When the ABC put to her that a population trending to grow by 65% to a level of 35m people by 2035 was contradictory to a target of reducing Australian carbon emissions by 60% in the same time period, Penny Wong replied, incredibly, that we have to 'delink our levels of carbon pollution from economic growth and population growth, not try to reduce population. She did not say whether we would do this by using magic or religion, but a morbid fascination with my own survival, not to say scientific curiosity, has prompted me to write to her and ask for details. See also: "Depression forces MP Andrew Robb from the frontbench"

Fresh water dam capacity is a known determinant of a dependent population's capacity. Once dam levels drop below critical levels, water demand has clearly exceeded supply. So logically, rationally, naturally, excessive demand ought to be tempered and curtailed. This is what rationally follows in macroeconomics, like when Australia's Reserve Bank increases interest rates to dampen excess demand. It doesn't suggest we import more.

But governments spin their own reality and now employ communication consultants to evangelise that spin.

On Wednesday 5 November 2008, I attended a community cabinet at Launceston, where I asked Kevin Rudd when he was going to get realistic about population and economic growth. Report by Catherine Case:

We only have one planet, Earth! Our economy is dictating government decisions, Our economy needs to be based on appropriate 21st century technology using available labour including that of its ageing population, rather than indefinite expansion using immigrants none of whom are expected to remain young indefinitely.

Russia is another blatant reminder that population growth is NOT a necessary ingredient of economic growth. HEAR THAT IMMIGRATION MINISTER? But the next question that the world must face upon answering that one is this---is economic growth necessary or indeed sustainable?

Oz Turtles' crushed under weight of bristle-worm parasite are quickly cured by fresh water bath, but hundreds die in absence of life-giving flow, for water-guzzling agribusiness - uglier than bristle-worm

As long as the claimed short term economic benefits of growth can be said to be shared equitably Canada's New Democratic Party remains unconcerned by the resultant ecological devastation.

State Premiers must recognise that continued economic growth is not sustainable and give precedence to the environment recognising that the size of the economy is bounded by Nature's ability to sustain it, say conservationists in the wake of the Garnaut Report on Climate Change economic impacts.

In this lecture Josh Farley tells us that we can't sell the Steady State economic model if we preach gloom and sacrifice. "Martin Luther King would have gotten no where if he had given a "I have a Nightmare" speech.

On December 4, 2003, Australia’s population was estimated at 20 million and projected to reach about 30 million by 2050. Slightly less than 50 per cent of this growth rate resulted from net overseas immigration. By 5 November 2007, Australia’s population had ballooned by more than one twentieth of itself (or 5.66 per cent) to 21,131,216 and was projected to reach 34 million by 2050. In fact, with that growth rate of 1.5 per cent per annum, it is on course to double within less than 50 years. Annual immigration has been responsible for more than half this growth, even though the birth-rate had increased in a context of misleading pronatalist propaganda.

Premier Lorne Calvert of Saskatchewan was just one of a long line of politicians who sold us economic growth under a green cloak. They beguile us with trendy oxymorons while the planet just gets hotter and hotter. Economic and population growth cannot continue. Or a lot of us are going to die. To say otherwise is the Big Lie.

For those who recall the scene when Neville Chamberlain stepped down on the tarmac of London's Heston aerodrome on September 30th of 1938 waving his piece of paper, the announcement by the government of the Canadian province of British Columbia (B.C.) on October 16, 2007 must have seemed like déjà vu. On both occasions, an announcement promising 'peace in our time' (for people or wildlife) was met with jubilant relief from people who wanted to believe that the insatiable appetite of a monster can be appeased with an hors d'oeuvre.