Environment Victoria

"Mark, I am fully aware that your job must be challenging and frustrating at times, but ignoring the elephant in the room – the increasingly obvious negative impacts of population growth - is putting EV and all who care for our environment on a never ending hamster wheel of frustration, disappointment, and ultimately hard earned campaign money down the gurgler. Unchecked population growth is having a ratchet effect, steadily increasing the pressure on the environment and reversing previous efforts to protect it. " (Jenny Warfe)

To: 'Mark Wakeham'
Subject: Population impacts

Hi Mark

Thanks for your recent response to my concerns about Victoria’s population growth being the biggest threat to Victoria’s natural environment, and apologies for my slow reply.#1f497d"> Congratulations too on EV’s campaign on moving away from coal#1f497d">.

#fdfdfd">You made two main points

1.      Population policies are largely set at the national and international level and it is a global issue

2.      Solutions cover numerous issues on which you (EV) are not the experts

My response is:

1.      Population policies are largely set at the national and international level and it is a global issue.

Climate change and renewable energy are National and International issues too, but EV has no problem running effective campaigns on these issues. Of course everything about climate change, energy and water use has numerous variables, but it is disingenuous to ignore absolute numbers of people as one of the most impactful variables. Melbourne’s population is currently increasing by around 2,000 people per week – over 100,000 per annum - (~ 60% of which is migration), so it is ridiculous to ignore this ever increasing, compounding, input#1f497d"> and its effect on energy and water consumption and other ecological services.  

I recently gave a talk on sustainability to the Mornington Peninsula Shire and#1f497d"> made these points:

·         With the current 2% annual growth, Victoria’s population will double by 2050 – mostly in Melbourne.

·         Victoria has the highest population growth rate of any state.

·         Costs of population growth are largely hidden, and fall disproportionately on local and State governments: roads, drainage, waste management, public facilities, schools, hospitals, etc. etc....

·         This leaves less $$ to protect local biodiversity – an issue which Councils and environment groups keep saying they are concerned about.  

·         Academic research shows that costs far exceed the increased revenue generated by additional people¹

·         Australia’s growth doubled from 1% to 2% per annum in the last decade, so we must now spend an extra 7% of government revenue on  infrastructure just to avoid infrastructure deficit² – let alone what we should be spending to protect the environment and prepare for climate change.

·         Expanding capacity merely to maintain level of service already provided per person provides no net gain in utility

·         All this means that, contrary to the Growth lobby’s rhetoric, population growth is not an investment, it’s a recurrent cost – a drain on local and state government budgets

State and local governments, NGOs and community organisations are left to mop up the excesses of the population Ponzi scheme currently driving our economy#1f497d">. Funding for our task is hopelessly inadequate. I suggested to MP Shire that they should lobby the Victorian government with these facts, and request the Victorian government to lobby the Federal government via COAG and relevant Ministers. State and local governments#1f497d"> should also include population facts in locally produced information on biodiversity and the environment. I make that same suggestion to EV.

In our favour, I think the tide is beginning to turn on the until now unquestioned benefits of population growth. The mainstream media has run dead on the issue for a long time, no doubt to placate vested interests, but perhaps they can no longer ignore the failing infrastructure, falling living standards, housing unaffordability and appalling growth in homelessness, etc. etc.  Here are just a few examples of former Growthists changing their tune:

·         Professor Judith Sloan – Economist and contributing Economics Editor at The Australian (!) is starting to talk about the downside of population growth, See: Judith Sloan  

·         Josh Gordon state political Editor, The Age 25^th October 2016 See: Josh Gordon

·         John Masanauskas John Masanauskas City Editor Herald Sun October 28, 2016

·          Productivity Commission  Annual Report 2010-11, and its 2016 report found no economic benefit of high immigration for existing Australians and warned of many down-sides at: Productivity Commission   This quote from the PC Report is relevant:

