177 thoughts on “Monday Message Board”

  1. For those in Sydney – this is an interesting event:

    *********************************

    You are invited to the launch of Overloading Australia: How governments and media dither and deny on population (2nd edition), by Mark O‚Connor and William Lines.

    Venue: Dymocks City Store, 424 George Street, Sydney.
    Time: 11.00am Monday 1 February 2010.

    This is the revised 2nd edition of a book that has helped spark a huge debate on Australia’s population. Much has changed since the first edition (now sold out) emerged less than a year ago — hence this revised edition. The new edition also refers readers to a web-pagehttp://www.population.org.au/index.php/media/overloading-australia where statistics and news of the population debate will be continuously updated.

    The book has been endorsed by Robert Birrell, Director of the Monash University Population Centre, as “the most informed and accessible analysis of the implications of Australia’s high rate of population growth available.”

    In just 12 months, Australia‚s annual population growth has jumped from 1.6% to 2.1%, a rate at which we would pass 100 million Australians before the end of this century if thirst and famine did not intervene. The public debate has also changed. The absurdity of hoping to restrain Australia’s emissions “footprint” while adding ever more “feet” has become evident; and MP Kelvin Thomson has begun to speak out. Treasury Secretary Ken Henry has remarked that he personally is profoundly pessimistic about our ability to sustain even 35 million without major environmental damage; yet the PM has branded himself a “big Australia” man. Letters-to-the-editor columns are awash with protests at Australia‚s population growth and the resulting deterioration of our cities.

    When Business and Property Councils demand immigration and baby bonuses, many assume that they speak for all business folk. Dick Smith begs to differ. In launching this book he will speak about how he came to realise he had been misled about our need for ever higher populations, and why he believes Overloading Australia shows the path to a more liveable Australia for our children and grandchildren.

    Co-author Mark O‚Connor will also be present.

    The book, published by EnviroBook, Sydney is available for $19.95. For responses to it, see http://www.australianpoet.com/overloading.html

    *******************************************

    I have a copy of the book and it is not particularly well written. But the argument is sound.

  4. Typical white misconception; namely

    Many indigenous Australians were to die through exposure to exotic disease – brought by the settlers.

    The first disease was smallpox that was apparently used as a biological weapon in line with British military tactics in North America.

    So it was not coyly “brought by the settlers” but, according to some authors and Aboriginal oral history, it was smallpox deliberately spread by First Fleeters.

    “Australia Day” should be a funeral day for indigenous peoples. Maybe it should be boycotted?

  6. Great to see Dick Smith weighing in on the side of sanity.

    I have recently had some written discussion with Paul Holloway SA MLC on the SA Labor Govt’s population growth plans. He is a real gentleman and I believe an honest person, an honest politician even, but he has a blinkered view, a disconnect with the evidence I sent, a refusal to see the world as finite that is frustratingly difficult to change.

    He took the trouble to reply to me by snail mail twice but the Growth mentality seems to be in his genes.

  7. Small pox death was not and could not have been deliberately used by the First or Second Fleet officers against Aboriginal people in Sydney. It was just a biological, chemical, genetic effect of devastating proportion attendant on contact between two vastly different hitherto non-interacting evolved peoples with qualitatively different levels of immunity to such a disease.

  8. @Salient Green
    Then all that means is he taking advice from hsi treasury, who are in turn taking their advice from uni secondment academics, who are in turn taking their advice from neo liberal market economist heads of schools who have not employed a lefty or even a centrist, if they could help it for years, and it ios they who support secondments …but dont worry they are all grey a retiring soon.

    If you want to correct Treasury departments, and cleanse them of the false market ideals, first you have to sack all the heads of all economics departments in most universities.

    I dunno how JQ survives…he writes a lot!

  10. Alice, the majority of Aborigines in the Sydney-Cumberland Plain region who died of small pox in the 2-5 years post 1788 had no physical contact whatsoever with white people.

  11. Chris

    If the worlds present population was living in an urban area the density of Singapore, it would only cover a land area the size of South Australias. or about 0.67% of The total land area of the world (148,940,000 km2.) Considering total land area of the world is only about 29.1% of the Earth’s surface area, 067% of 29.1% is definitly sweet FA.

    Chris, Australia alone could theoretically support 6 Billion people if it needed to and at present all humanity is only using very small fraction of the world’s resources.

