In the early 1970's, a book titled "The Limits to Growth" was published, a report by the Club of Rome on the predicaments of mankind. Ultimately translated in 30 languages, it caused a furore, predicting that should civilisation continue on its present path, it would run out of every resource under the sun, causing a collapse of society and a major dieoff of human population.

There is so much nonsense in the media today about the reasons why petrol (and diesel of course) is so expensive, it's mind boggling. Surfing the media's web blogs' tailing articles on petrol prices quickly exposes the man in the street's ignorance of the truth. Not that we can point the finger at 'people', the media (outside of publications like this one) is doing very little to educate or inform their readers or viewers.

On 5 June 2006 Social Democratic economist Professor John Quiggin stated “Most natural resources have actually become cheaper, but even in cases where prices have risen, such as that of oil, the economic impact has been marginal, relative to the long-run trend of increasing income.” Here is how I responded.

Why free markets don't have a chance in hell of saving us from the current crises.

See also Mike Stasse interviewed on U-tube, John Quiggin's failure to grasp the resources shortage crisis

Fellow Green Comrades,

I write because I am concerned green groups will jump in to support water recycling without putting pressure on the government.

We don't have a water problem so much as a population problem, a population problem which drives growth and which exacerbates greenhouse emissions. These emissions also exacerbate droughts, quite likely making any normal drought some 10 to 30% worse than it would otherwise have been.