The effects of human population size on our standard of living, our environment, and our prospects for long term sustainability
Australians and the world now have on record where their so-called leaders stand on this question. The 'nay group' carries the names of the people Australians may hold responsible for thirst, starvation and slavery, if the future continues to unfold according to their plan to continue population growth.
In passing I note that the elderly Liberal Senator Minchin, South Australia, failed to support this motion. Minchin made his maiden speech congratulating ex-NSW leader, Bob Carr, on his ostentatious (and curiously ineffective) stance against population growth.
However, Independent, Nick Xenophon, did support the motion.
And so did the youngest member of Federal Parliament in Australia's history, Sarah Hanson-Young, also in South Australia.
Now South Australians have a real choice in the Federal Senate!
West Australian based Greens Rachel Siewert and Scott Ludlum also supported the motion.
And so did Christine Milne, 
who represents Tasmania in the Senate. (She is informed on peak oil and other energy issues and has some good discussions on her site.)
I have been studying this political problem of obdurate growthism and the pressure for growth from the infrastructure development lobby now for years. It is a threat to our democracy. I will be watching with great interest from now on. I can only urge those six senators who showed the ability to think for themselves and to strongly represent Australia's welfare not to give up. The mass media is pro-growth because it is really part of the corporate sector, so the senators won't derive benefit there for their courage. In fact the only source of support they may find is in the broad Australian population. The Greens seem to be the only ones attuned to the cries of warning from people in Australia who can see things getting so bad so quickly as we place more and more pressure on this fragile country's natural resources, wildlife and trees, democracy and social structure. It is good to see that they have managed to shake themselves loose from whatever was holding them back from confronting the issue of population in previous years.
http://www.aph.gov.au/HANSARD/senate/dailys/ds131108.pdf
Senate Hansard November 13th 2008 p.3.
WHITE PAPER ON GLOBAL POPULATION
Senator BOB BROWN (Tasmania—Leader of the Australian Greens) (9.37 am)—I move:
That the Senate calls on the Government to develop a white paper on population during this period of government which takes into account:
(a) projections of a global population of between 9 to 10 billion people by 2050;
(b) the inability of the Earth to provide for 9 to 10 billion people if average resource consumption is to be at
current levels in Australia;
(c) climate change;
(d) Australia’s inability to host exponential population growth; and
(e) the wellbeing of future generations and life on Earth.
Question put.
The Senate divided. [9.41 am]
(The President—Senator the Hon. JJ Hogg)
Motion defeated 6 to 47
(The President—Senator the Hon. JJ Hogg)
Ayes………… 6
Noes………… 47
Majority……… 41
Brown, B.J.
Hanson-Young, S.C.
Ludlam, S.
Milne, C.
Siewert, R.
* Xenophon, N.
Adams, J. Bernardi, C.
Bilyk, C.L. Boswell, R.L.D.
Boyce, S. Brandis, G.H.
Brown, C.L. Cameron, D.N.
Cash, M.C. Colbeck, R.
Collins, J. Conroy, S.M.
Coonan, H.L. Cormann, M.H.P.
Crossin, P.M. Eggleston, A.
Farrell, D.E. Feeney, D.
Ferguson, A.B. Fielding, S.
Fierravanti-Wells, C. Fifield, M.P.
Fisher, M.J. Forshaw, M.G.
Furner, M.L. Hogg, J.J.
Humphries, G. Hurley, A.
Hutchins, S.P. Ludwig, J.W.
Lundy, K.A. Macdonald, I.
Marshall, G. McEwen, A.
McGauran, J.J.J. McLucas, J.E.
Minchin, N.H. Moore, C.
Nash, F. Parry, S. *
Polley, H. Pratt, L.C.
Stephens, U. Sterle, G.
Williams, J.R. Wong, P.
Wortley, D.
* denotes teller
Question negatived.
Story by Catherine Case:
With the Community Cabinet due to take place in the city of Launceston where I live, I thought what better opportunity to ask a question of the Prime Minister about the government's obsessive focus on economic growth and their apparent blindness to the realities of ecological limits? I also wanted to try and ascertain whether they had any long term plan whatsoever to deal with projected population growth in Australia. Would they even acknowledge it as an issue? No one in the mainstream media ever asks these questions, the paradigm of "perpetual growth" goes unchallenged. It seems so blindingly obvious to me that endless growth is an impossibility. Why isn't someone - anyone - in the government facing up to reality?
On Wednesday 5 November 2008, I attended the community cabinet at Launceston, where I got to ask a question I had prepared in front of 400 people. Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, looked at me with total disdain and completely avoided (and in the most patronizing way) answering my question, which was:
"For me one of the most disappointing aspects of the Labor government has been the relentless focus and almost obsession with "growing the economy". It's as if every member has sworn to repeat this mantra as often and as loudly as possible on every occasion, as we've already heard here tonight.
Isn't about time that we stopped pretending that mindlessly chasing unending economic growth is even remotely compatible with sustainability?
Because underlying this whole issue is the unspeakable and forbidden P word - POPULATION
The Australian Bureau of Statistics recently projected that Australia's population could increase to 42 million people in a little over 40 years with Melbourne and Sydney both reaching nearly 7 million people each.
Is that sensible, desirable or sustainable?
Aren't we as a country already seriously struggling with water supply, energy independence, food production, depleted fisheries, overloaded infrastructure and severe environmental degradation?
When will the government show real leadership on this issue and start to address the elephant in the living room that is population?
When will the government take the brave step of articulating a national population policy - one that recognizes REALITY and dispenses with the cozy fantasy that is the economic mirage of never-ending population growth?
Will this government have the courage to articulate a policy that, as recommended in a recent CSIRO publication, aims to stabilize the population of Australia to 25-27 million people by 2050?
And if not, why not?"
First off Rudd said that he and his government wouldn't apologize for wanting every "able bodied" person to have employment… the importance of strong economy, jobs etc.
Then he rattled off something about buying back water entitlements. Some more guff about signing the Kyoto Protocol. Some other far-fetched rhetoric about "sustainable development".
He said how important it is for Australians to address climate change and how the government is doing just that.
The only thing that even got close to addressing the question was something about immigration rates and how the government adjusted those in accordance with economic conditions. And Rudd cursorily mentioned "natural" population increase as if the government had no hand in promoting and encouraging it and was powerless to do anything about it.
And even though I'd addressed the question to him and the Minister for the Environment, Peter Garrett, Rudd quickly pointed at the next person in the audience with their hand up and didn't pass the mike on to Peter Garrett, even though he did with all the other questions to various ministers.
He struck me as a shifty, slippery piece of work. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. But I would have liked to heard Garrett's response, and I hope to follow up on this.
As well as the frustration of having the Prime Minister fudge my question, I found the way the community forum was conducted disappointing. At the beginning of the forum, which was already running about 20 minutes behind, after numerous welcomes and thank you's, everyone had to listen to Rudd for about another 15 minutes telling us about all the wonderful election promises that he has kept - in some detail mind you - and all the wonderful things still to come.
Yet the Prime Minister and his entourage were supposed to be there to listen to US! It was like an election speech, anyone would think the guy is still trying to get elected. Even his ministers were looking uncomfortable and bored. I let one of his advisors know in no uncertain terms that I thought it was rude and inappropriate that he went on so much. It was pretty obvious the whole thing is a PR exercise pure and simple.
By the way, I did get quite a bit of applause after my question, so lots of people were in agreement.
Peter Garrett just happened to be making an announcement right next to where I work yesterday. I was able to bail him up after he'd finished his official stuff and after he had spent some time placating pulp mill protesters with his reassuring words of how diligently he would be assessing the project against the extremely narrow commonwealth guidelines and how after all, It was Malcolm Turnbull who had approved it - not him! I had heard this before. At least he made the effort to go and talk to them which I have to give him credit for....
It was quite funny because the protesters have taken well known songs and changed the words to become pulp mill protest songs and halfway through Garrett's speech they started singing them very
loudly, practically drowning him out.
Anyway, I got round to saying to Garrett that I was the person who had asked the question the night before about population and that I had been disappointed that he didn't get a chance to answer it.
"Well," he said, "I'm in complete agreement with the Prime Minister."
Population was not a problem!! It was more important to address issues like environmental impacts and other things.
"But" I said, "Surely you have to take population into account, it's a major factor?" Did he really think that Australia having 42 million people was a good idea given the already existing environmental problems?
My recollection is that he said that he was not going to "talk numbers", that it was "not about the numbers". He reminded me that he had been President of the ACF for a number of years, arguing that this had acquainted him well about population as an issue, but it's not "the problem".
He disagreed with my "opinion" about population.
I said, "Well it's not just my 'opinion'; what about the CSIRO? They're recommending that this be addressed."
My impression was that he totally dismissed this point, and that he walked away from me, still pronouncing what sounded to me like platitudes about consumption, sustainable industries, etc etc.
Oh well....
My next thing is to fill in the form that they gave out at the forum and send it to him with some more specific questions. I want to see what he says when he has to put something in writing.
Written by Norm Smith, Mayoral Candidate for the Save Chilliwack Citizens Alliance.
l have received phone calls and emails recently from residents who are questioning the validity of my position, stated on page one of the Save Chilliwack website, that we are facing a water crisis due to runaway growth, and my position that we cannot sustain our official community plan without depleting the Sardis-Vedder Aquifer.It is appropriate to issue a press release regarding the facts concerning our City's dwindling water supply, and the water crisis we are facing if Chilliwack continues with it's pro-growth "Official Comunity Plan".
I stand by these assertions, and I cite as evidence information published on the City of Chilliwack's official website.
The city admits "We are approaching our limit for water withdrawal from the Sardis-Vedder aquifer and will have to seek out new sources of water for the future. These new sources will be more expensive to develop and operate and will not be the same quality as the Sardis-Vedder aquifer."
www.chilliwack.com/main/page.cfm?id=1445
Elk Creek was generally viewed as our city's "backup water supply" but it is already being diverted to accomodate the vast commercial and residential development plans that have already started on our Eastern Hillsides.
It is now apparent that this unreliable source is going to be stressed out sooner rather than later. Elk Creek dries up in the summer and freezes up in the winter.
The city plans to divert the Sardis-Vedder Aquifer to accomodate the Eastern Hillside developers. This will be the straw that breaks the back of our aquifer and triggers the water crisis.
Reference: http://www.chilliwack.com/main/attachments/files/774/Appendix_B2.pdf (see 3.8)
This is a bad deal for Chiliwack residents because the cost of these massive water projects would be better spent on "quality of life infrastructure" such as a network of bicycle and pedestrian trails and an improved hybrid bus service. The whole mess is a direct result of Chilliwack's "pro-growth" strategy.
The whole situation is a huge tragedy, as our Sardis-Vedder aquifer has won several contests and won the best drinking water in Canada contest two years. It is rare to have a pristine water source that requires no chlorination. It should have been protected from overdevelopment, and we need to protect what is left.
The whole thing could probably have been prevented if City Hall had been promoting a "pro-infrastructure strategy" instead of a pro-growth strategy. The needs of Chilliwack residents must come ahead of the interests of developers.
The continued promotion of growth in our city is an unsustainable blueprint for disaster. We need to change direction.
Norm Smith
Mayoral Candidate and Co-founder
Save Chilliwack Citizens Alliance
savechilliwack.ca
Below is a list of people in the Planning Backlash network running for council. Lots more information at the Marvellous Melbourne site.
Note: Apparently someone out there doesn't like the tag, "activist" and has requested that I use "resident group member candidate". Tags are a problem, I agree. But you have to get a message over quickly in a headline. And we do need Activists - that is, people who think for themselves and start things going - to get over the terrible hurdles which have been placed in front of democracy and local empowerment and the right to self-government.
Election day is the last Saturday in November. Voting starts about the 10th November.
A number of councils now have postal voting only and the ballot papers are being sent out the 11 12 and 13 of November. They are due back by the last Saturday in November.
Clifford Hayes currently a Councillor & P.B. Working Group member
Michael Norris Southern Ward (1) BlackRock & Sandringham
Darrell Reid Southern Ward (2)
Tony Michael Bellevue Ward Willsmere Park Kew,
www.fowpkb.org Friends of Willesmere Park and Kew Billabong
Justin McKernan Solway Ward Noise Abatement Action Group
For Booroondarra Council Elections there is also a new site with evaluations:http://brag.asn.au/bragmoodle10/course/view.php?id=2
Catherine Manning Port Ward
Lynette Keleher Casey City River Gum Ward
John Rickard Casey City Mayfield Ward
Marion Manifold Central Ward
Darren Lewin-Hill Rucker Ward
www.lewin-hill.net/darebino8
Glen Aitken North West Ward Currently a Councillor & P.B Working Group member
Jim Kerin North West Ward - Seaford, Frankston Nth, Karringal
Robert Thurley South West Ward
Helen Whiteside currently a Councillor
Cheryl Forge Camden Ward
Stephen Calvert-Smith Central Ward
Rosemary West Central Ward currently a Councillor
Caroline O’Donnell South Ward
Greg Alabaster North Ward currently a Councillor
Rosa Miot Koonung Ward
Ivan Reid Koonung Ward www.bettermanningham.com
Warren Welsh Koonung Ward, currently a Councillor & P.B. Working Group member
Janis Rossiter Currently a Councillor & P.B.Working Group member
Gary Morgan for Lord Mayor
Michael Kennedy for Deputy Lord Mayor
Michele Anderson
Jackie Watts
Margaret Wood
www.corba_melbourne.com
Brian Mahwinney Kilmore
(See: www.mrra.asn.au for comprehensive ratings all candidates.)
