On 12/17/2013 7:32 PM, LizR wrote:
On 18 December 2013 13:00, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net <mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>>
wrote:
On 12/17/2013 3:40 PM, LizR wrote:
On 18 December 2013 12:23, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net
<mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>> wrote:
The first step has to be to stop population growth. That's pretty much
happened in all the OECD nations, except the U.S. and it would be the
case
there too except for immigration from the south. How to stop population
growth: *educate women* so they can lead meaningful lives aside from
bearing
children and provide readily available birth control; and get rid of
Catholicism, Mormonism, and any other religion preaches against birth
control.
That is exactly how to stop population growth. Wherever women are given
equal
rights the birth rate drops dramatically (if they are forced to choose
between
children and a career, it drops precipitously - the places that get the
balance
right allow you to do both).
I think it takes education too. There's a high birthrate among teenage
latina girls
in CA and I think it's just because culturally motherhood is the only adult
endeavor
that's presented to them.
"Equal rights" includes education, of course.
Those latinas have equal rights and the same access to education - but they don't take
advantage of the opportunity. I'm saying it's necessary that women be educated; not just
that they have a right to it. I think WW2 did a lot for population control in the U.S.
simply because so many women were placed in "men's" jobs during the war. My mother, born
1914, didn't want to be a farm wife and she felt her only choices were nurse and
schoolteacher. She became a teacher and started in a two-room country school when she was
19. My daughters are a physicist, an industrial safety statistician, and a water quality
monitor.
The problem with this solution is that it requires that there are other prospects
available, not just to women but to everyone. If you are a subsistence farmer it
apparently seems like a good idea to have plenty of children to help with the farm.
I don't think this is true. It's the "subsistence" part, the prospect that many of their
children may not live to adulthood, that causes them to want many children - not the
"farmer" part. It's been observed in all parts of the world that, on average, if parents
are sure their children will live to make them grandparents then they will be content with
two.
This would require at the very least that the principle of fair trade be extended to the
third world unilaterally.
I'm not sure what you mean by "fair trade". Right now a Trans-Pacific Trade Pact is being
negotitated with the objective of removing all trade barriers between the members (which
will likely include New Zealand). But the Greenies around here are fighting it because it
contains provisions that would allow corporations to sue to overturn national laws in a
special TTP court. Corporations want this provision in order to attack environmental
restrictions.
Unfortunately apart from a few greenies like myself, not everyone is willing or able to
take the hit to their income this would entail. Hence it looks like carrying this
programme out for real would involve that we do something about the whole capitalist
ethos generally. I am precising here due to lack of time but I hope the point is
taken... Ultimately you can get a sustainable world by educating women and bringing the
third world up to something like a decent standard of living. Unfortunately this would
negatively impact the lifestyles of the rich, so we're probably doomed.
I really don't think it would. In fact it would make almost everyone's lifestyle better -
IF the number of people isn't too great a load on the environment.
Brent
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