Ian LoweRecensioni
Autore di A Big Fix: Radical Solutions for Australia's Environmental Crisis
17 opere 116 membri 3 recensioni
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anzlitlovers | Sep 2, 2023 | The irony about this book is that there isn't really a debate about the size of the Australian population. There may be mutterings in the pub about rapid population growth in Sydney and Melbourne, but seven years after the publication of Bigger or Better? Australia still doesn't have a population policy... though this article argues that we don't need one.
My interest in this book was triggered by another book that I'm reading. I'm about half way through Tim Watts' recently published The Golden Country: Australia's Changing Identity and there's a fair bit in that about the impact on population of the Howard Government's changes to immigration policy, and how Australia has mostly fudged the question of population policy. More about that later when I've finished it, but it's been interesting to companion-read Lowe's book, even though some of it is now out of date.
Well, I remember this flurry about 'big Australia' but it's not a topic in the media at the moment. There seem to be two reasons for this: one is that the nexus between population growth and economic growth is 'settled' dogma, and the other is that it's a complex subject easily subverted into prejudice about migration. Lowe's book is useful for clarifying the issues, and it appears to me to be reasonably even-handed, but he is upfront about being a patron of Sustainable Population Australia so it's clear where his opinion lies.
The book consists of a brief history of population growth in Australia, tracing the years when it was generally accepted that Australia needed to grow its population, through to the early 1970s where there began to be world-wide concern about the earth's capacity to support an ever-increasing global population. But nothing much happened. Then there was another flurry in the 1990s but immigration and the national birth rate went on increasing under the Howard government's policies anyway.
There's a longish chapter about the economic arguments for and against, most of which suggest that we've been led up the garden path about the benefits of population growth—but what I found most interesting of all was the chapter titled 'Who's Who in the Population Debate, and What are their Agendas.' Whether it's intended to or not, this chapter goes a long way to explaining why in fact there is so little discussion about the future of our population. It's very complicated indeed.
To see the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2019/11/14/bigger-or-better-australias-population-debat...
My interest in this book was triggered by another book that I'm reading. I'm about half way through Tim Watts' recently published The Golden Country: Australia's Changing Identity and there's a fair bit in that about the impact on population of the Howard Government's changes to immigration policy, and how Australia has mostly fudged the question of population policy. More about that later when I've finished it, but it's been interesting to companion-read Lowe's book, even though some of it is now out of date.
Well, I remember this flurry about 'big Australia' but it's not a topic in the media at the moment. There seem to be two reasons for this: one is that the nexus between population growth and economic growth is 'settled' dogma, and the other is that it's a complex subject easily subverted into prejudice about migration. Lowe's book is useful for clarifying the issues, and it appears to me to be reasonably even-handed, but he is upfront about being a patron of Sustainable Population Australia so it's clear where his opinion lies.
The book consists of a brief history of population growth in Australia, tracing the years when it was generally accepted that Australia needed to grow its population, through to the early 1970s where there began to be world-wide concern about the earth's capacity to support an ever-increasing global population. But nothing much happened. Then there was another flurry in the 1990s but immigration and the national birth rate went on increasing under the Howard government's policies anyway.
There's a longish chapter about the economic arguments for and against, most of which suggest that we've been led up the garden path about the benefits of population growth—but what I found most interesting of all was the chapter titled 'Who's Who in the Population Debate, and What are their Agendas.' Whether it's intended to or not, this chapter goes a long way to explaining why in fact there is so little discussion about the future of our population. It's very complicated indeed.
To see the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2019/11/14/bigger-or-better-australias-population-debat...
Segnalato
anzlitlovers | Nov 14, 2019 | Professor Lowe gives a great summary of the current Australian environmental situation, minus the jargon and scientific references in this book. For me, someone who has been researching and trying to live more sustainably for some time, this book was somewhat lacking in substance, but as a no-nonsense introduction to the environmental issues facing Australia, and the solutions and obstacles to implementing those solutions, this book is fabulous. Short, sweet and to the point.
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Back in the late 1980s, I first encountered Ian Lowe at a conference under the aegis of polymath, public intellectual and then Science Minister Barry Jones. Lowe was Director of the (now defunct) Commission for the Future in 1988 and the conference was rich in stimulating ideas, which guided my work in policy development in all the schools I worked in. I often quoted a key take-away which was that we were educating students for jobs that didn't yet exist, and that is as true today as it was in 1988.
And even back then Lowe was alert to the prospect of environmental crisis...
For readers who've been paying attention, much of Australia on the Brink will be familiar. Most of us know what our serious problems are:
The question is, are we — individually and collectively — doing anything about them?
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2023/09/02/australia-on-the-brink-avoiding-environmenta...