This is a beautifully rendered video, which does an elegant and effective job of illustrating exactly how the population explosion...exploded.
I assume that most people have a fundamental understanding that it is essentially the very thing which makes us the dominant species, our intellect, which now threatens our very existence.
As we grow ever more aware of how to curtail the effects of disease, how to grow more food, and how to increase fertility we are growing beyond the limits of this planet to contain us.
(H/T to Andrew Sullivan.)
Over population is our biggest issue.
ReplyDelete"It all depends on how we manage our food, water, and energy." Very true. The slightly infelicitous aspect of the beautiful visual metaphor is that it suggests the problem is space, not supply.
ReplyDeleteI recommend the 8 page comic book St Matthew Island, by Stuart McMillen - it's about reindeer on an Alaskan island.
http://www.recombinantrecords.net/images/2011-02-St-Matthew-Island.pdf
And the Duggers just announced Michelle is pregnant with number 20, risking yet another high risk pregnancy.
ReplyDeleteSTERILIZE THE PALINS!!!
ReplyDelete"We are so excited," Michelle Duggar told TODAY Moms before the broadcast. Now three and a half months pregnant, the mom of 19 says she was actually surprised to discover that she's expecting again at 45. "I was not thinking that God would give us another one, and we are just so grateful."
ReplyDeletehttp://moms.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/07/8684372-20-kids-and-counting-michelle-duggar-announces-shes-pregnant-again
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Don't they know what causes that? ugh...it's really not even funny. I actually feel sick for their older kids.
As regards the title......is this a rhetorical question?
ReplyDeleteReversible vasectomies for every male over age 13. When they grow up (and some men never do..) and find they really do want to support and nurture their children with another person, then that would be possible.
ReplyDeleteAnd yet people continue to breed like rabbits. I find the Duggers particularly DISGUSTING.
ReplyDeleteMother Nature Reveals Her Energy Descent Action Plan:
ReplyDeletehttp://candobetter.net/node/2662
And they want to defund npr?
ReplyDeleteWhen you had the post about the 9 billionth birth with the calculator that showed your number, I showed my husband and he said "Damn, there's a whole lot of scchtuping going on!" I just had to laugh at that "Rachaelism" and his comment, but it's true.
The days of aggrarian farming, where children were used as cheap labor and people had huge families as an insurance that a few would survive and take care of them in their old age are long over. That's why Social Security came to be.
But with the advent of octomomism, duggarism, Palinism, and rampant, frequent unresponsible reproduction, coupled with viagra have brought the problem back. Birth Control, sex education, and family planning have their place.
To see the jump in the past two hundred years is shocking.
How can we ever overcome poverty and hunger if we keep growing at this rate?
As "intelligent" humans, we must figure out a way to conserve what we have and develop new forms of energy, new sources of sustainable food supplies that are affordable, or we'll be too big to survive.