Baby bribery

“Dump baby bonus, says Anglican Church’s key advisory group”, Herald-Sun, 28/4 (ABC article also). This proposal by (surprisingly) a religious organization drew much controversy. Unfortunately the wasteful bonus looks here to stay, with both major political parties (Labor and Liberal) saying they would not abolish it – despite the considerable savings to be made if they did (278,000 baby bonus payments paid out last year at $5294 each equals nearly $1.5 billion!). They would not then have to cut medical research funding as the upcoming Budget threatens – a shortsighted policy if there ever was. I suppose they are more afraid of losing votes. Sadly, issues involving reproduction seem to bring out the worst irrationality in humans.

“Big Melbourne isn’t to be feared, you might find it’ll grow on you”, The Age, 23/4. An utterly deluded piece of drivel! He shares the bizarre conviction that bigger is better, despite the misery this policy inflicts on those living in the affected city. He does admit, almost as an aside:

Admittedly, the advent of 605,000 extra Melburnians since 2001 creates problems: worsening traffic, crowded trains and insufficient housing supply has driven prices to ludicrous heights. But for all the whingeing, the positives of the Big Melbourne far outweigh the negatives.

Oh no they don’t, mate!

“China’s crop supply dries up, spurring global prices”, 19/4. As China’s population increases, it is losing farmland – a lot of this due to urban growth. Perhaps one ultimate solution would be genetically-modified and processed algae for consumption (as I have read in a sci-fi novel or two, and was mentioned in the Avatar movie).

The factories sprawling from Jinan city, 350 kilometers (220 miles) south of Beijing, put Zhao on the front line of a clash between a policy of food self-sufficiency and industrial growth that made China the world’s second-biggest economy. Industrialisation is winning, signaling prices for crops like wheat and corn will rise as China is increasingly unable to feed itself and vies for supplies on global markets.

On a slightly different note, the parasitical organizations otherwise known as hedge funds can only see this as an opportunity for profit:

“China’s increased demand for agricultural commodities will mean an increase in prices for the entire world market,” said David Stroud, chief executive officer of New York-based hedge fund TS Capital Partners. “China can outlast any other bidders for the commodities it desires.” Investors should bet on crops in shortest supply in China, with wheat and corn now offering the best opportunities, he said.

In other words, they seek to profit from others’ misery.

“World’s future is a crowded place”, SMH, 30/4. An overview of the world’s increasing population and the issues involved. Though they seem overly optimistic; 9 billion is still a huge burden on the environment. Countermeasures such as educating women and giving them access to family planning are one way to combat growth, but it is too slow (over decades) and does not always work – as the many “educated” women in Australia having 3+ children demonstrate. Food shortages will be an issue. The well-worn example of the world’s population fitting into a given area is stated yet again, but this is utterly irrelevant to reality.

The world’s current population could stand, shoulder to shoulder, inside the borders of greater Sydney. That means there is enough land for all: how much they consume is the problem. Graeme Hugo warns that population reduction is not a silver bullet: “You need good environmental policy as well as good population policy.”

Much of that land is desert or otherwise unlivable, and reducing consumption can only go so far. Population reduction is ultimately the only sustainable solution.

Collected letters:

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?

Collected letters

A lengthy backlog of printed letters from mostly The Age, collected from the last 3 months, on overpopulation, overdevelopment and property planning issues. Unfortunately, none of the few I sent were published.

(I just found out how to make cuts so I don’t clog up the front page with long entries!)

Urban nightmares

“The future is a high-rise world”, The Age, 22/12/2010. I have come to detest architects in general; most seem to be enraptured by the idea of cramming millions of humans into futuristic hi-tech cities, and rendering utopian artwork of such. One of the most extreme examples is that of housing up to one million people in a single tower in London (architect’s webpage) to accomodate its growing population. To me that sounds like a nightmarish way to live, crammed into a small space with that many people – “battery-hen living” is my name for it. The architect in the first article, Thom Mayne, seems to be one of those arrogant types who think city living is sophisticated and sneers at suburbs – I just want to slap him!

