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.
Amazing how totalitarians can look you in the face and pretend that that coercion is tantamount to "choice."
And if not, well, Allah fubar.
Some of these folks truly need to be in an adjoing cell from Jack and the Chief.
What a perfect opportunity!! If we can convince these alarmists that it their DUTY to commit suicide in order to save the planet, we can get rid of a bunch of liberals at the same time.
Thorny TECHNICAL issues? LMAO!!!
No, these are political issues. Or financial. That is, they want us to pay. The us as in the U.S.
Actually, the total fertility rate in Russia (births per woman) is 1.28, one of the lowest peacetime fertility rates ever recorded for the human race. They've already flushed and they're circling the bowl. And with the median age (Russian female) being 41, it's not likely to get any better. They're gone.
Legalized abortion was first pushed to limit the birth of black babies, negroes as they were called then. Now, they want to control the birth of white males. Maybe they should enact the one child to a family law, like the Chinese, only abort the the white male children.
I actually saw a lecture that was being offered at one of the universities that was entitled, "Should lesbians consider cloning?"
Not on abortions - on abstinence, etc.
Bush just appointed a VERY prolife md, who believes in abstinence and natural family planning, as head of the federal family planning agency
Wow! I didn't realize it was that low.
The pollution that nation causes makes up for their lack of people.
Does the word Chernobyl ring a bell?
"unequivocal" has never been a scientific argument.
I don't like "illegality" --- in fact, I detest it --- but I do like immigration: specifically, of people who look at America, like what they see, want to work hard, obey our laws, respect our culture, worship God, live right, pay their own way, and raise and educate their kids to do the same.
Socialist countries have the worst pollution in the world.
EVERYBODY - READ "America Alone" by Mark Steyn
He talks a lot about population growth .. and how Islam is not on the abortion bandwagon .. and they are having dozens of children. Europe on the otherhand is not even replenishing itself .. thus allowing Islam to overtake them by sheer population increase.
AMERICA ALONE is still producing more westerners .. and therefore will not suffer the same fate as Europe.
However, the fewer children America produces .. the more leverage Islam will have in America.
READ MARK'S BOOK - IT WILL SCARE YOU!!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1586697/posts
Pakistani Nurse Raped for Refusing to Perform Abortions
post 22:
Sources: NVSS, NCHS, CDC; WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA <-- This is the program listed in the Pakistani Nurse article
UNFPA = The United Nations Population Fund
Impact of Racial/Ethnic Classification Changes on
Healthy People 2010
I do like the sounds of this though:
"II. Consistent with our founding document – the Declaration of Independence, we will seek to re-center America on the Creator from Whom all our liberties come. We will insist on a judiciary that understands the centrality of God in American history and reasserts the legitimacy of recognizing the Creator in public life."
As long as it means getting the Congress and Supreme Court out of affairs that are left to the states and we the people and repealing, rescinding or abolishing unconstitutional congressional acts and reversing prior court decisions that abridge, infringe or otherwise restrict our freedoms. I think the people are capable of deciding for themselves and or through their state legislatures on these issues.
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.
Like Kyoto the developing world will be exempt from controls and we can "trade" life credits with them.
Yep, old, failed, evil ideologies never seem to die, they continually arise, like vampires in a cheap Hollywierd thriller, to plague us once more...
I find you're description accurate...
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