Population : size doesn't matter

For those of us who feel that Australia is at a crossroad on issues around sustainability the debates related to this topic have been more than a little disappointing – and I am not just talking about the election cycle. The issue of sustainability, carrying capacity and population numbers have all been meshed together to give us a linear equation: less people = more sustainability. It is a simple equation that then takes us to discussions about numbers: should we have 180,000 migrants or 220,000 migrants? Is a 2.2 percent rise in population sustainable? Fascinated by these numbers I thought I would try and come up with my own equation to work out the right number of people who should be living in Australia.