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Electric Politics: Al Bartlett says "The Die is Cast"
Posted by Prof. Goose on December 18, 2007 - 11:40pm
George Kenney over at Electric Politics has quite the interview with Al Bartlett. Here's a link to the .mp3 download, and here's a link to the post itself, which has an in-line player and comments. George writes:
It's an enormous conceit to think that population increases are everywhere and always a good thing. In the blessed tradition, however, of neo-classical economic theory (aka 'free markets') such is the miracle of rational choice that left to themselves people will 'optimize' the rate of population growth: no natural limit on population exists. Nevertheless, in reality the unacknowledged costs of population growth mostly shift to future generations. Call it the ultimate Ponzi scheme. And if you think about it, population growth is the main driver of all our planetary scale problems, from warming to Peak Oil to food production, right down the list. Locally as well, even to diluted democratic practices of governance. Although it makes no sense whatsoever to tackle any of these without due consideration of the population factor most of the time population doesn't get mentioned — the implications are so politically controversial. To help put population and its derivatives into perspective I turned to a man who's been sounding the alarm about sustainability for decades, Dr. Albert Allen Bartlett. It was a real privilege to talk with Al, who's as close to being a prophet as anybody can be these days. Listen, and pass the word! Total runtime an hour and sixteen minutes.
Amen, brother. (Feel free to link to other recent peak oil media in the comments as well.)
“Any coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning, but give me the man who has pluck to fight when he's sure of losing. That's my way, sir; and there are many victories worse than a defeat.”
—George Eliot
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Population cannot exceed the food and water infrastructure required to sustain it. The energy bill conversion of food to fuel might empty entire villages of people, to sustain a few drivers' long distance commutes.
The new government 15 year plan to require non-freemarket use of ethanol reminds me of the Soviet planning commitees of the 1970's that came up with government controlled planed economy instead of Democracy and free market pricing mechanisms. Long bread lines and occasional large scale food imports were requited to sustain the actions of the committees. The U.S. federal 15 year ethanol plan would be inefficient as it takes away free market mechanisms and substitutes totalitarian type production quotas.
In order for there to be freedom in a democracy there must be science and knowledge. The people can accept such manipulation of the energy markets as long as they do not know. If they will gain knowledge; perhaps there will be positive change and prosperity for all instead of for a few special interest groups with lobbyists on K St, NW Washington, D.C.
"If they will gain knowledge; perhaps there will be positive change and prosperity for all instead of for a few special interest groups with lobbyists on K St, NW Washington, D.C."
Are you referring to people in the US or the whole globe?
If I understand things correctly there is no way that the entire current population of the globe has its basic food requirements met, let alone can be considered prosperous.
So the real question is how do we reverse population growth.
Letting billions of people starve to death does seem a bit harsh. Maybe we could politely ask them to move to Mars or at least the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I'm sure they will be amenable to such a request.
Yeah, how the hell do we reverse it...?
But a good start would be getting the population to acknowledge that there is a problem. Even most educated folk I know don't realise we are heading towards population disaster ("the population problem is a third world issue")
When Tony Blair announced his fourth child it was received with "oh, isn't that wonderful," rather than "isn't that terrible - what a bad example to set"
This is one of the more irritating things I see on the television the few times I watch it. Somebody took fertility drugs and had 8 babies, and they fall over backwards going "oh isn't that cute"?
It isn't cute. It is horrific.
Great point.
This demonstrates the duality of the human brain.
There is one part (the limbic) which is squeaking with irrational delight at the "cuteness" of the babies and the nascent nuclear family.
There is another, cold and calculating part (the neo-cortex) that is recoiling at the mathematical implications.
And when you juxtapose the warm-fuzzy "feeling" part (limbic) against the cold calculating one (neo) in a democratic society, the warm fuzzy part wins hands down every time.
The Die is indeed cast.
Yeah, and they are all the same genes, so you get 8x the consumption for 1x the genetic diversity.
This subject reminds me of a science fiction novel I read years ago as a teen. It was set in a dystopian future (is there any other?) where population problems became so profound, in part to due to much longer lifespans (in the book, the average age of a US citizen had been extended with 'miracle medicine' to something like 150 to 160 years of age) that in order for families to get anything approaching decent medical care the parents had to undergo sterilization. Indeed, the plot of the book, in part, was about a low level criminal who smuggled black market surgical kits to surgeons who performed lifesaving surgeries on folks who refused to be sterilized. I even think the name of the book was "Bladerunner" (not to be consfused with the other book and movie by the same name.
