At 03:30 PM Tuesday 9/16/2008, Jon Louis Mann wrote: > >> I said that we can't feed the world and dispense with > >> agribusiness, but i hope we can dispense make food production more > >> productive and less destructive to habitats. we are approaching 7 > >> billion people and little sign of reaching zpg. > > > So what selection criteria do you suggest be used? And again, are > > you volunteering to be first? > >First for what; are you suggesting that it's all my fault and I >should commit suicide?
No, it's just what I ask _everybody_ who suggests that "approaching 7 billion" (or whatever the current world population happens to be) is "too many" people: where _specifically_ do you suggest that the needed reductions be made, and if you personally are not at the head of that list, how do you justify putting anyone else ahead of you? Fair enough, Ronn. As someone who has made that argument myself on this list, I will say that I had my vasectomy at the age of 20 (and it took some convincing of the doctors to pull that one off, let me tell you!). My view is that if it is true that the number of people of is exceeding the carrying capacity of the planet (and the evidence is not 100% clear at this point), the population will in fact be reduced by the usual means nature uses to correct such problems: war, disease, famine,... One of the lessons I learned in my training as an economist is that you have to make choices among the actual feasible alternatives, not the alternatives that you wish you had in some other, better world. I run into a lot of people who want some other alternatives when the issue of population comes up. I prefer to stay in the reality-based community. 1. If you want other people to have fewer children you are a racist - This is a great debating trick, but it does not pass the relevance test. Population growth rates in most developed countries are at zero or negative numbers. Restraining overall population growth will have to happen in countries that are experiencing positive growth. That is where the people are, after all. 2. Advocating population control means advocating genocide - Again, a debating trick, but it is not what the real issue is. No one I know of who is advocating a limit to population growth is suggesting gas chambers, blankets with smallpox, or mass firing squads. If the only way to reduce population is through increasing the death rate, nature will do that without any need for action on our part. I'd prefer to do it by reducing the birth rate, which strikes me as a more humane way to go about it. And as I pointed out above, I have very definitely "put my money where my mouth is" on this one. My wife and I agreed that if we wanted to have children we would adopt, but as it happened we decided against having children altogether. 3. No one needs to do anything, the demographic transition will take care of it all - This is the best counter-argument I have heard, since on one level it is pretty clear that it would work, given enough time. The question is whether we will have that time. Every time I read another article on what climate scientists are finding, the discovery seems to be that the climate is changing faster than anyone had previously predicted. It may in fact already be too late to do anything, but in any case it seems pretty clear to anyone excpet a diehard denier that the tipping point is not far off. But we cannot afford to have 7 billion people use energy at the rate that we use it in the U.S. right now, and if they cannot do that, will they grow enough economically to make the demographic transition happen? I don't think so. Of course that is manifestly unfair, since the worst of the damage came from the developed world, and the worst of the carnage to follow will undoubtedly hit the de veloping world. But as I said, I am trained to only look at feasible alternatives, not wishful thinking, and I don't see any really good outcomes short of a major effort to address both population growth and energy use right now in an attempt to stop short of catastrophe. And even then, the catastrophe may be inevitable if we have already past the point of no return. Regards, -- Kevin B. O'Brien [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid." - Dwight D. Eisenhower _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
