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If we keep populating we will perish

Some believe that the greatest threat to humanity is posed by the extremes of nature – flood, fire, earthquake and storm. However, what if we are our own worst enemy – at risk of buckling under the sheer weight of our own numbers? This is not just a challenge of global proportions. The same question can be asked in relation to Australia’s population. While some wish to grow the nation to spur economic development, others fear that the national population has already exceeded the ‘carrying capacity’ of our land. Should humanity work actively to reduce its numbers, or leave nature to restore the balance?

Poll results

At each IQ² debate the audience is polled on the topic, both before and after the debate takes place. Here are the results for this debate:

	Pre-debate poll	Post-debate poll
For:	41%	63%
Undecided:	38%	11%
Against:	21%	26%

Watch the video

Speakers

For:

• Dick Smith is a businessman, entrepreneur, adventurer, philanthropist, and named one of ‘Australia’s Living Treasures', by the National Trust in 2005. He talks and travels widely all over the country, is never shy to take on difficult topics and is a passionate advocate for the environment. His latest interest lies is in initiating a debate on Australia’s addiction to population and economic growth sparked by concern for the future his grandchildren will face.
• Professor Steve Keen is Associate Professor of Economics and Finance at the University of Western Sydney. He was one of the handful of economists to warn of the impending Great Financial Crisis as early as December 2005. Keen won the Revere Award for being the economist whose work is most likely to prevent a future financial crisis. His book Debunking Economics is a classic exposition of why Neoclassical economic theory is not only wrong but more of a threat to the survival of capitalism than any number of left wing revolutionaries. Keen maintains a highly influential blog on economics (www.debtdeflation.com/blogs) which has 11,000 subscribers and 50,000 unique readers each month. He has written more than 70 academic publications on topics as diverse as financial instability, the money creation process, mathematical flaws in the conventional model of supply and demand, flaws in Marxian economics, the application of physics to economics, Islamic finance and the role of chaos and complexity theory in economics and his work has been translated into Chinese, German and Russian. Keen’s communication skills were honed in his pre-academic career which included stints as a school librarian, education officer for an NGO, conference organiser, computer programmer, journalist for the computer press and economic commentator for ABC Radio National and Radio Australia.
• Senator Larissa Waters is the first Greens Senator for Queensland having taken office in July 2011. She is an environmental lawyer who has provided advice on using the law to protect the environment. Waters was named Australian Young Environmental Lawyer for 2010 by the Law Council of Australia. In the Senate she will move amendments to federal laws to better protect the Great Barrier Reef, promote renewable energy and protect good quality agricultural land from incompatible land uses.

Against:

• Dr Tanveer Ahmed is a psychiatrist and opinion columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald. He often writes about immigration and multiculturalism. A former foreign affairs journalist for SBS, his first book The Exotic Rissole will be published in October 2011
• Fr Frank Brennan is a Jesuit priest, an adjunct fellow in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies at the ANU, Professor of Law in the Institute of Legal Studies at the Australian Catholic University and Professor of Human Rights and Social Justice at the University of Notre Dame Australia. He was the founding director of Uniya, the Australian Jesuit Social Justice Centre. In 2005 he returned to Australia from a fellowship at Boston College.
• Wayne Goss was Premier of Queensland from 1989 to 1996, having worked as a solicitor until entering politics in 1983. He is currently Chairman of Deloitte Australia, Ausenco Limited and Free TV Australia Limited. Goss is also an Ambassador for the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation. He has been awarded Honorary Doctorates of the University from the Queensland University of Technology, Griffith University and The University of Queensland.

Chair:

Geraldine Doogue AO has had an illustrious career spanning almost four decades in journalism, carving out a reputation in print, television and radio. She has written for The Australian, been a regular host and interviewer on ABC Television, a newsreader on Channel Ten and a radio broadcaster on 2UE. Doogue has received two Penguin Awards, a United Nations Media Peace Prize, a Churchill Fellowship for social and cultural reporting and an Officer in the Order of Australia for services to the community and media. She was a Director of St James Ethics Centre from 1998 to 2010. In March 2011 Doogue was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from her alma mater, the University of Western Australia.