The broader impacts from any increase in Net Overseas Migration (NOM) also need to be taken into account. Increasing numbers of immigrants can adversely affect the quality of Australia’s natural and built environment unless governments take action to mitigate congestion and other pressures. Even with such action, there are additional costs for the community as environmental services have to be replaced with technological solutions. While there are various estimates of the cost of these solutions, the actual cost can be lower due to economies of scale, or higher if environmental services are currently ‘free’. Moreover, some environmental impacts, such as the recreational value of near empty beaches and the value of biodiversity, are hard to measure, let alone monetise. Yet, such considerations should be part of the broad cost-benefit assessment underpinning decisions on the long-term migrant intake. To inform this debate, the Australian Government should publish projections of the impact of varying rates of migration and population growth on the natural and built environment. This would also help to address community perceptions (as expressed by participants) that debate about the impacts of immigration is lacking

·         The Grattan Institute in 2014 found that the extra money State governments are forking out for infrastructure fully accounted for their burgeoning deficits - You know, those deficits that cause them to cut social and environmental programs. See: Grattan Institute

·         Commonwealth Bank. In its recent paper "How does Australia look on a per capita basis?", quoted at: Business Insider

Note the graphs of GDP per capita, per capita income, labour force participation rates, travel time index, dwelling prices etc. #1f497d">

·         International media is also starting to question population ponzis. Eg: The Globalist  

So, if former “economic rationalists” have even#1f497d"> started talking about the financial downsides of population growth without the usual mutterings about racism being slung at them, surely it’s time for us to talk about the ecological downsides? NGOs and community groups who care about our environment are being handed an opportunity to add ecological degradation to the growing list of down sides from population growth. The real issue is about bums on seats, not the colour of them.

Colleagues have suggested a campaign along the lines of “Canberra is the problem”. As we agree it is federal immigration policies out of Canberra driving most of the growth and we are growing by about a Canberra-worth (or maybe Canberra-worthless) of people every year, an advertising campaign could be run showing Canberra’s popping up all over a map of Australia next to already big cities, or swamping our natural attractions, habitat for other species etc. (Just this week, C7 reported on distressed kangaroos becoming common in Melbourne’s suburbs, stating that spreading suburbs are wiping  out their habitat).

Indeed, the Victorian government itself has produced evidence of the negative impacts of population growth in its State of the Environment Reports 2008 and 2013 showing that population pressures were adversely affecting Victoria’s environment. So, it’s hardly fringe opinion that I am propounding. It’s time to remind government of their own#1f497d"> findings.  

#fdfdfd"> 

#fdfdfd">2.      Solutions cover numerous issues on which you (EV) are not the experts. My response is:  

Non experts influence public debate all the time on a vast range of issues. Politicians aren’t experts in all issues, but they happily pontificate on anything that appeals to their particular world view or party dogma. Indeed their cultural/religious beliefs, which should have no role in good government, are influencing#1f497d"> some policies which have a negative impact on the environment. Environmentalists should be naming that problem.  

It is a cop out for environmentalists to pronounce that because we are not say, demographers, we cannot have a reasoned and informed position on human population impacts#1f497d"> on the environment – which we purport to care deeply about and may have spent years studying and working in. As long as we are well informed and use facts what is there to be scared of? At least we should have a go in my view.

It’s interesting too,isn’t it, that Bernard Salt is not a qualified demographer but he calls himself one, is considered an expert, and his opinions are widely publicised on a wide range of issues. Conversely, the mainstream media rarely consults Sociologists/Demographers such as Dr. Katharine Betts and Dr. Bob Birrell from The Australian Population Research Institute.

Mark, I am fully aware that your job must be challenging and frustrating at times, but ignoring the elephant in the room – the increasingly obvious negative impacts of population growth - is  putting EV and all who care for our environment on a never ending hamster wheel of frustration, disappointment, and ultimately hard earned campaign money down the gurgler. Unchecked population growth is having a ratchet effect, steadily increasing the pressure on the environment and reversing previous efforts to protect it.

There is no logical end point to infinite growth with finite resources. Unless we address the (irrefutable mathematical) problem of compounding population numbers, we are sitting ducks for exhaustion, disappointment and job dissatisfaction – and of course environmental degradation. #1f497d">

#1f497d"> 

Perhaps a coalition of well regarded community, planning and environment groups could support one another to really get stuck into the issue?

As Paul Ehrlich has said, "Whatever your cause, it's a lost cause if we don't stop population growth". Obviously that applies just as much in our local area as globally.

