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from the ought-to-be-enough-for-anybody dept.
Jason Plautz writes at The Atlantic that the more the world's population rises, the greater the strain on dwindling resources and the greater the impact on the environment. "And yet the climate-change benefits of family planning have been largely absent from any climate-change or family-planning policy discussions," says Jason Bremner of the Population Reference Bureau. Even as the population passes 7.2 billion and is projected by the United Nations to reach 10.9 billion by the end of the century, policymakers have been unable—or unwilling—to discuss population in tandem with climate change. Why? Because "talking about population control requires walking a tightrope." writes Plautz. "It can all too easily sound like a developed world leader telling people in the developing world that they should stop having children—especially because much of the population boom is coming from regions like sub-Saharan Africa." Just look at what happened to Hillary Clinton in 2009, when as secretary of State she acknowledged the overpopulation issue during a discussion with Indian environment minister Jairam Ramesh. Clinton praised another panelist for noting "that it's rather odd to talk about climate change and what we must do to stop and prevent the ill effects without talking about population and family planning."
A 2010 study looked at the link between policies that help women plan pregnancies and family size and global emissions. The researchers predicted that lower population growth could provide benefits equivalent to between 16 and 29 percent of the emissions reduction needed to avoid a 2 degrees Celsius warming by 2050, the warning line set by international scientists. But the benefits also come through easing the reduced resources that could result from climate change. The U.N. IPCC report notes the potential for climate-related food shortages, with fish catches falling anywhere from 40 to 60 percent and wheat and maize taking a hit, as well as extreme droughts. With resources already stretched in some areas, the IPCC laid out the potential for famine, water shortages and pestilence. Still, the link remains a "very sensitive topic," says Karen Hardee, "At the global policy level you can't touch population … but what's been heartening is that over the last few years it's not just us, but people from the countries themselves talking about this."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by turgid on Saturday November 01 2014, @08:25PM
You can't advise people or educate people about family planning and contraception in case it offends their religious beliefs, or offends the patriarchy that is responsibly for enforcing and upholding those beliefs.
It's just not Politically Correct.
You can't educate about contraception because that would imply that women might have to be permitted to be educated and to have a degree of independence - and control over their own bodies. The entrenched power structured would be threatened! Millions of powerful and rich men would be undermined.
How dare you! What are you, some kind of subversive godless pinko commie? You'll be wanting Human Rights next...
Won't somebody think of the political and religious establishment!
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday November 01 2014, @08:39PM
The dirty and very politically incorrect truth about family planning and contraception is that religion isn't often a factor in their family planning -- those people are just unconscientious animals and there's no incentive to plan their family intelligently as long as the welfare state will support those illegitimate babies for them. This is why we should bring back eugenics and sterilization.
I'm also for a worldwide two-child policy. But why not a one-child policy, you ask? Because people who grew up as the only child in the family are insufferable assholes.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Saturday November 01 2014, @08:46PM
There are plenty of countries with no welfare state where the people breed like rabbits, are very poor, die young and live miserable lives.
There is a strong link between poor education, religious dictatorship forbidding contraception (the Catholic Church, for example), the oppression of women, and high birth rates with high infant mortality and poverty.
The trouble is, as soon as you start letting people have a bit of an education and some self-respect, old power structures begin to crumble. The establishment doesn't like it.
Educated people with good housing, food and a worthwhile job tend not to produce arbitrarily large numbers of children. Look at Western Europe, for example.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Entropy on Saturday November 01 2014, @10:07PM
>There are plenty of countries with no welfare state where the people breed like rabbits, are very poor, die young and live miserable lives.
