🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1993Jan4.205955.10722@netcom.com>, ladasky@netcom.com (John J. Ladasky II) writes:

|> 	For myself, I believe that history teaches us that improved
|> living standards are the cause, and that reduced population growth is the
|> effect.  Yes, we need to educate and combat poverty first.  However, I
|> think that history shows us that improving the quality of life RAISES
|> per capita consumption rates.  Look at the United States.  Imagine the
|> trouble we would have if the First World grew at Third World rates! 
|> Therefore, population control IS a necessary precursor of an improved
|> environment.

I'm afraid you haven't made yourself clear: are you saying we should find
a way to control population in poor countries BEFORE increasing living 
standards? 

Of course, to the extent that resources are finite, this would be great,
but it presents a prisoners' dilemma/tragedy of the commons. In a poor
society, it is in the individual's interest to have the largest number of 
children, to maximize the chance of a secure old age, while it is in
the society's interest, in forming a stable and sustainable society, to
have small families. In such an important matter, only the strongest 
coercion can convince the individual to comply. 

Fortunately, in more complex and successful societies, the advantage
is toward small families. Thus the humane concern of spreading prosperity
and the environmental one of limiting population coincide.

It is true that persons in affluent societies consume much more than
persons in poor societies, though the plethora of numbers (thirty-seven,
a hundred, 275 times as much...) seems to me completely fabricated except 
where it focusses on a single resource. But it is also true that affluent
and modern societies have considerable room for progress in the amount
of environmental impact per unit of affluence, and their populations are
stable. 

Meanwhile, the exponential population growth in poorer societies 
INEVITABLY will lead to catastrophe sooner or later, as an equivalent 
exponential decline in impact per person in those societies is tantamount
to mass starvation in short order.

It's clear that we in the west need to reduce our impact, but that is in no way
identical to reducing our comfort. Meanwhile, it is blindness to assert
that the environmental problems of the western countries are more severe
than those of the poorer and especially the more heavily populated of
the poorer countries. 

Technological wealth is more like software than hardware: sharing it
with someone doesn't mean you have less of it. Getting the rest of
the world (including certain parts of US society) to modern standards
is the only way out of our dilemma shy of global fascism. And I think
it needs to be done very soon. Justice to humans and respect for life
in general are in agreement.

|>      "Talking about music is like
|>       dancing about architecture."

nice quote.

mt