Population – the great multiplier - In Search of Sustainability - page 163

sharing energy more equitably. These efforts, however, must go with stabilis-
ing and even reducing population numbers until we are back within the car-
rying capacity of the Earth.
Australia was a signatory to the Plan of Action arising out of the United
Nations International Conference on Population and Development 1994.
We are obliged to contribute generously to family planning activities in
developing countries and to other programs that help bring down the birth-
rate, notably education for girls and primary health care. Australia's contri-
bution, however, has fallen far short of its promises. Overseas aid is still way
below the UN-recommended 0.7 per cent of GDP, and the family planning
program within that is even more inadequate.
Australia faces a number of ethical dilemmas with respect to population.
It has an obligation to keep its population low for the sake of preserving
natural habitat for future generations. Yet by contributing to global warming
through excess greenhouse gas emissions, it should take in at least some of
those displaced by rising sea levels. To what extent it should take in large
numbers of economic refugees from countries who have failed to curb their
own numbers, however, is a matter for further public debate.
References
Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). (2004). Australian Demographic Statistics, March
2004. Publication no. 3101.0
Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). (2003). Environment by Numbers - Selected Articles
on Australia's Environment. ABS Catalogue no. 4617.0. Commonwealth of Australia.
Australian State of the Environment Committee (SoE). (2001). Australia State of the
Environment 2001 . Independent Report to the Commonwealth Minister for the
Environment and Heritage. CSIRO Publishing on behalf of the Department of the
Environment and Heritage, Canberra.
Birrell, B. & Healy, E. (2003). Migration and the housing affordability crisis. People and
Place. Vol 11. No. 3. Centre for Population and Urban Research, Monash University,
Melbourne.
Brown, L., Gardner, G. & Halweil, B. (eds) (1999). Infectious disease. In Beyond Malthus:
Nineteen Dimensions of the Population Challenge . pp. 57-60. WW Norton, New York.
Ehrlich, P. & Holdren, J. (1974). Impact of population growth. Science 171: 1212-17.
Flannery, T. (2001). The Eternal Frontier: An Ecological History of North America and its
Peoples . Atlantic Monthly Press, New York.
Homer-Dixon, T.F (1999). Environment, Scarcity and Violence. Princeton University
Press, Princeton and Oxford.
IPC. (2004). <http://www.census.gov/cgi-bi/ipc/population>
Kaplan, R.D. (1994). The coming anarch y . The Atlantic Monthly 273(2): 44-76.