SubKommander Dred
Make that "The Bladerunner" by Alan Nourse...
SubKommander Dred
Knowledge?
US school kids came in 29'th out of 30 in the latest UN survey of OECD countries regarding science knowledge.
SolarHouse
So who was #30? Poland, Turkey?
No.
The United States' 300 million people use more reosurces and cause more pollution than the 1,200 million people of India. The 21 million people of Australia use more resources and cause more pollution than the 160 million people of Pakistan.
The problem, then, is not the population, but how much each person uses or pollutes. The world could take 20 billion people living like Indians, but could not take 2 billion living like Australians.
It's telling that talk of population control generally comes from the prosperous West, and more telling still that it's appearing again now that India and China's economies are growing. I think there's a bit of reasoning going on here, "If only those pesky darkies would stop breeding, then I could enjoy my burgers and SUV forever without trouble. They could at least stop wanting burgers and SUVs, too."
The problem isn't how many people there are, but the resources those people use and the pollution they cause. It's lifestyle, not how many babies you have.
"The problem isn't how many people there are, but the resources those people use and the pollution they cause. It's lifestyle, not how many babies you have."
You obviously do not understand the exponential function.
The problem IS how many babies are born into the world regardless of their average lifestyle. Even if for example we accept your statement that the world could sustain 20 billion people living an Indian lifestyle it can't sustain 40 billion living the that same lifestyle. Population growth is not sustainable on a finite planet, doesn't matter how much you wish it were so.
Yes, if only those annoying darkies would just stop having so many babies we could all keep eating our burgers and driving our SUVs. It's very inconsiderate of them to have babies. It's even more inconsiderate of them to want a life of eating burgers and driving SUVs.
Life was much easier when they knew their place as people who'd work for tuppence a day sending us raw materials which we could sell back to them at inflated prices as manufactured goods.
Insolent darkies!
There's a wealthy couple, dual income no kids, who live in a nice house on a quiet street, and each week they put out two garbage bins, and have so much garbage that they actually have to sneak it into their neighbour's bin, using a third of the four between the two houses. Their neighbours are a big sprawling family of two parents, an old grandma, an uncle and his wife, and six kids. This family produces two bins of garbage a week. So sometimes they come to fill up their bin and find the wealthy couple have snuck their rubbish in first, and sometimes the wealthy couple comes and finds their neighbour's bin full.
The wealthy couple thus conclude that the real problem is that their neighbours have too many kids. "If only they'd stop having children, then they'd have spare bin space for us to put our extra rubbish into. It's very inconsiderate of them. Don't they understand the exponential function?"
Two people use three bins, and eleven people use two bins, and there are only four bins between them. Obviously those eleven people have got to stop having so many children!
Or maybe, you know, those two people could produce less rubbish, coming down to a fair share.
The world was so much better when we had everything and those darkies had nothing, wasn't it? We could have lived the same way forever! Of course, it wouldn't be so good for them, but they're just ignorant darkies pumping out children, they're stupid and don't deserve better.
Let's not kid ourselves. This is a race issue. Middle class white people are too caught up in our culture of gathering possessions and indulging in hedonistic sex to want to reproduce. For every middle class woman who is voluntarily childless, there is an illegal immigrant family that has four.
Overpopulation is world problem, not a race problem or a national problem. If every nation on earth had the population density of India, there would be preciously little rainforest or even dry forest left on earth.
The Bengal Tiger, along with every other wild species in India will soon be extinct. India's water tables are dropping so fast that many towns are being evacuated because they have no water. India, along with Bangladesh, Pakastan and China are perhaps the most overpopulated countries on earth. Their rivers are drying up, their water tables are dropping by meters per year and, especially in China, their topsoil is either blowing away or being washed away. China is losing 1,400 Square Miles to desert each year!