Neil Manning
Brian Whitefield
www.mrra.asn.au
See also: "East Ward: Is Morabito The Missing Man?" of 16 Nov 08 - the Macedon Ranges Residents Association warns voters of one candidate's undeclared links with the sham residents' association, the MRRS, "Undermining local democracy: Macedon Ranges: Pork Barelling and other forms of Influence" of 17 Jul 08.
Matthew Billmann Oakleigh Ward
monashliveability.wordpress.com
Leigh Eustace Mt Eliza Ward
Peter Holloway Kangerong Ward
Belinda Clarkson
Brian Murray Blue Lake Ward Greensborough
Serge Thomann Catani Ward
David Carter Carlisle Ward
Anna Griffiths Junction Ward
Jane Touzeau Point Ormond Ward
Richard Roberts Sandridge Ward
Frank O’Connor Emerald Ward
www.unchainportphillip.com
Names coming - try looking them up at one of the activist election sites listed above.
Ken Davis East Ward
Mathew Knight East Ward
John Menegazzo Iramoo Ward
Amanda Stone Yarra City Langridge Ward
Ian Quick Yarra City Melba Ward - current President SOS
Based on then ground-breaking modelling, the forecasts of global ecological and economic collapse by mid-century contained in the controversial 1972 book; The Limits to Growth, are still `on-track' according to new CSIRO research, published on 11 November 2008.
The Limits to Growth modelled scenarios for the future global economy and environment and recommended far reaching changes to the way we live to avoid disaster.
In a paper published in the current edition of the international journal; Global Environmental Change, CSIRO physicist Dr Graham Turner compares forecasts from the book with global data from the past 30 years.
"The real-world data basically supports The Limits to Growth model," he says. "It shows that for the first 30 years of the model, the world has been tracking along the unsustainable trajectory of the book's business-as-usual scenario."
"The original modelling predicts that if we continue down that track and do not substantially reduce our consumption and increase technological progress, the global economy will collapse by the middle of this century.
"We've had the rare opportunity to evaluate the output of a global model against observed and independent data," says Dr Turner."The contemporary issues of peak oil, climate change, and food and water security, resonate strongly with the overshoot and collapse displayed in the business-as-usual scenario of The Limits to Growth."
This is the first time anyone has comprehensively tested the predictions of the first, and still one of the most comprehensive, global models linking the world economy to the environment.
"We've had the rare opportunity to evaluate the output of a global model against observed and independent data," says Dr Turner.
To date, the recommendations of The Limits to Growth, which included fundamental changes of policy and behaviour for sustainability, have not been implemented.
The The Limits to Growth documented the results of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) study carried out by Meadows et al, who were commissioned by The Club of Rome to analyse the 'world problematique' using a computer model developed at MIT called World3.
TheThe Limits to Growth became the best selling environmental book in history, selling more than 30 million copies in 30 languages.
"In the years since 1972, The Limits to Growth has provoked much criticism but our research indicates that the main claims against the modelling are false," Dr Turner says.
CSIRO is investigating how Australia can address the challenges of economic, environmental and social sustainability facing communities across Australia.
Source: http://www.csiro.au/news/The-Limits-To-Growth.html Reference: 08/179
According to the GFN global footprint analysis, should we choose to maintain our current population level of 304 million people, our average material living standard would fall to about half of our current level—approximating the living standards in Saudi Arabia and Israel today[26].
Alternatively, if we choose to maintain our current living standard, America could support a sustainable population of only 150 million people.
Should we choose to maintain our current population level of 304 million people, the RP global footprint analysis indicates that our sustainable average living standard would be less than 20% of our current level—approximating that of Azerbaijan and Chile today.[27]
If we choose to maintain our current living standard instead, America could sustainably support only 57 million people.
According to the Societal Overextension Analysis, should we choose to maintain our current population level of 304 million people, our sustainable average living standard would be approximately 3.5% of its current level—essentially that of Cambodia and Kyrgyzstan today[28].
If we choose instead to maintain our current living standard, America could support a sustainable population of only 10.7 million people.
The prevailing American perception[31] is that “our system is broken” and must therefore be “fixed”, or “rescued”, or “bailed out”… This perception is fundamentally inaccurate; as a result, the proposed prescription is fatally flawed.
As the preceding analysis clearly demonstrates, we are irreparably overextended—living hopelessly beyond our means, ecologically and economically[32]. Our resource utilization behavior, which enables our “system”—our American way of life—is detritovoric[33]; that is, we are systematically eliminating the very ecological resources and economic resources upon which our ever-increasing population and our historically unprecedented living standards depend.
The inescapable conclusion is that our American way of life is not sustainable—it cannot, therefore, be “fixed”; it must be displaced[34]. Desperate and futile attempts to perpetuate our existing lifestyle paradigm simply waste remaining, and increasingly scarce, time and resources.
Our only recourse is to transition voluntarily, beginning immediately, to a sustainable lifestyle paradigm, one in which we live within our means ecologically and economically—forever. Should we fail to do so, quickly, the consequences associated with our predicament will be horrific.
2050 will be “the new 1850”[35]—if we are lucky!
Finally, Chris Clugston concludes with an inconvenient truth taken from Richard Duncan’s “The Olduvai Theory: Sliding Towards a Post-Industrial Stone Age”:
“Industrial Civilization doesn't evolve. Rather, it rapidly consumes ‘the necessary physical prerequisites’ for its own existence. It's short-term, unsustainable.”
Questions. What are Canada’s “Inconvenient Truths” (or Australia’s, or Britain’s, or New Zealand’s etc.) Using Duncan’s description of industrial civilization, is Canada like a cannibal who consumes his own legs and will no longer walk much further? What would a Societal Overextension Analysis (SOA) reveal our carrying capacity to be (at given living standards) as opposed to the more limited Ecological Footprint analysis?
Chris Clugston's paper can be found at http://www.energybulletin.net/node/46892
Reducing our immigration numbers is not enough. Our Immigration Department should be closed except to manage the intake of refugees and individual cases.
The "problem" of an ageing population is being used as a smoke-screen to artificially increase our numbers because it is "good for businesses". Any skills lacking should mean an adjustment to our education and training schemes. Businesses don't pay students' prohibitive HECS fees!
We will never meet our Kyoto obligations while we continually compensate for our "ageing population"! Our abysmal figures of biodiversity losses should sound warning bells that our environment is already heavily stressed. Even a strong economy will never be able to replace the "services" of our biodiversity.
We only have one planet, Earth! While our global population continues to increase, more natural resources are threatened. We live firstly in an environment, not an economy! Migration has given us an optimum population and it has been good for our prosperity. However, we have passed "sustainable" growth. Instead of bringing economic and livability benefits to our lifestyles, our over-population is causing greater stresses and expenses. Natural resources are finite. Will businesses be able to find a solution to climate change, irreversible ecological damage and a threatened ecosystem?
Our economy is dictating government decisions, aimed at continual economic growth through population growth. Other countries have healthy GDP figures without immigration. Our economy needs to be based on 21st century technology. Our grandchildren will be cursing us and singing "advance Australia bare" unless we stop our population growth.
History buffs might recall the strategy employed by General MacArthur and the US Navy against the Japanese in the Pacific War. It was a clever one.
The Japanese were famous for their fanatic tenacity and their determination to fight and die to the last man in futile and suicidal attempts to impede the Americans in their march to conquer and occupy the Japanese homeland. The Japanese goal was to inflict such heavy casualties upon the Americans that America would give up and negotiate a peace more agreeable to the Japanese than unconditional surrender would surely be.
General MacArthur and Admiral Chester Nimitz, however, sensibly realized that it was not necessary to challenge every single Japanese-held island and subdue it. Why not just leave them be, they reasoned? Why spend the time, and the blood, taking them? Why not just “leap frog” over them to more strategically important islands, and let the other less important ones die on the vine? This became known as “island hopping” and it proved cost-effective in lives and results.
I would suggest a similar strategy be employed by those in the movement who are addicted to debates with inveterate pig-headed cornucopians in their intellectual bunkers. Their obsolete paradigms are impregnable and cannot be breached by reason, and the only battering ram available is your head. So why press the issue? Why not cut your losses and get on with that book you are supposed to be writing or re-introduce yourself to your dog or something. Leapfrog over the lost causes and save your energy for the winnable battles.
If we are right, their ideas will “wither on the vine” and their convictions will die unrepentant, as Thomas Kuhn predicted they would. Reality and the passage of time never forces a dogmatist to recant his beliefs. On the contrary, like a 90 year old Japanese soldier still lost in the jungles of the Philippines, he will maintain that the war is still being fought and that Shintoism, er, Growthism, is a durably viable cosmology for the end of time.
This article is by Mark O'Connor.
Once again the regular Canberra Times column by Catherine Carter (executive director of the property council of Australia (ACT)) is full of propaganda for population growth. It appears in the "Sunday Property" section of The Canberra Times. (2 November 2008).
Titled, "Population target must guide future", it rehearses 4 arguments:
1. "Firstly a small, sparsely distributed population carries extra costs for the economy and the environment...."
2. "We could achieve greater cost efficiencies if we increase the population in key areas...."
3. "Canberrans are entitled to housing and lifestyle choices... But the simple reality is that a bigger population creates a greater range of housing types and locations to choose from."
4. "Finally, land is one of the Territory's very few assets -- and its value rises with the potential amount of development it can hold. Taller buildings in some locations can mean additional sales revenue for the ACT government as well as increased rates and land tax revenues."
As well there is a pretence that we need a population "target to aim for", such as the Property Council recommends. (Carter nominated a target in a previous article, not in this one.) In reality of course, whatever the current population was, the Property Council would want more. Carter's columns are rarely of any use to the intending home buyer --they are simply arguments in favor of the interests of the real estate industry.
Perhaps people with concerns about overpopulation, overshooting of water and soil, destruction of biodiverse habitat, greenhouse impact of land-use intensification, homelessness and personal and national debts, and unstable banks, might make some representations to The Canberra Times about either labeling this column a paid advertisement, or providing a right of reply, in the form of a regular column, to people who don't favour growing Canberra's population.
(Mark O'Connor is the author, with Bill Lines, of Overloading Australia, Enviro Books, due out late 2008.)
(Photo of Mary Drost) The Brumby Government tried to undermine this crucial Melbourne Rally and to avoid criticism by announcing they were modifying their offensive Bill, so the mainstream journalists stayed away. But the alternative press is growing and we will not fall for such simple ploys.
The following letter was printed in The Courier Mail newspaper of Saturday 18 October, at the top of the first page of its letters section under the heading "No way to handle financial downturn". The last paragraph, which is not included here, was not included in the version sent to the Courier Mail in an effort to keep the letter as brief as possible. The letter was otherwise printed in full, and except that the "these speculation industries" in the second last paragraph was changed to "credit and construction" and some improvements in style. I have incorporated the latter.
The credit collapse shines a spotlight upon some obvious, but somehow commonly invisible travesties.
One is the hypocrisy of the free market idealogues, now put beyond doubt as they scurry and bay for public funds to bail us all out of the abyss that their unabated greed and ambition has plunged everyone into.
Another is the tragic condition of our National and State economy, now reduced to a rudimentary three-card trick of house-building, hole-digging and ad-hoc tourism.
For decades lazy politicians have swayed to the narcotic tune of insatiable resource speculators and global free-marketeers. Resultant policy has divested us of nearly every industry that produced real things for real community security and benefit.
... lazy politicians have ... divested us of nearly every industry that produced real things for real community security and benefit.
In replacement Governments at all levels have encouraged a storm of aspiration, debt and immigration to fill the sails of money lenders, land subdividers and retail conglomerators. To pay the interest on escalating urban consumption, including delivery of just a fraction of the needed infrastructure, we've handed our mineral and energy wealth to multi-national corporations for a pittance in royalties. They have then proceeded to rip it out and hawk it overseas for a fortune.
With the house of credit-cards now falling down, and global demand for our mineral wealth stalling, we are about to find out how awfully unproductive our economy has actually become.
Einstein famously said a problem cannot be solved using the same thinking that created it. Clearly there are no Einsteins in Canberra. We can only look in horror at a 'solution' that hands out elevated first-homeowner grants, thus investing public funds into further stimulation of the very debt-creation and property value pressurisation that is the nub of the problem.
Because these speculation industries do grossly dominate our economy, we can't collapse them overnight. However public monies must be used to develop genuine production, diversity and sustainable employment within our economy. Funds should not be used to artificially respirate a diseased status quo.
Local Councils also need to re-think their habit of turning productive land into debt-encumbered suburbs that offer no durable work or production to support the inhabitants. If they let our mortgage belt get too big, we'll all get caught with our pants down. It's time for some real development initiatives that support local economy and local amenity.Local Councils also need to re-think their habit of turning productive land into debt-encumbered suburbs that offer no durable work or production to support the inhabitants.
(Skyhooks photo adapted from www.abc.net.au/rage/guest/2001/skyhooks.htm)
Article by Tony Ryan
There was a time when a thousand rock bands had four million young Aussies swaying and singing in pubs across the nation. We knew only good things and the gods smiled fully on this the sunburned country.
