[Green-Activist] overpopulation and environment
Graham Parton
gparton at hotmail.com
Mon Mar 12 10:51:36 EST 2007
Thanks for that Roy. The Flannery figure was in The Future Eaters and I
agree with his point – 6-12 million is a reasonable guess but his main point
was that we don’t really know. There’s also the Senate investigation that
Barry Jones chaired from years ago that attempted to look at Australia’s
carrying capacity and that came up with some fairly conservative figures
too. There isn’t much research but what there is always points to a carrying
capacity lower than the present population.
_____
From: green-activist-bounces at lists.altnews.com.au
[mailto:green-activist-bounces at lists.altnews.com.au] On Behalf Of Roy Garner
Sent: Sunday, 11 March 2007 4:18 PM
To: maillist for Green Activists
Subject: Re: [Green-Activist] overpopulation and environment
I agree, Graham. Australia cannot sustain its current population without
artificial props.
In answer to the question, What do you think the ideal population of
Australia should be? Tim Flannery told an ABC forum, at
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=5315:
Flannery: Well, my personal estimate is that's probably going to lie
somewhere between six and 12 million. But the great tragedy for the nation
is that we don't know the answer to that question. We've never asked it
sensibly. I may be proven to be wrong, but I don't think I'm going to be
greatly wrong. The answer may be 20 million, but it's certainly not going to
be 200 million."
That’s between 14 and eight million fewer people than currently inhabit
Australia.
I've heard somewhere else that the ideal is much, much fewer than Flannery's
guesstimate.
On 11/03/2007, at 3:36 PM, Graham Parton wrote:
I to would like to see the evidence that leads to the conclusion that
Australia is not overpopulated - I can only see evidence to the contrary.
Graham
-----Original Message-----
From: green-activist-bounces at lists.altnews.com.au
[mailto:green-activist-bounces at lists.altnews.com.au] On Behalf Of Roy Garner
Sent: Sunday, 11 March 2007 2:39 PM
To: maillist for Green Activists
Subject: Re: [Green-Activist] overpopulation and environment
How true, Boris. Our land use since colonisation/invasion has not been
subsistence-based. We have some of the world's oldest and least
fertile soils (Flannery), and our agriculture has been artificially
sustained by imported fertilizers. The Aborigines learnt over
millennia how to relate to our fragile ecology, but more than 200 years
of European land use has seen massive landclearing, leaching of the
soil and destruction/degradation of ecological systems and species, and
now, with the effects of prolonged drought and predictions of
climate-change water shortages for the foreseeable future, it is
reasonable to suspect that we will also witness agricultural collapse,
unless solutions are quickly found. And yet, impossible optimists
still see only pots of gold from the continuing spread of suburbia
along (especially) the eastern seaboard.
When I lived on the Central Coast (north of Sydney) several years ago,
not one local newspaper would print my letters to the editor, in which
I expressed my concern at the unbridled project housing developments
with no guarantee of increased water supply, ahead of the State
government's commitment to uncork the overpopulation of the Sydney
basin. No surprise, seeing the papers are largely funded by real
estate and related advertising. Now we are hearing (pre-election) that
new dams will be built and owners encouraged to harvest their
rainwater. But for the environment, this has come rather late,
following in the wake of recent landclearing and loss of habitat for
Central Coast wildlife. It is a sad irony that the very qualities that
attract people to new areas—the virgin bush, the wildlife, the idyllic
sunsets etc.—are the very things degraded or lost when humans begin the
settle in those areas.
But we are challenged (correctly so) by our international humanitarian
commitments to respond to the needs of refugees, and to share the
burden of their resettlement, even if this seems to fly in the face of
our growing ecological crisis.
We can still honour these commitments if we elect representatives who
are genuinely committed to reversing the damage done to our
environment; protecting biodiversity; implementing alternative energy
strategies; harvesting rainwater; energy-efficient and sensitively
sited housing; sustainable land use; and the promotion of the benefits
of public over private transport, among other things.
The goals of population control, I believe, should properly be
addressed through education and birth control, rather than panicky
political scaremongering made on the run.
On 11/03/2007, at 10:45 AM, Boris Branwhite wrote:
i would be very interested in seeing the data that leads to the
conclusion
that australia is not overpopulated --
the eco footprint of this countries human inhabitants currently require
somewhere between 4 and six planets to sustain the demands of its
consuming
population.
ecological sustainability could be achieved here -- if the current
consumers
reduce their footprint by a factor of 6, or if the population is
reduced
severely.
extinction is permanent -- i am watching and recording the path to
extinction of 20 species that occur locally, and no other place on
earth --
and the cause?
population growth, and its demands to be housed, employed, and fed.
boris branwhite
www.whalecall.org
"every drop of rain that falls ends up in the mouths of whales - it is
up to
humans to control what substances enter that raindrop during its
journey to
the ocean."
Actually Frank,
Australia is not overpopulated. We are killing our land and
environment and using up all our resources because of the animal
farming industry, which uses about 70% of our grain 30% of our farm
able land and rui9ns a whole lot of water, soil and air.
It is reprehensible for far more climate changing gasses than
transport. The UN has said that this is the issue that should be on
top.
I'm not ideological, but communism is not the cause of the trouble in
china and Russia. the communist ideal was never ever implemented in
those countries, because it requires a good deal of good-will
alongside with it, which is only something we can evolve.
Thus we exist in a series of terrible social situations like feudalism
and liberalism according to how materialistic we are. Thus things are
getting better. Perhaps the future will resemble socialism.
--
Alistair Dark
www.the-defender.org
(00 61) 0406 963 407
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