Posted on 07/21/2011 12:12:09 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
Our unsustainable population levels are depleting resources and denying a decent future to our descendants. We must stop the denial.
A 2009 NPR story on U.S. pregnancies reported that half — yes, half — of all U.S. pregnancies are unintended. That's a lot of unintended consumers adding to our future climate change.
And that's what the right calls the "liberal" side of the mass media. The politically conservative U.S. mass media cover unsustainable population levels even less.
That pretty much reflects the appalling state of U.S. public education today on population. The U.S. approach to population issues across all levels of government, in terms of such things as education, attacks on family planning and tax deductions for children, is an exercise in thoughtlessness. The ramifications, however, are far more insidious and brutal. Women are culturally conditioned daily to welcome the idea of having children — plural, not one or none. How to support those children economically is not discussed. The latest available statistics from the National Poverty Center at the University of Michigan tell the story: 1 in 5 American children lived in poverty in 2008; 1 in 3 if they were black or Latino.
Access to contraceptives and reproductive freedom are rights, not luxuries, that ultimately benefit all of humanity. Vote for leaders who vigorously promote those humane solutions. And demand that media start educating the public every day on the role played by the unsustainable human numbers behind environmental degradation and human calamities — and start covering the solutions. The public needs a constant message: "It's time to stop growing and become sustainable."
We can do many things to solve environmental, economic and social problems, but each is a lost cause if we cannot bring our populations down to sustainable levels.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
She sounds like a racist misanthrope.
“Our unsustainable population levels are depleting resources and denying a decent future to our descendants.”
Ahh the irony
Almost all children are unplanned, the only difference is 50 years ago people would get married then have their little accident (knowing they wanted a family, just weren’t exactly planning for it or thouht they were done having children) Today people hook up, get knocked up and live off the dole.
The same Malthusian tune for two hundred years. France listened to it and almost died in the Great War owing to a lack of soldiers.
So kill yourself. Talk as many of your friends into it as well.
Gosh darn it! She’s right!
Here’s an idea. Let’s nuke Los Angeles. Put the warhead right on the LA Times building. That will remove a few grubby human parasites.
But I thought the US had a shortage of people? Isn’t that the argument I hear about immigration? We need more people?
Plus more people = more folks to tax!
I love it when liberal worlds collide.
Strange how all these ‘overpopulationists’ have no desire to reduce their own personal impact on the planet. I’m sure that they have the cash for a Dignatis ‘clinic’. Why don’t they walk the walk? Gee...I wonder.
Imagine all the trees and power that could be saved with less of them in the world.
Leave it to those damn academic elitists....from the left.
Give it a week or two and she will be advocating that the US should be giving all women free birth control pills.....like they are advocating here in the US. =.=
Sadly America, Japan, Europe, and Russia all have negative population growth (aside from immigration) and once current citizens die off their populations will decrease dramatically.
Muslims countries are having lots of babies, as are most latins.
The only solutions were put forth by Obama’s science advisor John Holdren when he was at Berkeley.
We need birth control in the water supply.
The author should follow her mantra and kill herself already.
>>that half — yes, half — of all U.S. pregnancies are unintended. <<
They should probably tell people what causes pregnancy.
I suggest the Quarter Solution. Women should put a quarter between their knees when they are feeling aflushed. It is a 100% prophylactic against unintended pregnancy.
“Access to contraceptives and reproductive freedom are rights, not luxuries, that ultimately benefit all of humanity. “
Already is. It’s a ‘Right” don’t ya know....
She addresses population growth exclusively in the US as if cutting population growth in the US will make even a dent. Of course, I’m sure she approves of the Chinese solution and would be willing to support a one child policy here. She might even be willing to overlook babies dumped on refuse heaps because they are the wrong sex.
People from areas with a higher death rate will have higher birth rates. The population will experience a large increase when the death rate is lowered by sanitation, medical, and technological advances. Over a period of decades, the birth rate will adjust and decline. It’s called the demographic transition.
We would be much better off with the 50 million additional tax payers that Roe VS. Wade has eliminated from the Social Security tax rolls. We would not need 20 million illegal aliens to pick our lettuce and participate in street crimes if we actually required people to work instead of allowing for generational welfare recipients. Everything that the Catholic Church predicted about the future when the birth control pill became legal and available have come true. They predicted legal abortions, higher rates of STD's and out of wedlock births.
Missing barf alert.
Mary Ellen Harte is coauthor of "Cool the Earth, Save the Economy." Anne Ehrlich is a senior research scientist at Stanford University. John Harte and Paul Ehrlich contributed to this piece. All are biologists involved in the study of climate change and sustainability.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.