> I would be much happier if the Indians and Chinese became rich enough > to > buy those cars, they'd stop having so many children and relieve a lot > of > the stress on all the worlds systems. Rich peoples have fewer children > all other things being equal. Actually China is a strange case. Their > one child policy has caused a couple of counter intuitive but very real > problems, the Chinese have a surplus of young men, boys children being > preferred over girls in Chinese society, and demographically a > population that's ageing faster than almost any other in Asia. It will > be interesting to see what happens there if I live long enough.
that simplistic argument assumes that each individual in countries such as China, India and African countries contributes to climate change in equal measure with individuals in the West, and this is not so. The impact on the environment would be greater if people in the West stopped having children. We pollute far more per capita than do many multiples of people in the other parts of the world. In fact, the main responsibility for pollution lies with rich people, it is not a population issue, but a wealth issue. http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=2560 Population growth is a problem for all sorts of reasons, but climate change isn't one of them. B -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
