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He is a persona non grata since he started advocating for sustainable population policies. Funny how nobody talks about that any more. I've had an "environment

He is a persona non grata since he started advocating for sustainable population policies. Funny how nobody talks about that any more. I've had an "environmentalist" get red faced and belligerent toward me for daring to suggest the most effective way to reduce humanity's environmental footprint would be to reduce population. Insisting that the earth's human carrying capacity was 100 billion(!!) and therefore I was wrong and population didn't matter. Scary.

ggm 5y ago
The historical uses of this line of reasoning are plain to see: it has been used to justify racial theory, eugenics, sterilisation of the mentally deficient. I believe I understand how strongly some environmentalists believe lower population is "the answer" especially in an Australian context of concern about water and carrying capacity of an overwhelmingly arid landscape. This isn't a random belief, it's grounded in some simple economics about the environment. I just think it's usually over simplified, and lacks rigour. The problem is that the historical associations to racism have to be confronted. And they rarely are. Oddly, the same people who push this small carrying capacity line often also oppose Gates and others working to improve access to contraception and abortion. Perhaps the Indian emergency under Indira Gandhi and the Chinese mass sterilisation campaigns left "scars" of concern. Dick Smith didn't do enough to distance himself from Pauline Hanson. (I am not a small Australia believer btw. Even noting the above we could have environmentally acceptable 50m population here)
- dools 5y ago
  If we are doing our fair share by land mass it should be 500m by 2050. I find it astonishing that people have an easier time believing we can colonise Mars than that we can colonise the centre of Australia.
  - Reason077 5y ago
    We know we could colonise the center of Australia (or the center of Antarctica for that matter), if we really wanted to. What makes Mars interesting is that it’s hard. Nobody is arguing that we should go to Mars because it is easy!
  - jlawer 5y ago
    We can colonize the centre of Australia. There just isn't a reason to do so. You can see wherever they find a patch of minerals, a mining town springs up. Decades ago, there were towns all along the train lines to support the rail services, but as trains got more reliable they were no longer required. There are few advantages to being in the centre of Australia. Many of the people who live there do so because they have a connection with that land. The average person would rather live in a crammed Sydney apartment complex then live in the middle of the Simpson desert. Mars is new. We really don't know what will happen. There are a group of people throughout history that have "chanced it" and gone to the new world out of the hope they can build something better. You will have the same rush on Mars.
    - prawn 5y ago
      "We can colonize the centre of Australia. There just isn't a reason to do so." Also, you drive through a lot of less arid farm land before you get anywhere near desert. Including past dying country towns (many below the Goyder Line). We could increase the density of rural properties (from large farms down to farmlets, etc) or do more to boost living in fading townships well before there was any reason to make the desert more habitable.
      - dools 5y ago
        Haha yeah man. The people who say "Fuck off we're full" are the ones who are "full of it". I was speaking to an Egyptian taxi driver in Sydney one day about that "fuck off we're full" political party and he was like "bro you're EMPTY, look at this place we're in the middle of the most densely populated capital in the country and there's still barely anyone here"
    - pabs3 5y ago
      If Australia can figure out how to export the energy, the centre might be a great place to build giant solar farms.
      - SturgeonsLaw 5y ago
        There is a plan to do this https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/14/just-a-matter-of-when-the-20bn-plan-to-power-singapore-with-australian-solar https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/14/just-a-m...
  - burntbridge 5y ago
    We have the land mass but not the water.
    - dools 5y ago
      Desalination and water recycling are the way of the future. Everyone just has to grow up and stop being so squeamish about things everyone will eventually find normal.
  - dunco 5y ago
    land mass =/= habitable land mass. Help me understand your view because I simply cannot fathom how you must think to want 500M people in Australia. Have you traveled? Do you want to live the way people live in overcrowded countries? Do you think there will be some trickle down economic effect for you? Do you place any value on the environment?
    - dools 5y ago
      I don't see how Aussies expect to live on the least densely populated continent right next to the most densely populated continent much longer. The only question is on whose terms we reclaim arable land and begin the process of populating currently unpopulated regions. I reckon the average population density of Japan is a pretty good target, and that's what I'm basing the 500m figure on. My point is that people assume we can turn Mars, an entire arid planet with no water, into a habitable place but that we can't turn deserts on earth into habitable, arable land.
      - dunco 5y ago
        Japan is a net importer of food and probably could not feed its population if it had to. We can't all be net importers of food. Australia's problem is water. Our rivers are already environmental disasters because agriculture belligerently takes too much water. The earth is finite. And it becomes undesirable and polluted long before we hit a hard population ceiling. I just do not understand people who would happily see the entire earth destroyed just so we can have a few more billion humans. we have too many already. almost all high density places in the world are shitholes. Japan is an exception, but I don't have faith that Australia could be. Sydney is already seeing net loss of residents (excluding new migrants) because it is becoming overcrowded.
- throwawaylinux 5y ago