Most African countries are overpopulated. The Sahara desert is expanding by thousands of square miles per year. One country alone, Nigeria, is losing 1,355 square miles to desertification each year. Same URL as above:
A racial problem My Ass! It is a population problem pure and simple. Simply by pointing out how much more energy the US uses, per capita, you cannot turn a devastating population problem int a racial problem. True, we use far more than our fair share of energy, but the vast overpopulation problem of the world is devastating the habitat of the people that live in those countries.
Ron Patterson
Oh for Crikey's sake what does any of what you are saying have to do with the arithmetic of the exponential function. Talk about setting up a straw man. Or is it a darkie man?
Nature doesn't give a rodent's anal orifice whether you run the experiment with bacteria in a petri dish or on the planet with human beings. Theoretically it should even work with little green men with purple antennae. When the nutrients run out the growing population crashes end of story.
For fun you might get your self a chessboard and put one grain of rice on the first square then put two on the second square then four on the third keep doubling the number of grains until you get to the last square and let me know how many grains you end up with. Cheers.
Differential resource access between the overdeveloped and underdeveloped nations is a "hard problem" (a phrase apparently used by physicists to indicate a problem that's insoluble).
It's not intrinsically a race problem, and those who mention it are generally just commenting on observed facts with no value judgment implied. The fact that the overdeveloped nations are predominantly of white European ancestry while the underdeveloped nations are not, of course leaves us open to such charges on the basis that "commenting is condoning" or some such foolishness.
However, to view the world as a single undifferentiated mass of people (or a single mass of aggregated consumption) is less useful than an analysis that factors in the situations of individual nations as well as the role of national boundaries. I like to think of national boundaries as cell walls. A cell has relatively full control over what goes on inside them, but the transmission of information and resources across a cell wall or national boundary to influence neighboring cells is highly regulated and flows are restricted.
Thus when someone says "We grow enough food to feed everyone int he world, the problem is one of distribution," or "There is enough energy produced on earth today to give everyone 2.5 KW" they are ignoring the fundamental constraints imposed by the way the world we have created actually works. We ignore those issues at our peril. Recognizing them isn't racist, it's realistic.
Acknowledging that overpopulation is a problem does not mean we think it's the only problem. And acknowledging that it's a problem doesn't mean we endorse coercive means of population control.
What you are assuming is that the couple in question actually wanted six kids. I don't think there should be mandatory limits on childbearing (at either end of the spectrum, which is why I'm vociferously pro-choice). But we have had the ability to reduce unintended pregnancies by a factor of 1000 for the past 50 years (the pill, in addition to more recent birth control advances). The fact that we have not made the ability to control family size a basic human right is racist, classist, and a gross human rights abuse.
If you truly want six children, (for your own reasons and not because of religious or social pressures) I won't argue with you. And I won't do anything that would limit your free choice. I will certainly do everything I can to give you and your children the highest quality of life possible.
But what we're ignoring is that a good proportion of our population growth is due to unaffordable and unwanted pregnancies (in every class and in every race). I think all people of conscience would support reducing this burden on women and families.
I do understand the fear of eugenics. The US has a shameful history in this area. If there must be mandatory limits on growth, they should be on consumption. But we have an opportunity to decrease the stress on the planet AT THE SAME TIME as enhancing human rights, and cutting off discussion before we even have a chance to state our proposals is not helpful.
People might be interested in seeing what is happening to fertility rates worldwide.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territories_by_fertil...
Remember that a fertility rate of 2.11 is replacement rate. With that in mind, look how many countries are not replacing their dying citizens.
And look how fertility rates are falling world wide.
Simplistic statements like this ignore several inconvenient facts. Yes, fertility rates are falling world-wide. But:
To me this set of facts adumbrates a looming demographic catastrophe.
And where are these birth rates falling? It's directly proportionate to access to birth control and health care. People are willing (even eager) to control the size of their families, what they are lacking is the necessary tools.
"Birth control: the biggest silver BB"
The world could take 20 billion people living like Indians, but could not take 2 billion living like Australians.
Actually not quite true. 2 billion would mark the estimated upper limit of population sustainable at Western standards, but is not unsustainable.
Source: Optimum Human Population Size
Gretchen C. Daily University of California (Berkeley) Anne H. Ehrlich and Paul R. Ehrlich Stanford University (July 1994)
That presumes 3 kW per capita consumption from 12kw according to the article.
Well, I screwed up, I meant to reply to your comment and replied to someone else's instead. Here's the text again, sorry about the repost.
