Referring to recent to recent reports in The Australian by Peter Van Ostelen, “Emissions target cannot be met” and “leader won’t face the music”.
Need for an ETS, according to these pages based on manipulated or skewed IPCC climate data and research methods, maybe a moot point anyway, possibly the writer could more usefully focus like he has on another article “X and Y will pay for ageing population”.
But firstly, the “academic study” in ‘People & Place” from the Centre of Population & Urban Research (CPUR) I assume has lots of words and references …….. could also be accused of selective choice of research fields, and using skewed data for political or ideological ends? Maybe Mr Van Onselen’s (young) age precludes priorknowledge of Dr.Bob Birrell, Betts et al and their “form” on migration related issues?
“Population growth and Australia’s 2020 greenhouse gas emission commitments”
The Australian Government has stated an unconditional commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by five per cent on year 2000 levels by 2020. However, in the absence of new abatement measures, Treasury-led modelling indicates that Australia’s emissions will grow from 553 million tonnes in 2000 to 774 million tonnes in 2020. This article disaggregates the Treasury modelling in order to estimate the contribution of population expansion to this growth. It shows that 83 per cent of the forecast increase in greenhouse emissions to 2020 will be attributable to population growth. The article concludes that it is very unlikely that Australia will achieve the five per cent reduction target by 2020 in the absence of attention to the population growth factor.
The abstract uses the key word “attributable” (directly or indirectly?), i.e. likely to have been caused by migration, how likely? How likely for example could lack of compromise of Australia society, government and industry be seen as contributing to increased carbon emissions? Or, could we attribute concern about population and envronment to our lack of innovation, creativity and tolerance? Or even worse, we have a media and political elite in their own minds) who act like firebug memebrs of the fire brigade?
If the media paid as much attention to analysis of population data as they have climate data, they may not be spruiking high growth figures so much.
Australia’s population data measured at an absolute historical peak early 2009 due to a booming economy attracting international attention i.e. visitors and new residents, includes temporary residents (minimum 12/16 months) e.g. overseas students and 457 temporary working visa holders, in both cases numbers are decreasing at a rate of knots (the former from larger market India, 50%+ due to scare stories in media about perceived study to PR rorts leading to wider visa restrictions, and racial violence, plus visa restrictions impacts biggest markets i.e. China, while temporary working visas are down 50%), meanwhile offshore skilled independent migration processing has ceased till end of next year.
So, population growth could well be much lower by 2011, implying rates of growth vary from year to year depending upon the economic and political climate, but the property industry will not be happy. …..
Further, the CPUR appears to be selective in choosing fields of research, and actively seeking out differenceand negatives about non English speaking background (NESB) foreigners and Australians, cultural clashes, employment opportunites for Australians versus foreigners, refugees, migrants, religion (meaning Islam), population, environment etc. with “People & Place” the new “Toorak Times” with its infamous “white Australia” agenda?
“For years opponents of multiculturalism and the immigration program had been calling for a “national debate” or even a referendum. That these and related issues had regularly been aired in the media at roughly six monthly intervals does not seem to have been noticed. Part of the paranoia which grew during the 1990s centred around the proposition that governments would not listen to the people and that elites were shifting debate. The most elaborate version of this had already been developed by Katharine Betts in her study Immigration and Ideology 13. Betts emerged as a close ally of Bob Birrell who has consistently opposed mass immigration for twenty years. Together they launched the quarterly journal People and Place in 1993, which effectively carried on the very debate which was supposed to be “suppressed” by the “politically correct”. With the election of the coalition government in March 1996 and the overt attack on “political correctness” by John Howard, many got the message that the orthodoxy had changed. The tide flowed rapidly against immigration and multiculturalism. At the extreme, Pauline Hanson and those who supported her reopened once more the issue of Asian immigration which has haunted Australia for more than a century and a half now” (James Jupp, Tacking into the Wind: Immigration and Multicultural Policy in the 1990s)
One could argue that such approaches to issues of the day from the CPUR are an insult not only to their university landlord’s namsake, Sir John Monash (son of economic refugees, NESB and Jewish) , but to Australia’s self image of tolerance, optimism, adaptability, innovation and ability to find compromise and find solutions. After all we are a first world country, not a developing country with an inferiority complex?