    Over population is a myth, what people should be concerned about is that the world’s human birth rate has for the first time in its history, fallen below the replacement rate. i.e. humanity is no longer expanding; it is contracting and has started its long slow march towards extinction.

  12. @Philomena
    But they had contact with their own people and one them had contact with a white Philo…..they found aboriginal bodies strewn up the tracks from Sydney Cove to Palm Beach tribal areas…the walkways… shortly after white settlement. There is evidence of a large decline in Sydbney metro poulations (as best they can measure them) within twenty thirty years of white arrival. Spilled on purpose or accidentally – guess we may never know.

  13. “Chris, Australia alone could theoretically support 6 Billion people”

    What an ignorant tool.

  15. Alice, there’s no indication the intent was ever to wipe out or decimate the Aboriginal population. Rather there was genuine if limited anthropological interest in them as the records of the officers of the first fleets attest.

    All over the world the meeting of European people with those of less developed continents and regions recorded similar if not identical negative impacts on an epidemiological level.

  16. Alice, so that’s how it works! (Using the term ‘works’ loosely.) Shows even more the importance of heavyweights like Kelvin Thomson, Dick Smith and Ken henry trying to inject some sense into their colleagues.The fact that none of them have been villified by the press for their anti-population growth views is a very positive sign.

  17. TonyG

    Australia could also be better with less and more capable of adapting to climate change.

    In theory if we built skyscrapers, and served up Soylent Greens and recycled waste water, we may support 100 billion or more. Its hard to find any objective maximum.

    But humans are not like this.

    The fact that Australia can support any number does not mean that we should head in this direction.

    The Club of Rome theory of matching population to resources is more important than as implied by such arguments as “it exists in Singapore therefore it will work everywhere”.

    Australia’s population is constrained by, water, energy, arable land, pollution, infrastructure and human nature.

    An efficient population is not a maximum population.

  18. Alice

    I do not think the reference to spilled vaccine exists at least in the context of the First Fleet smallpox outbreak. I think I know most of the literature but if you can find an exact reference please post it.

    Vaccine only became available after 1804 and probably was not liquid (due to the risk of spoilation through mould). Vaccine scabs were specifically recommended for sending vaccine to Australia from British India.

    The First Fleet probably carried smallpox scabs as these carried the virus used for innoculation. The evidence is that this material was in bottles.

    Later, in the 19th century, vaccine was used for vaccination.

    First Fleeters had many many contacts with local tribes, some recorded – some not.

    Quadrant writers have been particularly strident with the racist theory of different susceptibility to disease. This is a right wing canard designed to hide the huge slaughter of local tribes for most of the 200 years as Australian wealth was built on massacre and dispossession. We are now expected to celebrate this achievement, on this so-called Australia Day.

    I think not.

  19. Chris, I have been to Singapore, they live pretty well. 3/4s of the world’s population would be 10 times better off if they had a living standard on par with that of the Singaporeans. Mankind would only be occupying about 0.27% of the Earth’s surface area, if they all had the same living standards as the Singaporeans. (Humanity is only using a small fraction of the world’s total resources)

    Chris, do you want to keep the Third World permanently mired in poverty, disease and death. By restricting immigration so Australia ‘can adapt to climate change’ you are condemning people to poverty, disease and death.. Australia per capita has more resources and land than nearly any other country.

    Chris, Environmental activists like the ones on this blog, who’ve never known starvation, never had to live without electricity, never had to watch their children die of malaria or dysentery, must no longer be allowed to put their anxieties, priorities and agendas ahead of the desperate pleas, the most basic needs, of destitute people who wish only to improve their lives and save their children’s lives. It is sickening how demented Eco-Imperialists value other things like “Australia’s emissions “footprint” over that of human lives.

  20. TonyG

    You can have immigration and zero population growth.

    I do not think the immigration issue is the key.

    I prefer to see public policy to encourage Australian permanent residents to have smaller families. It does not matter whether they were born here or immigrated.

    However I think public policy could be the opposite for indigenous families as they have suffer specific demographic damage through European crimes against humanity.

  21. @Chris Warren
    Are you saying the immune system is the same for all people – or at least that variation is smoothly distributed. Seems unlikely. I would have expected different populations to have developed local responses. Any links? thanks.

  22. Tony G continues to ignore, despite being informed on several occasions, that a city’s ecological footprint, that is, it’s drain on the world’s resources, is far larger than it’s geological footprint.