Acknowledging that overpopulation is a problem does not mean we think it's the only problem. And acknowledging that it's a problem doesn't mean we endorse coercive means of population control.
What you are assuming is that the couple in question actually wanted six kids. I don't think there should be mandatory limits on childbearing (at either end of the spectrum, which is why I'm vociferously pro-choice). But we have had the ability to reduce unintended pregnancies by a factor of 1000 for the past 50 years (the pill, in addition to more recent birth control advances). The fact that we have not made the ability to control family size a basic human right is racist, classist, and a gross human rights abuse.
If you truly want six children, (for your own reasons and not because of religious or social pressures) I won't argue with you. And I won't do anything that would limit your free choice. I will certainly do everything I can to give you and your children the highest quality of life possible.
But what we're ignoring is that a good proportion of our population growth is due to unaffordable and unwanted pregnancies (in every class and in every race). I think all people of conscience would support reducing this burden on women and families.
I do understand the fear of eugenics. The US has a shameful history in this area. If there must be mandatory limits on growth, they should be on consumption. But we have an opportunity to decrease the stress on the planet AT THE SAME TIME as enhancing human rights, and cutting off discussion before we even have a chance to state our proposals is not helpful.
i like that kiashu -- 20 billion starving indians.
Indians aren't starving.
India has not had a mass famine since independence.
You'd have 4 billion impoverished and not very happy but fed Indians, 14 billion Indians getting by, and 2 billion Indians who live like middle-classed Westerners do today.
I realise that it can be difficult for a Westerner to grasp, but other countries aren't uniform, aren't the same all the way through.
We would do well to understand things the way you have framed them. The exponential problem is twofold. Population and lifestyle.
(So much for the "all that people have to do is adopt western lifestyles and fertility rates will come down problem solved" hypothesis)In my view western lifestyle is the larger immediate problem over population.
Now that billions of Indian, Chinese and others are on the verge of copying 'western' standards of consumption the alarm bell sounds. Where was that sense of urgency before? Malthus, The Club of Rome and Ehrlich had warned us but we paid little mind. Since competition for resources today has reached critical levels it's a crisis.
That will continue until all 'western lifestylers' throttle back on overconsumption and fertility rates worldwide decrease further. Failure at either end means failure of the system.
trends
While we think of the topic of population growth as taboo, but back in the late 60s and early 70s, the need to reduce the rate of population growth was quite often discussed in newspapers. Prior to this time, families had been quite large - five ore more children was not unusual. Nixon asked the Rockefeller Commission to look at the issue of population growth in 1969, and its report, called Population and the American Future was issued in 1972. The report urged lower growth.
Once families started having fewer children, a lot of other changes took place as well. Women started participating in the work force more, and there were a lot more two-car families.
It seems like the topic of reduced population growth can come back again. Once people begin to understand resource limitations, the transition to population topics doesn't seem all that difficult.
So the US stopped having so many children per couple, and yet... the US uses more resources than ever before. Both overall and per capita.
Funny, that.
What's your argument? give up efficiency because increased demand will negate it every time?
No one's denying that there are other factors. Should we ignore one aspect of the solution just because it won't solve every problem by itself?
My argument is that reducing population growth does not necessarily reduce total and per capita consumption and pollution.
We could have a declining population, and yet still have increasing total and per capita consumption and pollution. Japan's an excellent example of this.
Population isn't a factor at all. Some of the highest greenhouse gas polluters (for example) are countries with populations of a few million.
Remember the IPCC is now saying the world needs a 90% global reduction in emissions to avoid an eventual rise of more than 2C; with the corresponding extreme weather events like cyclones and droughts, that counts as "catastrophic climate change". Australia and the US together, with 5% of the world's population, create something like 26% of world emissions. So if the entire world disappeared except for the US and Australia, and we continued living as we are, that'd be a 74% greenhouse gas emissions reduction, and we'd still get catastrophic climate change.
5% of the world's population could cause catastrophic climate change all by themselves. So even if we reduced world population by 95% overnight, we'd still get catastrophic climate change.
As blokes with small dicks like to say, "it's not how big it is, it's what you do with it."
Should one of us cats show up?
cheers
"Modern human societies are in fact quite different from those of pre-fossil-fuel human societies and those of other animals.
