This isn't the sort of thing society grows out of. It's the sort of thing that society grows into
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Why is the worlds greatest problem... the one least talked about?
Global warming?? carbon footprints?? recycling?? terrorism?? religions??............all big subjects yes....... but surely the ONE subject everyone should be talking about is the constantly increasing population of this planet!!
Feed 100 starving Africans this year and next year there will be 200 starving Africans to feed. For everyone recycling some rubbish there is someone new producing more rubbish .... You can reduce car and factory emissions....but there will just be more and more cars and factories. More people require more food so more land must be used to produce it... but those people all have to live somewhere so more land is needed to house them. I could go on and on....all the efforts we make are pointless without controlling the worlds population. Why do the media, the politicians, the scientists steer clear of this subject??????
Submitted on Sun, 2007-12-23 19:00
Please lead the way!
So the world's REAL problem is over-population and your solution is what? Fewer people? No problem--you first!
Misanthropy and respectable racism more like
All Peterjol is doing is regurgitating the vulgar, anti-humanist logical conclusion of contemporary environmentalist politics. It is a politics that views all human beings as nothing more than algae that needs to be removed from the pond called Earth. I agree with Iron Mike, the only thing people like Peterjol need is a solid carbon bootprint up their eco-miserable, anti-humanist backsides. No problem then
Interesting ....... just to say that an ever increasing world population is a big problem that should be talked about ......is enough to make me some kind of anti-humanitarian or that I see people as algae that should be removed from the planet. I guess it's no wonder it isn't discussed. .....actually I am very humanitarian and wish 'every' human being on this planet could live a dream life, with full stomachs and all the luxuries possible. I am getting old and so it won't be my problem anyway but having seen the population growth in england in just my one lifetime makes me wonder what kind of lifestyle people will have in a few more generations.
peterjol
I think these gentlemen simply took offense to your use of the word "controlling" in regard to population. Very authoritarian in tone. I'm sure everyone is concerned about overpopulation and carrying capacity as you describe it but it seems education and wealth lead to population stability rather than any method of "control."
'Population control' is just a terrible idea
Now let me think, what country do I know of that has a population control policy? Oh yes, I remember, China. Now let me think again, what other country do I know of that has a population control policy? Emm... none that I can think of. Ok, what government in living memory do I know of that had a population control policy - oh yes, I remember... The truth is Peterjol, you are anti-humanist - you tell me then, we have 6 billion people on Earth today, how many people would you like to see on the planet? 5.5 billion? 5 billion? 4 billion? How many Peterjol? Come now, if you think there are too many people on this Earth, how many people do you think their should be? There is a very good reason why modern Western governments do not have population control policies, it is because only authoritarian and totalitarian regimes and ideologists think it is a good way to control any given population - the problem is, the likes of you do not appear to be able to appreciate that. So Peterjol, tell us all how 'humanist' you are by giving us the amount of humans we should get rid of? Or would you not prefer to discuss such issues?
Empty rhetoric
The problem with Peterjol is it is very easy to sanctimoniously claim the moral high ground and lament the "real" problem of "controlling the world's population"....as long as you don't couple that with "policy." No...its far easier to point out the problem and then turn the finger of blame elsewhere at "those people" who refuse to talk about it--politicians, scientists, activists, etc. Pete...the reason you've caught so much flak is because your position is cowardly. You want to highlight a problem and avoid engagement by refusing to link it with policy. To do so is to quickly come to the conclusion that any policy that "controls" population growth is patently "anti-humanist" and only successful in authoritarian counties. As they say in the south, "Sorry, that dog don't hunt." [ Okay...I threw the last in to befuddle the Brits. :-) ] Development leads to the freedom to 'control'
Population growth is a serious development issue that deserves to be discussed - and Peterjol comes at it from the angle many people do. It's great that it's been raised as an issue. Being accusatory about the views of someone wanting to start a debate is probably more likely to stifle that debate than encourage constructive arguments that might help people think more clearly about the population 'problem'. There are many different strands to this dicussion that deserve mentioning - here are a few that I'm aware of: - many studies show that better education, more equality, less vulnerability (to climate change, fluctuating trade prices/costs, ill-health etc) and better access to contraception enable families/women to choose to have less children. - China's method of population control has had terrible consequences because of discrimination against girls and women - resulting in a huge number of 'missing women'. - it is inequality that means the world's resources are unable to cope with growing populations. There are enough resources - they are just not fairly distributed. - measures that tackle consumption ought to have an effect on the planet's ability to sustain its population. It would be interesting to hear other people's views on these issues.