This was a time when mankind’s top twenty found redemption in inspirational Australian talent… AC/DC, Men at Work, Cold Chisel, 10cc, Australian Crawl, Inxs, John Farnham, Skyhooks, Icehouse, Gerry Rafferty, Hunters and Collectors, Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs. The world wobbled on its axis, and some believed the Second Coming had arrived, but happy youth had lost count.
The creative momentum of Australian music was engulfing the known universe; when suddenly… someone turned the volume down; not just to Country Rock, or to Folk; or even to the profanity of Dead People’s Music; but to funeral ante-silence.
Then The Horror emerged. Intimidated publicans across the nation were visited by an army of faceless figures draped in sinister red tape, brandishing unstamped liquor licences, and who delivered the chilling edict that henceforth rock music shall be Noise Pollution, and forever banned. No drums. No amplifiers.
Without live gigs, nature’s roaring powerhouse of Australian talent shrieked down the scale to a barely audible whine, with a lucky handful of bands struggling to hold the holy OzRok banner to a visible height. Today, music is in crisis, with bands restricted to CBDs. A malignant and terrible darkness has visited our once happy land.
Overflowing clubs have become the profitable killing fields for alien drug lords; and are now the meeting houses for devotees of late night street violence. Private transport becomes essential survival gear but, every year, hundreds of young people complete a wonderful night out amongst the more harsh glitter and colour of broken glass and twisted metal.
Meanwhile, the yob brigades, alien to nightclub ambiance, and deprived of pub rock outlets for their wild energy, gatecrash youth home parties. When police arrive, there is the now-traditional rock and bottle throwing ceremony. When police fail to arrive, violence escalates to beatings and stabbings.
The End began with hard-eyed men in lumpy dark suits. We have no idea what transpired in certain conversations, but evidently unrefusable offers were made and politicians flew into power on election campaign budgets that would have strained the seams of Montgomery’s money bin.
We are sure these are but silly rumours but, it is whispered by fearful warehouse shift-workers that, one darkest midnight, certain politicians were seen dancing in the midst of a circle of gliding poker machines which were chanting metallically in unison exterminate, exterminate, while 666 whirred orgasmically on their barely focussed screens. What could this mean?
We asked the publicans and they finally agreed to talk to us secretly, in the sacristy of a disused Brisbane cathedral. It transpired that with the casting out of OzRok, the income derived from joyous free-spending rock fans was gone, and bankruptcy loomed like a black end-of-times tempest. As if acting on a signal, armies of Pokie Enforcers came visiting that very night, and installed their gambling machines, until there was only room for the rattling and singing, ringing and grinning monoliths; and their weeping and degraded victims.
But the Australian ANZAC spirit could not be crushed forever and rebel musos and their freedom-loving fans huddled and whispered in groups wherever the Pokie Enforcers dared not patrol.
Eventually, the brave OzRok Resistance was born and an intelligence network spread throughout the now-degraded land. Finally, the Pokie Enforcer’s darkest secret was exposed and revealed; that revenues had fallen calamitously; their pokie-addicts reduced to poverty, and upper-age Aussie income’s bled white by the corporate and banker barons.
Word has spread and the prophets are calling. The time has come for youth and its allies to gloriously rise up and, exerting the infinite power of profligate spending, as only youth is so congenitally entitled, repopulate the pubs; cast out the pokie idols, and replace OzRok to its rightful place of worship… the Suburban Aussie Pub (or beach or park).
Aussie politicians, harken wisely to our call. Purge your secret sanctums of conscientious liquor licence inspectors and replace these with hearing-impaired age pensioners; for this is their time-honoured vocation. And prove yourselves worthy as Guardians of the Great Aussie Destiny; that of realising the higher purpose of Human Evolution; which is, of course, to create the Perfect Riff.
So, dear reader, every time you pass a politician’s office, drop in and explain that Youth Music; always the people’s most popular music, can never be noise pollution.
And Queenslanders, the Chosen People, know that this great epiphany had its genesis on our own Sunshine Coast. Come ye all as pilgrims and open up this sacred Gympie tablet to Gig Guide. If, due to forces of darkness, it is revealed you can’t dance to driving music in the local xxxx temple, then the path to musical redemption leads to your nearest publican. I say unto you, as a vast multitude, get down on your knees and pray to him to cast out the pokie idols and bring back the bands. Amen.
See also: The truth about live export of 20 Jun 11 also by Tony Ryan
"VCAT unelected, unaccountable and system has lost all respect from community." VCAT is Victoria's Civil and Administrative Tribunal. (Australia)
There was an impressive turn-out of Victorian community groups at the VCAT Community Forum between 4.30 and 6.00 pm on 13 October at Room 2.1, Level 2, 55 King Street, Melbourne from 4.30pm to 6.00pm. The forum had been advertised as "a series of consultative forums with stakeholder groups during 2008."
The seriously undemocratic nature of Melbourne's planning and environment policies and laws is reflected in the rise of so many suburban protest groups, no longer able to rely on the system and the government to oversee moderate fairness.
Groups came from Broadmeadows, Darebin, Carlton, Southbank, Maribyrnong, Seddon, Hobsons Bay, Bayside, Stonnington, Malvern East, Carnegie, Boroondara, Whitehorse, Doncaster, Kingston, Mt Eliza, Camperdown, Daylesford and several other suburbs. More registered but were unable to be there for a variety of reasons. Nevertheless, a wide spread of Melbourne was directly represented.
Some groups probably stayed away because because they feel so disillusioned with VCAT.
The chairs of the "Community Consultation" meeting were the VCAT President, Justice Kevin Bell, and Deputy President Helen Gibson. Gibson was reported to have initially seemed reluctant to allow community group representatives to speak.
Eventually Gibson seemed to respond to pressure and spokespersons from most of the groups present spoke -- often eloquently -- of the problems that the State development policy and the VCAT system were inflicting on the people of Melbourne.
Issues raised included the unfairness of professional developers being able to afford top barristers and expert witnesses when many councils are no longer able fund the community right to oppose unwanted developments.
Two suggestions for solutions to this problem came forward. One was that a blind bank of experts be set up and applicants would take whichever was available. The second suggestion was that the barristers and experts be cut out of the VCAT hearings completely, with a return to a level playing field. In this case the developers, residents and councilors would represent themselves.
An attempt was made to raise the case of how VCAT had overturned Council objections to developers going ahead with building a new suburb, Brookland Greens, on a landfill. Justice Bell, however, arbitrarily ruled out discussion of individual cases, causing resentment among resident group members present.
This scandal concerns hundreds of residents of the new estate who have been told they may have to leave their homes for at least a year because of explosive levels of methane gas in a nearby landfill. Casey Council subsequently froze rates for Brookland Greens, costing that city $1m. The council fears massive compensation claims. A Herald Sun article said that,
"The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal must accept responsibility for approving the housing development so close to the landfill.
Casey Council and the Environment Protection Authority rejected the developer's original plans, but still the controversial housing estate went ahead. "
The Malvern East group told of how they had written in advance about a number of issues to be raised and had been told they were not suitable items. They said that they had then written to Justice Bell asking what would be suitable, but had received no reply before the meeting.
Justice Bell admitted that he had not replied.
The subjects that the Malvern East group had been discouraged from raising were, nonetheless, all raised by other groups at the hearing.
The Seddon group claimed that VCAT only uses the policies from M2030 (Melbourne 2030, Victoria’s State development policy) that support development and ignores the policies that protect neighbourhood character.
The argument was put, in a variety of ways, that VCAT should no longer have the role of a planning authority. It should instead become a review board with the task of ensuring that councils follow their own policies.
The community groups felt that developer should not take their amended plans for review by VCAT. They should bring them back to the councils concerned. And, if they did bring amended plans to VCAT they should be told to take them back to council to be looked at again.
VCAT spokespersons response was that they were trying to save councils time and money.
But many see the role of VCAT as a rubber stamp for State policy which is no longer democratic and prioritises steamroller developments over Victorians’ human rights to self-government and control over their environments.
A sixty day review period is being abused by developers, in the view of numerous community groups. They say that developers delay getting information to councils and then rush off the VCAT because they know they have a better chance of getting it approved by VCAT.
VCAT President, Justice Kevin Bell, and Deputy President Helen Gibson were told that VCAT was unelected and unaccountable and the community has lost all respect for the system.
The issue was raised that councils often pass an inappropriate development because they say VCAT will approve it so residents are wasting time and money to oppose it. Many bad development proposals don’t even get to VCAT, because councils have no confidence in VCAT.
It is a cause of resentment that the local people and local councils usually know better about their area than VCAT, yet they are overruled by VCAT the majority of times.
Members of the community groups that attended this VCAT meeting wondered if President Bell or Deputy President Gibson either listened or heard the residents’ views on this occasion. One activist wrote, “As an optimist I hope so, as a realist, I doubt it. They have heard from the community [before] and as usual they will ignore it.”
Despite this many remained prepared to go on fighting.
Mary Drost said that she felt proud to be there with “so many really great people who are trying to keep the Marvellous in Melbourne, as well as coast and country.”
It is important to document these reactions to the VCAT Planning ‘Consultative’ forums. These are historical civil steps in an increasingly serious battle by Victorians to regain democracy for their city and State.
It is clear to me, viewing Australia's problems with addressing "growth" from viewing the U.S.'s problems in doing so, that both governmental systems are straightjacketed into the same capitalistic premise: that growth is not something to be concerned with; that promoting unlimited growth is possible.
Here's my analysis of the present U.S. presidential campaign that shows the futility of hoping a candidate for such high office will bring any kind of significant change to pursuing growth. Money and power determine their candidacy and their politics. (Although, as usual, I will vote for the one who just might bring a small amount of change, and that is in this case Obama.
By Richard Pelto
Television and newspaper coverage of the election process can be like entering some kind of weird third dimension. Because coverage is essentially secretarial-like rewrites of press releases, and electoral lying is given euphemistic names like "fact-challenged," or "distortion,"the average-citizen reader can only wonder what is going on.
In addition, columns adjoining coverage of the election provide superficial facts but little analysis about an economy being rapidly flushed down a toilet because of widespread excesses of greed, next to a hard-to-justify expensive military "mistakenly" raining bombs on civilians.
Most importantly missing from the journalism 2008 election coverage is how the GOP-Demo campaigns mirror each other on issues like Afghanistan, campaign finance, the death penalty, gun control, housing, immigration, stem-cell research. Only minor, tactical differences separate the two candidates on issues like health care, Iran, Georgia, social security, and taxes. On the abortion issue there is substantive difference. And Obama is now providing welcome fresh-air change of our "globalization" policy.
But even the spin-meisters of the campaigns note similarity. Tucker Bounds, a spokesman for McCain-Palin, made the case that Obama's response to the bail-out of corporate despair was derived from McCain. "Whether calling for a bipartisan oversight board or prohibitions on golden parachutes, Barack Obama is simply following in John McCain's footsteps while trying to respond to this financial crisis, as he followed in John McCain's footsteps when he attempted to respond to the recent crisis in Georgia," he said. "Again, Barack Obama has shown indecision and a lack of leadership at a time when the American people need certainty." The final sentence is representative of the mindless rhetoric that characterizes U.S. elections today.
To analyze what "change" these candidates portend we must begin with the coverage in Iowa which began with the press apparently and slavishly following whatever consistency existed in the two viable party’s electoral narrative. Iowa provided the introduction of Obama’s unquestioned repetition of "change," and, once the campaign was down to two candidates, his opponent, despite the similarities and mirroring noted above, attempted audaciously hijacking the word "change." The journalists tirelessly parrot the terms, print polls that attempt to determine which word struck a deeper chord in various age groups, and then pontificate on consistency of message and the polls’ statistical indicators, assuming apparently that the public was well-informed.
But no reporter seriously asks or presents just what "change" might mean either in an Obama presidency, or the more unfathomable "change" parroted by the GOP-nominee, John McCain. Both are "establishment" candidates, and thus both are beholden to the money/power that buttresses it.
It is a given that the public, today, for many easily-justifiable reasons, is very desirous of "change." and some forms of it is likely with Obama. It is particularly informative, then, to carefully note that Obama’s governmental prescription is similar to decades-long policy. Analysis makes clear one has to wonder how much "change" Obama would bring. On Iraq, he initially did not vote for the war’s authorization. That’s clearly different from Bush who made up journalistically sparse-questioned "facts" that led us into it. But as the many years of our occupation of Iraq passed Obama swung more and more toward Hillary Clinton’s position that an indeterminent number of troops and bases must remain there until some undefined advantageous time to pull them out. Thus, after scratching the surface, Obama’s position isn’t substantively different on Iraq nor with George W’s on the so-called "war on terrorism," especially given Obama has indicated he would aggressively pour those troops taken out of Iraq into Afghanistan and Georgia.
One must then assess the foreign policy philosophy of the candidate. Bush’s present focus on endless (and financially draining) "warring" with Islamic militancy appears to be little different from what Obama’s policy would be, given his appointment of Zbigniew Brzezinski as his chief foreign-policy advisor. This is the man who funneled large amounts of money to a wide range of Islamic fundmentalists like Osama Bin Laden in order to create more resistance to the Soviet Union, and is now advising about the Islamic-like danger posed to Israel by Iran. This "change" is decidedly minimal. In addition, another advisor, Sarah Sewall, who heads a human rights center at Harvard and is a former Defense official, wrote the introduction to General Petraeus’s Marine Corps/Army counterinsurgency handbook, the handbook that is now being used worldwide by US troops in various killing operations. Is she a likely means to "change?" Do these "advisors" help define this great "change" that Obama will bring about that the candidate and press herald?