    Cities, and towns, exist only because enormous resources are brought in from well outside their physical boundaries. Very often, the real cost of all these imports to support huge, concentrated populations is being stolen from future generations in the form of depleted resources, pollution and extinguished species.

    The Murray Darling basin has been over-exploited to provide food and textiles to not only Australia but other overpopulated countries who can’t provide for themselves. Rainforests around the world are being destroyed at a frightening rate to feed and provide energy to an overpopulated world.

    All of Australia’s fisheries are either FULLY or OVER exploited. Same goes for the rest of the world with many fisheries collapsed recently. This has a disasterous effect on all the other species which depend on those fisheries. The Tony G’s, the cornucopians of this world choose to blinker themselves to the starvation and death we humans are inflicting on other species, to the equation – more humans = less other species.

  23. @Chris Warren
    Chris – I dont have the exact reference for spilled vaccine – I read this some years ago and short of digging through my history papers I did find also a suggestion here that the initial smallpox outbreak in 1789 may have been caused aby a spilled bottle of variolus from England (deliberately or accidentally) or possibly introduced by the French causing the outbreak of smallpox in Aboriginal people. Obviously either, we cannot be completely certain about.

    http://www.dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/epidemics

    scroll down to “smallpox in 1789”

  24. @Alice
    I’d want some pretty good evidence that a smallpox outbreak was deliberately started. Put yourself in the position of someone in the 18th century and living far from home – would you start a smallpox epidemic ?
    Of course I am not saying someone couldn’t be that stupid and nasty, but I’d want good evidence. Deliberately poisoning people is much easier to believe.

  25. nanks

    Medical researchers have found that for some diseases, there is variation due to different genes, but there is also similar variation within populations as well. AIDS has been mentioned. Particular genetic mutations can impact on disease susceptibility.

    The New Scientist covered the issue, maybe 18 months ago.

    However for smallpox, all the world’s populations were susceptible, as demonstrated by global spread in the 16th and 17th century as population densities and travel increased.

    If there was any relevant different response during the British invasion – as we still have the same or similar diseases, and the same population groups – it would still be observable today at least for measles, chicken pox, VD, TB and etc. Any relevant variation in disease predisposition would also be observable in the records of well scrutinised global diseases such as smallpox.

    However medical science is still in its infancy, and future developments may indicate different responses due to new understandings of antibodies, interferon, antigens and new findings.

    Nature, 12 February, 2004 had a brief communication on a gene mutation possibly protecting against plague [Mecsas, J., Franklin, Kuziel W. A, Brubaker R. R., et al]

    In general the distribution of disease depends on lifestyle, climate, presence of vectors, or what Stephen Webb calls “infections environment” [Palaopathology of Aboriginal Australians: health and Disease across a hunter-gather continent]. This was also covered in a conference in Canberra in 1982, and the paper by Francis Black “Geographic and Sociologic Factors in the Epidemiology of Virus Diseases” is significant.

    However the Quadrant claim is a political claim propogated to artificially exonerate settlers from complicity in the mass deaths of aborigines. It is also a traditional claim in old Australian History for example “Australian Discovery and Colonisation” [Bennett S (1865) v1 p143]

    We now have enough information about smallpox to be confident that its occurrence around Port Jackson in 1789 was due to its import by the First Fleet.

    The only remaining question is whether it was deliberate and by who. This is still contentious but a concensus is emerging that it was deliberate.

  27. @Alice

    The 2008 reference is consistent with my earlier post. It notes

    Modern evidence suggests that the smallpox epidemic was caused by the misuse of a bottle or bottles of ‘variolus’ matter which had been brought out from England for inoculation purposes. This material, accidentally or deliberately, infected some Aboriginal people and unleashed the epidemic.

    In 2009 the Bull of Hist Med. v83, 1, pp37-62, published “Smallpox and Cowpox under the Southern Cross: The Smallpox Epidemic of 1789 ….” Bennett, M. J. This paper is badly written but;

    He notes (p48) “….the likelihood is, given the age and condition of the virus, that it was communicated deliberately.” [Bennett, with little basis, chooses to blame the convicts]

    So this is where the issue lies as at 2009. I know of no more recent paper.

  28. Historian Craig Mear from Coledale in New South Wales discussed the appearance of smallpox in the Indigenous population living around Sydney Harbour in 1789 on Ockham’s Razor (audio and transcript). This is well researched piece.