We modern humans no longer just produce animal waste that is 'biodegradable' in a normal ecological cycle. Through extractive technologies we have artificially extended our bodies and amplified our activities, so that we consume quite enormous quantities of material and energy. In the process of digging up the materials and burning the energy to make things with, we also clear almost every other living thing in our paths. The waste carbon, nitrogen, phosphates, sulphur and other products which our artificial system puts out largely overwhelm the services of the remaining (shrinking) natural eco-systems. Yet the natural eco-systems are the ONLY agents capable of saving us from being buried, suffocated and burned by the physical and chemical interactions of our industrial-society waste.
That is how the second law of thermodynamics can be used to explain why it is vital to allocate increasing space to natural processes. Returning land to wild grass and forests and giving animals their freedom to live naturally is the most positive thing that we humans can do about the accelerating rate of planetary entropy that consumer society multiplied by huge human populations is causing. Entropy comes in the form of increasingly unpredictable climate and in broken, dead and dying eco-systems.
Large serviceable ecosystems like the Amazon, the great grasslands, coastal waters, coral reefs, indigenous forests, and vast regional chains of animals and plants working in harmony are deteriorating and disappearing because human society and infrastructure are consuming, clearing, fragmenting and isolating them.
In their place man-made things simplify what existed before. Roads interrupt the living fabric of species interacting. Mines pulverize complex geological features and reduce them to their molecular components. Mines and wells extract, refine and simplify the geologically processed bodies of ancient plants and animacules (a microscopic animal such as an amoeba). From these rich sources factories mix the simplified components into soups, pastes and blocks for building and other materials or as fuel for heating, cooling, machines and transport. Factory-simplified engineered monocrops, cultivated with one-size-fits-all mass-produced fertilizers destroy living soil and the rich cloak it sustains on the planet's surface. Feedlot farming suppresses individuality by industrialized cruelty in the service of consumerism replacing the awe-inspiring herds and flocks of yore which had their own histories of migrations, navigations and evolutions. Cities have replaced the mysterious, nurturing and cooling forests, raising local temperatures without making rain. High-rise buildings burn huge amounts of energy and pollute the atmosphere just to keep their temperatures comfortable and their air breathable and to transport people within them by elevators.
These thermodynamic reasons justify the protection of wildlife and natural habitat as necessary for human survival.
People concerned about petroleum decline, pollution, poverty, homelessness, unemployment, etc., also worry that the survival-needs of vast human populations in an era of likely fossil fuel decline will be used to make life even more horrid for other species.
We can see though that there is a way that kindness to wildlife and the preservation of habitat is linked to the principles and laws of energy preservation.
As the natural world shrinks it becomes ever more vital to the survival of the human species.
Because humans use fossil and other non-biological fuels, overall entropy increases at a much greater rate than it would if we had continued to live without our synthetic infrastructure.
The only thing that can even temporarily recreate some degree of order is life, which creates orderly systems (albeit creatures with finite life-spans but who reproduce) whilst consuming energy. At the moment human beings are increasing entropy a great deal more than the other creatures on the planet, due to the rate at which they draw down upon and burn fossil fuels.
The other creatures in our environment compensate for our activities to some degree. The more of them and the fewer of us, the better for the planet, hence the better for humans who inherit the mess we are making.
Apart from this, the principle of kindness and generosity to our fellow travelers on this planet is a positive one, whereas to reduce them to mere expendable conveniences for our species, depraves us."
Sheila Newman is an environmental sociologist
Yes, everyone is trying to think of new ways to sequester carbon from the air. But the ultimate machine, a set of instructions that has used millions of years of trial and error through life and death to design a system that can build itself out of local resources, cost nothing to run, and sequester carbon in a beautiful structure, that is a joy to behold? - Just plant a seed - which will grow into a tree.
Of course, letting life run back again would fix things - but what human will let tree roots break through his heavily mortgaged floorboards and accept the decisions of nature?
Destroying nature and using it in a model we construct in our big brains is what defines us as a species. Instead of being part of systems, we wreck them deliberately and manipulate them for our own benefits. Often short term stuff, because we're not good at thinking about the long.
Trouble is, that's worked pretty well, and there are a lot of us. Will we stop before we overrun the earth?
