Comment by Jenny Goldie
I refer to your editorial "Population: no simplistic solutions" of February 16. I was the representative of Australians for an Ecologically Sustainable Population (AESP) speaking on Triple J recently with Paul Ehrlich.
In the editorial you claimed Paul and I maintained that the "primary" solution to the environmental crisis is to limit population, particularly in the Third World, and that what we proposed for Australia was to limit families to two children, to "close" Australia's borders to immigrants and to cut family payments after the second child.
Well you got some of it right but I guess I need to improve my diction. Yes, population does need to be limited, but a high growth rate is more environmentally damaging in a country like Australia than a similar rate in the Third World because consumption rates are so much higher here. Australia has no moral right to dictate to the Third World about growth rates if its own rate is high.
As I remember, I said we should reduce immigration, not close the borders, and restrict immigration to its humanitarian component, that is, refugees and close family reunion. It doesn't matter what the races of immigrants are; in environmental terms it is numbers that count. Until recently, Australia had the largest immigrant program on a per capita basis in the world. We are still either second or third, depending on which statistics you read. Even cutting it back to 30,000 — which AESP advocates — would still leave Australia as a leader in immigrant intakes.
Cutting family payments after the second child, assuming it does not apply to children already born when appropriate legislation is introduced, is not a repressive measure. The first child should get a lot, the second child less, and the third nothing. Governments have to get the message across somehow that large families are no longer acceptable given the crushing crisis of world population.
As far as large families in the Third World are concerned, you simply cannot generalise. Certainly in those countries without social security families are dependent on children to provide for them in old age. But customs can and do change.
Thailand brought its birth rate down to replacement levels within a generation once contraceptives became readily available. It is well known that birth rates are inversely proportional to literacy rates. Give women an education and another option in life, and large families are neither desired nor considered necessary. Perhaps Â鶹´«Ã½ would prefer that Third World women remain barefoot and pregnant all their lives.
You claim that we have enough food, resources and technology to provide for all the world's population and even cope with an increase. I wish it were true but it's not, even though better distribution is needed and would solve many problems.
Perhaps you are aware of a recent ecological study commissioned by the American Association of Advancement of Science which warned that fertile soils for growing crops, unpolluted water, fossils fuels and flora and fauna on which humanity depends, are all being depleted at a rate which will lead to catastrophic natural, social and political disasters by the end of the next century.
Among the main findings of the study led by Professor David Pimintel of Cornell University are: soil erosion is more intense than ever; global food production will fall by 20% in the next 25 years; fresh water supplies will come under increasing strain; fossil fuels will be all but exhausted by the end of next century; and the world is losing 150 species a day through human activities.
This study into the optimum human population concludes the present population of 5.6 billion will have to shrink to 2 billion if there is to be a reasonable standard of living for all.
You dismiss the concept of national boundaries but it is only within the power of each government to work within its own backyard. Each government has a duty to implement sound environmental processes (including stabilising the country's birthrate) which ensure ecological sustainability.
All the leading scientific bodies including the Royal Society in Britain and scientists at an international conference in New Delhi late last year are calling for an end to population growth. Why is it such a problem for you?
Why don't you accept that Australia's capacity for absorbing a large population without further soil degradation and pollution of our waterways is very limited? Why can't you look at the scientific evidence? How can you presume to call yourself "Green" when you only have a "Left" ideology? Is it because you have no answers?
[Jenny Goldie is president of Australians for an Ecologically Sustainable Population.]