Two children should be limit, says green guru

[redqueen]

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article5627634.ece

Sarah-Kate Templeton, Health Editor

COUPLES who have more than two children are being “irresponsible” by creating an unbearable burden on the environment, the government’s green adviser has warned.

Jonathon Porritt, who chairs the government’s Sustainable Development Commission, says curbing population growth through contraception and abortion must be at the heart of policies to fight global warming. He says political leaders and green campaigners should stop dodging the issue of environmental harm caused by an expanding population.

A report by the commission, to be published next month, will say that governments must reduce population growth through better family planning.

“I am unapologetic about asking people to connect up their own responsibility for their total environmental footprint and how they decide to procreate and how many children they think are appropriate,” Porritt said.

(more at link)

[Captain Hilts]

1. RedQueen, we've got a premier league argument going on in sports...

[redqueen]

2. Ooooh thank you.

:D

[Deja Q]

3. Where's Duggar and the Octoplopper?

:hide:

[Ezlivin]

4. What if the recipe calls for three?

N/T

[Orrex]

5. You can substitute a basket of kittens

[Ezlivin]

8. Is that metric or English measurement?

Too many may make the batter lumpy.

[Captain Hilts]

6. That makes the Suleman woman 12 over her quota. nt

[maxsolomon]

7. technically, 11 over her quota.

2 kids/2 adults = 1 child/adult.

she gets assigned 2 of the 1st 4 & her ex gets the others. so she starts at 1 over. he's 1 over.

+ 2 in vitro twins = 3 over.

+ 8 in vitro insanity octopulets = 11 over.

so, not as bad as you thought.

[Triana]

9. I agree. n/t

[Hello_Kitty]

10. Cue the chorus

"ZOMG UR FOR MANDATORY STERILIZATIONS AND FORCED ABORTIONS!! U WANT TO US BE LIKE CHINA WHERE THEY DROWN THE GURL BAYBEEZ!!1!"

:eyes:

Just anticipating them in advance.

[Triana]

14. very next one right after yours! ha!

[madrchsod]

11. tried that in china with the killing of females to restrict population

now there are some 22 million men who will never marry....22 million man army.

[Hello_Kitty]

15. The one child policy did not kill the girls.

The people who killed them did. It was the direct result of their patriarchal culture and misogyny.

[madrchsod]

19. yes.. i should have included the cultural and misogyny components

[tama]

25. Demographically

the silver lining is that killing boys instead of girls would do nothing to curb population expansion... whereas less females means less births.

[Triana]

12. From Duke Univ Provost's Lecture Series....

Time for folks to get some clues . . . . .
_ _ _ _ _

http://www.provost.duke.edu/speaker_series/ehrlich.html

The Numbers of the Dominant Animal: Why the US Needs a Population Policy
Monday, February 2, 2009 from 5:00 – 6:30 p.m.
Love Auditorium, Levine Science Research Center

Paul Ehrlich
Bing Professor of Population Studies
President, Center for Conservation Biology
Department of Biology
Stanford University

Professor Ehrlich will discuss how human beings became the dominant animal on earth and what our expanding numbers and patterns of consumption mean to future generations. He will explain why establishing an American population policy should be high on the agenda of our new President, along with other steps to regain American leadership in attempting to stave off the impending collapse of a global civilization and achieve a sustainable society.

[Hello_Kitty]

17. It needs to stop being such a taboo subject

Yes, babies are cute and people want to have them but we can't have infinite population growth on a finite planet. We are going to have our numbers drastically reduced, one way or another.

[Triana]

20. Damn right. One way or another. We can be smart and choose to do it voluntarily or..

....it will get done FOR us involuntarily.

Time for folks to get some clues.

[Delphinus]

51. Wish I could have been there to hear this.

We must stop treating this like a taboo subject.

[Demobrat]

13. We can't tell people how many kids to have.

We can, however, allow tax deductions for only two. For every child after that taxes should go UP - not down.

[Hello_Kitty]

16. I agree but people would freak the fuck out over it

Especially the fundies. Of course, since churches are tax exempt it might be a backdoor way to capture all the revenue they should have been paying all along.

[Demobrat]

18. Of course they would.

In our culture parenthood confers instant sainthood, and the more offspring one produces the more saintly once becomes. Nobody's going to give that up without a fight.

[Triana]

21. That's a good idea. n/t

[UnseenUndergrad]

22. Here's a question:

What if, after a first pregnancy of a single child, the second turns out to be twins?

