Sustainable Population Australia
World Environment Day: Token Gesture Amid Growth
In response to the approval of the Northwest Shelf gas extension, Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) argues that World Environment Day (WED), which falls on June 5th, is tokenistic unless the environmental movement addresses the cause of our environmental issues, rather than the symptoms.
SPA Spokesperson Michael Bayliss says that while the theme of the 2025 WED, ‘Beat Plastic Pollution’ is a noble goal, “unfortunately, changes in consumer behaviour are offset by the fact that the global population is growing by 70 million per year.”
“The Northwest Shelf is already Australia’s third-highest emitting facility in the country, producing about 6 million tonnes each year. This is the first step towards a Burrup hub that has potential to emit more carbon than 12 coal-fired power plants.”
“Meanwhile proposed bauxite mining in WA could have a disastrous impact on Perth’s drinking water” says Mr Bayliss. “One of the solutions proposed by WA’s state government is to supply citizens with bottled drinking water.
“How are we going to make any progress on saving plastic when a fast growing metropolis of two million people may have to resort to bottled water, due to expanding mining operations?”
SPA National President, Peter Strachan, says that the environmental movement will continue to fail in its mission unless there is more active recognition with limits to growth.
“A population that’s growing at 2% per year will double in size in 35 years. The same is true for economic growth. Politicians tell us we must perpetuate economic growth but this simply isn’t sustainable.
“Too many in the environmental movement believe that individual efforts to reduce waste will make a difference” says Mr Strachan. “However, any efforts in Australia to reduce individual footprint deliver very little long-term difference while the nation adds population equivalent to a capacity crowd at the MCG every two months.
“After years of efforts to ration household garden water use, we are still facing chronic water shortages, all due to population growth.”
Mr Strachan says that one justification from the Federal Government in extending operation of the North West Shelf is in building the resource capacity to upscale production of renewable energy generation. “Regardless of how true this is, this goes to show that the production of renewable energy is still resource intensive. This is particularly true in a growth based society. There is no such thing as ‘green growth’.
“If a population does not stop growing, there will never be an end in demand for the earth’s finite resources. There will be no place on earth that won’t be on the cards for extraction. Only by stabilising our population will we make any progress for future World Environment Days”.
https://population.org.au/media-releases/wed2025/