing birth rate?). Having one child is sometimes a deliberate choice, but sometimes because parents are older. Some parents, as featured in the article, have come from large families where they were “lost in the crowd” and conversely want their offspring to have more attention. Small families should be actively encouraged worldwide as this will help reduce population growth – one way would be to provide government benefits for a woman’s first two children, but none after that (those who remarry and want more children would also not receive benefits).

The usual counter-argument is that the old will outnumber the young if this trend continues, and that there won’t be enough tax-paying young people to support previous generations, but it is a demographic trend that governments will just have to deal with. Not all old people are infirm, and they can still make useful contributions to society. Perhaps the idea of a fixed retirement age could be done away with – assuming older people can work in jobs they enjoy.

None of the above is intended to deny that we should plan carefully for the demographics of a population in which the number of older people is steadily rising (as the age-cohorts become more even-sized). But we should remember that the old are in many ways less of a burden than the young. Even in retirement, people are often highly productive, performing a myriad of useful and unpaid services, and deploying the skills and experience of a lifetime. By contrast the young, whether babies or school-age children, are too immature or too busy with their studies to be economically “productive” – and in fact need to be looked after by adults.

– Overloading Australia, page 100

This post at the Public Population Forum unfortunately brings racism into the topic – namely an overused assertion that white people are being “outbred” by people of other colors. She makes the mistake of associating skin color with culture, when they are entirely different things. Here’s how I try to express this:

Racism is defined as discriminating against or disliking a person purely because of their skin color and/or ethnicity. As all humans share the same biological makeup and heritage, such a distinction is superficial; skin color and other physical characteristics evolved to adapt to different locations and climates, and are not reflective of a person’s intelligence (or lack of it!). Therefore, on biological terms, such racism is illogical. It comes from a basic suspicion of people who “look different” from those one grew up with; such aversion can be overcome through education and familiarization.

Culture, however, is a different matter; it is not related to human biology. Some cultures are considered more desirable than others to live in, which is why there tends to be high rates of immigration to the former. Some cultures are just odious (e.g. those which regard women as chattels) and deserve to become extinct. Culture is thus not relevant to a person’s race; people of different skin colors who grow up in a particular culture will share the characteristics of that culture.

The countries with high population growth are often those described as “developing”, which happen to be places like Africa, etc. Women in these countries often do not have access to education and family planning, and their role is primarily to reproduce. This is a cultural feature, one that can be overcome when women are given access to such facilities – something that women in First-World countries (USA, UK, Australia, etc.) take for granted. Educated women will often choose to limit their family size, or decide not to have children, as they have control over their fertility.

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).