Aha! The real inconvenient truth - Not climate change; Population control?
Javimendo
2009/12/10 21:08:44
The whole world needs to adopt China's one-child policy.
The "inconvenient truth" overhanging the UN's Copenhagen conference is not that the climate is warming or cooling, but that humans are overpopulating the world.
A planetary law, such as China's one-child policy, is the only way to reverse the disastrous global birthrate currently, which is one million births every four days.
The world's other species, vegetation, resources, oceans, arable land, water supplies and atmosphere are being destroyed and pushed out of existence as a result of humanity's soaring reproduction rate.
Ironically, China, despite its dirty coal plants, is the world's leader in terms of fashioning policy to combat environmental degradation, thanks to its one-child-only edict.
The intelligence behind this is the following:
-If only one child per female was born as of now, the world's population would drop from its current 6.5 billion to 5.5 billion by 2050, according to a study done for scientific academy Vienna Institute of Demography.
-By 2075, there would be 3.43 billion humans on the planet. This would have immediate positive effects on the world's forests, other species, the oceans, atmospheric quality and living standards.
-Doing nothing, by contrast, will result in an unsustainable population of nine billion by 2050.
Humans are the only rational animals but have yet to prove it. Medical and other scientific advances have benefited by delivering lower infant mortality rates as well as longevity. Both are welcome, but humankind has not yet recalibrated its behavior to account for the fact that the world can only accommodate so many people, especially if billions get indoor plumbing and cars.
The fix is simple. It's dramatic. And yet the world's leaders don't even have this on their agenda in Copenhagen. Instead there will be photo ops, posturing, optics, blah-blah-blah about climate science and climate fraud, announcements of giant wind farms, then cap-and-trade subsidies.
None will work unless a China one-child policy is imposed. Unfortunately, there are powerful opponents. Leaders of the world's big fundamentalist religions preach in favor of procreation and fiercely oppose birth control. And most political leaders in emerging economies perpetuate a disastrous Catch-22: Many children (i. e. sons) stave off hardship in the absence of a social safety net or economic development, which, in turn, prevents protections or development.
China has proven that birth restriction is smart policy. Its middle class grows, all its citizens have housing, health care, education and food, and the one out of five human beings who live there are not overpopulating the planet.
For those who balk at the notion that governments should control family sizes, just wait until the growing human population turns twice as much pastureland into desert as is now the case, or when the Amazon is gone, the elephants disappear for good and wars erupt over water, scarce resources and spatial needs.
The point is that Copenhagen's talking points are beside the point.
The only fix is if all countries drastically reduce their populations, clean up their messes and impose mandatory conservation measures.
dfrancis@nationalpost.com
http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=2314438
The "inconvenient truth" overhanging the UN's Copenhagen conference is not that the climate is warming or cooling, but that humans are overpopulating the world.
A planetary law, such as China's one-child policy, is the only way to reverse the disastrous global birthrate currently, which is one million births every four days.
The world's other species, vegetation, resources, oceans, arable land, water supplies and atmosphere are being destroyed and pushed out of existence as a result of humanity's soaring reproduction rate.
Ironically, China, despite its dirty coal plants, is the world's leader in terms of fashioning policy to combat environmental degradation, thanks to its one-child-only edict.
The intelligence behind this is the following:
-If only one child per female was born as of now, the world's population would drop from its current 6.5 billion to 5.5 billion by 2050, according to a study done for scientific academy Vienna Institute of Demography.
-By 2075, there would be 3.43 billion humans on the planet. This would have immediate positive effects on the world's forests, other species, the oceans, atmospheric quality and living standards.
-Doing nothing, by contrast, will result in an unsustainable population of nine billion by 2050.
Humans are the only rational animals but have yet to prove it. Medical and other scientific advances have benefited by delivering lower infant mortality rates as well as longevity. Both are welcome, but humankind has not yet recalibrated its behavior to account for the fact that the world can only accommodate so many people, especially if billions get indoor plumbing and cars.
The fix is simple. It's dramatic. And yet the world's leaders don't even have this on their agenda in Copenhagen. Instead there will be photo ops, posturing, optics, blah-blah-blah about climate science and climate fraud, announcements of giant wind farms, then cap-and-trade subsidies.
None will work unless a China one-child policy is imposed. Unfortunately, there are powerful opponents. Leaders of the world's big fundamentalist religions preach in favor of procreation and fiercely oppose birth control. And most political leaders in emerging economies perpetuate a disastrous Catch-22: Many children (i. e. sons) stave off hardship in the absence of a social safety net or economic development, which, in turn, prevents protections or development.
China has proven that birth restriction is smart policy. Its middle class grows, all its citizens have housing, health care, education and food, and the one out of five human beings who live there are not overpopulating the planet.
