You said: "All of the people who believed that they could help to save the planet by not having babies lived their life span and died. The rest of the world's population went ahead and had babies. As the genetic (and cultural) lines of those believers in birth control perished, the human population grew even faster. Mike Marsh"
Some of those childless people lived their life span - contributed profoundly to the community through teaching, volunteerism, sharing their knowledge and passion - then died. Producing children is not the only contribution people make to the world (and for some, not producing children is a wonderful contribution to make to the world). It is wonderful if people who care about the natural world are able to pass those values onto their children. I have seen successes - but also failures because pressing values onto children, especially strongly held values, isn't well received by independent minds. Have children because it's a wonderful, rewarding experience. But rationalizing that it is necessary to pass on your values to them (so they can save the world?) is faulty logic. We have a population and resource use problem. Fewer people using fewer resources will help solve the problem. We could do greater good by devoting the time and resources spent parenting into teaching, sharing our passion with others, volunteering for community groups, conducting ecological research, restoring habitats, spending time with nieces and nephews, etc... I believe human behaviour is strongly influenced by genes, however, the decision to not have children is an intellectual and value-based choice that can be quite distinct from our genetic (and cultural) heritage. It is a difficult decision to be childless as social pressure is strong, but obviously those who do so have made a decision distinct from the values of their parents! Many of us came of our passion independent of our upbringing - through teachers, experiences, and intrinsic values. It can and will happen again. Emily Gonzales At 09:04 AM 11/28/2007, Mike Marsh wrote: >All of the people who believed that they could help to save the >planet by not having babies lived their life span and died. The rest >of the world's population went ahead and had babies. As the genetic >(and cultural) lines of those believers in birth control perished, >the human population grew even faster. > >Mike Marsh >--------- >Matheus Carvalho wrote: > >... to reduce her CO2 footprint. > >http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=495495&in_page_id=1879 Emily Gonzales, Ph.D. Candidate Centre for Applied Conservation Research 3041-2424 Main Mall, Forest Sciences University of British Columbia Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4 604-822-1256 (office)
