Water is not and never has been a problem here in Australia, but lack of soil. There is an abundance of very clean water in fact, which keeps returning to us year after year. Our population is only around 23 million projected to maybe double over the next century. In Western Australia in 100 years time there will still only be 5 million people, for many reasons that have nothing to do with water.

The problem we continue to have here is human stupidity, which during the settlement phase opened up all our water courses into drainage channels, allowing better than 90% of it to run out to sea. The problem we have is too many people here now from northern latitudes who take water for granted and don't stop to think it has to be managed.

Anyone who wants to go live in New Zealand is fine with me - all the more for those remaining here.

Mike Hansen: "Those who claim that overpopulation is the world's biggest problem should spell out their solutions ...".
No need. In nature, excessive populations tend to solve themselves.
From what I've seen, estimates of the long-term carrying capacity of the planet range from a billion to a trillion (!), with the median at five billion. Five billion assumes a standard of living far lower than we in Australia enjoy. At the standard common in the US of A, the long-term capacity would be about 1.5 billion. At that of the UK, about 2.5.
As any farmer knows, overstocking reduces carrying capacity. Excessive populations crash below the long-term capacity, reducing pressure on the land, giving it a chance to recover. Recovery is not guaranteed; we have some nice deserts in what was formerly the Fertile Crescent, thanks (at least in part) to the Romans.

As another ethical humanist from St.Louis, I've always had a soft spot for Barry Commoner. I think that, in terms of his debate with Ehrlich, and in terms of the whole thing about people vs lifestyle, no one has a monopoly on the truth -- there is some truth in each side of that argument. It then becomes a question of what we have the best chance to control most effectively, who is making those decisions, and what their priorities are.

Giles says
"My question is why are they poor? It seems to me specious to say that the 1% made them all poor. They were made poor by their children + the 1%."

You will find that the world's poor are concentrated in the former colonies of the West. Coincidence? There are no shortage of history books that explain that because the West industrialised first, it used its military might to colonise the third world as source of raw materials and markets for cheap manufactures preventing the development of indigenous economies. Sure - there is a lot more to the story and there is plenty of corruption and encrichment that happens in those countries - but made poor by their children - sorry not true. If you are a poor peasant farmer, children are your workforce and your superannuation.

Peter Lang: "One should be cautious in intervening in complex economic systems, as one can easily trigger unintended consequences that do more harm than good."
Do you advocate no caution "in intervening in complex" environmental systems (while our wellbeing depends on those systems)? Aren't we simultaneously conducting a series of complex experiments (or interventions), while living in the test tube?

Peter

Some interesting points. Let me give a slightly left of centre, not totally in love with a market based worldview response.

Wealthier is healthier and cleaner. Until they’re wealthy, they will consume environmental resources without much regard to aesthetics or future generations. Making people wealthier is the ultimate environmental act.

Wealthier, Yes. Up to a limit. A certain level of wealth is definitely associated with many many positive outcomes. But lots of research shows that beyond a certain level additional wealth doesn't deliver greater happiness for example. A common figure cited from the research is that a per-capita income of around $15,000 is the optimum point at which further wealth doesn't contribute much more. For much of the 2nd & 3rd world (to use some old terminology) they aren't at that point yet. For many of us in the West, we are past that point.An interesting observation again from research. The poorer members of western societies often have worse health. This was certainly true 100 years ago, but it is still true now. Except that the major health issues are different. Instead of disease, malnutrition, things like ricketts etc, now the diseases of (relative) poverty in the west are actually diseases of excess. Obesity, Diabeties, Lung Cancer, Alcoholism. Beyond a certain general level of affluence in a society, what determines health outcomes is more likely to be social standing.