Bush’s globalization has created much unrest and dissatisfaction because it essentially involves exporting industry to cheap labor and importing as much cheap labor as possible. So who does Obama choose to provide advice on how to change policy toward it? It’s Anthony Lake, who pledged to support a World Bank/IMF overhaul of the Haiti economy after overthrowing Aristide, which resulted in an increase in malnutrition deaths among Haitians and set the stage for the current ongoing political and ecological disaster in Haiti. Lake is a person with a long record of support for globalization. And Obama and McCain continue the globalization push to maximize illegal immigration in order to gain abundant cheap labor while pursuing an assumed unlimited growth. There’s no "leadership" or "change" involved in the Bush/McCain/Obama positions on a "comprehensive immigration reform" amnesty, except a few appearance gestures to "strengthen" the border. Neither shows any understanding at all of the population-growth consequences of additional millions of people impact on resource depletion and already dangerous ecological degradation. So who does Obama choose to provide advice on how to change policy toward it? It’s Anthony Lake, who pledged to support a World Bank/IMF overhaul of the Haiti economy after overthrowing Aristide, which resulted in an increase in malnutrition deaths among Haitians and set the stage for the current ongoing political and ecological disaster in Haiti.
Many are dissatisfied with the costs and impacts of Bush’s unconditional support of Israel. So what kind of "change" would Obama’s advisor, Dennis Ross, bring to this policy, given he pushed the principle that the legal rights of the Palestinians, the rights recognized under international law, must be subordinated to the needs of the Israeli government to expand into doing whatever they want in the occupied territories. And Ross was one of the people who, interestingly, led the political assault on former Democratic President Jimmy Carter after he wrote a recent book critical of Israel. Would he help in being an agent of "change?"
It is beyond doubt that Obama will exacerbate our present policy of unsustainably importing large numbers of illegal-immigrant cheap labor. He will undoubtedly create an even more porous border policy through his support of a variety of political measures facilitating the importation of millions of illegal immigrants. These measures incentivize immigrants' arrival by rewarding their coming here, either through amnestying the illegality of entry or providing such things as free or subsidized schooling, welfare, housing and medical care. And both candidates promulgate their immigration "changes" before activist Hispanic audiences calling for even more porous borders. Thus they make a mockery of professed concern for population-growth exacerbated problems involving the environment and growth management.
The issues not covered: too rapid population growth, rapidly receding availability of strategic resources, and ever-expanding ecological degradation, cry out for emergency "change." This is made clear by the disconnect that exists between peak oil concerns and the presidential race. As prices at the pump rise, each candidate is now talking about their so-called "solutions" to the problem. None of which seriously address population growth and its exacerbating impacts on consumption. Despite clear new warning signs from Russia, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, and Nigeria that peak oil is apparent, McCain made clear he would remain unwaveringly oblivious to the true causes of rising fuel prices, preferring initially to dwell on irrelevant—actually, counterproductive—measures like suspending the federal gas tax during the summer months or taxing Big Oil. This is akin to thinking one is curing melanoma simply by putting a band-aid on it.
Here’s, first, a quick summary of the two candidates positions on energy, and then a more extensive attempt to analyze their positions and the reasons for them.
Obama incorporates improving national energy efficiency as a central plank of energy policy, in housing and the economy overall. McCain is silent on the topic, utterly silent....Both support clean coal. Both support cap and trade. McCain supports nuclear and more drilling, Obama is silent on both....While both candidates have policies on CO2 abatement, neither even bothers to mention the more immediate, critical issues of sulfur, nitrates, and particulates in our air that cause real, measurable damage to people, plants and all other animal groups. ...Both call for more hybrid cars and electric cars, but neither provides the meaningful financing to encourage the shift to cars that are considerably more expensive than the present auto fleet.
"John McCain is energy illiterate. He's just witless about this stuff," Matt Simmons, prominent oil-industry investment banker and lifelong Republican recently stated at a conference meeting involving a dozen oil and gas men in Lafayette, La. He surprisingly added, "I'm supporting Obama." He then said, "He's just witless about this stuff. McCain says things like, 'Oh, we're going to wean ourselves off foreign oil in four years and build 45 nuclear plants by 2030.' He doesn't have a clue. Here's a man who for at least the past 15 years has strenuously, I mean strenuously, opposed offshore drilling. And now it's 'drill, drill, drill.' And he doesn't have any idea that we don't have any drilling rigs. Or that we don't have any idea of exactly where to drill."
Examining the "oil dependency" positions of the candidates' energy advisers gives us little hope our newly-elected government will meet the peak-oil challenges head-on in 2009. They are Jason Grumet for Obama and James Woolsey for McCain. Woolsey’s public comments do indicate he has at least some understanding of the peak-oil issue. But both Grumet and Woolsey say in the campaign that our "oil dependence" is a problem, and both overstate that plug-ins, flex-fuel vehicles, alternative/renewable fuels can remedy the situation. Obama's adviser serves as executive director of Washington's influential National Commission on Energy Policy (NCEP). The commission's December, 2004 report, "Ending the Energy Stalemate," tells us a lot about what the candidates' advisers are thinking about U.S. oil security. McCain's adviser James Woolsey also serves as one of the NCEP commissioners.
The principal NCEP report co-chair was John Holdren. Dr. Holdren's position on peak oil is therefore of considerable interest in so far as it appears to have influenced the views of the presidential candidates' energy advisers. The question that needs understanding is when will global production of conventional petroleum reach a peak and begin to decline, as U.S. domestic production did around 1970, and as most graphs now show has occurred since 2005. Holdren thinks peak oil is "not very important" because we need to cut our oil dependence in any case because of 1) global warming and 2) supply-side security risks.
Grumet and Woolsey’s position is exactly the same—peak oil concerns are overridden by the environmental (climate) problem and geopolitical risks to the oil supply.
Reaching this peak globally will create what is now occurring: large increases in the price of oil, plus a costly and demanding scramble for alternatives to fill the widening gap created by too-rapid population growth (especially in the U.S.) between the demand for liquid fuel and the supply of conventional petroleum.
The preponderance of evidence says that the peak of conventional oil production is occurring now whereas oil-supply optimists say it probably won’t happen until after 2030, perhaps not until after 2050. Similar arguments go on about conventional supplies of natural gas, the total recoverable resources of which are thought to be not greatly different, in terms of energy content, from those of crude petroleum.
It is clear that the U.S.’s present heavy oil dependence carries substantial economic and political risks in a world where high proportions of the reserves and remaining recoverable resources lie in regions that are unstable and/or controlled by authoritarian governments that have sometimes been inclined to wield oil supply as a weapon. It’s also clear that world oil use is a huge producer of conventional air pollutants, as well as being about equal to coal burning as a contributor to the global buildup of the heat-trapping gas CO2. Given these liabilities, it makes sense to be looking urgently for ways to reduce oil dependence no matter when we think peak oil might occur under business as usual.
A "climate first, peak oil not" view dominates mainstream thinking in Washington, but neither Dr. Holdren, or the presidential advisers say anything appreciative of the importance of the timing of the peak.
In a Mary O’Driscoll interview, Grumet reacted to a question about peak-oil impact, "We were intent, Mary, on not having kind of a Robert Ludlow dirty bomb, you know, airplanes into cooling towers. I mean what we looked at was a number of very, unfortunate, but very realistic events. Civil unrest in Nigeria; unfortunately life is imitating art. I mean we're seeing that now reported in newspapers, coupled with some low-tech terrorism. We looked at al Qaeda hijacking a tanker and crashing it into the Port of Valdez, and at a major explosion at a natural gas facility in Saudi Arabia, which would have taken natural gas off the market requiring them to use crude oil to replace their own domestic energy. And then some terrorism that just caused a real anxiety among the oil producers in Saudi Arabia. You put all that together, you take 3-and-a-half million barrels off the market and let me read to you from my cheat sheet of doom; gasoline prices at $5.74 a gallon, global oil price at $161 a barrel, a recession, two consecutive quarters of a drop in GDP, a drop in consumer confidence by 30 percent, inflation 12.6 percent, a 28 percent decline in the S and P 500, as well as I think some very realistic foreign policy concerns... " Thus rather than focus on peak-oil likelihood and impact, he connects oil dependency with the so-called war on terrorism.
Later Grumet was asked this question by Mary O'Driscoll: Well then, what do we do in the short term?
Jason Grumet: We eat it. I mean this is the reality that I think we were hoping to reveal. You know when the national commission put out its report last December the number one priority issue that we addressed was the need to deal with domestic oil security. I think that we have -- the SPRO is a significant buffer. It's very good news that our economy uses about half as much oil to produce the same GDP now as we did before the first oil embargo. So we are in a better position in some regards than we were before, but we use 25 percent of the world's oil. We possess 3 percent of the world's reserves and we are fundamentally now in a system that is stretched so thin ... now if it wasn't civil unrest in Nigeria it could've been a labor strike in Venezuela. I mean these are very real risks and the answer is prices go up.
Mary O'Driscoll: Right.
Jason Grumet: And we probably wind up using our SUVs a little bit less and saying to ourselves, why hadn't government done something to protect us from this?
Mary O'Driscoll: But I mean you're talking about a recession kind of situation, so I mean will we even be able to drive our SUVs at that time? I mean it's a little unnerving I must say.
Jason Grumet: I did see, I saw the Mad Max movie over the weekend and it kind of prepared me for the realities of $160 a barrel oil.
Mary O'Driscoll: Oh boy!
Jason Grumet: These are career-ending prices for many people in this town [Washington] and I think that, our hope is that collectively the Congress and the administration will start to see that not only do we have to work on these issues as matters of national energy policy, that these are issues of national security, economic strength and our foreign policy prerogative.
It is apparent that Grumet fears the potential effects of a sudden withdrawal of 3.5 million barrels per day (mmb/d) from the world market, and he notes that this would result in "gasoline prices at $5.74 a gallon, global oil price at $161 a barrel, a recession, two consecutive quarters of a drop in GDP, a drop in consumer confidence by 30 percent, inflation 12.6 percent, a 28 percent decline in the S and P 500."
At the end of 2004, the EIA data indicates that world oil production (crude + condensate + gas liquids) stood at 79.905 mmb/d. Grumet doesn’t note that at only 1% annual growth, which is below the historical average since 1983, the average daily oil supply for 2007 should have been 82.326 mmb/d. What was it? Supply stood at 81.190 mmb/d, a shortfall of 1.136 million barrels with respect to the modest 1% growth target. The biggest producer, Saudi Arabia, had basically flat-line production despite repeated promises of increasing production. Most of the "growth" that did occur was in gas liquids, which are not used as a transportation fuel. This has not been a sudden oil shock, but rather forms part of a gradual ongoing oil crunch that some call "peak oil."
Thus, neither Jason Grumet or James Woolsey are completely uninformed about potential oil shocks, but they appear to be very badly informed about the ever-accelerating peak oil squeeze resulting from politically-encouraged population growth mostly in the U.S. but also to a lesser degree in Europe.
The energy plan of Barack Obama generally follows the following NEPC guidelines:
"Increasing and diversifying world oil production" obviously did not happen, and it's unlikely to happen. New CAFE standards were enacted in the Energy Independence and Security Act (HR. 6) signed into law in December, 2007, but are belatedly to be phased in by 2020. The NCEP report also advocated ramping up alternative fuels like ethanol to "help to diminish U.S. vulnerability to high oil prices and oil supply disruptions while reducing the transportation sector’s greenhouse gas emissions." Unforeseen cost consequences of this policy soon became apparent, along with its dimunitive impact on our reliance on oil.
Obama’s plan now is to cut oil imports by setting tough new fuel-efficiency standards for cars and trucks and providing retooling assistance to the automakers to help them meet these standards. Also by increasing biofuels production and improving the efficiency of industrial oil use. All these measures would have been undoubtedly helpful 10 years or more ago, but the continuing systemic-growth push mandates (that both Obama and McCain support, or at least seem oblivious of its consequences) means that the industrial cliff is now higher and the gravity pull of peak-oil consequences is much greater.
Obama’s energy-solution steps provide too little help coming too late, an observation which becomes more and more obvious when we consider that a global food crisis is happening at the same time a strategic commodity-availability scarcity is now apparent, and the price of oil recently soared above $140/barrel. Instead of addressing the consequences of peak oil, the candidates are intent on pursuing a politically-correct policy of mitigating anthropogenic climate change so their primary energy initiative is a carbon emissions cap and trade system. This scenario makes problems arising from our oil dependency take a backseat—because they are not perceived as urgent. This approach to our "oil dependency" only makes sense from a climate perspective, which requires us to change our energy consumption and infrastructure over several decades.
The soaring oil price and its underlying causes are the invisible elephant in the room in the presidential race. While many of the candidates' proposals can be chalked up to pandering in an election year, there is no evidence that the candidates get this "peak oil" problem. As the first DOE secretary James Schlesinger said, "We have only two modes—complacency and panic." Complacency rules, and panic awaits and one doesn’t have to be a soothsayer to foresee that anxious day when our leader-to-be exclaims, "Oh, no! Oil is $161/barrel! The economy is falling apart! What do we do now?" This will be similar to the George Bush/Paulson belated decision to institute a public-financed bail out of a suddenly DOA-subprime economy as a last-minute response to a potential disaster.
