> -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On > Behalf Of Jon Louis Mann > Sent: Saturday, July 26, 2008 2:39 PM > To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussion > Subject: Genesis > > > > What's wicked about bringing children into the > > world that you have the > > resources to support and nurture? > > Doug > > it's wicked because it creates even more scaricities among other children > in undeveloped countries whose parents do not have the resources to > support and nurture. would you suggest that we forbid anyone too poor > from having children? > jon
Going with your logic, with scarcity of commodities being the cause of poverty, shouldn't people have been much richer 3000 years ago, at the time that the earth's resources were barely touched? We don't have to go that far back to see the difficulty with that argument. The prices of most commodities had dropped from 1975 (a year books on scarcity, overpopulation, pollution etc. were abundant) to 2000. With the exception of oil, the price in 2005 of most basic commodities (iron ore, copper, aluminum ore, etc.) were roughly half of what they were two and three decades earlier. Even oil fell into that pattern, falling below $10/barrel in 1998 on the spot market, and averaging around 11 for the year ($15 in today's dollars). Resources were abundantly available for poor countries, at low prices. Some Asian countries started to develop, but sub-Sahara Africa remained in poverty. Zambia, which I have a very close connection to, actually suffered because the drop in the value of their main export (copper). Poor countries, to first order, are cut out of international trade. As they become integrated in the world economy (e.g. China and India) the levels of income rise. Its happened fast enough and soon enough after an oil bust, so that oil prices are high (oil production has a long lead time and cost of setup....but once a well is flowing producing oil is usually a minor part of the cost). CO2 and mid-East & Venezuelan politics are good reasons to cut oil consumption, but just in terms of resource availability....we have plenty of choices for low entropy energy sources for years to come. There is no evidence that, if the United States decided to fade away as continental Europe is doing, instead of having a ZPG birth rate, that poor people (eg those in sub-Sahara Africa) would benefit. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