Six billion potential solutions, not 'problems'.
That is the difference between my outlook (humanist), and Peterjol's outlook (anti-humanist). Every single man, woman and child is a potential solution to any of societies problems - people themselves are not a 'problem' per se. Peterjol's ill-judged foray into this debate betrays his outright hostility towards humanity - his words invoke the idea that there is too many humans living and eating on this planet. He provokes the idea that some people should not even be born, not for our sake, but for theirs. He is nothing but the Twenty-first-century version of Thomas Malthus, with his cataclysmic vision of population growth - who predicted that unchecked population growth would enevitably lead to the complete collapse of society as he knew it. The only difference between Peterjol's outlook and the Malthusians is the later was not prostituting his politics under the guise of environmentalism. Ok, I'll conceed that Peterjol is not a anti-humanist in the same way that we might perceive Nazis and Fascists to be - nevertheless, Peterjol's perceptions exhibit and betrays a profound sense of misanthrophy. He displays an obvious preference for non-existent humans than existent ones - does he not? For Peterjol it appears that every new-born (African) child is nothing more than a consumer of food and aid - worst still, if the baby actually lived to adult age they would be responsible for the 'crime' of emitting 9.3 tonnes of carbon per year. For Peterjol, and his misanthropic apologists, population control policies appear more like a cost-effective strategy of carbon-offsetting. The logic of such a perverse outlook is if we rid the planet of humanity then global warming would ultimately solve itself, and the Earth would live happily ever after. Such a misanthropic and environmentalist outlook is a precursor to taking away the rights of human being to procreate as we are currently seeing in the African nation of Rwanda. Indeed, a country where some 800,000 people were killed back in 1994 in the space of 4 weeks, Western environmentalists are offering surviving Rwandans a 'solution' to their 'problems' - no, not more Western financial investment - no, for environmentalists, the 'problem' with Rwanda is there are still too many Rwandans. Now I know
Well the hostile assumptions that are being made about me because of my question about world population......seems to answer my question of why people do not talk about it. I did not start the topic because I had any solutions..it just seems to me that it is very important that people start talking about it. I have no idea of how large a population the earth can carry or what would be an ideal size population or how it shold be controlled if it was.....I just know that at some point in the not really so distant future there will be too many people on this planet vying for all it's resourses and sticking our heads in the sand and leaving it to nature to sort it out doesn't seem the best way to go about it. There doesn't seem too much hope of emigrating to new worlds. another anti-humanist?
-Martin Luther King, Jr.,
You do have an 'idea', just bad ones
Peterjol argues that he hasn't got a clue as to 'how large a population the earth can carry', yet he was the one who proposed that there was a over-population 'problem' in the first place - which begs the question, where did he get the initial idea of over-population from? The answer - the environmentalist movement. The truth is, as soon as Peterjol realised his 'over-population' argument had become undefensible, he changed tack. When asked about what might be the correct carrying capacity of the earth Peterjol replys 'I have no idea', and resorts to crystal-ball gazing about what might happen 'at some point' in the future - when? Well, in the 'not really so distant future' - oh, really? So instead of dealing with our arguments against population control, Peterjol decides to throw caution to the wind and quote Martin Luther King, in the hope that no one would dare to criticise the words of such an heroic figure. Rev King was right on many subjects, but when it comes to his ideas on population control, he was a backward as... well... most environmentalists on this issue. One things for sure, you don't have to be a sophisticated follower of environmentalist politics to see cleanly through the simplistic and opportunistic arguments on population control put forward by Peterjol - the problem that real humanists have today is that Peterjol's loss of faith in the human potential, and his fatalistic vision of the future has been rejuvenated because of the strength of cultural pessimism which is all pervasive in the West these days. Peterjol is in the grip of this powerful cultural pessimism which calls into question human life itself. Peterjol is a modern day neo-Malthusian, of the pessimistic kind. I find it ironic that unwitting followers of Thomas Malthus have so little belief in humanity than the man himself. Ultimately, Peterjol seeks to corrode our ability to solve problems like poverty, starvation or war - but for those of us who are not obsessed with natural limits, we should continue to view human life as something that is special, and indeed, precious. Too many human beings? There can never be too many. Missing the point
Surely the problem is not how many people there are but what irreplaceable resources they consume and how much un-recyclable waste they produce. It turns the "why feed the poor because that results in more poor people ?" argument on it's head...And no. I'm not advocating turning the rich into foodstuffs...Too much accumulated Botox. |
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