Got a reply from Brown.
Let's all hope for peaceful settlement.
Nature seems to have a solution for population growth, that being death. For most of human history, or planetary history for that matter, excessive population growth has been controlled by the natural presence of things like starvation, disease, reduced birth rate, and intra-species conflict. This is the free market that nature has provided us; perhaps the free market is really just a form of survival of the fittest.
Clearly the bonanza of resources that knowledge allowed us to tap resulted in a temporary abnormal extension of the limits to human population numbers.
I find it a little strange for people to make the assertion that we have robbed future generation by using up the resources now or that we are shift costs to future generations. I don't know of a single case where someone chose to be born into life. Had others made the decision to block that life from becoming then a terrible cost certainly would have been imposed on that individual not allowed to be. You could equally say then that by controlling population growth in the past or now, that future generation would have imposed a terrible cost on past or present generations. It just not make sense to me to blame any person who comes into existence for the fact that others will not be able to come into existence as a result. There is no moral argument to be made for one life to be lived later as opposed to another being lived now. The resources ultimately will only support a certain excess population, so whether the excess is consumed in a relatively short period of time or spread out over a longer period, the same number of humans beyond carrying capacity should result. Is it immoral to follow our natural instincts and use what resources we can find?
There will always be a natural distribution of wealth in a free market, so even were the population to be at a long term sustainable level some individuals would consume more than others. It is when force is used to interfere with free markets that a skewed distribution occurs with the majority living in poverty relative to the few controlling most of the wealth. It is just remarkable to me the number of people who mistake the controlled markets of today for free markets and blame free markets for the observed skewed distribution. To make matters worse there are then calls to abolish what is left of free markets and replace them with fascism (government controlled economies) or socialism (government owned and controlled economies) instead of calls to abolish government force in our economic lives. In the various forms of controlled economies politicians and bureaucrats decide; in free markets individuals decide.
The call for legislation to do things like command mileage standards, outlaw certain types of light bulbs, fund the guesses of politicians about what might be a substitute for oil, ration scarce supply and the like all will only make matters worse, because politicians and bureaucrats do not know what will work and really are just responding to special interests who are unwilling to compete in the free market and instead want something for nothing. Those of you who think you are doing something beneficial for yourselves of for humanity by asking government to solve your problem are really shooting yourselves in the foot. If there is a solution to the mess we are in, it certainly will not come from government, and government controlling and squandering resources will only inhibit the possible solutions that might otherwise come from the free market.
My personal view is that a man made solution is unlikely and that the forces of nature will deal with the current bloated human population. If we allow the free market to work the damage should be less than would result from using force in our economic activity. Will that stop the death of billions? No. But it will result in nature finding out which are the best examples of humanity to send into the future. Otherwise, the likes of George Bush and Hillary Clinton will use force to see to it that their friends and they have priority seating on the lifeboats.
End of rant.
As Naomi Kleine has said recently, TPTB are investing in the future and they're not going into alt energy.
They're going into fortress investment.
Think Blackwater, Insurance Co's own fire dept's.
The future is here.
We're past the
Tipping Point.
And BTW, a couple of formulas.
IPAT. Impact = pop x affluence x technology
and
x(number of humans) = wealth to TPTB
Overpopulation is truly the key issue the world is facing. China had the right idea with the one child policy.
We are headed for a disaster some time in the future.
I see nothing wrong with governments setting policies which are unpopular like limiting family size, or restricting energy use.
Not likely to happen with our wonderful "free markets" and "democracy".
Please refer to my above post.
Can we please stop jumping from "population is a problem" to "sterilize and legislate!" There are intermediates.
Voluntary population reduction is very possible. Voluntary consumption reduction might not be (but that's a different post).
When access to free and non-judgemental sex ed and contraception are universal, if the population is still rising alarmingly, we can start talking about legislating personal choice (although I doubt that would be the case). Talking about it right off the bat just encourages the "pro-choice people are racist eugenicists" mindset that prevents us from making headway.
"Birth control: the biggest silver BB"
Hi CMDC,
I appreciate your comments here.
One important thing to keep in mind is that a significant percentage (perhaps most) women in the world do not have legal rights equal to those of men. They lack basic human rights - and lack them in ways men do not, even in places with widespread human rights abuses.