For those who balk at the notion that governments should control family sizes, just wait until the growing human population turns twice as much pastureland into desert as is now the case, or when the Amazon is gone, the elephants disappear for good and wars erupt over water, scarce resources and spatial needs.
The point is that Copenhagen's talking points are beside the point.
The only fix is if all countries drastically reduce their populations, clean up their messes and impose mandatory conservation measures.
dfrancis@nationalpost.com
http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=2314438
Read More: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-12/10/cont...
Top Opinion
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Lucy formerly of Finchley 2009/12/10 21:15:17
Global cooling
http://www.sodahead.com/unite...
CO2 is a trailing indicator of temperature
http://www.sodahead.com/unite...
So-called Global Warming "scientists"
http://www.sodahead.com/unite...
The 'climate change' hockey stick lie
http://www.sodahead.com/techn...
Russian scientists bombshell about Climategate
http://www.sodahead.com/other...
"i" forgot to mention that alot of the people who tell you to have as many children as possible regardless of the consequences are often controlled by the romans, yes the romans it is a roman idea that lives on in some leftovers from the roman times & is not suited to a finite world
Nonetheless, the problem needs to be solved. Unfortunately people don't understand the severity of the consequences if human population is allowed to keep growing! It will lead to war, disease and famine! It has been said that Nature will find a solution to overpopulation and it will not be pretty.
China proved that laws can't reduce fertility. That can only be accomplished by empowering women and reducing (yes, reducing!) child mortality. When women see child mortality approaching zero, they plan smaller families. If they are empowered to control their fertility, then they will get the small family size they want. It is well known that more than half of all pregnancies are unwanted. Eliminating just these will immediately stop population growth. There is no need for draconian laws, forced sterilization and the like. Population can be controlled by informed consent.
The easiest means of fertility control that I know of is to develop a contraceptive vaccine. This would be easy and cheap to administer, non-perm...
Nonetheless, the problem needs to be solved. Unfortunately people don't understand the severity of the consequences if human population is allowed to keep growing! It will lead to war, disease and famine! It has been said that Nature will find a solution to overpopulation and it will not be pretty.
China proved that laws can't reduce fertility. That can only be accomplished by empowering women and reducing (yes, reducing!) child mortality. When women see child mortality approaching zero, they plan smaller families. If they are empowered to control their fertility, then they will get the small family size they want. It is well known that more than half of all pregnancies are unwanted. Eliminating just these will immediately stop population growth. There is no need for draconian laws, forced sterilization and the like. Population can be controlled by informed consent.
The easiest means of fertility control that I know of is to develop a contraceptive vaccine. This would be easy and cheap to administer, non-permanent and reversible. Best of all it would require no action, and would work in either sex. Science is well ont he way towards a safe and effictive immuno-contraceptive.
You are right to bring the population problem to light, but if you see the only solution as a draconian one, you may as well shoot yourself in the foot.
Voila. The excess population will die out by itself from the lack of resources, no need for population control.
I am being heartless of course, but that's how humankind existed for 100,000s of years. That's how evolution works: SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST.
Are you against evolution?
I still hold out hope for some pre-emptive action on the part of educated countries to stem the tide. I previously mentioned the contraceptive vaccine as one possible option. The problem with your idea of walling ourselves off from the rest of the world is.... it won't work. If you stop helping people where they are, they will come here.
You see, simple dialectics (or Eastern philosophy):
There can be no rich without poor. There can be no hot without cold.
One thing that hasn't been mentioned below (or I missed it if it was) - cut out the federal tax breaks for having children - in fact, since having one or more children would imply that you are expected to use the schools, libraries, etc. MORE, -- your taxes should go UP with each child! That probably wouldn't have any effect either but, I just think it is stupid to PAY people to have more kids...
"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."
Since there has been no change in the real price of the food staples that my family and I eat I see no reason to worry about it and plan to continue having children.
Lastly I think it's great that you want more children. From my own view as long as you can afford to raise them and you have a real love of your children, all is well. I support parents that care for their children. We have no disagreement there.
There's tons of papers on this. The ecological footprint is the amount of land required to sustain a population. Since hte size of the Earth is fixed, the sustainable population is a fixed number. But it depends on how efficient we are.
I don't need to rely on estimations - I can use the free market to tell me if things are scarce or not. I can see that the prices of rice, flour, sugar, and other staples are not increasing. Accordingly, I know that they are plentiful.
Additionally, as you know, the earth is more than 70% water. Future technological advances could make some or all of this area available for crop production.
http://scholar.google.com/sch...