Yes, but that tends to discourage or at least limit rampant idiot breeding. When they don't starve to death because neither parent
does anything useful except breed..well..You get something like the idiocracy movie, I suppose.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Saturday November 01 2014, @10:20PM
The only thing that's rate-limited is the number of people who survive long enough to reproduce themselves (due to malnutrition and disease). It's a pretty miserable state of affairs.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1) by Entropy on Saturday November 01 2014, @10:53PM
Indeed it is. Somehow the irresponsible parents like to pretend they are not at fault in this scenario when to me
it seems tantamount to child abuse.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Monday November 03 2014, @07:35PM
Huh?
In the context of what you have described, you both paint the picture of a poor and unsophisticated tribal couple that might only have access to the knowledge and wisdom passed down around them. It may be as if they really are in a world hundreds of years in the past.
Seems hardly fair to by using the concepts of responsibility as a parent in regards to future resources, and applying your concepts of child abuse to a people that are forced to survive almost as our ancestors did.
A time travelling anthropologist levying judgement against their ancestors makes little sense to me :)
In all seriousness, I see most of those peoples in Africa as apparently still being very much tribal, just with access to some greater technologies. It's like a working example of the Prime Directive in an alternate universe with an evil Federation selling the tribes advanced weapon technologies for their precious resources they will mine out of the ground knowing full well their own proclivities for war.
That may seem racist, but I don't believe Africa was given a fair shake to develop with the rest of us to begin with, precisely because of racism. I have a lot of empathy for Africa. They're terribly abused as a group of peoples by the rest of the world, which is not to excuse how warlike and racist they've been internally either. Societal evolution takes quite a bit of a time, and anthropologically speaking, you are dealing with some pretty old cultures.
On top of that, you have large pools of sophistication where they do know better, but only seem to use such information asymmetry to take advantage of their own peoples instead of lifting themselves up. Yes, I do feel like I've described large portions of the United States too :)
So I don't lay a lot of judgment against the feet of the poor people in Africa. I see them like my ancestors (because they are), and they've been helped to create a terrible environment over there where you get to see pain at every level Maslov conceived of simultaneously.
It's just terrible.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Monday November 03 2014, @09:07PM
I was trying to make the point that there are people with few resources who will produce large families whether there is a comprehensive welfare state or not.
The right-wingers around here (UK) constantly moan that the country is full of people having huge families simply because they can afford to by getting paid by the welfare state.
There are people of all races, creeds, nationalities and skin colours who will have large numbers of children whether they get paid to or not.
Yes, Africa has had a bad deal, and yes, that's why Africa, in places, is so far behind. However, Africa is suffering badly due to religious fundamentalism being imposed upon it (in place of proper secular education) by the rest of the world, whether that's American Christian Fundamentalism, Catholicism, Islam... you name it.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1) by Entropy on Tuesday November 04 2014, @01:23AM
I'm not really being critical of people in Africa.. There's so many factors that come into play there that I simply don't know about. At some point in developing societies having kids strengthens a family, as they can do useful work on a farm. I'm speaking of my own family history here, from about 70-100 years ago. Africa is pretty darn varied, so who knows what is going on where there.
I was just talking about couples having kids with absolutely no way to support them in the US. Not even 1 kid, many kids. People that have at least access to the information and should have some clue that the path they are on is idiotic.
Here's a perfect example of what I'm talking about:
http://www.wfla.com/story/20565853/who-is-really-responsible [wfla.com]
Good old angel adams as 14 kids, has no job, and no man... basically she makes no useful contribution to society, and is raising another generation of super failures. She rants on the news about "someone needs to pay for all these kids!", as if the someone isn't her and whatever unfortunate troop of men fathered all those kids with no future. That's child abuse.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 01 2014, @08:47PM
I'd say that your argument falls apart, looking at the complete lack of a welfare state propping up the "unconscientious animals" (your words, not mine) who live in sub-saharan Africa.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday November 03 2014, @04:46PM
He said there are plenty of examples, not that it's a universal law.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday November 03 2014, @06:58PM
those people are just unconscientious animals and there's no incentive to plan their family intelligently as long as the welfare state will support those illegitimate babies for them.
The welfare state in sub-Saharan Africa?