Posted: 5 June 2013 Australia recently welcomed its 23 millionth
citizen. Of course we do not know who this person is exactly but
they are out there somewhere. The person may have been a new
born baby or possibly an immigrant who relocated to call
Australia home. The news reports generally seemed to have been
positive, or at least neutral, about our growing population
numbers, which are still rather small compared to other nations.
The same positivity was certainly not present when the global
population ticked over to seven billion in early 2012. At that
time there were renewed warnings from some quarters that earth
could no longer continue with so many humans moving in. Talk of
overpopulation is nothing new. One of the foundational works on
the subject was published in 1798 by an English Vicar named
Thomas Malthus. Malthus believed that unchecked population
growth would lead to a reduced standard of living and he
actually advocated the death of poorer members of society so
that those of a higher social statu