Population can’t increase forever
Alan Baird writes: Re. “Keane: curbing population to cut emissions lazy and damaging” (Friday). Labelling population constraints “lazy” is “lazy reasoning”. We’ve received all sorts of specious logic from the population denialists over the years, often using the “growth fetish” as a leading argument, conveniently ignoring the fact that growth (as we currently measure it) can’t go on for ever. We don’t have infinite possibilities, as much as pollies like to claim we do. However, with everything burgeoning (consumption times population), we should be able to achieve some of the highest-quality disasters, with truly impressive figures. We are currently in a race to develop poor countries so that their standard of living improves while their birthrate reduces. This will be a close run thing (bloody hard, really), with many, many societies seriously overcrowded with terrible economies, let alone developed countries such as Australia and the US doing their best to emulate the worst. I realise that both sides of politics enthusiastically and mindlessly endorse a “more bums on seat” policy, pretending that small numbers of boat people are a big problem while simultaneously studiously ignoring huge numbers of “plane people”. What is especially galling is Julia Gillard’s repudiation of a”Big Australia” while continuing the Howard-Rudd policy. The Greens are pretty soft here, too. We need a new “hard dark-green” party. We also need to stop criticising European countries with contracting numbers as “stagnating”, too. They’re vastly preferable to desperate poverty-stricken countries with nil family planning.
Finally, we need to flush out the old canard about the baby boomer population bulge moving through causing fiscal problems for the following generations. If we augment the present population to help pay for baby boomer pensions, what will happen when the new, later bulge moves through to pensionable age? Do it all again, and again, and again, overshooting for ever? Demographers are the worst offenders here, but then again I’ve never heard a journalist pull them up!
Eye on the ball
Todd Hayward writes: Re. “Melbourne Machine out, leaving Rocket Ronnie to snooker” (Friday). How wonderful to read Guy Rundle’s updates from the home of the World Snooker Championship, the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield.
As a snooker player since the age of four and a member of the media and communications industry for almost two decades, I would happily swap assignments with Rundle for the 17 days of high drama on the green baize in one of the world’s great theatrical arenas.
One small correction to Rundle’s article — Robert Milkins in fact defeated Jimmy White in the final qualifying round — not Jimmy Higgins — before pulling a stunning upset and beating Melbourne’s Neal Robertson in the first round proper. Rundle has morphed two of the game’s most enigmatic legends — two-time world champion Irishman Alex Higgins and six-times runner-up Englishman Jimmy White — into one magnificent fantasy in his report. If only that were possible, snooker fans would be treated to some truly unforgettable performances and memorable stories. As far as I know Higgins is the only professional sportsman to be banned for pissing into a pot plant at a playing venue and then headbutting an official who had the gall to question this act. Unfortunately he died a couple of years ago from lifestyle-related illnesses. Jimmy White — somewhat reminiscent of Jimmy Barnes but with a piece of maple in his hands — still regularly serves up flashbacks of his brilliant career. But the competitive spirit of both live on this year in troubled genius and defending world champion “Rocket” Ronnie O’Sullivan, arguably now the greatest people’s champion of them all.
Love the reports. Keep your head down and your eye on the ball for the next fortnight.
No change of heart
Peter Matters writes: Re. “‘Abortion pill’ RU486 likely to be listed on the PBS — for now” (Friday). There is not the slightest doubt that Tony Abbott sudden change of policy is due to his obsessive craving for the top job. It is simply playing politics — he will not under any circumstances change his own wired to the 19th-century opinion of women’s place in a male-dominated society.
Re curbing population growth. There IS a ‘hard dark green party’. They are the Stable Population Party.
Think BETTER, NOT BIGGER.
Population growth is already linked to all of Australia’s major problems.
A stable population will:
– Relieve overstretched infrastructure including hospitals, schools, roads and public transport
– Ease cost of living pressures including housing, energy, water and transport
– Protect our environment including food, water & energy resources, native bushland & animal habitats
– Promote education and training to increase job opportunities for all Australians
– Minimise overdevelopment including high-rise and sprawl
– Create a more resilient economy to sustain and enhance prosperity
Population is not a single issue, it is THE EVERYTHING ISSUE.
We won’t resolve any of Australia’s major problems until we first resolve THE EVERYTHING ISSUE.
Check out http://www.populationparty.org.au to find out how
The problem is that Australia has an extraordinarily high “connectedness” in Jared Diamond’s terms, and “big” is very natural to Australia.
Australia is much more naturally connected than the plains of China, having a land tht is basically uniform in structure (extremely old paleosolic soils on an unglaciated continental craton), terrain (very flat) and climate (mainly hot and dry).
What this has meant is that, even though the continent was divided into colonies by the British based on a European model designed for rough terrain where climates can vary greatly ever short differences (compare the superhumid western side of the Proklitije with the dry, irrigated Vardar Valley or granitic Sardinia and rich volcanic Sicily), Australia has basically become politically and culturally very uniform and without strongly opposing communities.
At the same time, the lack of the strong centralisation Australia’s topography favours has made it very difficult for our leaders to gain a good overview of how the continent should work – especially in such key issues as transport, where railways (by far the most suitable means for Australia’s flat terrain) are unchanged from the nineteenth century and of terribly low quality even for that period.