On population:
It's not a matter of BIRTH CONTROL OR REDUCED CONSUMPTION. We need
BOTH. But even both won't be enough. Much of the world already
experiences starvation, and it's getting worse. Even if human
population growth leveled off RIGHT NOW, we'll STILL need better
agricultural TECHNOLOGY to feed the EXISTING masses. Five and a
half billion people simply cannot go back to an agrarian lifestyle,
growth or no growth; even if decadent societies like the United
States drastically reduce consumption. (And keep in mind that the
U.S. procuces a quarter of the world's GNP, including exporting a
lot of food. You devestate the U.S. economy, and the whole world
feels it. No brag, just fact.)
Shiva seems to want women to continue toiling in the fields. Good
grief! Is that what you want?
How will we replace the seafood that's a major staple of a third of
humanity now that ocean fisheries have peaked and are headed
downward? How will arable land be replaced as it continues to
disappear, especially when there's no more forests to cut down?
We passed the point of no return a LONG time ago. To jump off the
technological treadmill now means certain disaster. We need a mix
of education, birth control, more efficient industry, less
consumption per capita, and more technology.
Al
I offer for your consideration the following excerpt from
Riane Eisler's "Sacred Pleasure," pp. 315-316:
"...by any humane, and rational, standards, doing everything
possible to dramatically reduce birthrates should be a top moral
priority for all the world's secular and religious leaders --
particularly since both maternal and infant mortality rates are
highest precisely in those areas where women are forced by lack of
contraception and abortion to bear children that cannot adequately
be cared for. However, instead of vigorously promoting safe and
effective birth control technologies and sex education, most of the
men who head the world's powerful religious hierarchies more often
either actively oppose, or at best passively condone, them. For
example, even though polls show that in the United States
87 percent of Catholics believe couples should follow their
consciences on whether to use contraceptives and 83 percent believe
the Church should approve the use of condoms to prevent the spread
of AIDS, Bishop Raymond Boland of the National Conference of
Catholic Bishops recently insisted that the Church's
anticontraception position stems from the Gospels -- despite the
fact that there is absolutely nothing in the Gospels about this.
"Sometimes these men still make the old argument that 'it's all
in God's hands,' as Fareed Nu-man from the American Muslim Council
put it, because 'if population gets too big for the world to bear,
the natural order will take care of it through famine, disease,
etc.' Or, as the pope has done in recent years, they claim
unbridled population growth should not even be an environmental
issue, that the only focus should be on 'consumption and better
distribution of wealth.' And this rhetoric continues, when in fact
BOTH factors are operant -- and despite the fact that even though
there are important official Catholic statements on the need for a
more just redistribution of wealth, the Vatican has yet to
redistribute its enormous wealth or, as attested by former priests
who did join such grass-roots struggles, to actively support those
who in many Catholic countries are fighting for just that.
"Neither -- although population experts point out that the only
real way to reduce population growth (as well as abortion) is to
emancipate women, and allow women options beyond motherhood -- have
powerful leaders like the pope done anything to support equality
for women. Quite the contrary, the Vatican continues to view
contraception and feminism as intertwined evils. Consequently, in
conjunction with highly organized fundamentalist Protestant groups
in the United States, the Catholic Church has vigorously worked to
block not only funding for family planning, but -- as the pope's
1994 declaration that women entering the priesthood is not even
open to discussion -- efforts to advance the status of women."
"...the only life many of the leaders of the anti-family planning
movement seem to care about -- indeed obsess about -- is life
BEFORE birth and AFTER death."
