"Save our Bush" Rally
Wednesday 24 February from 12-2pm
on Parliament House steps

Almost the entire Basin had been explored and occupied by Europeans within 50 years of the crossing of the Great Dividing Range. The development of a European way of life resulted in
unintentional degradation of many of the Basin’s natural resources. There have been warnings of impending disaster for the Murray–Darling Basin for more than a decade, but here near the mouth it is suddenly real and shockingly rapid. Inflows to the Murray system remain at record lows. The removal of water for last summer’s irrigation, coupled with evaporation, has seen lake levels plummet. The search for another food bowl is on!

(Ed. The subject of this article may seem hackneyed, but it is well worth reading.) The word "sustainable" or "sustainability" has been rendered meaningless and oxymoronic by its attachment to the most invasive development proposals and economic activity. But authentic sustainability does not lend itself to semantic pluralism. It can only mean the viablility of the whole, not its constituent parts. There is really only one kind of sustainability.

Runaway, immigration-fueled population growth threatens to destroy Australia's environment, culture and quality of life. Yet Prime Minister Kevin Rudd thinks it's "great."

See also: "How the growth lobby threatens Australia's future" of 24 Jan 09, "Australia 'sleepwalking' into population disaster", ABC News, 18 Sep 09, "Population boom 'a recipe for tragedy'", The Australian, 18 Sep 09.

Perhaps the single most astonishing, ridiculously contradictory set of public policies we face, is the left hand of government promoting reduced greenhouse emissions, conservation of diminishing freshwater, soil fertility and other declining natural resources, while the right hand promotes rapid population growth through high immigration. Is this a classic example of the left hand not knowing (or wanting to know) what the right hand is up to?

In the following article, originally published in the Winter 2008 issue of The Independent Australian magazine, Dr John O'Connor draws attention to Professor Jared Diamond's book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive and the chapter in it specifically on Australia and its overpopulation woes.

(Historical Thompson River when full; Wikipedia Commons)
It seems that some of our leaders can't join the dots and draw conclusions! An extra 10 billion litres of water will be drawn out of the Thomson River to supply Melbourne each year until Victoria's desalination plant is up and running.

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

Both Jay Hanson and Tom Wayburn have submitted plans for political change to mitigate the worst effects of Peak Oil and save the world from Dieoff. Some time ago when they were friends, they both agreed to "die with their boots on" - as the saying goes. Since then, Jay has expelled Tom from some of his groups and Tom has resigned from the rest. This post deals with their differences and why Wayburn considers Hanson's plan infeasible as a permanent solution unless it evolves into Wayburn's plan.

This post can be viewed at http://dematerialism.net/hanson.htm where all references are hyperlinked in the text, and at http://candobetter.org/node/199, the Peak Oil Politics forum, under a slightly different title.