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LadyEllen -> Excess Population? What to do? (4/24/2007 3:14:06 AM)
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Are there now simply too many people in the world?
Human pollution of the environment is now more or less certainly contributing to epic global climate change - not just our industries, vehicles and other energy use, but the livestock we keep and even ourselves producing vast quantities of greenhouse gases.
Fresh water is becoming ever more in short supply all over the world, under the pressure of human population. Add climate change that may see a further reduction in supply in many places, and war for water may replace any war for oil.
Overcrowded living conditions are producing a miserable life for many people. The economy, whichever way it is set up, leaves a significant number worldwide and even in developed countries, well behind and living in poverty. There just isnt enough to go round, it would seem.
Everywhere that the natural world remains is under threat - flora and fauna are being destroyed to produce ever more food or income to live, for humans.
And all the time, we continue to increase in population, continue to pollute, continue to destroy and continue to produce misery and poverty for billions, whilst we remove the natural balance provided by illness and disease that might otherwise hold back the whole process.
Do we do something about it? If so, what?
There are groups like the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement www.vhemt.org which advocate us ceasing to reproduce and so reduce our numbers, although of course its likely that only the best and brightest who understand the issues and arguments who are going to subscribe to such a philosophy. This is then clearly counterproductive in that we would as a species be left with those unable to so understand, continuing the process of population expansion with no understanding and so no concern whatever for the consequences.
Genocidal rampages are out of the question. I dont believe we have it in us - most of us anyway, to behave in such a manner. There is also the question of who does the dying, as well as the killing, and on what grounds this division is discerned - purely on a subjective basis if we are to hold that all human life is equally valuable.
We also value freedom - despite that our freedom has brought us to such a juncture perhaps. We cannot prevent people attempting to mate, nor control the mating process to limit offspring to any particular couple, given that we promote individual freedom and responsibility. Even the authoritarian Chinese administration could not limit offspring to a single child per couple, so what hope would we have, especially when in our case, additional offspring often brings additional social benefit payments?
We also have to bear in mind that our western countries are in general declining in population - which is why so many immigrant workers are required. The global population growth is arising from third world and developing countries, which is most often also where the danger to the natural world, the threat to adequate fresh water supply, the most polluting industry and the most miserable living conditions are also to be found. Any solution, should we believe we have a problem, must be applied to these areas of the world it would seem, rather than to our own. Given our own demographic issues, we can of course import many migrant workers, but we cannot possibly take up the exponentially increasing excess populations of these other countries.
Do we have a problem?
What are the solutions, given we have a problem?
E
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