[Winona Online Democracy]
Regarding population growth...
Phil, Dwayne, and most agree that "the train has left
the station" to some degree with population growth.
There could be some great discussion around the main
point where they disagree. (please forgive me if this
doesn't do justice to your complete posts, guys)
Is it more "mature" of decision-makers to focus on the
philosophical questions of growth without a full array
of practical solutions on hand ("how many people would
we like to have in our city/state/nation/planet in 100
years?"..."is the current trajectory of "growth"
sustainable?"..."is it good?")
Or is it more "mature" of decision-makers to focus on
solutions to the problems growth creates. ("what are
we going to do with the people who are here now, who
will be here in five years, ten years, and fifty
years...)
My hope is that when crunch-time comes, these two
camps are well-equiped to listen to each other and
work together. We'll certainly need both and there
doesn't need to be anything mutually exclusive about
these viewpoints.
I really appreciate what Dwayne is bringing up,
though. Big changes come from lots and lots of
"changed minds."
Einstein's famous quotation is perfect here, "the
significant problems we face cannot be solved at the
same level of thinking we were at when we created
them." Changing minds starts somewhere. I appreciate
the blending of these "philosophical" questions with
practical, local issues.
Here are some findings from a Rand study called, "How
Americans View World Population Issues: A Survey of
Public Opinion" by David M. Adamson, Nancy Belden,
Julie DaVanzo, Sally Patterson. 2000.
http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1114/MR1114.chap6.pdf
I don't think population is framed as a significant
problem by public leaders for the most part and it
seems from the findings that population is not
perceived as a top-priority problem by the American
public. How do these minds get changed? Combine a
generally uninformed public with the rhetoric of "the
problem is too big and it's distracting to discuss
root causes because we don't have solutions." That
sounds like an environment for some immature
decision-making to me.
Here's a fun population passage from a provocative
book by Daniel Quinn if you have the time. This
author likes to stir things up:
http://eces.org/articles/000147.php
OK, back into lurk mode for a couple weeks...maybe :)
Jamie Groth
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