  The earth is already beyond the sustainable carrying capacity of humans. We have exterminated thousands of species and that's mostly without the effect of climate change. And that's just now, not even if we had everyone on earth with the living standards of an Australian or German or American. Australia is already "big Australia", Australia's record on habitat and species destruction is horrific. It just astounds me that people would think doubling the population of western countries (or any country) would be a good idea. I don't buy the "eugenics" equivalence, any more than you can connect any sort of policy or technology to genocide if you tried hard enough. By advocating for massive populations you are implicitly advocating for tiered class system of haves and have-nots in my opinion.
  - inopinatus 5y ago
    No-one is advocating for "massive populations", so you're pretty much throwing shade on a straw man. Anyone suggesting that Australia, for example, could handle more people, is still thinking in terms of economic, social, and environmental stability. On the contrary, though, advocating for population reduction is inherently classist, since this requires government management, and ruling classes will inevitably protect their own ranks first. The result of such modes of thinking is not academic. The UK's prime minister, Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, is not the hapless buffoon he plays on camera, and his COVID management policy disproportionately kills the poor by a factor of 3.7[1]. Inequity of survival is the actual consequence of any managed population reduction. [1] https://www.health.org.uk/news-and-comment/charts-and-infographics/what-geographic-inequalities-in-covid-19-mortality-rates-can-tell-us-about-levelling-up https://www.health.org.uk/news-and-comment/charts-and-infogr...
    - throwawaylinux 5y ago
      > No-one is advocating for "massive populations", so you're pretty much throwing shade on a straw man. Many people are. Our current global population is massive. Humans and their livestock account for 96% of all mammal biomass on earth and we're rapidly exterminating the remaining 4%. And people want it to grow significantly, e.g., the person I just replied to. > On the contrary, advocating for population reduction is inherently classist, since this requires government management, and ruling classes will inevitably protect their own ranks first. No it doesn't, that's just false. The most highly consuming countries on earth have naturally stable or declining populations. And making arguments about the ruling class protecting their own ranks or deploying authoritarian government control over others doesn't really make sense because they do that now, they'll do that when populations are growing, they'll do that when populations are shrinking. You can't have that as your argument.
dools 5y ago
The population will reach 11b and level off in 2050.
- ggm 5y ago
  Might disagree about the 11b but yes, the 2nd order differential on the rate of population growth strongly suggests we're capping out. Economics reduces birthrate as fast as anything else.
twelvechairs 5y ago
I like the man generally but disagree with his views on hard immigration caps for Australia. I agree population is a major sustainability issue but find these caps far too elitist and authoritarian - while it just pushes the same issues elsewhere globally. Though nobody should be judged on one view alone. Everyone has their failures and blindspots
- throwawaylinux 5y ago
  Harvesting 21st century's most valuable resource -- the best and brightest people -- from disadvantaged countries is horrific. It's colonialism, in my opinion. I'm always astounded by people in rich western countries boasting about how they poached all this talent from some of the poorest countries on earth. Like, yeah that's great you got another doctor for your healthcare system that spends billions of dollars extending people's lives by a few months. Guess that country she came from where children regularly die of easily preventable diseases won't miss her. So long as we don't have to wait more than 10 minutes for an ambulance when we have a boo-boo and get to see a doctor immediately at the ER f- everybody else. Though as you say, I don't judge everyone purely based on that greed and selfishness. They all have their failures and blind spots.
  - Mikeb85 5y ago
    If you don't agree with our immigration policies you're racist. /s You're right though, it's essentially 21st century colonialism. When I studied economics we studied a lot about economic development. Funny how that's pretty much gone by the wayside, extinguished by the very people who should support it (western leftists). As an aside, the whole carbon reduction thing is also thinly veiled colonialism. We want to insist that India and China reduce emissions when they produce 1/10th and 1/4 the emissions per capita that western nations do. We're already developed so it's easy to say let's cap it where it is right now. Fuck poor countries right?
  - karmanyaahm 5y ago
    > Harvesting 21st century's most valuable resource -- the best and brightest people -- from disadvantaged countries is horrific. It's colonialism, in my opinion. Sure, maybe that is the case when looking at the 'Greater Good' of the whole population, but the > best and brightest people -- from disadvantaged countries are also real people with individual hopes and dreams. Just because they happened to be born in a bad place doesn't mean that their desire to achieve better things (think research facilities, schools for kids) and contribute to the future of humanity should be discounted.
MarkMc 5y ago
Immigrants generally increase their income, and income is inversely correlated with birth rate. So wouldn't a high level of Australian immigration reduce the total world population, relative to a low immigration level?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
Grimburger 5y ago
The traditional environmental and green parties in Australia really can't handle the immigration issue, it's very taboo to talk about with these groups because they somehow associate it with racism (despite the UK and US making up a huge amount of Australian permanent migration). The Greens simply won't discuss it despite being the elephant in the room regarding habitat loss and increasing emissions. Dick is easy to write off as just another "old racist white guy" but his arguments were all environmental based, the guy cares a lot about the natural world and conservation.

