RE: World headed for irreversible climate change in five years, IEA warns
November 11, 2011 at 10:29 pm
(November 11, 2011 at 3:52 pm)HeyItsZeus Wrote: Why do we still have this argument? Clearly there isn't a resolution in sight.
Let's, instead bring up a more important issue about human pollution; it's sickening. Pollution obviously degrades the quality of life for the majority of all living things. So let's stop for the sake of health.
Whatever happens with the climate we will have to deal with it but we can do it with clean air in our lungs.
There's a resolution in site. It's been in site since the very early days of the Industrial Revolution.
Simply put, it took from the beginning of time until about 1850 to get the first billion population. Lots of natural things kept people in check - including disease, high infant mortality, high maternal mortality, and average lifespans being very short by today's standards. Life got better. The death rate went down, and the birth rate stayed the same.
Now we've got 7 billion, with more on the way. What's even more of a problem is that many people in 2011 are using hundreds, if not thousands of times the resources that a person in 1800 would have or could have used. Or, residents of wealthy nations use hundreds or thousands of times the resources that a primitive person does today. Lifestyle is improving not only for the wealthy nations, but the historically poor nations like India and China are improving their lifestyle. Not to the level the US is, but some. This further compounds the problem.
Overpopulation is not a problem, it's the problem. All other problems we have can in some way be reduced to population, overpopulation, or exasperated by population.
We've either got to increase death to where it was in the 18th century and earlier, or decrease the birth rate.
Every child you fail to procreate is the same as a lifetime of 100% recycling.
Both sides of this are pretty disingenuous. The Christians with their evident hatred for contraception as well as abortion, and their "quiverfull" movement, shows that they are right on board with overbreeding humankind, while insisting, as their Bible says, they are the stewards of the earth - of God's creation. The green movement, or the ecology movement continues to have children, and are still leaving a huge footprint as compared to our ancestors.