Cleaner? Not so sure about that. Even we in the affluent West have a narrow definition of clean. Our neighbourhood, our parks & schools, that our food is enormously sterile. Yes. That vast accumulations of rubbish accumulate at the centre of major Gyres in the oceans? That the gleaming products we buy come from many countries where 'clean' has a very different meaning. Even the wealthy in developing countries lived cloistered lives where their suburbs are sparkling in the midst of filth. So if you mean clean for the majority of people, that only happens when those on whom the 'unclean' gets dumped are affluent or powerful enough to say no. That is a long way off.

Societies that foster “freedom, opportunity, and enterprise” enrich themselves more quickly, and empower people to express their diverse values effectively, including environmental values. Social structures that divorce people from individual responsibility do exactly the opposite. Freeing up markets is an environmental act.

Yep, sort of. Maybe. You have mixed some different concepts here. Freedom is always positive. But this must be truely equal freedom for all, not the 'my check book is bigger than your check book' version of freedom; The Best Democracy Money Can Buy variety.

Again, Opportunity, yes as long as it is Opportunity for All. And that all have the right to have their own definition of opportunity. If one persons idea of Opportunity is that they can establish a substantial business on their own land and use it to become wealthy. But for their neighbours Opportunity is the chance to live a life close to nature, not wanting wealth but valuing a deep emotional connection with the land. Except that their neighbours want to build a huge, and to them ugly, business complex next door. So who gets more Opportunity?

Enterprise? Whose definition of that are we talking about? Enterprise towards what? And Why? For one person Enterprise may be about pursuing Goals, achieving Results, making a Mark in the World. For someone else it may mean increasing the population of a particular bird on their land, or preserving the language of their people. Again, definitions of Enterprise differ hugely.

"Social structures that divorce people from individual responsibility do exactly the opposite. Freeing up markets is an environmental act."

And how does our modern consumer society NOT divorce us from individual responsibility? If I don't know where the products I buy came from, under what circumstances, and produced in what way, how can I possibly take individual responsibility for my actions? Perhaps you mean that we should not overtly and visibly impose upon others, rather being self-reliant & self sufficient. But most of how the modern word works is all about just about everything being covert and hidden. When I fill up my car with petrol, how do I know that I am not excessively imposing upon the people who work on drilling rigs in oil fields? In much of life, individual responsibility is simply a physical impossibility. .

So consider the possibility that 'markets' may be the primary mechanism in the world for divorcing us from individual responsibility!

Next, why does responsibility need to be 'individual'? Can't we communally decide to share responsibility? You may have an ideological preference for the idea that responsibility is personal. But would you deny others the right to choose that responsibility is more shared than that, more communal. Doesn't the doctrine of 'Personal Responsibility' unfairly discriminate against those who may have a lesser capacity to encomapss those responsibilities. Surely if people are free (there is that word again) to choose to take a more communal responsibility for things, that lets far more people contribute to our common weal (the origin of the word Commonwealth) in a way that fits their talents and abilities. If we are condemend to only be able to exercise Responsibility at a personal level, doesn't that condemn some people to a life of failure just because of the narrowness of a Definition!

So consider some of my previous comments. Is 'Freeing up Markets' an environmental act? Maybe. Or it could be a deeply destructive dis-environmental act. It all depends on the particular circumstances of each situation. This is the problem with ideologies of any flavour. They are too simplistic to deal with the complex realities of the real world.

'One should be cautious in intervening in complex economic systems, as one can easily trigger unintended consequences that do more harm than good. Ethanol. ‘Nuff said.

Yep. Ethanol. Palm Oil - cut down rainforest so we can grow entire trees just so we can harvest nuts, just so we can extract the oil from the nuts and throw the rest of the nut away! Nuff, Nuff, Nuff said. But then. Palm Oil, Ethanol etc are substantially market produced results. Sometimes markets can be really crap tools for producing good outcomes. Because the profitable result isn't always the good result.