Cheers,

#a6a6a6">Jenny Warfe

1.      For example: O’Sullivan JN (2012) The burden of durable asset acquisition in growing populations. Economic Affairs 32 (1): 31–37)

2.      Pers comm. Dr. J O’Sullivan Senior Research Fellow UQ. http://researchers.uq.edu.au/researcher/4920

Thanks for the invitation to be involved in your recent Water leadership workshop. I enjoyed the experience.

Regarding my point about population in the notes you took and have reproduced below, I think your notes play down the problem and don’t reflect the entirely of what I said.

On the current trajectory Melbourne would be 8+ million by 2050- just 34 years away. And it is irresponsible to represent the issue as having any chance of stopping there.

The current growth rate means population would double every 38 years approximately. So by 2088 Melbourne would be 16+ million, and heading for 20 million by end of this century. Should or could we still be using your suggested 100 litres pp by then?

Clearly there is no logical end point on the business as usual model we are on. It is those people that continue to promote BAU who are the dangerous radicals in my opinion. They are prepared to threaten humanity, society and community in order to pursue their ideology. Sound familiar?

We need a campaign to change Australians' view on this issue. Great campaigns have been run in the past to change Australians' views on many important public health and safety issues like smoking, drink driving, safer workplaces, asbestos regulation etc., We’ve successfully changed how we all think about people who behave in ways that threaten our health and safety. Time to use those strategies on the business and climate dinosaurs who pose threats to our very existence.

We need to dismantle the economic model that these dinosaurs have created for themselves, not just re-arrange it. Time for a steady state economy and stable population – see http://www.steadystate.org

This is what I think EV should be working towards- everything else is just tinkering with a fundamentally flawed and dangerous model. And, as I said at the workshop, we are all going to get dispirited and exhausted running endless campaigns trying to push back against every outrage that the current system will continue to produce. Where's the sense - or indeed pleasure- in that?

Cheers,

Jenny Warfe

From: Adele Neale [...]
Sent: Friday, December 11, 2015 5:09 PM
To: warfej [...]
Subject: Thanks - Six Steps to Water Leadership workshop

Dear friends

Thanks so much for coming to our ‘Six Steps to Water Leadership’ workshop in Frankston last week. We had a great discussion and you raised many useful and interesting points. These are summarised in the workshop notes included below.

We will be using your feedback to strengthen the Six Steps report. We can already see key areas around education (maybe a new step!) and more on capturing and using stormwater. We will use the revised report as our submission to the State Water Plan Discussion Paper which is due out in February 2016. More on that in the New Year!

If you have any more thoughts or feedback please get in touch – Juliet, 9341 8106, [email protected].
The report is available here.

And we would love to see you at Environment Victoria's End-of-Year party on Tuesday! It will be a fun and casual event to celebrate Environment Victoria volunteers' efforts, at the rooftop garden at our office building, 60 Leicester St, Carlton, from 5.30pm. Please RSVP here so that we can provide food and drinks for everyone.

Thanks again for your great input, conversation and care for protecting our waterways,

Juliet and Adele

6 Steps to Water Leadership

Frankston workshop notes

General questions and discussion

Water grid? Pipeline, Desalination plant – how are these to be used?
Filling Victoria’s coal mines? Hydro?
Planting trees to hold water in the landscape and create more rain?
Send snail mail to politicians, ministers – they must respond.
Education - How do we get people to care about rivers?
Should be the first Step. Engage in community broadly
In schools. Currently only basic concepts in young years.
Tread lightly, care for your ecological footprint, e.g. reduce meat consumption

Large population, and growing - 8 million people to share the water. Our society is reliant on the number of houses increasing, growth model.
Reducing consumption is also important.

Focusing on Step 1 – A Murray-Darling Basin Plan that restores our rivers, wetlands and national parks

Farmers – move to growing types of food that don’t need much water
In food costs we don’t pay for environmental damage
Cover dams to prevent evaporation
Globalisation of agriculture. E.g. High Chinese demand for baby formula

Focusing on Step 2 – A statewide plan for towns and cities

Education
Water restrictions
Indoor as well as outdoor
Meter monitoring
A personal water use target e.g. 100 litre/person/day to be used
Encourage water tanks
Reduce added bill cost so that water use makes up bigger proportion – there are pros and cons for taking this approach
Green star ratings for buildings
Retrofit
Businesses and residential
Kingston City Council and schools are doing well on this (and this helps with education)
Indigenous plants – they have low water needs
Art exhibition and fundraiser
Cow on Yarra float during Moomba Festival
Culture – use Man From Snowy River
Raingardens. Slow the passage of water moving through the environment.

