A grim future

“Here’s a view of the world at 2050 – if you dare to look”, The Age, 21/3. This opinion piece presents a dismal view of the world midway through this century, with environmental devastation and extensive biodiversity loss due to human activity and overpopulation. It is not dissimilar to the hellish Earth presented in the Avatar movie. The Environmental Outlook to 2050 is available online, though annoyingly it is subscriber-0nly.

The report asks whether the planet’s resource base could support ever-increasing demands for energy, food, water and other natural resources, and at the same time absorb our waste streams.

The huge amounts of various waste products produced by 7 billion people does not get much attention in population arguments, but most of this waste is toxic and not recycled, so it ends up polluting the environment we depend upon – the land, air and oceans.

The purpose of reports such as this is to motivate rather than depress. The report’s implicit assumption is there are policies we could pursue to make population growth and rising living standards compatible with environmental sustainability.

We’re not yet at the point where the sources of official orthodoxy are ready concede there are limits to economic growth. But this report comes mighty close.

I very much doubt that the current rate of population growth can be sustained without even more damage to the environment – the outlooks are mutually incompatible. Implementing restrictions on such growth would be met with much resistance in the present day, but if things get really desperate as described in the article, I wonder if this opposition would change.

There is a tendency amongst many to mock and dismiss such opinions as alarmist, and assert that humans will find a technological fix (cramming us all into megacities seems to be a favored option). Indeed the very first reader’s comment below the article is breezily dismissive:

No i don’t worry about it because like most humans you are exaggerating. The worst thing never happens just like the best thing never happens … it will sort itself out. You will look back on this and feel somewhat foolish.

A saying I like is, “A pessimist is an informed optimist”. In other words, it is a realistic viewpoint.

A 22/3 letter in response:

The population threat

ROSS Gittins wrote about the release of various reports regarding climate change and the response to it based on these reports. These reports are designed to inspire people into action. Issues such as carbon emissions, economic growth, energy needs, alternative sources of energy, emerging or developing countries and so on. However, every time a report is mentioned or discussed in the media, the glaring omission is population growth.

Population growth is a hot topic that is difficult to discuss and even harder to deal with. Surely the time has come to raise this as a matter of urgency. While the world may be able to deal with increased growth, should it?

The world has enough problems with 7 billion people; what would it be like with 8, 9 or 10 billion people?

– David Love, North Balwyn

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.

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.

First female (childfree) PM

Haven’t felt like writing due to the usual frustration and despair, so I have accumulated another backlog of articles.

So Australia has a new Prime Minister, and the first woman PM, at least until the actual Federal Election sometime this year. Julia Gillard is unmarried (she has a partner) and childless by choice, which is certainly a first for a national leader

“I wasn’t someone who in my teenage years or even in my 20s was saying the big thing I want to do in life is have kids.”

[…]

Her childless status has been scorned by political opponents, with Liberal senator Bill Heffernan sparking a storm in 2007 by saying she was “deliberately barren” and therefore unqualified to run the country.

And barely a day had passed when a letter was printed bemoaning the fact she wasn’t a mother:

I’ll cheer when a mother is PM

I can well imagine the conversations around the water cooler yesterday; certainly all the women on Facebook are thrilled that a woman has been elected prime minister. Childless women are incredulous that Julia Gillard has been elected despite being unmarried and childless. Those of us with children are perhaps less surprised.

I would consider it more of an achievement if she had children and been made prime minister, because a woman with children, to some extent, can never have the drive and single vision to compete with a man for such a position.

A man who is a “success” will have a supportive partner, who is caring for his children as only another parent can, while he climbs the ladder of success. How rare for a career woman to get that same level of support.

I’m not blaming men. Women such as Gillard are unlikely to choose a partner who is content to stay home with children, or work part time around school drop-off and pick-up. I accept that motherhood is not for everyone, but the day a mother is elected as prime minister is the day I will celebrate true equality.

– Hariklia Heristanidis, Malvern East

The writer evidently didn’t read Julia’s remark about not wanting children. And if a childless man had similarly been elected, would he get such criticism?

Of interest is that the PM said that she was against a “Big Australia”, in an obvious rebuke to Kevin Rudd’s earlier statement. Unfortunately one of the major election issues is that of asylum seekers (“boat people”), who are a relatively small part of Australia’s immigration intake, rather than the huge numbers coming in via legal immigration (e.g. to work here) and the high birthrate. An example is given in the article “Skilling time: migrants wait for lucky break”, mentioning couples from various countries immigrating to Australia (some reluctantly because of separation from family and culture).

Ms Arori, who is expecting a baby next month, said: “In our country [India], there are opportunities but we were not getting them. It was very difficult to survive over there.”

A main reason there is lack of opportunity in India, the UK and other countries mentioned is that all have high populations! Thus there is huge competition for limited jobs. This is an example of the spillover effect – people leaving one country for one with perceived better opportunities, but in turn the population of Australia is growing and people here are now facing the same problem, thus inciting resentment against migrants. If Australia’s population becomes huge, there is nowhere else for its citizens to go (assuming other countries keep growing also).

(I might note that I am not against immigration as such – my Dad is a UK immigrant, for one thing – but am against excessive immigration.)

“The PM’s dilemma: letting the ‘right’ people in”, The Age, 4/7. More details of what Julia will have to deal with if she wishes to slow growth. Whether she is serious about this – or just pandering to voters before an election – is unclear.

But when Gillard says she does not support the idea of a “big Australia”, what exactly does she intend to do about it? In broad terms, she has two options: either convince people to have fewer kids or cut migration by issuing fewer student, permanent or temporary visas.

The government is hardly going to start discouraging the former, given a number of its policies are designed to do exactly the opposite. Anyway, it is migration that has mainly been driving the population increase.

So if our new PM is serious about wanting to avoid a big Australia, the only realistic option is to slash our annual intake. That will in turn mean accepting lower rates of economic growth. It will also mean angering business groups. For years, migration has underpinned the economy by plugging skills shortages while fuelling construction and consumer spending.

We should be cutting the birth rate as well (abolish the baby bonus!) – Australia has one of the highest in the developed world, which is certainly nothing to be proud of, and sets a poor example to developing countries.

Businessman Dick Smith was delighted with the PM’s statements. I seriously want to shake his hand, or something! He doesn’t appear to have a personal website, though.

Environmental vandals

“Australia’s global footprint one of the worst”, The Age, 6/5. The discovery and settlement of Australia by European explorers was arguably the most disastrous event in the continent’s history – for both its environment and indigenous population – and the destruction is still ongoing. The Federal and State Governments’ supposed concern about the environment is just empty rhetoric. Greens Senator Bob Brown said that Australia and humanity are sealing their own fates. I will probably vote for the Greens in the Federal election later this year, though I don’t agree with all their policies; they seem to be the only party with some integrity left.

“Melbourne’s liveability under threat as population grows, experts warn”, Herald-Sun, 14/6. I now have the misfortune to live in the fastest-growing state in Australia, and it is hell, as far as I am concerned. Premier Brumby did acknowledge that Victoria’s population has been growing too fast, but then repeated the furphy that growth was necessary to deal with an ageing population:

Mr. Brumby said it was important Victoria and Australia maintained population growth to deal with an ageing population. “When all of the baby boomers go through, for every seven baby boomers there will just be two people who are productive in the community,” he said.

Following this line of reasoning, those younger people will also grow old in the future, and require yet more people to sustain them. Where does this idiocy end?

The state in which I grew up is being ruined, both socially and environmentally, and the blame starts with Premier Jeff Kennett’s policies in the 1990s, followed by the Labor Government.

Population Minister

On 3/4, PM Kevin Rudd announced the appointment of a Population Minister, in the form of Tony Burke, who is already Minister for Agriculture. It seems that, in an election year, he is realizing that his assertion of supporting a “big Australia” is at odds with the views of many citizens. Whether this appointment actually achieves anything seems dubious; it appears more of an appeasement to such citizens. Tony Burke is to spend “12 months writing a population strategy” – conveniently ending after the Federal election.

A letter from the H-S, 7/4:

Population debate overdue

Rudd has finally woken up to the fact that a growing majority of voters do not agree with government policy of the massive population increase being forced on us. It is overloading our infrastructure and damaging both environ ment and the quality of the wonderful Australian way of life. However, one wonders whether he is serious or not? If he’s really serious, he would have appointed Kelvin Thomson Minister for Population.

Thomson is the clear-sighted MP who was courageous enough to speak out in Parliament last year and ignite the population debate across Australia. We owe him a debt of gratitude.

When will the Victorian Government and Opposition appoint a minister and shadow minister for population? Victoria is being swamped more than any other state in Australia. Time to say, “we are full”.

– Mary Drost, convener, Planning Backlash, Camberwell

Not surprisingly, property developers oppose any curb on population, because it will affect their profits – never mind the environmental and social cost. Urban Taskforce Australia are the enemy!

Tony Burke claimed today that “it is impossible to cap the nation’s population growth”. Bullshit! They’re the government – they could cap growth if they really wanted to, but they are beholden to corporate donors and business lobby groups such as the one previously mentioned.

The Age letters, 3/4:

Given Melbourne’s over-population, the government should stop wasting taxpayers’ money on major events designed to attract more people.

– Matthew Engert, Preston

5/4:

Sustainability is the key for the 22m already here

Now that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has appointed a Minister for Population (“Rudd flips on ‘big Australia’ ”, The Sunday Age, 4/4), the appointee needs to look not just at what might not be sustainable in the future but, rather, what’s already unsustainable for many of the 22 million people at present coastally crowding Australia. He should have been put in the job yesteryear.

Incredibly, shamefully, our indigenous people are still sheltering under bits of wood and scraps of corrugated iron and there’s virtually no social housing program worthy of the name.

Renters are paying almost as much as home buyers and the immigration influx has no regard to the shrinking overall resources. Government-hoarded land needs to be freed up and councils need to stop allowing landlords to pack houses to the rafters and charging families by the room.

Too much time is being spent cataloguing already recognised public health problems and listing piecemeal solutions that are one, two or even three federal elections away.

Hotels and liquor outlets don’t need to be open all night long and it might be good to see more than just one politician actually physically exercising in public.

