I loved Hannah Grace’s fanciful letter about sprinkling young men and boys with microplastic dust to lower the sperm rate and thus control overpopulation.
I agree that population growth makes many problems worse, from the greenhouse effect to the housing crisis, not to mention environmental degradation, species loss, and traffic.
But perhaps the fairy dust is not needed. Perhaps more and more young men are seeing the huge disadvantages of marriage, offspring, and mortgage – what we might call MOM. Perhaps people want to avoid being trapped in a possible downward spiral of poverty and problems.
We could also help solve the housing crisis by cutting way down on immigration. I’m an immigrant myself, and I know how appealing it is to offer a better life to people from difficult areas, but I doubt if Australia can continue to sustain numbers like half a million a year.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
