Human reproduction expert Professor Roger Short says that the current debate over Australia’s population levels shows that demographers are too focused on one thing – growth.

“They should have learned their lesson when the Club of Rome published its classic “Limits to Growth” 38 years ago!” he says.  “We live in a finite world, with finite resources, and the human population simply cannot continue to grow for ever if we are to preserve our natural environment.” 

“Whilst over 90% of this population growth will occur in developing countries, making them even poorer, Australia, with its 22 million, and the United States, with its 307 million, have two of the highest growth rates in the developed world.  Since we also have one of the highest per capita rates of CO2 emission, we need to keep our population growth in check if we are to arrest global warming.”

"There is a renewed global interest in the problem of population growth. Currently, there are 6.8 billion people on earth, and this is expected to increase to over 9 billion by 2050, which would be unsustainable for our current lifestyles. We will have to re-think the way we feed ourselves, and drastically reduce our meat consumption for starters."  

“Australia already has one of the highest rates of mammalian extinctions in the world, so I would rather listen to wombats than to demographers!”

Professor Roger Short
Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology,  
University of Melbourne