ggm 5y ago

The historical uses of this line of reasoning are plain to see: it has been used to justify racial theory, eugenics, sterilisation of the mentally deficient. I believe I understand how strongly some environmentalists believe lower population is "the answer" especially in an Australian context of concern about water and carrying capacity of an overwhelmingly arid landscape. This isn't a random belief, it's grounded in some simple economics about the environment. I just think it's usually over simplified, and lacks rigour. The problem is that the historical associations to racism have to be confronted. And they rarely are. Oddly, the same people who push this small carrying capacity line often also oppose Gates and others working to improve access to contraception and abortion. Perhaps the Indian emergency under Indira Gandhi and the Chinese mass sterilisation campaigns left "scars" of concern. Dick Smith didn't do enough to distance himself from Pauline Hanson. (I am not a small Australia believer btw. Even noting the above we could have environmentally acceptable 50m population here)

dools 5y ago
If we are doing our fair share by land mass it should be 500m by 2050. I find it astonishing that people have an easier time believing we can colonise Mars than that we can colonise the centre of Australia.
- Reason077 5y ago
  We know we could colonise the center of Australia (or the center of Antarctica for that matter), if we really wanted to. What makes Mars interesting is that it’s hard. Nobody is arguing that we should go to Mars because it is easy!
- jlawer 5y ago
  We can colonize the centre of Australia. There just isn't a reason to do so. You can see wherever they find a patch of minerals, a mining town springs up. Decades ago, there were towns all along the train lines to support the rail services, but as trains got more reliable they were no longer required. There are few advantages to being in the centre of Australia. Many of the people who live there do so because they have a connection with that land. The average person would rather live in a crammed Sydney apartment complex then live in the middle of the Simpson desert. Mars is new. We really don't know what will happen. There are a group of people throughout history that have "chanced it" and gone to the new world out of the hope they can build something better. You will have the same rush on Mars.
  - prawn 5y ago
    "We can colonize the centre of Australia. There just isn't a reason to do so." Also, you drive through a lot of less arid farm land before you get anywhere near desert. Including past dying country towns (many below the Goyder Line). We could increase the density of rural properties (from large farms down to farmlets, etc) or do more to boost living in fading townships well before there was any reason to make the desert more habitable.
    - dools 5y ago
      Haha yeah man. The people who say "Fuck off we're full" are the ones who are "full of it". I was speaking to an Egyptian taxi driver in Sydney one day about that "fuck off we're full" political party and he was like "bro you're EMPTY, look at this place we're in the middle of the most densely populated capital in the country and there's still barely anyone here"
  - pabs3 5y ago
    If Australia can figure out how to export the energy, the centre might be a great place to build giant solar farms.
    - SturgeonsLaw 5y ago
      There is a plan to do this https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/14/just-a-matter-of-when-the-20bn-plan-to-power-singapore-with-australian-solar https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/14/just-a-m...
- burntbridge 5y ago
  We have the land mass but not the water.
  - dools 5y ago
    Desalination and water recycling are the way of the future. Everyone just has to grow up and stop being so squeamish about things everyone will eventually find normal.
- dunco 5y ago
  land mass =/= habitable land mass. Help me understand your view because I simply cannot fathom how you must think to want 500M people in Australia. Have you traveled? Do you want to live the way people live in overcrowded countries? Do you think there will be some trickle down economic effect for you? Do you place any value on the environment?
