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Yes the issues you have said are not real. We are not facing any water shortage. No energy shortages. Infant mortalty is not 60%.
Everthing in the Population Bomb has been proven wrong. Everything. I have a copy of the book. It's a comedy.
Why are people living longer and healthier lives than at any point in history if we are having all these resource and population problems? We have more people than ever. When is all this stuff going to happen?
Garbage.
Potable water is a problem. How many chemicals are in your water supply? Remember Love Canal?
Energy is no problem. Really, you're so off base there.
Infant mortality was 60% in the centuries past. Are you the one who mentioned 5,000 years ago.
If you don't think that resources are a problem, your head is in the sand.
So length of life is your determining factor?
What about quality of life?
I'll reread The Population Bomb when I move back home, but if you're saying that there is not problem, you're not very well up on current events.
BTW, the US is not the center of the world; look around you.
Why do we have people starving and living on the streets in the US; look at rampant unemployment, etc.
Apparently denial is the 51st state.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OhioIstheBest
Simon proves that we are not running out of resources in his book. He uses government data to do it too.
If you read the Poulation Bomb and change the word "population" to "global warming" you will see exactly where the global warming idiots got all there scare tactics.
I would assume that Simon presents argument, but does not prove anything.
http://whyfiles.org/131fresh_water/2.html Of a population of roughly 6.1 billion, more than 1 billion lack access to potable water. The World Health Organization says that at any time, up to half of humanity has one of the six main diseases -- diarrhea, schistosomiasis, or trachoma, or infestation with ascaris, guinea worm, or hookworm -- associated with poor drinking water and inadequate sanitation. About 5 million people die each year from poor drinking water, poor sanitation, or a dirty home environment -- often resulting from water shortage (see "Tackling the Big Three" in the bibliography).
Well, I just meant that long after I'm dead, (I'll just speak for myself), my child and my grandchildren, etc, will have to live in a world that by all indications will be worse than the one I've lived in. My purpose in starting this thread was to ask, hopefully not rhetorically, is there nothing that can be done? I have to think there is, and I hope that the only answer is not to just stop having kids.
Unfortunately, I think there's a very real possibility that the things you fear will be seen by you and all of us, long before you leave this world to your children. I think that your children will very likely be accustomed to "less" and it will not be as big a shock to them as it is to us. I guess you could say that my outlook on things changing for the better is pretty grim.
The answer, IMO, is to try to stop fascism. How do we do that? The corporations already run this country and own the politicians. OMG! That sounds so extreme........I just don't see much hope on the horizon. I have friends who are talking about leaving the country and are making plans to do so.
Unfortunately, I think there's a very real possibility that the things you fear will be seen by you and all of us, long before you leave this world to your children. I think that your children will very likely be accustomed to "less" and it will not be as big a shock to them as it is to us. I guess you could say that my outlook on things changing for the better is pretty grim.
The answer, IMO, is to try to stop fascism. How do we do that? The corporations already run this country and own the politicians. OMG! That sounds so extreme........I just don't see much hope on the horizon. I have friends who are talking about leaving the country and are making plans to do so.
Do they really think it's any better any where else?
Each country/culture has it's own set of problems.
Don't get me wrong, I'll probably not retire in the US; in fact, I don't like the US culture.
I try to live outside of the US whenever possible... It's different in other places, but there is no utopia.
If the world is such a problem and will continue to be hosed for some time (probably forever), why do people continue to have so many kids?
I mean, people talk about expense, poor education, lack of jobs, etc. They want handouts and tax breaks simply for breeding and I seriously can't understand what that's about.
The world will not get better, there will be water wars (World Bank forces countries to sell water rights), increasing poverty, continued degredation of our standard of living, inceased cost of education, stagnant wages... What kind of jobs will you have? Service jobs, there's little manufacturing in the US.
Why continue to bring children into the world with this as the future?
I dunno, I think you could ask the same of the children who survived Nagasaki, the Holocaust, the Trail of Tears or the Bubonic Plague. They didn't have much to look forward to either but somehow, they got through it. I think our kids have it pretty easy if you put things in an historical context. What I fear is the unknown because for now, we've managed to print our way to avoid an in-your-face 30s-style depression...but once our debts come due, I'm truly afraid then for our children. I think that when the smoke and mirrors are lifted, we will face similar conditions that were precursors to WWII.
My proposal is that all males be given vasectomies at birth and once 25 can take a means test for emotional and financial stabilty.
If they pass, they can pay for a reversal, but the surgery is not guaranteed.
Do understand that this is my ideal solution and I have no way to enforce it; I realize that.
I can remmeber people saying the same thing in the 70's recession or even in the 60's culture thing. I would guess it seemed even wrose in the great depression. Then alos also guess the chnage from a argiculture to industrial base the same thing was said. Certainly the same thing has been said on crime by people raised in the 50's thru now. People adapt and things change.Having been raised in teh 50's and 60's ;I'd say my parnets would mostly be shocked at now easy most have it now days and what middle class has become.You know the 20's were pretty much like the the 60's thru now but the depression changed that and this may also change. Yor children may become the 2nd greatest generation;you never know really.
Optimism never hurts, but reality is a better place to live.
There was a book in the early 1970s called The Population Bomb. It changed my life.
Dwindling resources:
What about energy concerns? Potable water? Housing? Employment?
People really need to look at these things before producing mini-mes.
If you have a houseful of kids, you're probably not living within your means.
You probably haven't lived within your means if you've had a houseful of kids anytime since the 70s.
Unfettered breeding won't help out individuals or the world at this point.
You changed your life over a book that proved to be a complete bust?
Paul Ehrlich in his 1968 book "The Population Bomb" predicted mass starvation in the 1970's or by 1985 at the latest. His apocolyptic view of scarcity NEVER HAPPENED. Instead, economic freedom and free markets made dramatic inroads around the world, and the native ingenuity of mankind achieved far more than could have been imagined.
The beautiful truth is, free markets provide the incentive for one to be of value to the rest of us. I can make a buck by solving your problem. Scarcity drives up prices, which bring forth new sources, new alternatives, and new processes--scarcity sows the seeds of its cure.
There is not a chance that energy scarcity will change the world for the worse in our lifetimes. We have a hundred years of natural gas, two hundred years worth of coal, virtually unlimited nuclear capacity, wind, hydrogen, and who knows what else the mind of Man will come up with.
The real threat to human progress is the weakening link between human effort and rewards for the effort. If I cannot make a buck (and keep the biggest fracton after taxes) for solving your problem, I'll work on my tan instead.
If you want to see Paul Ehrlich's predictions come true (even decades late), just adopt 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.' We'll be eating tree bark, as they do in North Korea.
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