Family Planning & Climate Change

Most of the worlds problems, global warming, declining resources etc, are the result of too many people. The world now has at least 5 or 6 times more people than it can comfortably support and 100s of times more people than it can support like we in the US expect to be supported. But any suggestion to do anything about it will be met with cries about communist China and Hitler. The various religious and ethnic tribes see it as their responsibility to out reproduce the other tribes. That's really what all the taboos on contraception, abortion and homosexuality are all about. So nothing can or will be done about it but it will eventually take care of itself - it always has and always will and it won't be a lot of fun.

Hi Ron -- I definitely agree with your premise that suggestions to curb overpopulation will be met with fear of genocide or one-child policies. The reason that's entirely untrue and unfounded as a fear is in the evidence: if we look at every country where women are given all the tools necessary to control their own reproduction, we find that they do, and to a remarkable extent. There needs be no pressure at all to have babies or to not have babies; no coersion at all. If you educate women on their reproductive choices, if you give them as much access to contraception as they want (and access also includes affordability, of course), allow cheap and safe abortions, and put women in a culture where their value is not tied inextricably to their ability to please their husbands and produce children -- if we were to do these things, we wouldn't have a growing population.

i'm all for smarter family planning, as long as it doesn't veer into euthaniser or human-extinction territory-- because those kinds of folks are out there, and quite frankly, they scare me.

and let's not lop the head off of industrial society while we're at it, as the neo-primitivists long for; agricultural societies tend to have many more offspring per family than wealthier cultures.

"because those kinds of folks are out there, and quite frankly, they scare me"

Agreed, entirely. That's why the family planning advocates focus so strongly on the idea of "choice" and general reproductive justice. Forcing abortion, sterilizations, contraception, etc, is just as awful and amoral policy as leaving women without any access to these things.

Fertility already has been substantially reduced since the 1960s. It's not only the currently developed world but many other nations as well that will suffer eventually from reduced fertility and related aging of the population.

As to current anti-people scares and the global warming lunatic stampede, better people simply roll their eyes. The UN appearance this week is just a silly-to-stupid prelude to the Copenhagen silliness.

"let's not lop the head off of industrial society while we're at it, as the neo-primitivists long for"

Actually, there's an additional distinction to note. As with the "population explosion," the 1970s food "crisis" [sic] and related Club of Rome idiocy, and with global warming, "climate change," or whatever other pet phrase is next adopted, the pathological, nihilistic little lefties don't target the worst examples of these programs (including retarded agricultural, industrial, economic, and yes, cultural development in places that had "tremendous promise" fifty years ago and now have little or nothing more), but always target the West instead, and especially the Evil United States of America.

Expect the US to be bashed (and the worst of Americans as well as Euro-Trash to behave correspondingly) not only in the menagerial United Nations General Assembly, but at the Copenhagen climate-politics beat-off brigade.

DLS:

certainly, the rate of growth is slowing. good news, in light of environmental impact; not so good, in light of the concerns of a perpetual-growth economy. perhaps the time is nigh for a steady-state model?

http://www.steadystate.org/

global warming is indeed over-politicized, no doubt. still, there's plenty of need for concern and action on that particular front. it's not like there isn't a pretty strong scientific consensus on the matter, after all.

http://stats.org/stories/2008/global_warming_su...

So these "better people" (ahem) are of the mind that the population can continue to grow as it has over the last century without any major consequences? If you don't want to take into account the effects on climate or the Earth or the air, perhaps on our ability to feed ourselves as a human race? Hmmm...those "better people" seem not so much "better" as unwilling to bring their heads out of...let's say the sand.

"So these "better people" (ahem)"

[thump-thump-thump GLOAT]

"are of the mind that the population can continue to grow as it has over the last century without any major consequences?"

That may be what you believe, but it's not what I believe. Even here in Western society as well as east Asian society, we're going to see low growth, relative stasis, or decline. (We're going to have severe problems paying for aging-related government programs, as a moment's consideration of aging and future dependency ratios or retiree-to-worker ratios promptly indicates.) There will be problems in other places that include resource scarcity (even true here in the USA, with water supplies and meeting needs in the future for electricity generation as well as transportation fuels), but these aren't due elsewhere any more than here to astronomical population growth or "improper" [sic] development and modernization, but simply to the various facts at hand. For example, much of the Middle East is going to be a continued progress of "urbanized desert" and we've (or at least I have) long foreseen a future involving competition for water along the Euphrates River, for example. There are likely going to be more such problems. Even the population explosion nonsense of the Sixties (and 70s) didn't get the modern phenomenon right about the development of "super-cities" or "mega-cities," so many of which will be in developing nations in the decades to come.

