Population

Hey guys, sorry I didn't get this together earlier, to be honest it kind of slipped my mind earlier in the week.

I'm still working on my own figure for Australia's sustainable population, but one that I've heard before is around 400,000 (I'm afraid I can't remember the source but I think that this was the estimated figure for the number of indigenous people living here before european settlement).

Obvious limits to population are water and food. While space wouldn't seem an immediate problem in Australia, I would suggest that the availability of arable land is a major factor, as much of th land in Australia is unusable to grow food with a typical European farming method.

An issue I have with this exercise is that the sustainable population limit will be dependant on the lifestyle of the population. If the population were to continue living as most Australians now do, I'm sure the figure would be very low, as it requires an enourmous energy input, but if a population were to adopt a more communal, less energy intensive way of living, there would no doubt be 'room' for more poeple.
So perhaps, while not a resource, community mindset is a integral part of how large a population can sustainably be.

I look forward to hearing what you guys think. Sorry again for the late start.