    He discusses the question of accidental and intentional release and the interestingly weird (white armband) theory that smallpox was bought by to north Australia by Asian visitors and traveled overland to arrive at Sydney Cove just when the English happened to roll in.

    Personally, I find a lot of this discussion of disease release fairly odd or at least the two standard positions, either that we’re such good guys that we couldn’t have done it, or, that even if only one individual did it we’re all culpable (or something). We might possibly argue the ethics of the invasion/colonisation of Australia, but given that, mass deaths are a certainty the immunological differences between populations. Biological warfare is a basic evolutionary strategy which didn’t start with European colonisation. It occurs without intention.

  29. Salient, re 22
    Like it or not we are top of the food chain and as such some species might get displaced in our wake. Your statement, “the equation – more humans = less other species”, is BS, just like Chris’ overpopulation myth above. Species become extinct and new ones evolve, that is all part of natural selection process of which humanity is a part of.

    Putting the agendas of other species ahead of our own and ignoring the desperate pleas of people like this should be outlawed.

  31. Tony G.

    The wealth of most developed nations has been built in large part by the “imports” of the empires (British, French,Spanish, American, etc) from the less developed nations. Similarly, large cities survive by importing resources from large areas outside the cities.

    There are not enough resources for the current world population to have a developed nation standard of living for any length of time. It is population growth that will lead to most of the world having non-developed-nation standards of living in the long run.

  32. Tony G, you are a nutter, what is known as a cornucopian.

    I too have spent some lovely time in Singapore, pretty much been all over the island. Remarkably, you dont find any agriculture, any forests, much heavy industry or factories, any mines, any oil fields or coal pits. What you do find is a very large and industrious port, bringing in the natural wealth of the world to allow people to live like that.

    Mathis Wackernagel and William Rees created the écological footprint’concept. While specific figures may be rubbery, overall it’s a robust analysis of the sort of area needed to sustain a lifestyle. Basically, we are unsustainable, we are drawing down the planets natural capital.

    Some simple evidence of that fact.

  33. Just re-read some of Gregory Clark’s A Farewell to Alms. One interesting graph shows that the average English labourer was able to buy no more calories in 1800 than in 1200 – over six centuries Malthusian checks kept the bulk of the population at the same basic level (plagues and similar disasters did make survivors better off). Haiti suggests the basic level for humans is pretty low – I imagine we could sustain some tens of billions across the world on a dollar a day each.

  34. Re Jim Birch

    Mear’s ABC transcript was a summary of his earlier submission in J Roy Aust Hist Soc (June 2008).

    This paper is excellent but (probably wisely) does not canvas whether the release was deliberate.

    Mear’s paper is available online via Informit (accessible in most libraries).

    However Jim Birch oversteps the mark if he is implying that First Fleet biological warfare occurred “without intention” @28. This is still in question and the position that it was deliberate is pretty much the concensus now. Consequently the onus is on dissenters to present more rigorous arguments, not weak disruptive side comments.

    There is nothing “odd” about the discussion.

    Culpability is a separate issue mired in political considerations. It is quite possible to review all aspects of the 1789 outbreak without interference from present day political concerns about modern culpability. Once the facts of 1789 are known, then culpability can be explored.

    As some have produced a denial of the outbreak as “crap” and so on, the issue points to the quality of Australian historical discourse and likely political interference or Bowderlisation.

    In fact much of the earlier work by Judy Campbell, Alan Frost, and Quadrant stableboy Charles Wilson, can be shown to have been fabricated and based on misuse of evidence – particularly Frost’s use of Hunter’s Journal “An historical journal of the transactions at Port Jackson, and Norfolk Island : including ….”.

    The underlying issue is that traditional Australian historians have not produced a legitimate history, and that it was time that the Stanner’s “Great Australian Silence” was smashed.

    Unfortunately there appear to be some dying embers that need to be finally dowsed.

