8mm
Posted on 02/19/2007 1:34:22 PM PST by Coleus
Global warming is "unequivocal," according to the just-released report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The most likely culprits are people - all of us. Yet, apart from insightful comments by former Vice President Al Gore, there has never been much public discussion about the role of human population growth in global warming. Professor Tim Dyson of the London School of Economics indicates that a 40 percent cut by 2050 in per capita carbon emissions in the developed world could be completely cancelled by global population growth. It's time to open a "second front" in the battle against global warming by stressing the need for population stabilization - sooner rather than later.
Scientists warn that temperatures will continue to rise unless we stabilize greenhouse gas levels. Global warming will be accompanied by increased sea levels resulting in massive flooding of homes and destruction of fragile wetland habitats. To slow down this process, experts estimate that global CO2 emissions must be slashed. Yet the United Nations projects that world population will rise 40 percent-- reaching 9.1 billion--by 2050. And even if we change our ways, the environmental footprint of each human being will never reach zero. As population increases, the challenge of slowing climate change becomes ever more difficult.
After all, it is people, not birds or bears, who drive Hummers and hybrids and who heat and cool homes and offices. Although the vast majority of population growth occurs in the least-developed nations, the people there, too, are using more fossil fuels every day as they seek better lives.
What can we do? We know that family planning works everywhere. When women and couples are free to make their own informed choices, they choose to have smaller families. Thirty years ago, for example, Mexican women had almost seven children each. Today, thanks to education and the availability of family planning, they have an average of 2.4 children. Globally, at least 350 million couples lack family planning services. Here in the United States, one-third of all births are unplanned. And the Bush Administration's family planning failures, from its Global Gag Rule to ideologically driven abstinence-only programs, contribute directly to millions of unwanted and unplanned births.
If we could cut in half the number of unwanted births in the United States alone, we'd have about 5 million fewer births over 20 years. Family planning makes sense for people – and for our fragile planet. It's vital to focus on thorny technical issues such as tax credits, energy alternatives and emissions trading programs. These efforts are especially important here in the United States, where less than five percent of the world's population produces about one quarter of the world's carbon dioxide emissions. But cutting energy consumption must be coupled with stabilizing population. More people use more energy. If we had zero population growth, part of the global warming problem would, well, melt away. Global warming is too big a problem to be solved by energy experts alone. It's about people. It's about how many of us there are and how we choose to live our modern lives.
We can start by supporting the notion that every woman and every couple should have the resources and power to control their own reproductive lives. If every child is planned, we'll go a long way toward solving global warming and making a less-crowded and healthier world. John Seager is national president of Population Connection (formerly Zero Population Growth), the national grassroots population organization, based in Washington.
This was Dickens giving Thomas Malthus a well-deserved jab (they were contemporaries, or near contemporaries, as I recall). This attitude, once known as "Malthusianism" has been around since at least the early Victorian era, and quite likely before...
the infowarrior
I like very much what Duncan Hunter has proposed:
1. Right to Life Amendment:I see his proposals as directly answering your challenge:
I would amend the U.S. Constitution and provide blanket protection to all unborn children from the moment of conception by prohibiting any state or federal law that denies the personhood of the unborn.Likewise, I have also introduced the Right to Life Act, which would legally define “personhood” as the moment of conception and, therefore, guarantee all constitutional rights and protections, including life, to the unborn without utilizing a constitutional amendment.
And of course this rollback of unconstitutional acts and bad court decisions should apply to our state governments as well where they have infringed on our rights and freedoms or otherwise overstepped their bounds.
Your statement is more correct than you think.
"Russia's position in the world differs from that of the United States and Western Europe. United Nations projections show its population declining from about 150 million in 1989, when communism collapsed, to about 90 million at mid-century, and the median age will rise from 25 to 50 years."
"Russian women have 13 abortions for every 10 live births, and life expectancy has fallen to 65 years from 70 years in 1985. But Russia's Muslim majorities continue to grow and will exceed the non-Muslim European population in as little as three to four decades. "
From Asia Times Online
Population "stabilization" usually requires death camps and pogroms.
Look for a Stalinist-style purge of about 1-2 billion people in the next 10-20 years.
Look for it to be orchestrated by the Hillary Clinton administration or her heirs.
They want to limit what you drive, what you eat....and now how many children you have? All for the sake of fighting global warming? Boy this is starting to go from loony to downright scary. And to think a lot of these same people complain about all the freedoms they believe they've lost under Bush??
Back to the 70's.
These people never give up.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Give these bastards an inch and they'll run you into the ground!
I couldn't read past this idiotic statement.
WOW!
Oh well, at least they won't be complaining about overcrowding in Russia's future.
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