[Hello_Kitty]

23. One of them gets drowned, duh.

:eyes:

The man is asking people to thoughtfully consider the impact of their procreation decisions on the environment, not advocating for a forced policy.

[UnseenUndergrad]

24. Ah, thank you.

Then maybe the policy should be "after the second pregnancy", so people can feel more as if it's a proactive planning decision on their part instead of imposed from above.

[muriel_volestrangler]

26. There's nothing being imposed from above

He is calling for more funding of contraception and abortion services. And for people to take personal responsibility. This isn't a set of laws.

[skids]

32. Yeah actually much more reasonable...

...then the usual "cut your balls off so you won't even accidentally have a kid ever" hue and cry we usually get on this subject around here. I didn't even feel the need to snark about the traditional assumption of two parents.

Of course mentioning abortion so directly and quote-ably -- should've been done with more acumen than the way he phrased it. No doubt that will be making the rounds on hate radio.

[phantom power]

27. I would retract tax deductions for more than two kids.

If you want to have more than 2 kids, it's up to you to pay for them.

[wtmusic]

34. I like that.

Take the money saved and put it toward pop control and environmental programs.

Apparently the Mormons have $40M unspent from Prop 8, so you'd be up against that.

[bhikkhu]

28. The UK is probably a step ahead

as on an island sanity about the limits of population is a necessity (or read a bit about Easter Island).

I've read good things from the UK for a couple of years now, and I think is is great that the "population conversation" is heating up. I would have liked to have had it when I was younger, when there were a couple of billion less of us to talk about, though (no offense to present company intended, of course!)

[Nederland]

29. Exactly backwards

First of all, we don't need to impose limits. The fact is when the standard of living increases and female education improves, people choose to have fewer babies all by themselves. Most of the first world is actually facing the opposite problem: too few people are having kids. The result is a fiscal nightmare for social safety nets.

[The2ndWheel]

30. And when the standard of living increases, so does the environmental impact

Breaking even is the best we can ever do.

[Nederland]

36. Not necessarily

Places like Sweden are able to have a high standard of living without high per capita environmental impacts.

[The2ndWheel]

42. Which is great

However, until every nation acts like Sweden, and those other nations don't take advantage of Swedish policies which allow them to consume more, it doesn't do much other than to fill in the stats on a graph.

It's the same as if I said I don't own a car, which I don't. It is what it is, but there are plenty of other people that do own cars. Whatever energy I'm not using is being used by somebody else.

[wtmusic]

33. 'a fiscal nightmare for social safety nets'?

What in heaven's name are you talking about? Do 'nets' have a minimum number necessary to function?

What area of the world has people suffering from underpopulation?

[Nederland]

35. Answers

What in heaven's name are you talking about? Do 'nets' have a minimum number necessary to function?

Yes. As populations fall the ratio of younger working people to older retired people decreases. Quickly you reach a point where not enough tax revenue is coming in from young people to pay for all the benefits consumed by the old people.

What area of the world has people suffering from underpopulation?

Most of Western Europe and Russia currently have fertility rates under 2.0. Russia is expected to lose over 50 million people over the next 30 years.

[wtmusic]

37. So encourage procreation to help pay retiree benefits?

Absurd. The answer lies in planning years ahead, not pushing the problem a few more years down the pipeline.

[Nederland]

38. That's precisely what many European countries do

...but I suppose those stupid Europeans aren't as smart as us clever Americans. :eyes:

[muriel_volestrangler]

39. And those European countries are being short-sighted

There is no shortage of young people in the world; encouraging people in high-consumption countries to have more children, so that consumption can grow even more, is stupid, and causes the environmental damage Porritt is talking about.

The US could encourage contraception more too - make all health insurance supply it, and bring back the bit of the stimulus plan that the anti-sex Republicans had thrown out.

[The2ndWheel]

43. "There is no shortage of young people in the world"

But as long as the world is cut up into a few hundred countries, there are shortages(or will be) of young people in specific countries.

Which then brings up questions of what you do. There are plenty of young people in area 1, but not a lot in area 2. Do you move those young people from area 1 to area 2? Do you combine area 1 and area 2, and come up with an area 3? Does area 1 contract at some point, allowing area 2 to expand?

[muriel_volestrangler]

44. 'moving young people from area 1 to area 2' is just allowing immigration

and I think there will plenty of people willing to do that for the foreseeable future.

[Nederland]

45. There is a shortage of young educated people though...

...not to mention that plenty of people on both sides are anti-immigration.