It’s the present that’s the problem. Fix that and the future will take care of itself.

– Brian Haill, Frankston

Zero is the marker

Well done, Kevin. Devoting some attention to this global issue, following your earlier over-the-top enthusiasm for a projected 2050 population of 35 million in this dry, dry land, is welcomed.

Overpopulation is a world problem, not just a coming Australian issue. But I worry that this will become migrant bashing when it really hinges on fertility, worldwide. Already, the Liberals’ new right-leaning leadership is turning the announcement into a call for a loathing of the handful of asylum seekers who arrive here by boat.

Let’s forget the previous government’s mantra of “one for mum, one for dad and one for the country” and stop funding the third and subsequent births and get back to the real universal need – zero population growth. If Tony Burke is to make a mark, that has to be his contribution to stabilisation of the world’s population.

– John Gourlay, South Yarra

On the wrong foot

While it’s wonderful that the government has at last recognised the need for a population policy, and given Tony Burke the job of writing it, it seems to have already decided some important aspects of it. For example, one of Burke’s jobs is to determine what size population we can sustain, while another is to see how we can boost the population in rural areas. Isn’t that jumping the gun a bit?

If he can find any rural areas with too much water, food and fibre production, wildlife and clean air and not enough high-density living, where the people want more traffic and crime, then maybe he could suggest increasing the local population.

Until then, perhaps it would be better to work on finding the sustainable level, rather than starting with the assumption that the rural population is too low.

– Graham Parton, Stanley

People issues to ponder

Tony Burke will be Australia’s first Population Minister and will draw up a strategy on how to support the growing population and its effect on infrastructure and services, housing, congestion, the environment, agriculture and water.

It seems his brief is to take population growth as a given and come up with some ideas on how to cope with it.

If we have a Population Minister, people might think we have a population policy. Questions for Minister Burke: Will you establish a figure for our maximum desirable population after a rigorous assessment of our limits to growth? Then, will you tell us what you will do to prevent this total being exceeded?

– Roy Arnott, Reservoir

6/4:

Given Melbourne’s overpopulation and associated problems, perhaps the Victorian government should stop wasting taxpayer money on major events designed to attract more people here.

– Matthew Engert, Preston

Asylum not the issue

IT IS heartening that Kevin Rudd has taken note of the electorate’s disapproval of his own views on population policy, even back-flipping on his vision of a “big Australia”.

It is disheartening that he has chosen to announce his about-face during renewed and dated rhetoric directed at him by the Opposition Leader following the increased arrivals of asylum seekers.

Even more worrying is Tony Abbott’s populist response, linking border protection with the population debate. If politicians continue to link asylum with immigration, then an independent population policy will never be achieved.

The issue of asylum and skilled migration intake are separate in policy and quota. Australia has a tiny quota for genuine refugees that pales in comparison to the government’s massive immigration quota.

Asylum and “boat people” are a red herring that will ultimately blur and confuse the electorate in what is a serious debate. The debate is about whether Australia will choose to be smaller and smarter or, like Tony Abbott’s mouth, be big and stupid.

– Shaun Dumbrell, Williamstown

7/4:

Close our borders

I teach English to new migrants, and, at a personal level, their reception couldn’t be better (Alison Sampson, Comment, 6/4). But, in a few years, migration has quadrupled, and got out of control, delivering 1 million people every 3.2 years. In the same short time, Australia’s education system has fallen rapidly behind other OECD countries that aren’t taking such numbers. Health systems creak; crime accelerates. It’s all our youth I worry about, not recent migrants. How can Ms Sampson be so narrow?

Tim Colebatch, on the same page, rightly asserts that quadrupling immigration in a decade has crippled the housing market for future generations.

Australia is not the inevitable, or sole, destination of the world’s migrants. But the future hopes of young couples to own a home are disappearing with every new million arrivals.

What about those who are already here? Close the borders now. God knows we have enough problems internally.

– Robin Rattray-Wood, Rosanna

8/4:

Population

The government’s plan to double Australia’s population in the next 40 years must be a scheme to attract new Labor voters: nobody currently living in Australia seems to think it’s a good idea.

Warwick Sprawson, Brunswick

Population growth is a global, as well as a local, problem and a major cause of climate change. The two should be tackled the same way – with global and local solutions.

– Julia Thornton, Surrey Hills

Run on the cheap

We live next to a railway station in the inner suburbs, and a medium-density redevelopment is under way a few doors up (Tim Colebatch, Comment, 6/4). The unfortunate part about this is not the building, which is mediocre enough, but the cars. Parking is already under pressure because of the station.

No off-street parking has been provided, nor does the council require it – and there is always an expectation that every household will be able to have one or more cars. What makes this a bad idea in narrow inner-Melbourne streets is, as always, the car.

There is no magic bullet to solve overcrowding. Increased housing density will just lead to other intractable problems.

Turning down the immigration tap while we work out what we’re going to do about it is a good start. Reinstating the Foreign Investment Review Board’s role is another. As my dad always used to say, “This country is being run on the cheap.” Nothing has changed.

– Charles Meo, Northcote

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).