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mantra
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Interesting site Grendel, particularly the replacement rate fallacy - which states.... In fact to keep stable and just replace itself, a relatively young population like Australia’s would currently need something even lower than Western Europe’s rate of around 1.3 children per completed family. More like 0.93. And that’s without immigration!
There is a lot of information online similar to the above, but it's just common sense and why our governments have encouraged more births is beyond reason.
Most of the researchers seem to go back to the same old theme - stop immigration - we just can't afford it. This is an old article from the Environmental Magazine .... but even in 1998 there were concerns about overpopulation and since then our population has grown by nearly 4 million and is still increasing rapidly along with the degradation of the environment which we rely so heavily on for sustenance.
A majority of the public believes that Australia is, in fact, unable to sustainably support a large human population. The main problem lies in the generally inhospitable and fragile nature of the continent itself, which tends to contradict the image of large spaces waiting to be settled.
The driest of all vegetated continents, Australia's total runoff of water is well short of the runoff from the Mississippi River alone. The landscape is also an inhibitor. No less than 70 percent of the continent is considered arid or semi-arid, with few permanent rivers, unpredictable rainfall and ancient soils.
On top of that, Australia is facing severe environmental problems, with intense agriculture and deforestation causing widespread salinity, desertification and soil erosion. Just seven percent of the original vegetation remains, writes population expert Paul Ehrlich, and the removal of native trees has greatly disrupted the normal water cycle and dramatically reduced the amount of arable land. "Our highly evolved ecosystems are extremely fragile," reports Dr. Tim Flannery of the Australian Museum in his book The Future Eaters.
"We've been overtaxing the land for so long there's no more 'give' in our ecosystems" warns botanist Dr. Mary White. She believes Australia may already be overpopulated, and suggests 13 million as an appropriate figure.
Immigration, rather than natural fertility, has been the primary engine behind Australia's rapid population growth, particularly in the 1980s, when annual influx climbed above 100,000. The anti-immigration talk has brought charges of racism forth, but Australia's aboriginal population, expected to number no more than 350,000 by the year 2001, is also concerned about being overwhelmed by what it calls "totally unsustainable" population growth.
"Reducing immigration would only be racist if it was cut in a racially selective way, instead of across the board," says Australians for an Ecologically Sustainable Population.
A 1994 report prepared for Australia's Labor government found that over 90 percent of the public called for either stabilizing or reducing the population.
The last figures I saw on the aboriginal population were 200,000 and it is immigration which has climbed to 350,000 per year - not even taking into consideration the large families they produce.
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Overloading Australia (Read 2163 times)
