When will it be called madness?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Stev0 @ Nov 24 2007, 12:51 PM) [snapback]543592[/snapback]</div>

They wouldn't be so poor and they'd have enough to eat if they had two children instead of 18.

 

How about "back to a billion" as a nice concise slogan to express
the numbers you're fishing for? How many of us do there *need* to
be on this rock, anyways? We're not solely responsible for any
overhyped "miracle of life", there's plenty of it going on without
our help. In fact it's likely better off without us.
.
_H*

 

It's not women who won't have children that bother me, it's women who won't have sex that bother me :wub:

There are plenty of them out there, women who haven't had any in decades, and have no interest whatsover! Yikes!

Harry

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(amped @ Nov 24 2007, 01:50 PM) [snapback]543613[/snapback]</div>

Sounds like you're saying, "If you don't have as many children as you are physically capable of having, you're a wingnut." Personally, I LIKE this planet, thus think people should have as FEW children as possible.

 

Through all history as the standard of living rises the birthrate falls. We need to raise the standard of living of the rest of the world quickly so that people will choose to limit their numbers, before our numbers get out of hand. Otherwise we will have to start imposing birth limits, or putting expiration dates on birth certificates, lest society collapse and solve the problem another way.

Amped, imagine that tomorrow a cheap drug is invented that keeps the user physically about 20 years old forever. What would the optimum number of children become?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(richard schumacher @ Nov 24 2007, 12:16 PM) [snapback]543649[/snapback]</div>

Richard. Please look at how the I =PAT formula works. Impact = Population x Affluence x Technology

It is not a perfect formula but with rising affluence comes greater consumption. So while dropping population numbers would be a good thing, it will not help much if everyone in the world became more affluent without a cooresponding reduction in consumption in other regions. The only modifier here is technology because some technologies are cleaner than others but since those also require resources it becomes very specific and each technology must be considered independently. There are a host of other factors to consider but I would consider I PAT to be the rough controls and things like social values (e.g. empowerment of women) to be be the fine controls.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(F8L @ Nov 24 2007, 03:50 PM) [snapback]543663[/snapback]</div>

Do you think enough technology will ever be developed such that we could ever get to the impact rate of the indigenous people? I say never.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(burritos @ 2007 11 24 15:39) [snapback]543704[/snapback]</div>

Enough technology? I'm not sure I understand your question. Maybe it's my assumptions getting in the way. More and higher technology seems to be increasing society's impact, not lessening it. Given that some indigenous peoples have been here for 10,000 years in a relatively unchanged landscape, their impact would seem comparatively low.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(burritos @ Nov 24 2007, 03:39 PM) [snapback]543704[/snapback]</div>

Depends on how you look at it. Given the amount of land required to feed people on a hunter/gatherer level I would say yes. That is, if we went back to their levels of technology and tried to feed 6.6 billion people we would be in serious trouble. So it is our current level of technology that has allowed us to grow this large albeit at an unsustainable level.

Technology could have beneficial effects in lowering our impact (PVs vs coal-fired plants) yet we will never stop at a sustenance level. We will use technology to create more stuff than we need. We will use those PVs to power buildings that create rubber duckies and iPods vs simply powering a home for heat and cooking. We will continue to use technology do do more degradation faster than indigenous people could have ever dreamed of.

The


Now


So in my honest opinion, I do not think technology is going to eliminate our problems nor will is significantly lower our impact unless we completely change our outlook and lifestyles. We would need to eliminate all superfluous items and figure out how to be happy with less and base every decision on how it will affect the biotic community.

 

In poor countries where people live hand to mouth and children die from starvation adults will have more children than in wealthier countries where there is social security and lower rates of child mortality.

Why?
Children are the social security of the poor. When they are old they need children to look after and feed them. If you have few children you will be a greater burden on them in later life than if you have many, many hands make light work.
If one of your children die you need to replace that child just to survive, to ensure that survival it would be better to have 2 more children, after all another might die so one more may not be enough.
Education and fair distribution of wealth is the only answer to population growth in poor countries. After all that is the difference between them and us and we breed pretty slowly.
It is however worth remembering that at this point in time a third world child has a carbon footprint smaller than a western child's carbon toe print so a family of 10 in Somalia has less global impact than a single child or even a childless couple in a first world country.

The greenest thing a Medical practitioner in the west could to is stop treating very sick people and let them die. All those in favour?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(patsparks @ 2007 11 24 17:28) [snapback]543748[/snapback]</div>

This is understandably a pretty emotional topic. Many people are choosing this option for themselves, with 'do not resuscitate' orders. We spend a disproportionate share of health care dollars on people in their dying days. I might change my mind when the time comes, but I'm tempted to skip the multiple transplants and go with the morphine.