There will be some growth, but less than the hystericists have ever believed, and nobody sane wants to deny others the same rights to develop and to modernize that we have enjoyed. China, India, all of sub-Saharan Africa, etc., deserves to industrialize and enjoy full automobility, and so on. What kind of misdirected minds or morals (the correct instance of misdirection in regard to this thread) would want them to remain developmentally retarded, or for us in the West to deliberately seek regression?

* * *

"the family planning advocates focus so strongly on the idea of 'choice' and general reproductive justice"

Actually, more broad if we all want to be correct here. We aren't talking about misusing "choose" and "choice" for "abort" and "abortion," as the cowardly and dishonestly leftists in the United States do. The real issues are two, here. One of them is a natural reduction in family size that accompanies affluence and economic development, which includes improvements in education. The other is more political, involving progress in women's rights where these are deficient, still (which again involves things like education).

"perhaps the time is nigh for a steady-state model?"

We're heading for it -- actually "stasis" or population and economic decline (including general decline that is anticipated with continued societal aging). The USA may continue growing modestly, but it's not going to be any "population explosion" like the original 1960s self-loathing screechers envisioned (concocted). There is no need (nor desire among decent people) to seek deliberate decline or any kind of regression, or make such decline compulsory or enforced in any way. (That is pathological!)

"global warming is indeed over-politicized, no doubt. still, there's plenty of need for concern and action on that particular front"

The amount of actual warming, if any, is open to question still, as is any "anthropogenic" component (to use the favored term of the diseased anti-Western misanthropes from their scummy catechism). Certainly we are changing the atmosphere, and more quickly than it has happened naturally, as best is known. What this obviously does not lead to is any drastic need to take drastic or radical measures that are intentionally destructive or meet twisted political goals (the same typical goals used by the "population explosion" hystericists, and the 70s "food crisis" [sic] and Club of Rome running-out-of-resources hystericists, and now the often-same climate politics hystericists). There is no "need" to de-carbonize or de-industrialize, much less to stupidly, mindlessly rush, out of a false sense of "urgency" [sic], to do this or any other harmful, stupid, or impractical and merely silly thing.

How about reducing real pollution in this country? Not stupid, iron-fisted-play-pen fuel efficiency regs, but reasonable, cost-effective reductions of (real) pollution from burning coal or petroleum transport fuels? You know, further NOx and SOx emissions, volatile organic compounds, carbon monoxide, particulates? Real stuff... [sigh]

"[thump-thump-thump GLOAT]"
Hahahaha! That's awesome. I can't tell whether you are acknowledging that I was pointing out your omnipresent gloating, or if you think that I'm gloating. Either way, that's some funny stuff there.

"That may be what you believe, but it's not what I believe."
I'm unclear as to what you think I believe. I asked a question. It looks like the answer is that yes, you do think we can go on reproducing at the rate we have without any major consequences. It's hard to tell because of your writing style, but I think what you're saying is that it is political problems that cause things like hunger, etc, not strictly the number of people being born. Is that what you're saying? I wouldn't disagree, but it's really hard to find your point.

" What kind of misdirected minds or morals... would want them to remain developmentally retarded, or for us in the West to deliberately seek regression?"

Nobody is saying either of those things. At all. That's what we call "strawman".

For your last paragraph, again, I'm having a hard time teasing out what it is you're trying to say. For example, this: "natural reduction in family size that accompanies affluence", while true, this is a chicken-egg thing. It's much easier for a young woman or young couple to become educated and raise her or their affluence if they don't start out by having multiple children. If we look just at this country: women (on the whole) did not fight for reproductive rights because they were powerful and affluent; instead, they began to be able to gain power, affluence, education, and jobs in part because they had control over their own reproduction. In any case, the two (affluence and reproductive rights) feed and reinforce each other, both as cause and effect.

"We aren't talking about misusing "choose" and "choice" for "abort" and "abortion,""

This is another strawman, DLS. People who work for reproductive justice don't, in general, think of it in this way at all. It is reductive of the opponents of choice to pretend we do. Abortion is a part of choice -- certainly the most controversial -- so it gets a lot more play than things like giving prenatal care to poor women or giving reproductive medical services to teenages. Most of the laws being proposed by the opponents fall into the abortion category, because they know darn well they can't gain any traction taking away the ability of women to get sonograms or birth control.

