[Peakoil] Peak Oil mention in last night's Perspective program onABC radio national

[POLLARD,Sandy]

Jenny - heard the 'Perspective' piece on air, 'twere a marvellous thing.
 
Thanks also for asking a peak oil question at the Tim Flannery dinner.
It was interesting to hear the professor say he 'wasn't a peak oil
expert'.
 
If anyone has an inside track to the man's ear, it might be worth
suggesting to him that some research, then a book (or a paper) tying
together the themes of PO, climate change, biodiversity loss and
carrying capacity might be a worthy project for a science writer of his
profile.
 
What I had in mind was a 'local' version of the John H. Walsh piece 'The
Impending Twin Crises - One Set of Solutions?' from the current
proceedings of the Canadian Association for the Club of Rome:
 
http://www.cacor.ca/Proceed-Sep%2005.pdf
 
Speaking of the Club of Rome - and given that you cited Matthew Simmons
at the Flannery dinner - here is a link to Simmons' debunking of widely
held myths associated with the Limits to Growth study:
 
http://greatchange.org/ov-simmons,club_of_rome_revisted.html
 
The on-going refurbishment of the (intentionally?) maligned 'Limits to
Growth' is a worthy cause - I know that at least one member of ACT Peak
Oil took the Fin Review's Trevor Sykes to task in print for blithely
repeating LtG disinformation in an otherwise reasonable article on PO
earlier this year.  
 
Regards 
 
Sandy Pollard
 
 
-- 
-----Original Message-----
From: peakoil-bounces+sandy.pollard=dewr.gov.au at act-peakoil.org
[mailto:peakoil-bounces+sandy.pollard=dewr.gov.au at act-peakoil.org] On
Behalf Of Jenny Goldie
Sent: Wednesday, October 05, 2005 10:14 AM
To: ACT Peak Oil discussion Oil discussion
Subject: [Peakoil] Peak Oil mention in last night's Perspective program
onABC radio national


[see paragraphs marked in red. Jenny]
 
Perspective 4 October  2005  - Jenny Goldie 

[This is the print version of story
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/perspective/stories/s1474533.htm] 

I'm often asked how big Australia's population should be. 25 million? 30
million? 50 million?

"Ten million," I reply. To fill the inevitable silence that follows I
add: "...at current levels of consumption." In an effort to resume
dialogue I say: "We could probably support the current population of 20
million if we cut consumption and energy use in half." 

"But what about the economy?" they ask, assuming a bigger population is
needed for economic growth. They seem unaware that in the world rankings
table based on GDP per capita, Australia lies 17th. Of the 16 countries
above ours, all but two - the US and Canada - have populations smaller
than ours. There is simply no correlation at this end of the table
between wealth and population size or wealth and population growth. At
the other end of course, there is a high correlation between poverty and
high population growth rates. Timor Leste, for instance, has the double
distinction of being the world's poorest country and having the highest
fertility rate of 8.3 children per family.

I often wonder why the people who advocate large families and high
population growth rates want to kick us down, not up, the wealth
rankings table.

But wealth is not the fundamental issue here. A population can only grow
as big as its resource base allows. Australia is a big country
geographically and has some significant mineral reserves. But it is
largely arid, has poor thin soils and variable rainfall, subject to both
droughts and flooding rains. It simply cannot sustain the same kind of
population that the continental US has, which is about the same size but
with 14 times the population. And while Australia is doing well
economically, almost all its environmental indicators are in decline.
Most significantly, we are losing biodiversity along the coast where
population growth is greatest - where urban development is cementing
over natural habitat of other species. And it is just as bad on farms.
We have already lost half our bird species across the grazing and
cropping lands of the southern half of the continent. 

In Australia, water is the resource in least supply, and thus the one
that determines how big we can grow. During the prolonged drought of
recent years, all our southern cities have been subject to water
restrictions. Yet we are now warned that climate change will make
droughts more severe and frequent. Water restrictions may become a
permanent feature in many places. Perth seems to be in the grip of
climate change already, with run-off declining by a third over the past
25 years. While it seems to be getting wetter in the north and centre of
the country, all our southern cities are likely to be drier in the
future. 

But water is only one aspect of it, temperature another. Environmental
scientist Tim Flannery forecast recently that a temperature increase of
three degrees by the end of the century may push Australian agriculture,
already marginal, to the wall. 

Another factor that may push Australian farming over the edge is a
decline in the availability of cheap oil. Our industrial-style
agriculture is heavily dependent on oil and gas for running machinery,
producing fertiliser and transporting products to market. As demand from
the two emerging economies, China and India, increases, at some point
soon we will pass global maximum production, or Peak Oil, and demand
will exceed supply for ever after, eventually pushing up the price to
unaffordable levels. The ramifications for agriculture, our ability to
feed ourselves and to export to others, are enormous. 

In answering that question about what size population Australia can
sustain, the 10 or 20 million I cited before only really applies in a
world with an abundance of cheap oil. It does not take into account the
need to reduce carbon emissions by 60 per cent globally by mid-century
to stabilise the atmosphere. The two emerging catastrophes - climate
change and the end of the oil age - demand that we rethink our future.
We must 'power-down': move away from a carbon economy, travel less, grow
food locally, have fewer children. We may even have to contemplate a
non-coercive one-child policy for a couple of generations.

What then should the answer be to the question: what population can
Australia sustain? Once the oil runs out, and if indeed Australian
agriculture is no longer viable by the end of the century, the honest
answer may be as low as two or three million. It is almost too hard to
contemplate; yet we must consider it as a serious possibility and plan
accordingly. 

Guests on this program: 

	Jenny Goldie 
	National President
	Sustainable Population Australia inc 


Further information: 

	
	http://www.population.org.au/ 



Producer: Sue Clark <mailto:jgoldie at snowy.net.au> 

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