Focussing on Step 3 – A VEAC inquiry into freshwater ecosystems

What is VEAC? Its purpose is to provide advice to the government. It is a statutory authority. The minister decides what VEAC does work on. You can see VEAC reports are on the website. There has been nothing done on water for 20 years.

Focusing on Step 4 – Reform the Water Act

What determines entitlement to water shares?
Sustainable caps – people use 1/3, rivers get 2/3
Change the Act – no ministerial discretion in decision making

The following email emerged after Christopher (Kit) James was approached once again to contribute to Environment Victoria's funds. Exasperated, he scrawled on the back of the request that he would not be contributing until Environment Victoria began to campaign against population growth in Victoria. Note that we are on course for 70million people at the end of the century unless Victorians and Australians combine to resist this awful fate. How can Environment Victoria claim to be effective in the face of this rate of human population growth?

From: Kelly O'shanassy, CEO, Environment Victoria

Date: 3 December 2013 3:52:46 PM AEDT
To: Christopher James
Subject: Population issues

Dear Christopher - I received your note regarding population threats and Environment Victoria's role in population campaigning. I appreciate your thoughts.

Environment Victoria absolutely recognises that the human population has an unsustainable impact on the earth and that infinite growth on a finite planet is physically impossible. We also recognise that the ever rising population, and consumption of natural resources, and the pollution subsequently produced, has put the world into ecological overshoot. And with population and consumption rates continuing to increase, that overshoot will spiral out of control. All of this is our public position listed in our Charter to Safeguard Victoria's Environment. Click here to read our Charter on our website.

In our Charter, we use ecological footprint as a measure of the impact of humans on the planet. The ecological footprint is an internationally recognised indicator that calculates humanity's demand on nature. It is a product of the population and the consumption patterns of that population. Victoria's ecological footprint is three times higher than the world average. The research shows this is largely due to our polluting energy supply and the way we produce and consume the food we eat and the goods and services we buy. Of course, it is also effected by the population.

In our Charter, we set a goal to reduce Victoria's ecological footprint by 25 percent by 2020 and to sustainable levels by 2050. While these goals are big, they are what's necessary and we have never shied away from a problem just because its hard.

[candobetter.net editor: The problem is not just 'hard'; the goal is an absurdity with the current population increases. Where has Ms O'Shanassy been living, we wonder? Is Environment Victoria a professional false-flag environment organisation?]

Of course, Environment Victoria will not be able to achieve these goals alone.

Like our planet, Environment Victoria has limited resources and we focus our efforts on the things we can influence and where we can create the biggest outcome for Victoria's environment. We are currently undertaking research on how Environment Victoria can campaign to reduce Victoria's ecological footprint. This already includes a focus on transitioning from coal to clean energy but it may also focus on other issues, such as advocacy for a clean economy or advocacy for sustainable food production and use. We have discussed whether we should run a sustainable population campaign and have come to the conclusion that a state based organisation would be unable to have a big enough impact on population growth. Population policies are set at the national and international level and is a global issue. The solutions involve the empowerment of women and cover numerous human rights issues of which we are not the experts. So while we publicly recognise that population is a problem and that a stable global population is essential for any kind of sustainable future, we have a responsibility to campaign in areas where we can make a difference.

I hope this provides some clarity for you. I fully understand if you wish to direct your donations to an organisation that does run population campaigns but I hope you will continue to see the value in the unique and essential campaigns we do run here at Environment Victoria, that aim to make the biggest possible difference to our environment by 2020.

Thank you so much for your generous support and I'm always happy to chat about our work.

Best regards

Kelly O'Shanassy
CEO
Environment Victoria

ttp://www.environmentvictoria.org.au

DIRECT: (03) 9341 8119 MOBILE: 0421 054 402
RECEPTION: (03) 9341 8100 FAX: (03) 9341 8199
STREET ADDRESS: Level 2, 60 Leicester Street, Carlton, Victoria 3053
POST: PO Box 12575, A'Beckett Street, Carlton, Victoria 8006

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