The Anglican Church is in the headlines this week, after calling for measures to slow down Australia's population growth. The church's General Synod released a discussion paper in March saying we need to have fewer children, and reduce immigration; It also suggests the government should scrap the baby bonus, and instead support parents with better paid parental leave.
The Anglican Public Affairs Commission says if we don't make changes, we're "effectively supporting "overpopulation and ecological degradation''; even disobeying God's commands. The paper says, ''Out of care for the whole of creation, particularly the poorest of humanity and the life forms who cannot speak for themselves ... it is not responsible to stand by and remain silent. Unless we take account of the needs of future life on Earth, there is a case that we break the eighth commandment - 'Thou shall not steal'.''
I'd love to hear your opinions on this issue.
• The discussion paper makes the point that this topic has been taboo for a long time, but with our population at 22 million it's now on the political agenda... Just last month Prime Minister Kevin Rudd appointed Tony Burke as Australia's first population minister to develop a population plan.
• Like the politicians and the Anglican Synod, are you worried about overpopulation too?
• What do you think of this idea that it may be disobeying God or behaving selfishly to use up the world's resources by having as many children as we want?
• Should the government be encouraging us to have less children by scrapping the baby bonus?
• Or do you think we have the resources for a "Big Australia" as Kevin Rudd has labeled it - a large population?
• Do we just need to use resources carefully and look after our planet better, to protect our environment? Is less people really the answer?
Comments (1)
"On the topic of population levels, it seems that there are people who are of the view that overpopulation is not an issue. Some justify this from a theological perspective. They think that somehow it is not possible for humans to overpopulate because God laid out that we should populate, 'fill the earth and subdue it' (Genesis 1:28). They claim that we humans are of the uttmost importance in the scheme of things, being formed in God's image, and consider that God is ultimately in control of population anyway. This 'human-centric' way of thinking elevates the importance of human life at the expense of considering the environment that sustains all life. When considering the requirements of sustaining a healthy population, such as clean water and air, adequate food and housing, and parks for recreation, the human-centric perspective sees the natural environment as existing to be conquered, subdued and milked for all its worth. Overcrowding is seen as a challenge for town planners and developers, but not in terms of setting population limits.
Yet, the more people we have, the greater the pressure for urbanisation and the greater the degradation and destruction of 'green spaces', that are the parks, gardens and natural environments in and surrounding urban centres, the greater the demands for intensive agriculture and land clearing, for energy production - more coal power stations and carbon pollution adding to the greenhouse effect. The more urbanised a population we have, the more familiar people are to living in and around glass and concrete high-rises, in an artificial environment, detached from the magnificence and beauty of nature that God has created. Even the stars at night become obscured and are choked by the massive light pollution of large urban centres.
It is very good and timely to be discussing the issue of overpopulation at a time when Australia's population growth is the highest of all industrialised nations. Our vast geographical expanse is naively perceived by some as in need of being populated, and by others as in need of being exploited for its minerals and energy resources, but this is human-centric thinking at its worst
Posted by Paul | May 16, 2010 8:03 PM
Posted on May 16, 2010 20:03