However, the presumption that not intervening is the better answer is equally fallacious. If a system is complex, such that our understanding of how it all works isn't perfect, we are in a situation where we can't be completely confident about what the consequences of our actions might be. But equally we should be just as dubious about our capacity to judge what the consequences of our inaction might be. The notion that the Status Quo is necessarily the safer course of action is a deep fallacy. Each choice about the merits of actions and inactions depends profoundly on the context in which that choice is made. And our capacity to evaluate the context.

As a general rule, those who advocate a more conservative, 'the status quo is safer' view, and those who advocate a more adventurous, 'lets change things' approach, as general principles, are really arguing 'we should follow the course of action that best matches my personality type and underlying psychological makeup'.

In a deep sense, political ideologies don't exist. Just different psychologies, with each person gravitating to the 'philosophies' and 'political ideologies' that most match their deeper selves.

In reality each of us should be trying as much as possible to divorce our opinions about many subjects, especially those where the consequences are potentially serious, whether as a result of action or inaction, from our personal psychology and emotional drivers. The more detached we can be in assessing the evidence in any situation the better of we are. For this reason I regard ones political or philosophical leanings as a serious impediment to clarity of judgement.

I note Peter that you prefaced your comments with "What environmentalists can learn from conservatives". Consider the possibility that a 'conservative' mindset can be just as much an impediment to sound reasoning as any other mindset. Also you are contrasting 'conservatives' with 'environmentalists'. To my mind 'conservative' is a description of a political framework or way of looking at the world. In contrast 'environmentalist' is not intrinsically political. The name suggests a focus on other issues that are not political in nature - environmental outcomes; changes in the physical systems of the planet. That is not intrinsically political.

Certrainly in pursuit of environmental goals 'environmentalists' may need to take political stances. But that is not to say that a political stance is the motivation of an 'environmentalist'; Rather politics is simply a tool for achieving non-political goals.

In contrast someone such as yourself who identifies as having a political perspective on things through a self-applied label such as 'conservative' is effectively saying that the political perspective is your primary focus.

Could there be a fundamental failure of communication going on here? The 'conservatives' think the discussion is about political thinking, with ideas about what we think of the natural world around us being ultimately subbordinate, secondary to political modes. And the 'environmentalist' is looking at the world primarily through a physical, natural world lens, with political motivation being subordinate.

When some conservatives label environmentalists as 'watermelons - Green on the outside and Red on the inside', could they be missing the whole point? To an environmentalist (and I would put myself in this category), politics is As Boring As! Life is too short for the sand-pit style triteness of political thinking. But to someone whose personality gravitates to the question of politics, large or small, the idea of focusing on mere 'environment stuuff' seems equally irrelevent.

There is no political divide in the world Peter. There is only the divide between conflicting psychological makeups. And it is at its most vociferous between those who can't recognise that there views are derived from their psychology.

Simple little test we can all pose for ourselves: How often do we look at a situation where our 'values' are involved and think of it as 'It is....', as distinct from 'I see it as....'. The mental tendency to project our personal emotional and psychological makeup onto the wider world (and other people) rather than clearly differentiating between the personal and ubjective, and the impersonal and objective is one of the fundamental mental divides between people.

When you identify as a 'conservative' are you in effect saying 'the world is...'? or are you saying 'I see the world as ...'?

'Humility should be the rule when it comes to models and forecasting of environmental trends, health damage, economic impacts, or job impacts' Yes. Humility in the broadest sense certainly should be. This includes balancing humility in making projections. But just as much there must be an equal humility when we make a de-facto projection that the status quo will apply, or that the status quo will be preferable.

It is one of the deep biases in human nature that we see the usual or familiar as being preferable or safer. And often this proves to be the case. Except when it doesn't; And this is when it matters! These are the these cases that are the most important.Because our preference for the usual and familiar is deeply seductive to us.

We actually think that choosing to do nothing has lesser moral connotations than choosing to do something! When in reality both are choices with equal moral dimensions.And our presumption of the merit of the familiar actually needs to have a basis beyond just feeling easier. We have to be able to make the case that, on the balance of probabilities, inaction is preferable to action. And our psychological biases can prejudice our judgement here.

