More population nonsense.
Dec 10th 2009Bull MooseEuroWussies & Stupidity
Sigh. Every time I see something like this, I wonder how anyone could have the nerve to get mad at me when I call militant environmentalism what it is: Anti-human nihilism.
Do a quick exercise. If 6.5 billion people lived in the same population density of New York City, how big would the city be? About the size of Texas? Check my math.
So why do we have proposals like that being made as the western world commits suicide? (2.1 live births per woman is what is needed to maintain a stable population.) Liberals – classical liberals in the historical sense of the word, not people who necessarily voted for Obama or against Bush – who value things like freedom of speech, religion, women’s rights, tolerance of homosexuals (as in not killing them), clean air and water, science, and everything else western civilization has spent 2,500 years developing shouldn’t want to turn the world over to the backwards civilizations that appear on the top of that list. But people like Diane Francis seemingly can’t wait to do so to the point where she wants to mandate it.
You’d think people would be embarrassed to still be pushing this particular boogie man after all this time. Especially since even some at UN are predicting the world population topping out at 9 billion in 2050. (Sure, that’s only a prediction, but does anyone see the next generation of the western world, Russia, and China having more kids than their parents?) So that’s Texas and New Mexico. Still seems like a lot of room left for growing rice, wheat, and trees.
The answer to the world’s problems, whatever they may be, is not a population crash, especially in the societies likely to produce technological solutions.
UPDATE: It occurs to me that I missed the most obvious problem with a global one-child mandate: Can you imagine a world totally populated by sufferers of only child syndrome? I shudder thinking about it.
UPDATE 2: D’oh. This post got moved to “Private” for a while. I hate when that happens.
3 Comments »
cb on 11 Dec 2009 at 7:58 am #
Figure 1.2 acres of farmable land (which most of the U.S. is NOT) and 700,00 liters of water per year, per person. It’s not just about the food. And the U.S. is the greatest exporter of food, so we are unique. Also, each U.S. citizen uses resources at a much greater rate than someone in Africa. Oil, in food production and otherwise.
The U.S. population is growing over 1% a year, so it’ll double by 2050. Because third world countries are breeding like dogs doesn’t mean we should.
The U.S. isn’t going to die off and brown people aren’t going to take over, right wingers can relax.
cb on 11 Dec 2009 at 8:02 am #
And to really help out on water and land use, eat less meat.
Bull Moose on 11 Dec 2009 at 9:12 am #
Yes, it’s all about “brown people” taking over. If I were worried about brown people taking over, I’d get behind Diane Francis’s proposal, because a worldwide one-child-per-couple mandate would mean a lot less brown people being born.
And I’m not talking about just the US, America is somewhat unique in that they are a 1st world country that is maintaining population stability and then adding some population through immigration. What is happening in Europe is going to be a huge clusterfuck in the next half generation when they have a gigantic hole in their skilled workforce and a very gray population.
Diane Francis and her ilk should really think things like that through before making stupid, knee jerk proposals.