  - dools 5y ago
    I don't see how Aussies expect to live on the least densely populated continent right next to the most densely populated continent much longer. The only question is on whose terms we reclaim arable land and begin the process of populating currently unpopulated regions. I reckon the average population density of Japan is a pretty good target, and that's what I'm basing the 500m figure on. My point is that people assume we can turn Mars, an entire arid planet with no water, into a habitable place but that we can't turn deserts on earth into habitable, arable land.
    - dunco 5y ago
      Japan is a net importer of food and probably could not feed its population if it had to. We can't all be net importers of food. Australia's problem is water. Our rivers are already environmental disasters because agriculture belligerently takes too much water. The earth is finite. And it becomes undesirable and polluted long before we hit a hard population ceiling. I just do not understand people who would happily see the entire earth destroyed just so we can have a few more billion humans. we have too many already. almost all high density places in the world are shitholes. Japan is an exception, but I don't have faith that Australia could be. Sydney is already seeing net loss of residents (excluding new migrants) because it is becoming overcrowded.
throwawaylinux 5y ago
The earth is already beyond the sustainable carrying capacity of humans. We have exterminated thousands of species and that's mostly without the effect of climate change. And that's just now, not even if we had everyone on earth with the living standards of an Australian or German or American. Australia is already "big Australia", Australia's record on habitat and species destruction is horrific. It just astounds me that people would think doubling the population of western countries (or any country) would be a good idea. I don't buy the "eugenics" equivalence, any more than you can connect any sort of policy or technology to genocide if you tried hard enough. By advocating for massive populations you are implicitly advocating for tiered class system of haves and have-nots in my opinion.
- inopinatus 5y ago
  No-one is advocating for "massive populations", so you're pretty much throwing shade on a straw man. Anyone suggesting that Australia, for example, could handle more people, is still thinking in terms of economic, social, and environmental stability. On the contrary, though, advocating for population reduction is inherently classist, since this requires government management, and ruling classes will inevitably protect their own ranks first. The result of such modes of thinking is not academic. The UK's prime minister, Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, is not the hapless buffoon he plays on camera, and his COVID management policy disproportionately kills the poor by a factor of 3.7[1]. Inequity of survival is the actual consequence of any managed population reduction. [1] https://www.health.org.uk/news-and-comment/charts-and-infographics/what-geographic-inequalities-in-covid-19-mortality-rates-can-tell-us-about-levelling-up https://www.health.org.uk/news-and-comment/charts-and-infogr...
  - throwawaylinux 5y ago
    > No-one is advocating for "massive populations", so you're pretty much throwing shade on a straw man. Many people are. Our current global population is massive. Humans and their livestock account for 96% of all mammal biomass on earth and we're rapidly exterminating the remaining 4%. And people want it to grow significantly, e.g., the person I just replied to. > On the contrary, advocating for population reduction is inherently classist, since this requires government management, and ruling classes will inevitably protect their own ranks first. No it doesn't, that's just false. The most highly consuming countries on earth have naturally stable or declining populations. And making arguments about the ruling class protecting their own ranks or deploying authoritarian government control over others doesn't really make sense because they do that now, they'll do that when populations are growing, they'll do that when populations are shrinking. You can't have that as your argument.

