On Sep 16, 2008, at 5:05 PM, Ronn! Blankenship wrote: > No, it's just what I ask _everybody_ who suggests that "approaching 7 > billion" (or whatever the current world population happens to be) is > "too many" people: where _specifically_ do you suggest that the > needed reductions be made, and if you personally are not at the head > of that list, how do you justify putting anyone else ahead of you? > > > . . . ronn! :)
The fact that deciding which of the existing 6-7 billion should be allowed to live is an extremely thorny ethical and moral question (and one I wouldn't even begin to be qualified to answer) doesn't take away from the fact that a population of 6-7 billion is far in excess of what this planet appears to be able to support on a sustainable basis, nor does it address the problem that the moment anything improves on the supply side, the population immediately accelerates growth to more than wipe out those gains on the demand side. (In other words, saying it's a potentially insoluble problem doesn't make the problem go away.) (It also doesn't address the fact that certain subcultures within that population are deliberately breeding children at a greatly *accelerated* rate, specifically as a long-term strategy to promote their own ideologies by skewing the demographics and/or breeding loyal followers they can easily control later on. But that's a tangent to this discussion.) _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