Of course there is always a range of opinion involved in politics. Even within a political party. Here’s the Democratic Left’s take on Obama: He opposed Rep. John Murtha’s call for immediate withdrawal from Iraq and supported continued funding for the war. He voted in July 2005 to reauthorize the Patriot Act. He did not support an amendment that was part of a bankruptcy bill that would have capped credit card interest rates at 30 percent. He opposed a bill that would have reformed the notorious Mining Law of 1872, which allows mineral companies to rape federal land for profit. He did not back the single-payer health care bill , sponsored by Kucinich and John Conyers. He advocates the death penalty and nuclear power. He backed the class-action "reform" bill—the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA)—that was part of a large lobbying effort by financial firms, which make up Obama’s second-biggest single bloc of donors. CAFA would effectively shut down state courts as a venue to hear most class-action lawsuits. Workers, under CAFA, would no longer have redress in many of the courts where these cases have a chance of defying powerful corporations. CAFA moves these cases into corporate-friendly federal courts dominated by Republican judges. And history may note that Obama’s support for the bailout was his most egregious act of all.
Maybe the most important point on which to judge the candidates is how they will steer our relationship with China. Barack Obama referred to China's recent space walk as a sign that it was catching up while America floundered. John McCain, attacking waste in Washington, said: "We owe China $500 billion." Mr Obama went one better, saying (more accurately) China "now holds $1,000 billion of our national debt". Linking finance with power, he added: "There has never been a country on earth that saw its economy decline and yet maintained its military superiority." The best that can be said about those comments is that they show both candidates being careful about what they say.
The lesson? Change is definitely needed, but too long-delayed change may have unforeseen consequences. And the Bush Administration’s last-minute economic moves to institute socialism for the rich and capitalism for everyone else makes clear even long-repeated dogma can get thrown out the window, given this government bailout was contrary to the republican party’s long-enduring public statements of non-governmental "interference" in the economy, which may or may not be an indictor of just how desperate the decision-making process was in this process.
Serious exigencies are in the offing. Thus journalists have a serious responsibility to report and present information that will allow voters to cast an informed vote. In order for that to occur better journalism and more analysis by the electorate must occur if we are not to be saddled with a similar eight years of Bush miserable leadership most polls show we now do desperately hope to "change." It is clear that McCain is more of a "Bush Junior" on military and neo-con influenced foreign policy abroad then Obama is, but it is clear the latter is a close second. And both candidates would continue present porous, population-growth immigration policy which exacerbates all our problems, while not being frank or realistic about energy policy. It is clear the momentum toward unsustainability consequences will continue regardless of which candidate wins. And unquestioning reporting probably helped cause Obama and McCain, who are in too many ways more of a Bush "shadow" than a Bush alternative, to be the present, active, viable candidates. That makes clear the system determines the political process, and it is probably important to understand "you can’t buck the system."
This is making one thing crystal clear: It is clearly time to assemble the best possible parachute.
See also: An immigration policy bought and paid for? of 24 Feb 08 by Tim Murray, Obama's Chicago Boys of 12 Jun 08 by Naomi Klein.
The Planning and Environment List of the Victorian and Civil Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) has advertised "a series of consultative forums with stakeholder groups during 2008" to include Council planning officers, Referral authorities, Lawyers, planners and other consultants who regularly appear at the Tribunal, peak body organisations, and Community planning groups."
The purpose has been given as providing "a forum for users of the Tribunal to raise issues regarding its processes and procedures"; to give "the Tribunal an opportunity to explain any recent changes to its practices within the organisation"; to "encourage discussion about matters of common interest to users generally or specific stakeholder groups, and suggest potential improvements"; and to "Consider the establishment of a small rotating users group that would meet periodically with the Tribunal."
Consultative forums will be held at the Victorian Civil & Administrative Tribunal, Room 2.1,
Level 2, 55 King Street, Melbourne from 4.30pm to 6.00pm on these dates:
17 March 2008 Council planning officers
7 April 2008 Lawyers, consultants, peak bodies
26 May 2008 Referral authorities
7 July 2008 Council planning officers
28 July 2008 Lawyers, consultants, peak bodies
13 October 2008 Community groups
Three combined regional consultative forums will be held for council officers, referral
authorities and local consultants as follows:
28 April 2008 Shepparton
16 June 2008 Gippsland
11 August 2008 Ballarat
“Operation Jaguar”, initiated in 2003, introduced a series of reforms to the operation of the
Planning and Environment List, including the establishment of Friday Practice Day hearings.
The Tribunal claims that it "maintains a process of continuous improvement with respect to its operations" and to be "keen to gather feedback on these reforms from users of the system and on its performance generally, as well as identify further areas of improvement."
The consultative forum will be open to anyone from relevant stakeholder groups provided
they pre-register with the Tribunal. People who are interested in attending should register
their interest by completing a registration form and returning it via post or fax.
For more information contact Lauren Gardiner
Email: Lauren.gardiner[AT]justice.vic.gov.au Telephone: 03 9628 9992 Fax: 03 9628 9891
(Illustration adapted from Goya's Saturn devouring his children)
[Note: This article was updated on 12 Oct 08 with S&P Graph]
Global decline in total fuel available should manifest in reduction of total global economic activity.
Does the stock-market sector decline represent a reaction to decline in total economic activity resulting from high oil prices?
(Source is "Oil Price History and Analysis," WTRG Economics' Energy Economist Newsletter, www.wtrg.com/prices.htm. Prices are in 2006 dollars.)
The Dot Com led bubble in the stock market topped in early 2000 then fell pretty much continuously until 2003. Between 2000 and 2003, the market lost approximately 45%. In early 2003, Enron and Worldcom made the global market look as if it was really unraveling. Things looked so grim over 2000-2003 that everyone was very pessimistic. Oil prices had also begun to climb in 2000, but remained well below the levels of 1973 and 1979 oil shocks and dirt cheap compared to prices in 2008. (See diagram). It has also been suggested [1] that the Year 2K preparations had temporarily boosted the popularity of Dot Coms.
On the eve of the Iraq invasion the stock market reached bottom. When the US invaded Iraq, it bounced back.
(Historical NASDAQ composite graph adapted from www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Nasdaq-Composite)
The speculative "dot-com bubble" in information technology over 1995-2001, with its spectacular correction made its former status seem so obviously artificial, that it was expected that the share market would return to more real trading volumes. Instead the market doubled between 2001 and 2006, equivalent to 14% compound interest in that time.
Much of this 2001-2006 bubble was predicated on
a) inflated land values which relied on a bull property development market, incorporating new suburbs, new shopping complexes, new roads, and population growth to fuel demand
b) cheap commodities (oil and materials)
The ‘boom’ in property development increased demand for materials and oil, but oil production barely increased at all. So, prices went up. They went up robustly for materials, but they increased spectacularly for oil, as well as increasing for every other form of fuel, energy and electricity – including, coal, gas and uranium.
When fuel and materials prices rose, the margin for profit in property development dropped. One of the ways that industry tends to mitigate the rising cost of fuel and materials is by reducing the cost of labour. Unfortunately, having converted a huge part of the economy to land speculation based on property development, wage reduction had to result in reduction of consumption of property as a commodity, notable by desperate lending and debt repackaging, which accelerated mortgage defaults.
The stock-market is an institution which can only survive on an economic surplus sufficient to support the fees it takes from investments. Whilst economic activity, much of it in the property development industry, was growing by up to 14%, fees of 1-3% seemed wearable and the size of the stock market industry grew just like the size of the real-estate industry did with the globalization and acceleration of land-transactions, assisted by new debt-packaging ‘commodities’ like sub primes. But, if real economic activity drops to 2-3% or below, such fees are untenable. To continue to exist in its current size and draw those kinds of fees, or any fees at all, the stock market must radically downsize.
Is what we are seeing in part the cutting back of personnel, agencies and activities in this sector itself?
If economic activity is only responding to short-term price variations in a bear market, rather than to total global petroleum limits, then we might expect market indicators in general to continue to see-saw and prices to see-saw. If it is responding to long-term depletion then the level should begin to see-saw between lower and lower parameters since economic activity will not be able to recover in the forseeable future. Any fuels called in to replace petroleum oil and gas will lack that crucial adaptability to our wheeled and air-transport dependent economy. Any developing new technologies for transport will require new infrastructures on a scale which will be difficult and probably impossible to provide without the vast petroleum reserves that the economy has depended on since WW2
Oil production has not been keeping up with population growth since 1979 and there are signs that it may not be keeping up with economic activity either. There has been widespread belief – the ‘dematerialisation theory’- that the economy became less dependent on oil and other energy since the 1970s oil shocks and so had increased economic production despite declining increase in oil production.[2]
It is true that industry became less profligate in its use of energy and that real mechanical and technological efficiencies were achieved. A case can also be made that developed economies reduced the amount of fuel calories/joules they used per unit of production since 1973. There is however little or no real evidence to support the idea that using fewer fuel joules amounts to getting more work from less energy.
Investigation indicates that, in reality, industries began to be more careful about the kinds and forms of fuel they used for production, instead of just using any fuel for any operation. Calories and joules in themselves do not accurately reflect the real usefulness of different fuels. Adaptability of particular fuels to different kinds of production is crucial.[2]
Thus, as oil became more costly, we mostly stopped burning it in our home heaters and turned to coal, because coal could immediately be adapted for heating or electricity creation, but not so easily adapted to drive cars and planes. Because oil was immediately available to drive cars and fly planes, it was largely reserved for wheeled and air transport. An early exception to this rule was South Africa when oil was not available due to political embargos, and so oil was made from coal despite huge energy costs entailed by coal liquefaction. No doubt the slave labour conditions in South Africa assisted the economy to adapt.
We now see many more examples of this costly production of synthetic oil from coal, simply because the cost and supply of petroleum is increasingly problematic. China has been making oil from coal for several years now and Australia and other countries are also encouraging investment in this technology. It is not that the process of turning coal to oil has become substantially more efficient, it is that our expectations for economic production have diminished, although governments still rarely admit this. The effect of producing oil from coal will be higher cost for all industrial production using this coal-oil and a reduction in the amount, rate and profit margin of industrial production. As in South Africa, economies newly resorting to coal-oil will rely on reducing the cost of labour in production.
There was actually a global decline in economic growth from 1973 onwards, but first-world countries did not register this because access to fuels and energy was privileged for them and blocked for third world populations. So it was possible for many of us in the so-called developed economies to believe that there had been a complete recovery from the 1973 and 1979 oil shocks.[2]
Those of us who looked seriously at the decline in living standards, quality of life, ecological health, democracy and political stability in the third world were less confident in the façade of business as usual. Recently signs of similar declines in standards are apparent in the first world.
When the concept of peak oil came back on the radar, especially via groups like Jay Hanson’s energyresources [ AT ] yahoogroups.org in the late 1990s, people who had been aware of the 1973 oil shock were ready to investigate Hubbert Peak calculations of timing of world oil peak and depletion and to look out for market and other signals of peak production not meeting human economic and population demands.
Oil prices are often interpreted as an indicator of geological depletion, but they are not reliable in the short term because speculation may drive these prices up, higher costs may cause short term increases in production because more money is available for production, and higher costs will reduce demand for oil, which will eventually cause oil-sellers to lower their prices.
It was generally felt that oil prices in an era of true geological depletion would follow a zig-zag course of supply and demand responses, where high prices would result in what is known as ‘demand destruction’, but would rise again as necessity reasserted demand.
Eventually oil would become a precious fuel and all those things in our economies which formerly relied upon oil would cease to exist except perhaps in some relic industrial communities which might manage to retain strategic access to remaining reserves.
The situation with the ‘First World’ since 1973 and 1979 could represent an early version of such a relic community monopolizing remaining reserves. The method of monopolization could be identified as market sequestration via currency manipulation. Having a currency equal to US dollars, OPEC standard currency from 1974, became the test for inclusion in the monopolizing countries. Oil became very expensive for any country whose currency was of low value vis a vis the USD.
Ironically Russia, which was the first developed country to fall below this access standard, now dominates considerable, if declining, oil and gas reserves, and the US, whose enormous reserves began to decline in the early 1970s, now roams the world in growing desperation, seeking to dominate other peoples’ reserves. Now with its dollar also losing sway, its capacity to monopolise oil reserves via currency domination looks increasingly moot..
C.J. Cleveland, R.K. Kaufmann, and D.I. Stern's research cited in [3] seemed to show clearly that fuel prices were closely aligned with the economic productivity of the uses they were put to. Expensive petroleum fuels are associated with the most productive industries. This would suggest that as petroleum prices rise there will not be much room for real adjustment by these industries. Passing on the costs to the consumer will result in 'demand reduction', which will result in a slowing of the economy and a smaller stock market index score. Basically, less petroleum means a smaller, slower economy.
The US and other countries' attempts to throw money at the banks in order to induce them to lend for renewed investment are made in the hope that the money will cause a response. Is the absence of response an indication that the banks cannot find any good investments to place? A failure to respond to this credit stimulus may signify that we really have reached a nexus of oil reserves and economic margins, meaning that continuous economic growth and material progress are now things of the past.
What slack remains in our economic system?
Time.
The pace of economic transactions now requires specialised industries and staff to keep up with. Ordinary people and processes cannot deal with the pace and impact of economic growthism on their environments. Governments have sacrificed democratic engagement to laissez-faire economics because they lack the manpower and time to dedicate parliaments to monitoring and controlling the rate of human engineered material change and disturbance. The languishing world property markets reached extremes of market propulsion before their current collapse.
