2 Recommended flicks: "Children of Men," starring Clive Owen. (2006) Based on a not too distant future in which humans have lost the ability to procreate, the movie starts out with the "world's baby," (youngest living human), an 18 year old, being murdered. Then the celebrity status reverts to a 20 year old girl. This movie is full of war, violence, bad stuff. A small interest group harbors a young group of girls who are rumored to be pregnant--but no one believes it, so the urban legend of a pregnant woman is cause for more mayhem. Michael Caine & Julianne Moore also star. This was nominated for 3 Oscars.
"Idiocracy," written by Mike Judge, starring Luke Wilson. (2006) This is a comedy but if you are a human ecologist like me, it will scare the pants off you. It also takes place in a future version of Earth in which only the stupid people have reproduced. All the smarty-pants scientists have died off because they thought population control would be a wise strategy for the planet. So you end up with a wrestler for a president of the U.S., monster truck rallies for courts, "watering" crops with Gatorade and what? No place for trash so it spills into people's homes. "The future is a no-brainer." Scary. Leah -----Original Message----- From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Steve Brewer Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2007 8:54 AM To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Subject: population control As an ecologist, I am certainly sensitive to the environmental consequences of unchecked population growth, and as a proud father of three, I nonetheless respect (and during moments of weakness envy) the decision of couples not to have children. I try to do what I can for the environment by limiting my personal carbon/pollution footprint (riding a bike to work, buying locally, etc.). I realize that it is the not the same as having fewer children. I wonder how many ecologists in the U.S., however, have considered that producing children is necessary to keep Social Security from collapsing. Are we comfortable with allowing a particular class to shoulder the burden of keeping this popular program solvent? Have we considered the political ramifications of a socioeconomic/cultural divide in fertility as it relates to this social safety net? It seems at least plausible that we may end up with workers paying a regressive payroll tax to support relatively affluent retirees who didn't have children, but who had good enough health care while working to outlive their working class cohorts who did have children. This seems even more likely when you consider that we're apparently in a race to the bottom to get rid of health care benefits for the working class, while at the same being unwilling to do anything about the long-term solvency of Social Security. Steve Brewer -- Department of Biology PO Box 1848 University of Mississippi University, Mississippi 38677-1848 Brewer web page - http://home.olemiss.edu/~jbrewer/ FAX - 662-915-5144 Phone - 662-915-1077
