However, additional children in the US have a much larger "footprint" than
additional children in less developed countries. The combination of
population size x per capita resource use/pollution production should be
the measure of environmental stress.
I have not previously weighed in on the general discussion of gender
issues. I am from the generation that was "on the barracades" in the
1970s, and back then I would have been sure that the problems we
experienced (which certainly were more blatant and gross than the ones
persisting now) would have been solved by now. It is sad to realize that
they haven't been totally solved, but be assured it's a lot better now
than it used to be - though that's not much comfort. In my department, a
man with an MD wife took on more than usual amount of child care
responsibilities, and he was given a much harder time by the dept head
than I was some years earlier (albeit with a different dept. chair). I
agree with whoever said that it really is an issue that requires women who
want to have kids carefully choosing a husband who will do his share of
work at home. I was just lucky in this regard. Feminists of my generation
raised our sons to do this, and there are (hopefully) many of them out
there.
Judy Weis
For those of you looking for networking or activist possibilities, I
recommend the Association for Women in Science (www.awis.org) which is a
great organization to be a part of. It is open to women and men.
> While I agree with George Wang that overpopulation is a major problem, I
> think that in dealing with it we have to be sensitive to demographic
> issues.
> As he points out, the population of Europe is lagging, and I do not think
> that a world where Europe fades into insignificance is an optimal
> objective.
>
> If we could restrict all families everywhere to, say, 2 children, that
> would
> be a desirable step. Reducing the population of countries which can easily
> support many more people than they now have, and reducing the size of
> families that are well equipped to raise large families (such as academics
> in the US) is not much of a forward step.
>
> The world's worst crises are developing in regions where the population
> exceeds the carrying capacity, such as Rwanda and Darfur. Fewer children
> in
> university towns will not do much to resolve this.
>
> Bill Silvert
> Portugal
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "George Wang" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: <[email protected]>
> Sent: Friday, November 03, 2006 4:02 AM
> Subject: Re: Ecological Equality?
>
>
>> Of all the people, we ecologists should be the first to realize that
>> over-
>> population is the ultimate cause for almost all environmental problems.
>> It
>> may be true that the European population level is dropping, but the
>> whole
>> world's is definitely increasing. And with the level of globalization
>> today, over-population is a global, rather than localized, problem. How
>> can one acknowledge growing unemployment rate and then encourage more
>> human reproduction in the same paragraph?
>