So it comes from a book written by Wackernagel... so I went looking for book reviews (since I haven't read the book) well what I did find was a Wikipedia article that says, "For 2005, humanity's total ecological footprint was estimated at 1.3 planet Earths..." So based on that reasoning humanity should already be starving to death. Since we can already consume 1.3 earths, what makes us think that we couldn't consume 2 earths' worth of resources of 3 without serious problems?
What is this concept and how does it work? I read... "Ecological footprint analysis compares human demand on nature with the biosphere's ability to regenerate resources and provide services. It does this by assessing the biologically productive land and marine area required to produce the resources a population consumes and absorb the corresponding waste, using prevailing technology." That's the key, isn't it - USING PREVAILING TECHNOLOGY. That means that there's nothing in the concept to cover the idea that technological improvements can't make all the calculations worthless. Per...
So it comes from a book written by Wackernagel... so I went looking for book reviews (since I haven't read the book) well what I did find was a Wikipedia article that says, "For 2005, humanity's total ecological footprint was estimated at 1.3 planet Earths..." So based on that reasoning humanity should already be starving to death. Since we can already consume 1.3 earths, what makes us think that we couldn't consume 2 earths' worth of resources of 3 without serious problems?
What is this concept and how does it work? I read... "Ecological footprint analysis compares human demand on nature with the biosphere's ability to regenerate resources and provide services. It does this by assessing the biologically productive land and marine area required to produce the resources a population consumes and absorb the corresponding waste, using prevailing technology." That's the key, isn't it - USING PREVAILING TECHNOLOGY. That means that there's nothing in the concept to cover the idea that technological improvements can't make all the calculations worthless. Perhaps we're using up oil resources like they're going out of style and in 10 years' time we'll be using nuclear reactors.
These same calculations were done with copper back a few decades ago. Ehrlich predicted that humans would run out of copper and be unable to have phones because we wouldn't be able to afford to wire the houses. Nowadays most phones are fiber optics and copper isn't required. Oops ... slight miscalculation, eh? You can read all about it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Also mentioned in the above article is this key: "world population is no longer growing exponentially; it has been decelerating for the last half century or so, and UN projections show that it may actually decline after 2040."
In conclusion:
1. The idea that the earth can only sustain 9 billion individuals and the associated calculations is only valid for right NOW. Technological improvements will make it possible for the earth to sustain more people than 9 billion in the future.
2. I've looked at the book and taken guesses based on the table of contents as to what part of the book might contain the 9 billion number you referenced, but I have not been able to guess right. Could you tell me which page has that figure?
3. Every indication is that the world is responding rationally to the real situation in that places where individuals consume a lot (the USA) the birth rate is falling. So what's the problem?
4. I must take the book very skeptically based on the following quote from the "Wisdom of Markets" (Dr. Footnote section):
"When nature's goods and services are underpriced, they become overused and abused..." and he proposes depletion taxes(!) as the magic solution.
How is it possible for a market price to be an underprice? You and I both know that no businessman will sell an item for $20 if he can get $25 for it. He offers nothing to support this idea. I suggest he merely read "Economics in One Lession" by Henry Hazlitt and rewrite the book.
Yes, it is possible to have a total footprint greater than the size of the planet, for the same reason it is possible to spend more than you earn. But you can't go on doing that forever. Eventually the savings is used up. Our ecological "savings" are the forests and oceans. They regenerate themselves like a bank account earns interest, but if we spend them down (say, by overfishing) they regenerate themselves more slowly.
In short, 1.3 Earths means we are spending down our ecological bank account. I hope that makes sense.
For the metals, even once they're used and we get tired of them and throw them away we can still dig them out of a landfill later and reuse them because metals don't ever get used up.
Oil is different because there's just a finite amount of it, but the formula and concept is that we will always need and be using oil, which isn't true.
The ecological footprint is like having someone come to a construction site where they are building a new house and screaming, "Are you crazy?! This type of construction is unsustainable! If you continue at this rate, you'll use up all the land and have to expand into your neighbor's yard, too!"
No, they're going to build to the edge of the property and then they're going to stop. Classifying that as unsustainable would be like classifying solar energy as unsustainable since eventually the sun will use up all of its fuel.
Not to mention that a lot of the food consumed is inefficient - such as eating beef. More food could be produced by converting the pastureland into something that grows food staples.
Food production could be increased by a lot right now just by using additional (and more expensive) adjuvants and fertilizers.
The price of rice, wheat, sugar, corn, and other staples are the same today as they were 2-3 years ago (measured in Peruvian currency... not in the dollar, because it's not a stable currency). Accordingly, I don't see how you can conclude there is a food shortage or a risk of people dying of starvation.
I swear these damn liberals think they OWN the fuggin planet!