“What future for intelligent life in space?”, The Space Review, 7/11. This opinion piece by Stephen Ashworth asserts that colonizing space (as opposed to other planets) and exploiting its resources will enable humanity to keep expanding almost indefinitely. This comes across to me as “Space Cadet” thinking – an overly-optimistic view that going into space will magically solve humanity’s problems. Somewhat alarmingly, he notes that such expansion will supposedly allow the human population to expand hugely:

In this way, very large future human populations are conceivable. For example, John S. Lewis has reckoned that the material resources of the main asteroid belt, together with large-scale use of solar power, would allow at least 10 million billion people to support themselves (Mining the Sky, p.196). When one adds in the Jupiter trojans and the opportunities presented by the outer solar system, even larger populations become possible. Frank Drake and Dava Sobel have put the overall carrying capacity of our system at “more than a hundred billion billion human beings” (Is Anyone Out There?, p.128), while Marshall Savage suggests an even larger figure (The Millennial Project, p.303). We do not need to quibble over orders of magnitude in order to make the point that the propensity for economic and population growth characteristic of industrial civilization is well matched with the opportunities offered by its local environment, provided that the 21st century sees a shift of the focus of industrial and population growth away from Earth and onto large-scale development of the natural resources of near-Earth space.

It’s the same old infinite growth mentality that is causing so much damage to humanity and the enviroment on Earth. Realistically, I can’t see space colonies happening before mid- or late-century – if ever. And most people would want to stay on Earth, on which humans have evolved and are intensely adapted to.

China’s population reached 1.34 billion last year – attributed mainly to people living longer rather than more births. But now the furphy of the “ageing population” is being raised:

Cai Yong said allowing more births now would help the country cope with looking after its large and growing elderly population. “To have a stable society, you better start now, to think ahead of time because it takes 20 to 30 years to have another generation come down the line,” he said.

And then they will be back to square one, because the increased number of young people born will grow old, and require yet more young people born to look after them… *Sigh*

Fill ’er up

Another backlog of articles and such to list! I have neglected posting out of sheer despair; I feel so powerless and insignificant as nothing I say can do anything to change the government’s policies.

“No ‘we are full’ sign for Melbourne”, The Age, 7/3. With tedious predictability, Ted Baillieu’s Liberal Government has decided not to do anything to restrict Melbourne’s population growth as it is good for the economy. Certainly not for the residents who have to endure the erosion of living standards resulting from such growth! To say I am disgusted and disappointed is an understatement. The city I grew up in is essentially ruined. Disturbingly:

He said 84 per cent of Victoria’s economic growth over the past five years had come from population growth, compared with 71 per cent for Australia as a whole, an unsustainable situation that would require higher productivity from Victoria’s workers to reverse.

Earlier, however, Planning Minister Matthew Guy was saying, “Bigger may not be better for Melbourne”.

Victorian Labor politician Kelvin Thomson now has his own blog; he is one of the very few politicans who seem to understand that excessive population growth is not a benefit for Australia (or the world).

SPPA convener William Bourke wrote an opinion piece on the ABC News site, “Ageing Australia: a crisis or triumph?”, saying that an older population is not necessarily something to be concerned about, despite the scare-mongering by businesses and politicians.

“Planet could be ‘unrecognizable’ by 2050, experts say”, 21/2. A planet of 7 billion is bad enough, but 9 billion will be even worse, as this article predicts. Feeding all those people is the main issue. In the rest of the natural world, animal, bird and insect populations tend to increase in times of plenty – but when famine strikes, many will perish from starvation (the boom and bust cycle). The “Green Revolution” has helped humans avoid this for the most part (at least where food is evenly distributed), but it is reliant on environmentally-unfriendly means of production such as synthetic (petroleum-based) fertilizers and monoculture crops controlled by corporations. The only way to avoid this cycle – with the prospect of millions fighting for dwindling resources – is to give everyone (i.e. in all countries) access to family planning, and remove incentives for having large families in times of plenty, even if this tends to go against human instinct to reproduce.

Livable – for now

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

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

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

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

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

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

The year of 7 billion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Collected letters

A selection of letters from The Age, most on the planning issues mentioned in my previous entry.

Land grab

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

Some articles from The Age on this topic:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Deceptive advertising

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

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

Anti-growth push

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

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

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

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

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

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