A slowing down of the economy would be a godsend, but only if we adapt democratically to it.
We can adapt to a smaller, slower economy by forgiving debt, relocalising economies, and working and producing less material things. Operations on a large scale, such as internationally, including telecommunications and travel, should probably become the province of governments to operate, subject to democratic controls. A new, slow and smaller economy cannot afford massive property development just for the sake of cash profits, and it would have to relinquish the daily importation of food and materials from impoverished countries for continuous hectic economic activity. It would have to adapt to local supplies for most things.[4] Population policies, instead of encouraging rapid growth, would need to take advantage of the natural tendency to rein in growth when economic indicators clearly predict shrinking opportunity. We could take advantage of the aging population to slow down activity, anchor communities, and reduce demand. Instead of attempting to replace age with youth through high immigration, we can look forward to the passing of the babyboom through the Australia's demographic intestine and plan for an overall much smaller population.
One thing is for sure, we need a change in political elites, and by that I mean a change in CEOs and mainstream media owners, just as much as in all levels of government. We have been ruled by an elite with an uncritical faith in a reality-divorced notion of continuous economic growth and coasian cash economics. They are not equal to the task of adapting to thermodynamic realities and the system they support disregards serious input from any citizen not endorsed by their own corporate mediatocracy.
#Australia" id="Australia">Australia:
Any Australian having read Wizard Home Loans/Malcolm Turnbull's contribution to the Housing Affordability Inquiry should realise that the much touted genius of Turnbull is only an eidetic reflection of the kind of progress ideology and cash paradigm on which the financial community has pinned its successful ploy for total deregulation, privatisation and ecological vandalism on a grand scale. The opposition offers little or no relief in this leader to our current problems.
Further questions to be answered are: What is the relationship between NASDAQ, Dow Jones, the Australian All Ordinaries, the Hang Seng, FTSE and other stock market measures and total global economic activity?
Contributions to candobetter.org on this and other aspects of the global credit crisis are welcome. Submit them to the “Comments” here or send them to james [ AT ] candobetter org or sheila [ AT ] candobetter org and we will consider publishing them on the front page.
Acknowledgement: Thanks to Ilan Goldman for help in describing the recent gains and losses on the market. Thanks to Quark for help with better graph data.
[1] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble (Accessed 8-10-08)
[2] Sheila Newman, “101 Views from Hubbert’s Peak” in The Final Energy Crisis, 2nd Edition, Pluto Press, 2008, citing A. Maddison, Monitoring the World Economy 1820–1992, OECD, Paris, 2000.
[3] Sheila Newman, “101 Views from Hubbert’s Peak” in The Final Energy Crisis, 2nd Edition, Pluto Press, 2008, citing C.J. Cleveland, R.K. Kaufmann, and D.I. Stern, “Aggregation and the Role of Energy in the Economy,” Ecological Economics, vol. 32, issue 2 (2000),
pp. 301–17
[4] Sheila Newman, “101 Views from Hubbert’s Peak” in The Final Energy Crisis, 2nd Edition, Pluto Press, 2008, citing Clive Hamilton, Growth Fetish, Allen & Unwin, Australia, 2003; Pluto Press, London, 2005, last chapter, especially, pp. 218–20:
Relocalization is obviously the best way to develop the solidarity and self-suffi ciency to reorganize work.
Political commentator and climate activist Clive Hamilton writes in Growth Fetish,
"Reduction in working hours is the core demand for the transition to postgrowth society. Overwork not only propels overconsumption but is the cause of severe social dysfunction, with ramifi cations for physical and psychological health as well as family and community life. The natural solution to this is the redistribution of work, a process that could benefit both the unemployed and the overworked."He remarks that “Moves to limit overwork … directly confront the obsession with growth at all costs,” and talks about the liberation of workers “from the compulsion to earn more than they need.”
Because growth is sustained by a constant “barrage of marketing and advertising” Hamilton wants advertising taxed and removed from the public domain, and television broadcast hours limited so as to “allow people to cultivate their relationships, especially with children.”
(Photo:Justin Madden, Victorian Planning Minister)
Victorian Planning dictators aim at iconic Macedon Ranges (Hanging Rock region). Where will it end? Call to Victorians and the world ....
We need your help - to help Macedon Ranges.
Background
At last Wednesday’s Macedon Ranges Shire Council meeting, Council announced it had received an email from the Department of Planning and Community Development instructing it to remove all references to Statement of Planning Policy No. 8 – Macedon Ranges and Surrounds [SPP8] from the planning scheme. This decision has been made without public consultation.
SPP8 - the ‘Macedon Ranges policy’ – was introduced as State policy underpinned by legislation in 1975. The policy recognises how special, significant and sensitive this area is, and its purpose is to protect Macedon Ranges from overdevelopment and development that damages environmental and landscape qualities.
(Hanging Rock, iconic site of famous schoolgirl disappearance subject of film, Picnic at Hanging Rock)
Since 2000, SPP8 has been downgraded to Local Policy (Clause 22.01). As SPP8 says limit development and maintain rural character, it gets in the way of the current ‘generic’ Victoria Planning Provisions [VPPs] which the government is trying to impose undemocratically on Victorians and their landscape.
Promises, promises...
Since 2004, MRRA has campaigned to have SPP8 reinstated as State policy so it can again take precedence over other policies and sections in our planning scheme. We’ve had promises to ‘protect’ from Planning Ministers, but it still hasn’t happened.
Now the Department dictates the removal of this critical policy. References to SPP8 have, without consultation, already been removed from the 2007 Gisborne Outline Development Plan. MRRA wrote to the Minister for Planning, Justin Madden, on August 24 2008 asking to discuss this, but has not yet received a response.
Despite difficulties implementing it, loss of SPP8 will be a mortal blow for Macedon Ranges. There will be nothing left that recognises the environmental sensitivity of this iconic and historic landscape and sets the mysterious and beautiful, geologically remarkable Macedon Ranges apart from other semi-rural places.
Australians and the world must not accept this. Don't let being outside Australia stop you from showing your support to MRRA. Democracy is a concern for responsible citizens everywhere.
SPP8 needs to become Victorian State policy again. It has to take precedence over the ‘one size fits all’ zones and controls in the VPPs, such as the Residential 1 zone and ResCode, which presently prevail. Development under these policies overwhelms local and regional diversity and human rights to self-government.
Action
The concern of Mt Macedon Residents' Association (MRRA) is so strong that they have started a “Keep Macedon Ranges Rural” petition, to the Victorian Legislative Assembly (lower house).
You can leave a brief comment on this site as well.
Hard copies are also available from secretary[AT]mrra.asn.au. Send signed petition sheets back to MRRA: PO Box 359, Woodend, 3442.
The aim is to get an MP to present the petition to Parliament in early December.
The petition sheets have spaces for signatures on the back of them, so twice the signatures can go on one piece of paper (NOTE: the petition text MUST appear on every petition sheet or the sheet will be rejected). If you print double-sided for signatures on the front and the back, make really sure the petition text appears on the front.
Victorians who would like to do more are urged to network, to link to the MRRA petition site; to send this article on to email contacts; to distribute copies of the petition form to local shops, asking them to put it on their counters; to letterbox their street; to tell friends and family and everyone – Macedon Ranges is of State level significance, (and world-famous) and what happens here is of interest to all. Consider passing the petition around and getting people at work to sign up, or even take a petition form to their friends, family or groups.
And let key politicians know what you think of this planning despotism and vandalism. Your local pollie/s is a good place to start but don’t forget some of the other key players as well, such as Premier Brumby, the Minister for Planning, the Minister for Environment and the Minister for Water. Opposition Shadow ministers and the leaders of all political parties and independents would surely appreciate hearing from you as well. Contact details for the main players are at the MRRA website
What type of Macedon Ranges do we want Victorian and Australian children to inherit: An industrial precinct? A high density, metropolitan landscape? Units or high rise on Mt. Macedon? Housing estates up to Hanging Rock?
This will be the last chance for the public to turn things around for Macedon Ranges. Once SPP8 is gone, it’s gone forever. The time to act is now. It is also a good time to act because the global melt-down has exposed for a scam the develop-and-be-damned policy of Australian state Governments.
Make as much noise as possible.
Tell as many people as possible.
Get as many signatures as possible – thousands!
Let Parliament know that the world is watching and that Victoria means it when it says “Keep Macedon Ranges Rural”.
If you need help or have questions or comments: 03 5427 1481, +61 3 5427 1481 (from overseas), secretary[AT]mrra.asn.au
In 1845 the Mornington Peninsula was thick with wildlife: herds of kangaroos, wombats, wallabies, many echidnas and koalas and glorious birds, all unused to man and quite tame and inquisitive. ...wonderful trees, abundance of silver wattles, when in blossom, gilded the country and filled the air deliciously with their sweetness. Now population growth is turning the Peninsula into a desert. Research and graphs by Malcolm Legg and Hans Brunner.
Howitt in 1845 wrote:
“ The Peninsula was thick with wildlife, with herds of kangaroos, wombats, wallabies, many echidnas and koalas and glorious birds, all unused to man and quite tame and inquisitive. He described the wonderful trees and abundance of silver wattles which, when in blossom, made the whole country golden and the whole atmosphere filled deliciously with their sweetness.”
Henry Tuck and others also stated that Kangaroos were like herds of sheep and could never be shot out, and bandicoots and possums were in hundreds and that the native cat was one of the commonest animals.
Ms. Cavill, who lives next to the Moorooduc Quarry Reserve commented in her Masters Thesis:
“In the 1930’s we found bush around us, a whole wonderland of animals, wild flowers, birds, hollow trees, gullies and ground water ways.
Koalas grunted all night, wombats, kangaroos, wallabies, possums, echidnas, bush- and water rats, flying foxes and bandicoots were abundant and tame. At night the frogs roared in the darkness . In the evening, swarms of birds arrived in v-shaped formations and landed on the swamp. Black – and tiger snakes were common around the huge Moorooduc swamp that lay below our property and brown snakes and copperhead were a nuisance around the house.
Our delight in exploring the swamp with its sheets of water, covered with swans and ducks, and its spongy islands of moss and tee-tree was always tempered by fear of these snakes.
On our horse rides their was a never failing source of interest in the discovering new wild flowers, gullies of maiden ferns, orchids, minute wild strawberries, egg and bacon bushes and swathes pink and white heath.
There were several other similar reports made by Wheelwright, Kenyon and Hobson, mentioning also many other species and all describing the Mornington Peninsula as teeming with wild life.
Based on historical and recent records there were at least 37 species of mammals on the Peninsula in those early days.
Much the same could have also been said about the many species of birds, reptiles and amphibians. Hobson in 1837 observed the gigantic crane or brolga and the native turkey ( Australian Bustard ). They are now listed as threatened fauna in Victoria.
With the arrival of pioneers and settlers, timber cutters removed nearly all the mature trees on the Peninsula and shipped them to Melbourne or used them to build railway lines or as fuel to drive stone crushers etc. or to clear land for grazing.
Kangaroos were slaughtered in their thousands on single drives and some of the meat, together with koalas and possums was sent to Melbourne for food. Animals were also destroyed because of competition with sheep and cattle grazing.
Much of the land was then used for farming and for fruit orchards. The clearing of land caused subsequently massive soil erosion and mega-tons of good soil was washed into the sea especially along Balcomb Creek.
With the ever increasing number of people arriving on the Peninsula, the remaining natural bush was gradually destroyed and fragmented.
Chris Tzaros recently worked out that for every 100 hectares of woodland cleared, between 1000-2000 woodland dependent birds are lost. These figures could be even higher for mammals, reptiles and amphibians.
With this drastic decrease of suitable habitat for most native birds and mammals, many species have now become locally extinct. (See graph below).
Doug Robinson has estimated that about 50% of birds which originally existed on the Peninsula are now either locally extinct or are threatened. Ground nesting birds have suffered most, especially because of predation by foxes and cats.
A Mr. Woolley and others also used to shoot ducks in the 1880’s for a living until they were almost shot out.
Later, larrikins delighted in the shooting of wild life when the pubs were closed after 6 O’clock.
In the quarry area bandicoots and kangaroos lasted till about 1940 and wombats and the eastern quoll till about 1960. By 1970 koalas, sugar gliders and antechinuses were still present but have since declined drastically and have become extremely rare and the antechinuses are now extinct in the Frankston area.
There is also a growing concern over a serious decline of invertebrates. Subsequently, there are concerns for the future of many species of bird, mammals and amphibians that feed on them. Habitat loss and habitat fragmentation as well as the over use of pesticides has to be the main reason.
In summary, we have taken over all the prime land on the Mornington Peninsula . The rest of nature is forced to make do with what is left which amounts to less than 5 % of a much- reduced quality of habitat. Plainly, this is the major factor resulting in the ongoing, local species extinction and in an increase in ecosystem stress.
Loss of mammalian species on the Peninsula:
From 37 original species = locally extinct and endangered 25 species = 66%
Loss of mammalian species in the Frankston area:
From 37 original species = locally extinct and endangered 28 species = 76 %
To cap it all, we now have, in a large number of reserves, more introduced mammalian species such as the fox, cat, dog, rabbit, black rat, brown rat and house mouse, than native species. (This does not include all the farm animals such as horses, cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, and deer etc. that take up land originally used by native animals.)