  36. @Tony G
    Then Tony G – I suggest we just keep increasing the population of humans everywhere so that some people end up at the bottom of the food chain…when everything else is extinct. I wont say who I had in mind to fill that vacancy…

  37. “In Europe and Asia, mortality rates from smallpox were approximately 30%. In the Americas, mortality rates were higher due to the virgin soil phenomenon, in which indigenous populations were at a higher risk of being affected by epidemics because there had been no previous contact with the disease, preventing them from gaining some form of immunity. Estimates of mortality rates resulting from smallpox epidemics range between 38.5% for the Aztecs, 50% for the Piegan, Huron, Catawba, Cherokee, and Iroquois, 66% for the Omaha and Blackfeet, 90% for the Mandan, and 100% for the Taino. Smallpox epidemics affected the demography of the stricken populations for 100 to 150 years after the initial first infection. ”

    http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/2007_summer_fall/native-americans-smallpox.html

  38. Of course Peter T, reportedly the diet of the average working class scot is now worse than it was in the C.14th. Thanks to deep-fried mars bars.

  39. It’s very hard to have a sensible population debate when the mathematically or scientifically illiterate extremes dominate the debate.

    As has been noted above, the idea we can support a hundred billion of people is mad unless you have an offplanet source of food.

    OTOH, Dick Smith’s talk about a population of 100 million is unnecessary fear-mongering. Part of the population rise is immigration, but part is demographic bulge. Given that our birthrate is (slightly) below replacement, in a few decades the homegrown component of the growth will disappear, at which point even with current rates of immigration the growth rate will be around 1%.

    You can argue that this is too high. But scaremongering about 100 million this century doesn’t help the debate.

  40. Dick Smith’s numbers are a simple extrapolation. We have about 22 million now and a growth rate of 1.7% – that gives about 100 million at 2100. The ABS gives three predictions for 2101; high, medium and low growth resulting in 62.2, 44.7, 33.7 million.

    What we really need is a government policy with a target and a strategy for achieving the target. There already is a lot of research about how many people Australia can support. You can start with the CSIRO.

  42. @Rationalist

    Birth rate is easier and spreads the benefits wider.

    If we cut immigration just to reduce population – we are cutting immigration for the wrong reasons.

    Some mix of options is needed.

  43. RE; 32
    Wilful, the only people who are “nutters” are the ones who put the lives of animals above people.
    Other “nutters” include people who believe the world is anywhere near over populated.

    You said “I too have spent some ‘LOVELY’ time in Singapore, pretty much been all over the island.” So we can agree it is not a bad environment for its inhabitants (first world standard).

    Well you could house the total world population to that ‘LOVELY’ standard and only use 0.20% or 1m km² of the planets total surface area. That would leave 99.8% the planets surface area or about 509,072,000 km² to be used to sustain them.
    Wilful the écological footprint’ is a wacko concept as it has no bearing on reality. Humanity has not even been to (or explored) a large part of that 509,072,000 km², let alone started exploiting it. (which being top of the food chain is our prerogative)

    The only reason we don’t have everybody living at that ‘LOVELY’ Singapore standard, and instead have ¾s of humanity mired in poverty, disease and death, is because spiritually bankrupt, middleclass urbanised environmentalist, “nutters” belittle the value of human life. They place the lives of trees and animals over that of humans; it is disgusting.

  44. Three ways to reduce population growth
    1. Reduce the birthrate. It’s currently below replacement level but could go lower – cut child minding services, reduce parental leave or impose penalties for producing more than one child.-
    2. Increase the deathrate. Would also cut medicare costs, as much of a person’s medical care is in the last 5 years of life.
    3. Reduce or stop immigration.

    How would you mix these options CW?

  46. Ken N is a sociopath obviously. And a “libertarian”. Funny about that. The two seem to go together with extreme socially autistic, callous simpletons such as he.

  48. @ken n
    Right Ken – you say one iof three ways to reduce population growth
    ”
    cut child minding services, reduce parental leave or impose penalties for producing more than one child.-

    What would I expect from a libertarian but blatantly sexist solutions that would impact females work participation drastically….as if it isnt impaired already – not to mention the mostly single women trying to raise the children of 25% of all families who happen to be mostly headed by females.

    Go hang Ken.

  50. @ken n

    It’s all very simple;

    1) Government education program with changes to Family tax benefits. Benefits have to be available to encourage people to choose socially desirable options.

    2) Only increase the deathrate for people whose first name starts with ken.

    3) Immigration will always be needed to replace emmigration. Australia may gain additional obligation to absorb migrants as climate change or natural disasters generate refugees.

    The mixing is done through visa grants and can be based on any number of point systems that can reflect many varying social criteria. Skills shortages in key occupations is one such criteria.

    All very easy.

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