From: John Hollingsworth <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>This is self-evidently true. Feeding them WILL ultimately increase
>>starvation and death unless, as part of the deal, they are stopped
>>from reproducing.
>
>There are many factors behind population growth. As always, we should ask
>ourselves who is the "they" in this argument. It isn't, apparently, a
"we".
>Poverty and birth rates are related, but the implication seems to me to be
>equally, "if you take care of the population, the population will take care
>of itself". Should Jay Hanson or John Hollingsworth be kept from
>reproducing? Who's going to enforce that edict?
[ I really LOVE these friendly debates. The Internet is the
only place I can find intelligent people. If it wasn't
for these mailing lists, I wouldn't have anyone to talk to.
Thanks to all of you for putting up with my get-in-your-face
style. I LOVE it. <G> ]
I don't agree that there are "many factors" behind population
growth, I think it boils down to only two: sperm and eggs. <G>
As to whether or not there is a method to stop population growth,
John Hall suggests "contagious contraception". I think it's
a good idea. If humans simply stopped having babies for about
40 years, populations would fall to manageable levels.
See: http://dieoff.org/page119.htm
I assume that you are suggesting that we rely on the so-called
"demographic transition theory" to limit population growth. In
essence, this theory suggests that if we buy everyone in the
world a TV set and a couple of cars, they will stop having so
many babies.
But this is now known to be impossible. It would require more
than five additional Earths:
"If just the present world population of 5.8 billion people were
to live at current North American ecological standards (say 4.5
ha/person), a reasonable first approximation of the total
productive land requirement would be 26 billion ha (assuming
present technology). However, there are only just over 13 billion
ha of land on Earth, of which only 8.8 billion are ecologically
productive cropland, pasture, or forest (1.5 ha/person). In
short, we would need an additional two planet Earths to
accommodate the increased ecological load of people alive today.
If the population were to stabilize at between 10 and 11 billion
sometime in the next century, five additional Earths would be
needed, all else being equal -- and this just to maintain the
present rate of ecological decline."
http://dieoff.org/page110.htm
----------------------------------------------------------------
[ Part of a book review of WHY DO WOMEN HAVE BABIES? ]
Factors that INCREASE FERTILITY include anything that reduces
economic pressure or that promises to do so. Chief among these
are:
1. Government subsidies to the poor in housing, food, and
education, and acting as employer of last resort.
2. Foreign aid intended to alleviate suffering.
3. Emigration of one's countrymen (by relieving population
pressure and by raising the hopes of those left behind).
4. The intrusion of Western culture, as by missionaries, trade,
or television (by destroying old ways of controlling fertility
and by promising prosperity).
Factors that are INEFFECTIVE in changing fertility are:
1. Lowering the child mortality rate.
2. Availability of contraceptives.
3. Government exhortation or laws regulating the number of
children.
4. The only national factor certain to REDUCE the average
fertility rate is government-imposed disincentives such as the
withdrawal of subsidies. The same is true for international
subsidies.
Abernethy's findings are unwelcome and therefore potentially
controversial. (Up to now they have simply been ignored.) The
importance of her work is that by a study of history it supports
what some population experts have been saying for some time,
namely, that the "demographic transition theory," which is the
basis of U.S. and U.N. policy for controlling world population,
is fallacious.
Abernethy says nothing about the dependence of fertility upon the
subordination of female to male because that is an incidental
issue. The liberation of women from the domination of men can
occur only at a late stage in the demographic transition -- after
cultural maturation -- and that will never happen in the Third
World.
Briefly put, the demographic transition theory is the belief that
countries such as Mexico can be economically developed to reach a
standard of living and level of education where fewer children
will be desired, thus limiting world population. Two flaws in
this theory stand out:
(1) The resources of the earth are no longer sufficient to raise
the Third World to an acceptable standard of living. We are
living off our ecological capital and the total population
must be reduced as quickly as possible if we are to achieve
sustainability before feedback mechanisms make its attainment
impossible.
(2) If economic development by transnational capitalism (which is
the centerpiece of demographic transition) is continued, then
long before a steady state can be reached, environmental
strictures and population increases inherent in the economic
development process will bring world civilization crashing to
ruin. There are other, subtle flaws involving cultural
characteristics and cultural dissolution, which are explained
in Population Politics.
Abernethy, V., Population Politics: The Choices that Shape Our
Future. Plenum Press, 1993. This review is from POPULATION AND
ENVIRONMENT September, 1996.
http://dieoff.org/page56.htm
Jay