dools 5y ago

The population will reach 11b and level off in 2050.

ggm 5y ago
Might disagree about the 11b but yes, the 2nd order differential on the rate of population growth strongly suggests we're capping out. Economics reduces birthrate as fast as anything else.

twelvechairs 5y ago

I like the man generally but disagree with his views on hard immigration caps for Australia. I agree population is a major sustainability issue but find these caps far too elitist and authoritarian - while it just pushes the same issues elsewhere globally. Though nobody should be judged on one view alone. Everyone has their failures and blindspots

throwawaylinux 5y ago
Harvesting 21st century's most valuable resource -- the best and brightest people -- from disadvantaged countries is horrific. It's colonialism, in my opinion. I'm always astounded by people in rich western countries boasting about how they poached all this talent from some of the poorest countries on earth. Like, yeah that's great you got another doctor for your healthcare system that spends billions of dollars extending people's lives by a few months. Guess that country she came from where children regularly die of easily preventable diseases won't miss her. So long as we don't have to wait more than 10 minutes for an ambulance when we have a boo-boo and get to see a doctor immediately at the ER f- everybody else. Though as you say, I don't judge everyone purely based on that greed and selfishness. They all have their failures and blind spots.
- Mikeb85 5y ago
  If you don't agree with our immigration policies you're racist. /s You're right though, it's essentially 21st century colonialism. When I studied economics we studied a lot about economic development. Funny how that's pretty much gone by the wayside, extinguished by the very people who should support it (western leftists). As an aside, the whole carbon reduction thing is also thinly veiled colonialism. We want to insist that India and China reduce emissions when they produce 1/10th and 1/4 the emissions per capita that western nations do. We're already developed so it's easy to say let's cap it where it is right now. Fuck poor countries right?
- karmanyaahm 5y ago
  > Harvesting 21st century's most valuable resource -- the best and brightest people -- from disadvantaged countries is horrific. It's colonialism, in my opinion. Sure, maybe that is the case when looking at the 'Greater Good' of the whole population, but the > best and brightest people -- from disadvantaged countries are also real people with individual hopes and dreams. Just because they happened to be born in a bad place doesn't mean that their desire to achieve better things (think research facilities, schools for kids) and contribute to the future of humanity should be discounted.

MarkMc 5y ago

Immigrants generally increase their income, and income is inversely correlated with birth rate. So wouldn't a high level of Australian immigration reduce the total world population, relative to a low immigration level?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

Grimburger 5y ago

The traditional environmental and green parties in Australia really can't handle the immigration issue, it's very taboo to talk about with these groups because they somehow associate it with racism (despite the UK and US making up a huge amount of Australian permanent migration). The Greens simply won't discuss it despite being the elephant in the room regarding habitat loss and increasing emissions. Dick is easy to write off as just another "old racist white guy" but his arguments were all environmental based, the guy cares a lot about the natural world and conservation.