The graph (data from Malcolm Legg ) shows the loss of mammals on the Mornington Peninsula. Since then, two more species had to be shifted to the “extinct” section, namely, the Wombat and the Southern Brown Bandicoot.
The recent, local loss of the Southern Brown Bandicoot is one of the latest examples. In spite of all the lobbying and by-partisan political support, no sufficient efforts have been made to safe this species. This Bandicoot has been in great numbers all over the Peninsula and its disappearance during the last thirty years has been well recognised and documented. This is yet another frustrating, shameful, local extinction story of an iconic Australian species.
Hans Brunner
(Hans Brunner is a Peninsula Wildife Biologist and internationally recognised as a Forensic hair identification expert, through his work identifying dingo hairs in the Azaria Chamberlain appeal and later in identifying a possible new hominid species in Indonesia.)
Office of the Premier of Victoria
1 Treasury Place
GPO Box 4912VV
Melbourne Victoria 3002
DX210753
Telephone: (03) 96515000
Facsimile: (03) 96515298
Email: premier [AT] dpc.vic.gov.au
Internet: www.premier.vic.gov.au
22 September 2008
Our Ref D08/321239
Dr Alistair Harkness MP
Member for Frankston
140 Young Street
FRANKSTON VIC 3199
Dear Dr Harkness
VICTORIA'S POPULATION
Thank you for your representation to the Premier on behalf of your constituent, Mr Hans Brunner, regarding Victoria's population. I am responding on behalf of the Premier.
Victoria's population continues to grow strongly, with growth driven primarily by high levels of net overseas migration.
The Government continues to emphasise the importance of migration, multiculturalism and population growth in Victoria. This contributes to our diversity and flexible skills base, giving us an economy that is more innovative and competitive.
In this context, the Victorian Government is comfortable with the current population growth rate of 1.6 per cent per annum and is not intending to review its population or immigration policies.
Thank you again for your letter to the Premier. I hope that this information is of use.
Yours sincerely,
Nicholas Reece
Acting Chief of Staff
Your details will be dealt with in accordance with the Public Records Act 1973 and the Information Privacy Act 2000. Should you have any queries or wish to gain access to your personal information held by this Department please contact our Privacy Officer at the above address.
An article quoting Dr Brian Keating speaking at the Australian Society of Agronomy Conference under the title "On The Brink Of A New Agricultural Revolution" says:
"In a keynote address to the Australian Society of Agronomy Conference, the Director of CSIRO's Agricultural Sustainability Initiative, Dr Brian Keating, said there is evidence that rates of increase in agricultural productivity are easing both in Australia and overseas."
The full article.
That doesn't sound like a "revolution"... The article then states that...
"With the United Nations predicting the world population to increase by 2.5 billion by 2050 and with dramatic changes in food consumption patterns associated with economic development in Asia, there is an urgent need to face up to the challenge of doubling food production over the next 50 years."
Uh, huh. World population now about 6.72 billion.
UN 2007 World Population Revision says the world population in 2050 is likely to be:
Median variant: 9.191 billion
Low variant: 7.792 billion
Personally, I'll put my money on the low variant.
How cheery do we feel about economic development in Asia to 2050 and the "dramatic changes" it will bring in food consumption patterns?
We then read...
"We are going to need a 'revolution' in agricultural productivity over the coming decades to meet these challenges - particularly in terms of the efficiency with which we use land, water, nutrient and energy resources in agricultural production," Dr Keating said.
Well, we could be adding a little over a billion people and we could have a food consumption revolution in the direction of eating less animal protein. That's just as probable a prognosis for 2050, isn't it? In that case, productivity might have to increase, but production would not necessarily have to. So I agree with the mentioned efficiencies, but the article doesn't say very much about how Dr Keating thinks they will be achieved, except to say that, "he is optimistic that agricultural science and industry innovation is up to these challenges."
That's reassuring. Since in a world where apalling hunger and mass over-consumption of food exist almost side by side one of the most serious problems is how to distribute food more equitably, perhaps we could also come up with some social policies to deal with this issue. If not, even if we double the food supply by 2050, what's going to prevent a doubling of the number of starving while we get a doubling of the obese at the same time?
Dr Keating might benefit from a reading of The Final Energy Crisis (2nd Ed.), published recently, as he will find that he really should introduce a few more variables into his equations in order to get a more realistic approximation of where humanity is headed this century.
In Australia both major political parties support record high immigration. This ensures that it is rarely questioned in Parliament or in the news. In Canada, the situation is even worse#main-fn1">1. Dan Murray reports that Canadians face a 'choice' at the Federal elections scheduled for 31 October of four out of five major parties which see nothing wrong with Canada's record high and growing immigration rate and none which are campaigning to reduce it.
Four out of five major political parties in Canada seem to think there is nothing wrong with Canada's current high immigration levels.
Here are some details on what Canadians have heard on the immigration issue during Week #1 of the election. Questions for each party follow:
(1) The Conservatives : Prime Minister Harper has indicated that immigrants are an issue, but mostly as a source of potential votes. In the first week, he spent about a third of his time talking to ethnic groups. Significantly, his first photo-op of the entire campaign was in Richmond, B.C. where he appeared with a Chinese family. Although he said the Chinese family was a typical Canadian family, and that he was trying to protect the middle class, he will probably admit that his principal reason for visiting the Chinese family was because high immigration levels have resulted in the Chinese now being over half of the population there. Since 1990, the Chinese have become a large percentage of the populations of many other areas in Metro Vancouver and of areas in Greater Toronto. In another example later in the week, Mr. Harper repeated the tactic of appealing to ethnic groups by speaking to a group of East Indian (Sikh) business people in Mississauga to get their support.
Here are some questions politicians might want to ask themselves :
A. When a political leader makes a point of starting his election campaign with members of an ethnic group and then spends a large amount of time addressing other ethnic groups, particularly those who have recently-arrived in large numbers, what message does he send to other groups, particularly long-term Canadians? Is he saying that he will give priority to the interests of new groups at the expense of those of long-term Canadians?
B. Ridings such as Richmond and others have witnessed extremely high immigrant inflows for no obvious good reason. Is he saying that it does not matter that a surge in the newcomers has created a situation in which new immigrants now outnumber the long-term Canadians in those ridings?
C. Let's be frank with people of all political stripes. The approach of most political parties towards recent immigrants is a mixture of sycophancy and platitudes such as "creating diversity". The attitude that political parties convey is that anyone from anywhere has a right to come to Canada. And Canada's political parties will perform all the obsequiousness that is necessary to satisfy the demands of immigrants, particularly their demands to re-create their countries in Canada. Instead of this approach, why are Canada's politicians not asking these people two questions: If cultural, economic and environmental conditions were so wonderful where you came from (particularly in China and India), why are you here? Is there a good chance that your demands will re-create the same dysfunctionality in Canada that existed in your home countries?
(2) The Liberals : Liberal Leader Stephane Dion has indicated that he too thinks immigrants are an issue, but again mostly because of their votes. He also went to Richmond where he tried to outbid Mr. Harper by promising that his party would spend about $800 million to overhaul the current immigration system in the following ways : increase the number of immigrants; repeal the powers recently given to the Immigration Minister so that immigrants have "due process" ; spend $400 million to modernize information-gathering and otherwise streamline procedures for immigrant and refugee applicants; spend about $200 million over four years on improved language training for newcomers, and another $200 million over four years for internships, mentorship and work-placement opportunities.
Here are some questions:
A. Mr. Dion is saying that he will increase high immigration inflows and make more funding available for immigrant settlement. Is he also saying that in these uncertain economic times, he too thinks that immigrants and their interests (particularly their desire to increase the size of their ethnic groups) should take precedence over the interests of long-term Canadians?
B. By saying that he will repeal powers given to the Immigration Minister, is he saying that he will return Canada's immigration system to the days when the associated Canadian immigration industry sabotaged all efforts to control immigration?
(3) The New Democratic Party : Jack Layton has said that he will try to protect Canadian workers from losing their jobs to other countries by stopping tax cuts to Canadian companies that close Canadian factories and then outsource jobs to cheap-labour countries. He will target investments instead to stimulate innovation ; invest in low-emission vehicle production ; train new and displaced workers through a Green Collar Jobs Fund ; create a Jobs Commissioner to investigate shutdowns ; and develop sector-based industrial strategies. According to an NDP policy statement, New Democrats will commit an average of $2 billion a year to this program, aiming to directly create 40,000 new manufacturing jobs and thousands of spin-off jobs while protecting many more.
Here are a few questions for the NDP and Mr. Layton :
A. From the 1920's to 1990, when Canadians were losing jobs because factories were closing, it was standard federal government practice to reduce immigration levels so that unemployed Canadians would not have to compete with foreign workers. Why is Mr. Layton not recommending that Canada re-institute this strategy now?
B. At the same time as Mr. Layton is courageously recommending that the federal government protect Canadian workers, why is Olivia Chow, the NDP's immigration critic, saying that Canada needs more workers? Why is she saying that Canada's high immigration intake should continue? It is estimated that Ontario and Quebec have recently lost several hundred thousand jobs. How is bringing in 250,000+ immigrants every year supposed to help unemployed Canadian workers?
(4) The Greens : Green Party leader, Elizabeth May, has downplayed the environmental impact of immigration on Canada and said that the Alberta Tar Sands is a much more serious environmental issue. Since high immigration levels began in 1990, Canada has taken over 4 million immigrants and its population has increased by around 6 million. In a CBC radio programme on Sunday, September 15, Ms. May stated that immigration of the kind Canada has had since 1990 has produced economic benefits and created diversity.
Here are some questions for Ms. May :
A. Ms. May says that the problem of environmental degradation in Canada's major immigrant-receiving areas (especially Southern Ontario and Metro Vancouver) can be solved by sending those immigrants to rural Canada. The big problem with this approach is that it is naive. Many people have left rural Canada because there are no economic opportunities there. So why send immigrants there if they too will soon have to leave? In fact, why bring most of them to Canada in the first place?
B. Does Ms. May know that the Economic Council of Canada and individuals/research groups in other countries have concluded that immigration produces almost no significant economic benefits to host countries? In fact, is she aware that the Economic Council of Canada stated that if a country were looking for an economic stimulus, it should not look to immigration? Why is she saying immigration produces economic benefits?
C. Since Ms. May knows that several hundred thousand workers in Ontario and Quebec have lost their jobs, why is she not standing up for those workers by advocating a traditional significant cut in Canadian immigration levels? Is she saying that the creation of diversity takes precedence over the protection of Canadian workers?
D. At this time, all environmental organizations are advocating measures to minimize human impact in order to offset climate change. Why then is she, the leader of an environmental party, not advocating a population stabilization/immigration reduction policy for Canada? Wouldn't this kind of "Think Globally. Act Locally or Nationally." help Canada to minimize its environmental impact? Or are the environmental effects of 4 to 5 million recent immigrants a trivial matter? How about another 4 to 5 million? Is she saying there is no limit?
(5) The Bloc Quebecois: The BQ is the only federal political party to express concern about immigration and its effects. Last May, the BQ asked in the House of Commons that Canada's multiculturalism policy not be applied to Quebec. The BQ has also made clear in its brief to Quebec's Bouchard-Taylor Commission on Reasonable Accommodation that multiculturalism is a negative for Quebec. (In fact , about 83% of all presenters (the BQ included) to the B-T commission said they disapproved of religious accommodation.) The BQ sees that federal high immigration levels , multiculturalism and the Charter of Rights have been responsible for religious accommodation demands in Quebec. Since March 2007, many polls have said that roughly 80% of all Quebec residents said that they did not want to make religious accommodations.
Here are 2 questions for the Bloc Quebecois :
(A) When during the current election campaign will the Bloc Quebecois raise the immigration and multiculturalism issue?
See also: "Truth and immigration" by James Bissett former Head of Canadian immigration Service in the Ottowa Citizen of 18 Sep 08.
#main-fn1" id="main-fn1">1. #main-fn1-txt">↑ The first two sentences of the introductory paragraph above were originally as follows:
Australian public intellectual Phillip Adams has said, on his ABC program, Late night live, that he considers the bi-partisan support for high immigration, which ensures that it is rarely questioned in Parliament or in the news, a 'strength' of Australian democracy. As it happens, Canadian democracy shares this 'strength'.
What I wrote was in accord to my own recollection of what I heard on Late Night Live earlier in the year and also with other things I have heard or read from Phillip Adams on matters directly or indirectly related to population and immigration. However, Phillip Adams e-mailed me today to say:
I've never said that! I have said that a long history of bi-partisan support on immigration issues has sometimes been good....and sometimes very bad - as with White Australia and the refugee scandal.....BUT I'm no supporter of increasing the Oz population by either immigration or an increased birth-rate...for the obvious environmental reasons....
So, if I formed the wrong impression, then I apologise to Philip Admas, but however I may have formed the impression that led me to write what I wrote in the introductory paragraph, this is very welcome news. I look forward to Phillip Adams joining with the likes of Greens Senator Bob Brown in order to challenge the official ideology in support of population growth which is threatening to destroy this country's future.
Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, catholic Italian economist, writes a long article, – where else ?- in the über catholic newspaper The Osservatore Romano, the official voice of the Vatican Curia. It starts with the following incipit:
"We should have the courage to affirm that the fragility and vulnerability of the Western economy are strictly connected, if not the cause, of the demographic crisis, which started 30 years ago and that presides over the sudden collapse of the rate of population growth, from more than a yearly 7% to almost zero. This crisis has provoked indirectly larger and more rigid public expenditure with the consequent difficulty of reducing tax revenues and, directly, a minor growth of the financial wealth produced by families savings."
