Here's another message pulled out of thin ether! Stefanie
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If we look at which populations have burgeoned to wreck the environment,
we should look at the white developed world - North America, especially.
Yes, I agree that there are populations that should be limited, but the
how and who of it differs from what WHO thinks. Here, in the US of A, our
perceived separateness from earth and patriarchy have allowed us
to exert power over
those unlike us. We have enriched ourselves at the expense of indigenous
peoples, large predators, irritating smaller lifeforms, and anything else
we can kill or exploit.
Elsewhere, people experience inability to survive on the remaining
natural resource base where we (US citizens) have extended our pattern of
overpowering and exploited to regions beyond our national boundaries
(colonization). Women living within nature's bounty (and boundaries) - not
trying to live beyond it as "development" promises - can decide to limit
their own fertility with our technological assistance. We have a real
clear way to prevent pregnancy - abstinence during the days of
fertility. Promoting women's awareness of their own bodies and devloping
a sense of self-control (rather than being controlled by one's sex
partner) could go a long way to limiting population where such was needed.
On Sun, 2 Apr 1995, Ronnie Hawkins wrote:
>
>
> On Sat, 1 Apr 1995 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> > Referring to my earlier reply to R.L. Curry, I have to question whether the
> > issue of "overpopulation" isn't really a smokescreen for the developed
> > world's overconsumption. I honestly don't have many hard facts on this --
> > it's just a gut feeling combined with a few stats on just how much we do
> > consume of the world's resources -- and would welcome comments from anyone
> > who does. Doesn't it seem logical that the status quo, i.e. developed
> > industrialists and politicians, would be a little wary of the undeveloped
> > world suddenly "figuring out" how to over-farm and over-consume to the extent
> > that the developed world does so? God forbid they should "horn in" on "our
> > territory." Then there _sure_ wouldn't be enough to go around, right? The
> > solution? "Create" a population problem. The truth is that we really do
> > have sufficient food and natural resources to go around (just look at the
> > stockpiles of often rotting food right here in the U.S., the underground
> > caves in the midwest, for example) -- we just mismanage the hell out of 'em.
> > Hey, I'm just thinking out loud here, but stranger things have happened in
> > global politics. Anybody got any goods on this?
> > --Katharine English
> >
> >
> Hi Katherine--I notice you're the person who forwarded the message about
> the seal kill that I just responded to, so you must care about nonhuman
> animals. When nonhumans are brought into the picture, it's not at all
> true that "we" have "sufficient food and natural resources to go
> around." Large mammals, for example, especially large carnivores (TRUE
> carnivores, unlike humans!), need very large blocks of territory to
> support themselves, and for some the game may already be over.
> Conservation biologists are concluding, for instance, that even in North
> America our existing parks and preserves aren't large enough, and if we
> don't turn the situation around evolution may be "over" for them.
> Likewise, the great holocaust of species--E.O. Wilson estimates 17,500
> being lost per year--occurring mostly as a result of tropical forest
> destruction is a result of the human takeover of the planet's surface.
>
> Yes, the people in the industrialized parts of the world consume much
> more, maybe hundreds of times more than people living in
> "underdeveloped" or "industrializing" (assuming they're on their way
> in that great process) parts of the world. The bottom line for
> nonhumans, however, is the PRODUCT of the number of people *multiplied
> by* the amount consumed per person *multiplied by* the destructiveness of
> the technology they use. Is the "population problem" simply a creation
> of the Western/Northern promoters of consumption? No way. Can the
> dichotomy between "population" and "consumption" be USED by members of
> the "developed" and "developing" worlds so that each group can point
> fingers at the other and nobody has to change? Look around you.
> Meanwhile, "nature" and nonhumans are taking it on the chin everywhere.
>
> If you think the population problem is just a trumped-up issue, you must
> not be familiar with the population growth curve for human beings, which
> shows a worldwide population under one billion for all of human history
> up until about two centuries ago and is now shooting up toward 6 billion
> and, if nothing changes pretty quick, way beyond. Impossibly beyond, for
> any life, but nonhuman life will be the first to go, though human life is
> suffering pretty dramatically in many places already. The grave
> implications are very apparent to most biologists, at any rate, who are
> familiar with thinking about exponential growth. Things that grow
> exponentially can reach huge numbers very quickly, toward the end of the
> growth span--they can really sneak up on you--the numbers then usually
> fall pretty fast too, as natural controls come into play. What a shame
> for our supposedly "rational" species to walk right into the same sort of
> fate, denying it as we go.
>
> And still the Pope proclaims that not only abortion but even birth
> control is somehow an affront to "life"! Only human life is meant, of
> course--other life is apparently not worth talking about--and human life
> is to be unlimited--as if we all live on an infinitely expanding planet!
>
> This is the second issue that seems to me to cry out for an "ecofeminist"
> response. Any thoughts?
>
> Ronnie
>