If we wish to argue for the greater merit of maintaining the status quo, we need to do more than simply say - 'well it worked before!'. We actually need to address the question - 'the status quo worked before because of a set of circumstances in the past, a context. And this is why we think those circumstances will continue to apply into the future'.

Past answers may be preferable answers in the future if circumstances in the future match those in the past. If they don't, all bets are off. And we cannot presume that future circumstances will mmatch those from the past without confirmation. Simply presuming that the past will be replicated is a deep fallacy. It may be! It may not!

'Markets are better than mandates.' Sorry Peter but what a simplistic Black & White idea! What sort of markets? What sort of mandate, for whom, where, when, how?

Let me put a different idea.

The best outcomes in life come from Cherry Farmers! They 'cherry-pick' ideas from here, ideas from there. A bit of this, a bit of that. A bit of Right-wing, a bit of Left-Wing, some hard-nosed economics, some warm touchy-feely. Equal measures of Philsophy, Politics, Physics and my local football club. Add in some champagne, beer, and raspberry cordial. Fine Bordeaux and Vin Ordinaire.

The absolute best way of producing the best results for as many people as possible is to abandon all 1-dimensional thinking like Politics, Philopsophy etc., Start with a serious measure of understanding of cause and effect - how things work. Physics, Enigeering Geology etc. But just as much Psychology, Neuroanatomy and Neuro-plasticity. Including the application of all those to the mind's of geologists (you) and engineers (me) and all our predispositions to narrow, channeled thinking.

Then... apply these things even more so to the basic question. What works? What gets the result? If we are fed, clothed and housed and life is meaningful, who really gives a rats-arse about the other complexities of our ape-men's lives. If I am fed, next job is to make sure someone else is.

And the only think I know with absolute certainty... Ideologies, Political systems, Philosophies... they all get in the way!

All we really need is Physics (exploring how the Universe around us really works so we can fit ourselves into its rules), Psychology (exploring how this lump of meat between our ears REALLY works, not just what we like to imagine it does, so we don't trip ourselves up on the Physics stuff). Then a recognition that everything else, EVERYTHING ELSE, is just irrelevent and distracting noise in comparison.

Peter Lang: wrong on all counts. Point by point:

* Wealthier is healthier and cleaner. No. Historically the great advances in the public health of the industrialised world have come about from the state providing clean drinking water and sewage disposal services. The income tax that allowed the state to provide these services derived from everyone's pockets. Wealth, improperly distributed, provides no social benefit at all. Moreover, differences of income within countries distribute health unevenly. So the issue is far more nuanced than you depict.

* "Societies that foster “freedom, opportunity, and enterprise” enrich themselves more quickly, and empower people to express their diverse values effectively, including environmental values."

No. Societies with a vigorous democracy and a state sufficiently empowered to act as a primary mechanism of redistribution enrich themselves more rapidly. In the industrialised world public education systems generated working classes capable of driving industry; public health systems took the strain off individuals allowing them to sustain employment. Freedom, opportunity and enterprise can only exist within a framework state support for civil society and its legal institutions. If you want an example of freedom, opportunity and enterprise without the state then take a long hard look at the free market in Somalia.

* Non intervention in "complex economic systems" ... like the ones that caused the GFC? It was non-intervention that allowed for the criminal free for all that still has the world's productive economies in total disarray.

* Your advocacy of humility for others is a breathtaking example of hubris and undeserving of consideration.

* Markets are better than mandates. For what? Establishing the general principles of social and economic life, presumably. This is the crudest abdication of human social responsibility. The market will fix all ... but only for those with the cash to enter the market and the devil take the hindmost.

You are not a conservative or even the shoelace of one. You are an anti-state free market libertarian schooled in "talking points" without the intellectual capital to back 'em up.