codereder said:
Well we can start preparing the economy for a rise in population, its gonna go up anyway no matter how much people dont like it. Why couldnt we manage and support a larger population? Water - desalination plants i believe we need. Pipe the water all around Australia. The desert can have all the water they need.
Electricity - nuclear power.
We have 10 billion dollars surplus, howard is managing the economy fine.
...
The country could possibly support a larger population, but such a population would need to be far more resource conscious than we are if it is to be sustainable . As for your suggestions... This may surprise you, but whenever we extract and/or redirect a raw resource, we tend to cause quite a bit of damage. Now, though many of these extractions and their impacts can be managed, they cannot be carried out indefinitely - believe it or not, but nothing is infinite and the damage that we cause isn't necessarily confined to a particular area or resource.
Better yet, we are humans, not gods - we are but one of the animal species living on this planet, and though we are more than entitled to look after ourselves, we still have to ensure that we do all that we can to sustain the non-human world.
codereder said:
Australia's economy can improve greatly with a larger population. 20 million!!! thats nothing. Look at all this land we have. Its time we start creating more capital cities. How about one in the desert like las vegas? Higher population, our economic capacity increases, demand increases, supply increases, economic activity increases, more jobs and higher standard of living.
We can also produce more for the the rest of the world, more exports, helping the CAD. Over population doesnt need to be a problem. We have plenty of coast for people to live and for new cities to grow.
Though what is contained within
this piece is clearly from a particular point of view (I'm not one for such dire predictions, but I do agree with the general idea that we aren't living sustainably), it does address some of the above points.