I read with great interest Bill McKibben's commentary on global warming ("You're Getting Warmer," December 5). While climate change must be addressed through individual and collective action, it is a symptom of a much deeper problem facing humankind: namely, overpopulation.
There are too many of us consuming precious energy and natural resources. Environmentalists and others concerned about climate change focus on the need to reduce our consumptive behavior. Reducing the number of consumers is another, equally valid but seldom talked-about, approach. Every person clamoring about climate change can have a personal and direct impact on the problem simply by not having any more babies. Nothing more amusing than seeing a bunch of pregnant people at a workshop or rally on the environment.
Population control evokes many difficulties. Human beings, like all living creatures, naturally wish to procreate. Attempts to prevent conception or to interrupt pregnancy instill fears of playing God. Implementation of a program to monitor population pits haves against have-nots and decision-makers against decision-takers. Even if today no more babies were born, the human population would continue to grow from the present-day 6 billion to 11 billion or more before tapering off.
Badly needed population control suffers from a variety of complex emotional issues. In comparison, climate change seems far more rational and practical. It is so much easier to replace my light bulbs with compact fluorescents, or to pass legislation requiring others to replace their bulbs, than to forgo having a family, or to restrict others about the size of their families.
In the short-term, addressing climate change may save us from catastrophe. Yet sooner or later, we will have to look at our numbers and find humane ways to curtail our population. Nature, otherwise, will do it for us in ways not to our liking.
KEN BRISTOL, ROCHESTER
Comments for "ENVIRONMENT: Control the population!" (6)
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~~ said on Jan. 09, 2008 at 10:07pm
I think this is a big problem~
We should really think about these things!!
We will run out of food soon and use up all the power of nature
s. joseph said on Jan. 11, 2008 at 11:17pm
Decrease the planet's population to combat global warming? Alright Ken you go first. Lead by example. Perhaps Al Gore will speak at your funeral. PS. If all human reproduction stopped at midnight, the planet's population would peak at or shortly before midnight and steadily decrease. How does the human population expand by 5 billion after total cessation of human reproduction?
ladkiddo said on Jan. 12, 2008 at 5:51am
"Even if today no more babies were born, the human population would continue to grow from the present-day 6 billion to 11 billion or more before tapering off." How is this possible if no babies are being born? How does the population continue to grow?
ming said on Jan. 13, 2008 at 5:48am
putting aside the fact that the whole climate change movement is the biggest hoax in the history of the world, I say, "after you sir."
dkell said on Jan. 20, 2008 at 9:07am
Isn't the average amount of children in a U.S. household only about 2 children? . Yet they say that the average American consumes about six times more waste then the world average. So perhaps we SHOULD change the light bulbs in the rooms of our 2 children.
ProfBob said on Oct. 28, 2009 at 11:39am
According to an article in Science Daily (April 20, 2009), a survey of the faculty at the State University of New York, which has a very strong environmental science department, the planet’s major environmental problem is overpopulation.. Climate change is second. This echoes the theme of the popular free ebook series “And Gulliver Returns” "In Search of Utopia"(http://andgulliverreturns.info) As one professor at SUNY said “With ten million or even a hundred million people on the planet there would be no warming problem.” It is both the technology and the number of people using it that create so many of our planetary problems.
There is no question that China's one child policy has helped the world and the Chinese economy. Whenever a country attempts to reduce its population it can expect a two or three generation period of problems while deaths reduce to equal births. I hope that China will recognize this fact and keep its own population on the path to reduction--which should begin by 2050. China's actual fertility rate is not 1.0 per woman, but 1.8--the same as Norway's. But that 400 million fewer births since 1980 (equivalent to the population of the U.S. and Mexico) has been a boon for China and the world.
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