There's an article in the June edition of Haper's in which Jared Diamond argues that societies tend to collapse shortly after they reach their peak in wealth and power because of the enormous stress they put on their environmental resources. He uses the Maya, perhaps not the best example, to make his case. I don't know if we are now moving into an end-game, but I find our enormous dependence on a finite environmental resource, hydrocarbon energy, frightening. It does not seem to have hit home that this resource must run out.[snip]
Well, one day it will be too late, and that day may have passed already....
But if it hasn't, one of the things which appeals to me about reducing the world human population by means that do not hurt the currently living (the right to post-natal life, etc.), is that fewer people need fewer resources, and, if they get to be few enough, they can even pollute and get away with it.
But, beyond that, we have a capital base that was made to sustain several billion people. If the population reduced, we would thereby increase the assets per person, which could have lots of benefits, such as culling to keep only the best, and using some of the rest for spare parts. And this without any labor marginal expenditure.
\brad mccormick
--
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----------------------------------------------------------------- Visit my website ==> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
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