Dear members and friends of Sustainable Population Australia-SEQ Branch
Your SEQ committee has started planning a couple of events for the coming months:
* A forum in June on Ethical Issues in Population Policy with UQ philosopher Professor William Grey and a speaker from the Anglican Church. Date and venue to be confirmed.
* A Population Film Festival in August featuring the Australian Premier of “Mother: caring our way out of the population dilemma” among others. Tribal Cinema in the Brisbane CBD Sunday 21 August.
Anyone keen to help organise either of these events please drop me a line.
The committee’s next meeting will be Saturday 28 May 10 am at 64 Leybourne St Chelmer. All members are welcome to come and join in our planning.
Please keep up the letter writing in response to the renewed propaganda around skilled immigration. Let the papers know how much your lifestyle and environment is hurting under the pressure of added people.
Below are a few recent items of interest from the network:
Dump baby bonus says Anglican Church’s key advisory group
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/dump-baby-bonus-says-church/story-e6frf7jo-1226045857136
The Anglican Church has renewed its public stance against population growth in the submission from its Public Affairs Commission to Tony Bourkes Inquiry into a Sustainable Population Strategy for Australia. The church leaders have distanced themselves from any specific attack on the Baby Bonus but affirmed the resolution of General Synod to:
“Consider carefully any incentive aimed specifically and primarily at increasing Australia’s population while continuing to support low-income families and sustainable immigration.”
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The United Nations Population Division has revised its projections – see its press release at
http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Other-Information/Press_Release_WPP2010.pdf
Here’s part of The New York Times report of the update:
May 3 2011 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/04/world/04population.html
U.N. Forecasts 10.1 Billion People by Century’s End
By JUSTIN GILLIS and CELIA W. DUGGER
The population of the world long expected to stabilize just above 9 billion in the middle of the century will instead keep growing and may hit 10.1 billion by the year 2100 the United Nations projected in a report released Tuesday.
Growth in Africa remains so high that the population there could more than triple in this century rising from today’s one billion to 3.6 billion the report said – a sobering forecast for a continent already struggling to provide food and water for its people.
The new report comes just ahead of a demographic milestone with the world population expected to pass 7 billion in late October only a dozen years after it surpassed 6 billion. Demographers called the new projections a reminder that a problem that helped define global politics in the 20th century the population explosion is far from solved in the 21st.
“Every billion more people makes life more difficult for everybody it’s as simple as that” said John Bongaarts a demographer at the Population Council a research group in New York. “Is it the end of the world? No. Can we feed 10 billion people? Probably. But we obviously would be better off with a smaller population.”
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The penny is dropping for some of the leaders in the main stream economy. If you have the time I recommend this essay by Jeremy Grantham (founder of GMO a big US hedge fund and an influential writer in the investment world) on “Peak Everything” and the need for paradigm shift:
Time to Wake Up: Days of Abundant Resources and
Falling Prices Are Over Forever
Jeremy Grantham
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/GMO%20April.pdf
Summary of the Summary
The world is using up its natural resources at an alarming rate and this has caused a permanent shift in their value. We all need to adjust our behavior to this new environment. It would help if we did it quickly.
That’s it for now. More information on our upcoming events coming soon.
Jane O’Sullivan
President Sustainable Population Australia SEQ Branch