All the birth control and "voluntary population" measures in the world cannot work if and when women (and girls) lack basic human rights, including full legal rights - to be free from sexual abuse, etc.
http://www.infoforhealth.org/pr/l11edsum.shtml
The more men speak up - even in situations where the effect is "merely" one of cultural impact - the greater the possibility that men will recognize the intrinsic humanity of women, and thus support their legal rights, and thus their ability to negotiate in relationships w. men, and thus the ability of women to exercise "choice" regarding reproductive decisions, (including whether or not to engage in sexual activity at all).
The connection with childhood abuse (of all kinds) is perhaps not immediate, unless people (esp. men) stop to think about it. A child raised to be a sex object is literally unschooled (and we might say incapable) WRT seeking out and/or demanding any other kind of treatment.
This child becomes an adult who (often) lacks the capacity of asserting her(most often it's a "her") autonomy and right to self-protection. A vicious cycle.
I agree with what you say. This post is just to clarify my position.
I don't see universal contraception as something to stand on its own. (I live in a state where contraception is legal and theoretically available for everyone, but is nevertheless underused because of societal and religious pressures. Women's legal rights are theoretically equal but societally the US isn't there yet.) Throwing pills out of vans will not really help those in abusive relationships, but it will help those who CAN take advantage of it fight for equality for everyone and to change the societal norm. It's hard to be the only one in town with one kid instead of five, if there are a few it encourages more to go with their own inclination.
I guess my point is that I see contraception as a powerful tool for an equality movement. It is very difficult to achieve economic independence if you're constantly pregnant. It is not a coincidence that the US women's movement towards equality in the workplace really took off after the invention of the pill and the ruling on Griswald.
I would say that the greatest gift of contraception is a sense of agency. How can you feel in charge of anything if you can't control such a huge physiological and economic change? When you control yourself you can begin to make real decisions and agitate for the authority to enforce them. When you shed that sense of fatalism a world opens up.
It is difficult to change a culture from the outside. Internal revolutionaries are required. Making drugs readily available on the other hand is laughably easy. When people experience the power that comes from self-determination, it will become abhorrent to them that it's not a universal right.
The fight for equality must be fought on every front, the legal system, cultural norms, education, and healthcare. I fully support all those causes. But cultural, legal and educational change take time. If you give a woman a box of pills you've changed her life for the next year in about five minutes. What can I tell you? I'm american, I like instant gratification, assembly line social change :-P
The one thing I'd disagree with is the notion that population growth is the cause of our food problem. t's the other way around: food production is what's driving population growth. See:
http://www.ishmael.com/interaction/NewsAndInfo/detail.cfm?RECORD=200
Very good slide show. Thanks.
http://www.panearth.org/panearth/world%20food%20&%20human%20population%2...
Ron Patterson
On the question of whether food drives or follows population, I don’t know if trying to answer that question does us a lot of good. I think of it more like a feedback loop. When animals - including humans - reproduce, the offspring will need food to survive. The parents then go out looking for it (food follows population). If they find it, or in the case of humans can produce it, the offspring survive and go on to reproduce in turn (food drives population).
The food supply (and our ability to expand it) enables excess reproduction, which is the biological root of the process. What is undeniable, and is more important to our current predicament is that a limited food supply will always cap population growth. If our excess reproduction is not curbed by other mechanisms, eventually a limited food supply will do the job.
Al Bartlett says, near the end of the podcast, "Sometimes problems don't have answers". That is so true but that is the one thing most people cannot accept. They think there must be an answer to the peak oil problem, there must be an answer to global warming, there must be an answer to the population problem.
But there is not. Well, not one that people will accept anyway. Nature has an answer and everyone will hate the answer nature comes up with.
Ron Patterson
You can reduce a population by food supply manipulations. Chairman Mao tried that with impressive results.
There's an inverse correlation between birth rate and per capita CO2 emissions; that is, prosperity, which directly correlates with CO2 emissions, lowers the birthrate. As children have higher survivability rates and become more expensive to raise, parents chose to have fewer children.
Universal prosperity, a relative, not absolute, phenomenon is a requirement for bringing world population to sustainable levels. The challenge will be to bring about prosperity in a sustainable way. At present population levels, humans have no choice but to mine the earth.