DLS:

not to pile on; but a steady-state economy is not simply a wilting or static economy, which you'd know if you followed the link.

and sorry, but you lost me with your climate change denial diatribe, as you'll continue to lose reasonable people ("better people"? "decent people"?) on that particular issue. i'll not argue it at this point any more than i'd argue the truth of evolution by natural selection with a well-meaning creationist. if you don't buy what the actual scientists in the particular field of inquiry are saying, i'm not sure anyone else can help.

if american conservatism is going to get anywhere these days, it's going to have to get over its aversion to uncomfortable scientific facts. that's simply the way it is, and no amount of denial, however passionate or well-intended, will change that.

"Hahahaha! That's awesome."

You weren't able to see the puffed-up-and-out chest while I was doing the Third World Male Rooster Strut, too.

As to the issues, there is no "crisis" now any more than there was in the 60s or 70s (or 80s with either climate or Reagan about to nuke the world and harm the poor, sweet, innocent, so very badly misunderstood victim of US aggression and worse, the USSR), and where there are problems, there is no need to rush stupidly to rash "solutions," mainly directed at the West and most of all the USA rather than where the problems actually are -- all of which I wrote before, which is self-explanatory.

No, there's no need for you to misuse (out of thin air?) the names of logical fallacies where they don't exist or apply.

The real issues about family planning and population growth, fertility, and related matters have long been known (or should have been known). People can start here, for example:

http://csis.org/program/global-aging-initiative

http://www.prb.org/

http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/ageing/

Et cetera.

"not to pile on; but a steady-state economy is not simply a wilting or static economy, which you'd know if you followed the link"

I described what we're likely to experience. I did visit the site to which you provided a link, and note that we don't require "sustainable" (environmentalist) policies, nor "equitable" redistribution of wealth or income in order to achieve an economic or a demographic "steady state" (more or less, which is sufficient to qualify for "stasis"). What I did do also was leave out details of what we will suffer from with Social Security and Medicare (neither of which are sustainable in the correct sense of that word); Europe's problems with its own government programs (and greater dependence on them) will be worse.

"you lost me with your climate change denial diatribe"

The facts are facts. Many of the activists are simply recycled Malthusian West-haters, and they have perverted the science into a Lysenkoism. The agitation for "urgency" is at the very best, childish and ignorant at the same time, and the desire to deliberately cripple development and to be authoritarian is perverse. There is nothing justifying any perverse desire (much less urgency) to deliberately cripple ourselves. Making the distinction between what is real and what is not, and what is sensible, practical, cost-effective, and meaningful and what is not distinguishes us adults from the many children of all ages in the West who are debasing themselves and seeking to debase the West in a fad.

"You weren't able to see the puffed-up-and-out chest while I was doing the Third World Male Rooster Strut, too."

This is also awesome.

"No, there's no need for you to misuse (out of thin air?) the names of logical fallacies where they don't exist or apply."

You constructed these people with misguided morals who want third world countries to remain undeveloped, as well as people who think choice means only abortion; you proceeded to knock down these people. These people don't exist to any significant degree. Therefore they are strawmen, and quite easy to knock down. Hence, seeing them and calling them "strawmen". See? No misuse.

As for the links you provided, a quick look showed that they seemed like fine orgainizations, definitely interesting stuff from a global perspective, although I am quite surprised that they came from you. They seem, dare I say? Liberal.

"You constructed these people with misguided morals who want third world countries to remain undeveloped, as well as people who think choice means only abortion; you proceeded to knock down these people."

I correctly addressed the common misuse of the words "choice" and "choose" as evasive general euphemisms. I also have identified those who decry the Chinese, for example, wishing to develop into a modern nation, with factories, automobiles, and high energy use. (I've also identified the many who name one bogus "crisis" after another, always suggesting that the West needs, as a result, to subject itself to deliberate crippling, which makes no sense at all and goes beyond violating the basics of sensibility when it comes to seeking cost-effective regulation and applying cost-benefit analysis to what it is suggested we "ought" to do.)

There is no "crisis" [sic] here, and incidentally, no need to overreact and express leftist hatred for anyone who raises some kind of objection to contraception, even if it is because that, too, has often been politicized. (There is no tyranny of social conservative "values voters" that rivals that which the little green fascists have in fact wished to create to resolve one "crisis" after another since the 1960s.)

As far as the climate, relevent reading can be found here,

http://fp.arizona.edu/kkh/climate/PPT-PDFs-09/7...

http://fp.arizona.edu/kkh/climate/trewartha_map...

http://fp.arizona.edu/kkh/climate/Trew.map.larg...


and the consequences of the possible real-world worst case of global warming (decades away) kept in mind, a shifting of climate zones in the Northern Hemisphere along with the subtropical highs (anticyclones), and the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone. There is no reason for panic(!), and there are pluses to accompany the minuses. In any event, adapting to it remains preferred over idiotic self-crippling, or participating in international scams that not all nations will be able to be trusted to join.