choose the future!
Dear Anna,
I am concerned about aspects of the SEQ Regional Plan 2009-31.
You have made claims in the media that the essence of this plan is to manage growth; growth that you claim is both unavoidable and an ‘opportunity’.
Growth cannot truly be managed; you can slow it down, you can hide it in tall buildings, under the ground or over the hill and label the process management, but as long as there is growth the end result will be the same. No matter how much land and environment is turned over to development, growth will always require more. As there is only a finite amount of land we must eventually run out. Any rate of growth will eventually arrive at the same result: population at collapse level; only “when” can be changed.
Eventually the world’s human population will reach a limit, the only aspect of this we control is how that limit occurs: will it be because we have limited it ourselves, or will it be because nature has done it for us using the usual methods that it uses for all species that outgrow their environment: famine, drought, disease, and fighting? Do we wait until we are all struggling with starvation and thirst and the fighting that must occur over these critical resources, or do we start to design and plan our end to growth now, while we still have control of our lives and a little room left to move?
The only thing that you can hope to achieve by deceiving yourself that you are managing growth is to delay this crash and make it much bigger when it happens.
You make the claim that a population cap is a distraction. A population cap is not a distraction, as the world’s human population must eventually reach a limit. To claim that population can continuously increase on a planet of a finite size is irrational, and I’m sure that you don’t really believe this.
Population growth is an issue that is growing in importance and recognition in the world. The consequences of population growth are becoming more and more apparent because of the effects it has on us and our society; it underlies many of the problems that we experience in life, including virtually any environmental issue including climate change; spiralling house prices, and failing and insufficient infrastructure.
These augments lead me to request that you remove from the SEQ Regional Plan 2009-31 the mandatory requirements for local government to facilitate the construction of a minimum number of additional dwellings.
While the causes of population growth (too many babies by people taking advantage of the baby bonus, and immigration) are controlled by the federal government, your response to population growth must not be to simply accommodate the increasing numbers. Therefore I also request that you demand that the Federal Government control these causes and not impose this growth on us, so that the population of Australia can stabilise and then reduce to a genuine sustainable level.
Best Regards,