Ganter, Philip F. wrote: > I am always confused by the message in stating the inequality between > consumption between the developed and developing economies. > Whether one goes to Ehrlich & Commoner's I=P*A*T or to Robert Kates' "Population, Technology and the Human Environment: A Thread Through Time," I think the basic point of such stories is to emphasize that population is only a part (some of us would say a relatively small part) of the carrying capacity plot line. As a Third Worlder, from India, whenever I hear the population drum being beaten, I flash to the idea of "there go those over-breeding heathen." Thing is, I'm really, really glad the Ehrlichs wrote The Population Bomb. If they proved wrong in their prognostications, its only because we live in an evolutionary, responsive world. They poked at the world, and the world responded.
I was in India. I saw the massive family planning efforts in the 1970s. But I also saw the forced sterlization camps, and the men and women herded into "health clinics" to meet the quotas imposed on civil servants by a remote and removed central government. Some things come with a high cost. Or take China. One child per family. And what happens? We come today to a world in which there are, what?, fifty million more men than women in China? And Tibet then becomes the "seeding ground" for a new generation of Chinese, with massive, widespread impregnation of Tibetan women? Who will take responsibility for these ignominies? Over-population is a Third World problem. Over-consumption is a First World problem. Let the Third Worlders find a solution to their problem. We should look to our own sins. We don't. I really do think Jared Diamond's basic point is, if we want to take a honest crack at "solving" carrying capacity issues, we need to be looking in our own homes first. If that's true, I agree with him. Cheers, Ashwani