Dr. Tedeschi, a respected economist, places the responsibility in the hands of insufficiently fertile Western couples for producing the Perfect Storm: current recession, banks crashes, underemployment, Stock exchange and market collapse. Maybe also, like GW, kidney stones, droughts, unusual rain, hurricanes, desertification, snoring and so on.
Unflinchingly, this dangerous propagandist for the Church's outdated doctrine of unrestricted rabbity activity, continues to ask rhetorically, why and how this crisis is connected to the demographic issue?
He delivers the usual lesson on population ageing, which we have all heard before, but adding a very sensitive argument: the plight of the Family, which has lost much of its strength (in numbers):
"The drop of family wealth has been of 2/3, while the vocation to consume of a growing portion of families has forced them to fall into debt. … The process (of running into debt) will worsen because of the demographic crisis... Imagine future scenarios: the hope of using the liquidity and wealth created in the big Asiatic powers like China and India are to be reappraised. These economies which generate a growth rate of their financial activities of more than 10-15% and that have in the past sustained the USA's public deficit, in the future will invest in the home market or to acquire a competitive autonomy by acquiring access to resources.
"To correct the demographic deficit by a politic of steady import of immigrants doesn't produce immediate or even medium term compensation. Leaving aside the problem of solidarity, immigration is necessary for acquiring a growing workforce, but for a long time will be represented by only a fraction of immigrants from European countries, who have a better capacity to generate wealth, but a limited capacity to contribute to the social expenditure.
"To increase fertility is an excellent programme, but it is too long term and its results will be seen only in 25/30 years. However, if families will be stimulated to have courage and bring forth a greater number of children, they will represent an engine of wealth creation, a capacities to overcome difficulties, because they will feel more responsible, they will save more and invest more ...."
from The Osservatore Romano, 11th September 2008
Now, we can together have fun in picking out the contradictions, the ignorance, the superficiality, from this masterpiece Maybe it is too easy.
For example, starting with the Stock exchange crisis, it started in the USA, the country in the Western world which is enjoying – so to speak - major population growth...
And the more the number of children per family, the less opportunity there will be to spend money.
But Dr. Tedeschi lives in another world and he hears only the bells of S.Peter in his head.
My Thanks to Ilan Goldman who posted the extracts from the Australian Senate Hansard on 17 Spetember 2008 to the Yahoo PublicPopForum mailing and to Gloria O'Conner who drew Ilan's attention to this. - JS
The Senate Hansard from which the following were extracted can be downloaded in a 795K pdf file at http://www.aph.gov.au/HANSARD/senate/dailys/ds160908.pdf. The initial #question">question can be found on pages 32-33 of the PDF document, which are actually numbered as pages 18-19. Senator Brown's subsequent #speech">speech can be found on pages 41-42 of the PDF document, which are numbered as pages 27-28
Detail of "Overpopulation" by John Piltre at http://www.progressiveart.com/pitre_page2.htm
Tuesday,16 September 2008
Senator BOB BROWN (2.33 pm)---My question without notice is to Senator Evans, representing the Prime Minister. Does the government have a population policy? Can the minister tell the Senate whether population growth is essential for economic growth, or is that assumption just plain wrong? If population growth is inevitably needed, is that not an ultimate recipe for planetary breakdown?
Senator CHRIS EVANS---I thank Senator Brown for the question. I think population policy is an important issue confronting Australia and we actually need to have a mature debate over the next couple of years about the development of population policy.
Senator Abetz---I'd say you need to have one.
Senator CHRIS EVANS---Senator Abetz, you keep on interjecting---
Senator Abetz interjecting---
The PRESIDENT---Order! Senator Abetz, we can do without your interjections during question time.
Senator CHRIS EVANS---I actually think it is a serious issue. It was discussed at the 2020 conference and raised by lot of the delegates and it is an issue that the government has been engaging on, particularly in relation to the Treasurer's role, the housing minister's role and of course the environment and climate change ministers' roles. We are working together to try and bring together a broader policy approach in this area.
In terms of my own area, on coming to office I found that the previous government set the immigration planning levels on an annual basis. They just picked a figure annually and there was no context to the selection of the figure and no longer term planning. In our first budget this year the cabinet agreed to my bringing forward next year a longer term planning framework for immigration to this country, which is in part an attempt to deal with that broader population question. We think we need a longer planning cycle. We think we need to deal with those broader considerations. At the moment we have a skills shortage in this country as a result of the previous government's failure to invest in education and training and we are looking to build our capacity by training our own people, but in the short term we do have a need for labour and we are trying to address that.
One of the things I would point to is the changing demographics of the nation. We know that over the period 2010 to 2020 more people will retire than will join the workforce. If you like, 2010 marks the tipping point in the retirement of the baby boomers, and that will exceed the numbers of young people entering the workforce. That is not a temporary thing; this is a longterm demographic shift. It will not rectify itself. We will have a shrinking native-born labour force to supply a growing economy and an ageing population. So there are big challenges in the demographics area, and part of the solution to that will be an increase in migration and, I think, an increase in the overall population, because we will need more workers to support the population and we will need more workers to provide services to those ageing as the cohort of those ageing increases. But there are issues about environmental sustainability that need to be taken into account and there are issues about housing that need to be taken into account.
I suppose your question, Senator Brown, implied that somehow we should respond in a negative way. I think the way to respond is to say that we have a climate change problem and we have to address that problem. Whatever the size of the population, we will have a climate change problem. This government is immediately trying to tackle that climate change problem. We are trying to tackle the problem of water. All of those things need to be taken head-on. Those problems are not fixed by reducing our population or ending immigration to this country. We are serious about housing, we are serious about climate change and we are serious about the environment, but we face other challenges about the workforce and about our demographics. What we are trying to do is bring all that together so that the government has a broad view about these challenges and how we respond. I think we are making good progress on that, and certainly in my portfolio we are very much focusing on those broader issues.
Senator BOB BROWN---Mr President, I have a supplementary question. I thank the minister for the seriousness with which he answered that question. I return again to core question that I asked: is economic growth predicated upon population growth or is that a myth?
Senator CHRIS EVANS---That is a pretty big question to answer in one minute. What I would say to you is that I think economic growth is vital to Australia's future. I think that in the medium term we will need a larger population than we currently have. I think we will have to run an immigration program to deal with the demographic shift and the drop in the workforce. But we also need to tackle those pressing environmental and other problems. The Greens keep raising with me, for instance, the question of climate change refugees and what we are doing to accommodate them. To accommodate them we would have to increase our immigration program. All these things are clearly linked. We are very much focused on the broader population policy issues, but I think we will need continuing economic growth, and I think we will see a continuing modest increase in our population levels over coming years.
Tuesday,16 September 2008
Senator BOB BROWN (Tasmania---Leader of the Australian Greens) (3.30 pm)---I move:
That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship (Senator Evans) to a question without notice asked by Senator Bob Brown today relating to economic and population growth.
I am grateful to Senator Evans for responding to a question that is very rarely raised in this parliament let alone taken on and answered at some length---and that is the question of the role of population in our future. The former Treasurer, Peter Costello, said that population is destiny. I would agree with that, although I think I am coming from a different point of view.
We are on a planet in which there are now 6½ thousand million people, whereas when I was a lad it was half that amount. At the change from the 19th century to the 20th century there were 2,000 million people, which is less than a third of today's population. And we know that by mid-century the population is going to be 9,000 million to 10,000 million people. The world advice is that that simply cannot be sustained. We are now looking at rapidly deteriorating food stores on the planet. We are down to fewer than 50 days of flow-on food availability to meet any great emergency, and the number of people facing starvation around the planet right now is in the millions and increasing rapidly, particularly in Africa but also in parts of Asia, like North Korea.If you take the idea that you must have a growing population to have a healthy economy then the planet will implode ...
Because energy drives agriculture, and with the onrush of climate change, the very slow growth in pro -ductivity compared to population, and peak oil, we will be facing a mammoth, chaotic social outcome of too many people with too few resources on the planet in the lifetime of some of us here and certainly in the lifetime of our children. We are obliged to look at this. That is why I asked the government whether it had a population policy, and I do not believe it does. I do not believe the opposition does. The Greens have one which is very general.
I think it is incumbent upon us all to say what we think about the fundamental supposition that the economy needs a growing population if it is to be sustainable. I think that is a fundamental error but it drives all economic policymaking at government level around the world at the moment. If you take the idea that you must have a growing population to have a healthy economy then the planet will implode because the logic of that is that, if the numbers of humans on the planet keep increasing---and we are the biggest, most marauding group of mammals there has ever been on the planet---to just bring other people up to our level of consumption our current population projections say that we will need not one but three or four planets with the resource base of the earth to sustain human population by mid-century. I am talking about 40 years away. It is simply not sustainable.... if the numbers of humans on the planet keep increasing ... to just bring other people up to our level of consumption our current population projections say that we will need not one but three or four planets with the resource base of the earth to sustain human population by mid-century.
We as responsible politicians and representatives of the interests of the future of this nation, if not the planet, have to debate this matter. I believe we have to come to the conclusion that we have to devise economic growth that is not predicated on population growth. If not, we have to state at what level we will stop growing the economy because there are too many people. That is an inevitable outcome of the theory that you must have population growth if you are going to have economic wellbeing. It is a fundamental part of the political discourse and yet it is missing from public debate.... I get asked about it all over the country. It does not matter what you are talking about, when you go into any size audience somebody will come up and say, 'What about population growth?' So here I am asking that question in the Senate because so many Australians want it debated.
One of my major reasons for raising this question is that I get asked about it all over the country. It does not matter what you are talking about, when you go into any size audience somebody will come up and say, 'What about population growth?' So here I am asking that question in the Senate because so many Australians want it debated.
Question agreed to.
Contact Senator Bob Brown to congratulate him for having raised this critical issue in the Senate. His contact details are:
e: ebony.bennett[AT]aph gov au www.bobbrown.org.au
m: 0409 164 603 | p: (02) 6277 3170 | f: (02) 6277 3185
For years Green Party leader Elizabeth May has been telling us that there are no ecological consequences from mass immigration. Canada should persist with its "great multicultural project" and aim for an immigration intake equivalent to 1% of its population level, a target that would surpass our current quota by some 70,000 migrants even though this country is already the fastest growing country in the G8 group. That we could suffer this growth without losses to biodiversity, farmland, and air quality is both counter-intuitive and empirically refutable.
May's great escape hatch, of course, is "land use planning", the same nostrum parroted by the Growth Management Industry, the NDP, the environmental NGOs, the "progressive" developers---everyone in denial who would have us believe that we can have our cake and eat it too. We can leave the tap of population growth turned on full blast while deflecting the flood away from sensitive areas.
The accent then, is not on "whether" we grow---because, after all, growth is "inevitable", especially if you keep holding the immigration floodgates open. No, the accent is on "how" we grow. And we should grow "inwards", by packing people like sheep behind tightly defined urban boundaries. Tall rabbit warrens (highrises). Infils. No more sprawl. Never mind that people who live in high density zones have high or even higher footprints too, or eventually burst the seams and colonize outlying greenbelts (hello Portland, Oregon). Or that impregnable nature reserves buckle under the population and economic pressure. And isn't it curious that the pricey urban planners, politicians and yuppie environmentalists who prescribe compact living for the working poor and middle class in Canadian cities, seem to have expensive lakeside or waterfront retreats to draw their mental sustenance from? Do as I say and not as I do?
Elizabeth May re-affirmed her commitment to "smart growth" in a CBC interview on September 14, 2008 when she stated that immigration was a problem only if land use planning was not employed, that is, by implication, if Canadians are concentrated and not dispersed, environmental damaged is minimized. An illusion of the highest magnitude.
Suddenly though, May made a startling logical about face. In responding to a caller's question she remarked that the volume of immigration is not an issue, immigrants simply need to be spread out more. She pointed out that rural areas are losing people and could benefit from immigration. "Just as there areas receiving an influx strains the fabric of an urban area, there are areas of Canada experiencing serious problems of depopulation where it would be fabulous to have the programs that ensured that more immigrants moved into places like rural Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia." But she didn't say what she would do with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which allows immigrants to settle anywhere they want in Canada, nor did she explain why immigrants would rather freeze in rural Saskatchewan than have a more comfortable life in the Fraser Valley or once induced to live in rural or northern Canada, would not eventually move south to the over-stressed cities. Dan Murray of Immigration Watch Canada commented,
"Ms. May says that the problem of environmental degradation in Canada's major immigrant-receiving areas (especially Southern Ontario and Metro Vancouver) can be solved by sending those immigrants to rural Canada. The big problem with this approach is that it is naive. Many people have left rural Canada because there are no economic opportunities there. So why send immigrants there if they too will soon have to leave? In fact, why bring most of them to Canada in the first place?"
So there you are. A Green Party leader who doesn't have her story straight. She wants both higher density and greater dispersal. She wants people packed closely together out of harm's way, away from our natural bounty, but she wants to relieve the pressure from our bulging urban centres choking from the growth forced on them by 18 years of runaway mass immigration. Smart growth and dumb growth at once. That's the Green Party of Canada. Under the thin green paint, it's a muddled mixture of trendy slogans that don't stand up to scrutiny.
Tim Murray,
Quadra Island, BC
September 16, 2008
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