[GliderGuider]

41. TFR less than 2.0 does NOT indicate underpopulation.

If a country has a TFR less than 2.1 its population has stopped growing, except for the influence of immigration. If the country was already overpopulated when the TFR dropped through 2.1 it will remain overpopulated for at least a generation. If there is immigration then the overpopulation will persist longer. If immigration stabilizes the population andthe immigrant population increases their standard of living relative to their original circumstances, the country is no better off in terms of consumption, and the world's net consumption has increased.

It's not a nice simple picture, and of course a lot depends on how you define "overpopulated". That depends largely on the system boundaries you choose in terms of human lifestyle, ecological impact, and diachronic considerations such as "borrowing from the future". The more narrowly you set the system boundaries the higher you raise the acceptable level of the human population. The risk of doing that is demonstrated by the deforestation and desertification of the Middle East and North Africa, that happened with much lower populations than today.

[Nederland]

46. Not immediately no

...but it is a clear indicator that a society either needs to reduce its social safety net expenditures or allow for more immigration--neither of which is particularly popular.

[Nihil]

40. Depends on your perspective

> First of all, we don't need to impose limits.

We do because there are too many people consuming too many resources
and the number is growing every day. If we don't impose limits, the
planet will do it for us and our semi-voluntary method is a whole lot
more sympathetic than the alternative.

> The fact is when the standard of living increases and female education
> improves, people choose to have fewer babies all by themselves.

Nice theory. Unfortunately it is not as nice in reality.

The difference in the standard of living between the dweller in in African
shanty-town and in a Western depressed town (high unemployment, etc.) is huge
and the African could only dream of having those resources.

The "African problem" is that the woman will be married off and used to
produce multiple children in that family. The "Western problem" is that
the woman will have children by multiple fathers (whether or not they are
married multiple times or not at all). The end result is the same - too many
people consuming too few resources - hence limits are necessary.

> Most of the first world is actually facing the opposite problem: too few
> people are having kids.

Qualify that: Too few educated, employed people are having kids. In turn,
there are fewer responsible parents in the next generation so the imbalance
gets worse. That's how you get pig-ignorant Republicans voting for whatever
the television tells them to do: they were raised by the pig-ignorant,
surrounded by the pig-ignorant and led to believe that being ignorant is
desirable so they will do their "duty" and breed even more pig-ignorant
people in turn.

> The result is a fiscal nightmare for social safety nets.

The result is a total nightmare for anyone who cares about the planet
not just the chances of getting a social security pension when we're
too old to work.

[Nederland]

48. Your facts are incorrect

The "African problem" is that the woman will be married off and used to produce multiple children in that family. The "Western problem" is that
the woman will have children by multiple fathers (whether or not they are married multiple times or not at all). The end result is the same - too many
people consuming too few resources - hence limits are necessary.

Except in a very small percentage of cases, your description of the "Western Problem" is not what happens. Most Western women have far, far fewer children than women in the developing world. That is a simple fact easily provable by looking at Western fertility rates.

[Nihil]

49. Strawman (or misunderstanding) - I didn't claim they were the same numbers

> Most Western women have far, far fewer children than women in the
> developing world.

That was not being questioned.

You are looking purely at an isolated number, not the impact of the
number multiplied by the consumption level. When you take that into
account, a family of five living in a "Western" way (or in a comparable
lifestyle regardless of geographical location) will consume far more
than a family of ten living in an "African" way (or similar).
Thus "overpopulation" in any particular group is not just defined by
the number of children in isolation but by their effect as the result
of the consumption level of the group.

The point was that the overpopulation issue is not arising from the
same cause in both regions so applying the same solution does not work.
The "overpopulating" segment in the "Western" group are already way
higher in terms of wealth, education and opportunity than that of the
"African" group yet they still over-produce for that segment.

My further point (in response to your first world population "shrinking")
was that too few educated, employed people are having kids thus there are
fewer responsible parents in the next generation (e.g., 2 or 3 children)
so the imbalance gets worse.

[NNadir]

31. Gee someone should tell that great "environmentalist" "Sting."

For an unapologetic consumer who loves to sing all about his love for the environment, he sure breeds a lot of other consumers.

[wuvuj]

47. Elephants in the room...

What about the Pope and the funny-mentalists? And I guess Islamic tradition promotes large families?

What do you do when a large % of the worlds population seem to be insane...or are living in the past...at least in past traditions?

Wish I could grow a "bubble head" and let god run the show.

[Indenturedebtor]

50. But Babies are a gift from the Jesus. Do you hate Jesus?

:crazy: