Lower Fertility: a Wise Investment

[LouieK]

Now the globe is faced with a problem with demand and supply of natural resources.

What specifically is the problem?

"Climate change, water stress, habitat destruction, over-hunting and over-fishing, pollution...scarce and depleting resources, especially fossil fuels and natural habitats vital to other species...over-harvesting of ocean fisheries."

If you are concerned that there is a problem with demand and supply of fossil fuels, resulting in low prices, then it seems to me this sort of policy would result in even lower prices. Regarding the other resources you mention, I would suggest ending the policy of giving them away for free. I don't think there is any need to use the language of a market mechanism (supply and demand), when no such mechanism exists.

I am thinking more along the lines of food sources. Every nation can work towards weanning themselves off of fossil fuels. If we (everyone, not specifically poorer nations) don't manage our farmlands, fisheries, and our hunting/animal husbandry industries then indeed we will find ourselves in a position of not being able to support our population.

For example: the pollution and damage to air, soil, and drinking water caused by large scale livestock farming (except llamas :wink: ) is a widely accepted consequence. The trend of more of these "super farms" is on the rise; that however is another thread. Please note that this is only an example and not the entire basis of my explanation. I would end up writing a novel to serve that purpose. :D

Also, I used the author's own words to answer your question. I am not sure that the poorer nations are the main cause of the state of the world's resources; however, I could be wrong.


Afterthought-I am not insinuating that the farming industry is responsible for pollution. I am saying that the "super farms" are putting the traditional farmer out of business. The "super farms" cause pollution due to their condensed farming practices. Traditional farms are more dispersed and their amount of waste has less of an impact as the "super farms" have.

[LouieK]

I should have named this thread "Can of Worms".

[Dragon Star]

Just wait until we get Enzo rollin'! :D

[Enzo]

Are you implying that I am round?

Life expectancies are low because of lack of quality medical care, ignorance of health factors, superstition, AIDs, a lack of resources for the people to thrive upon, lack of capital.

Diseases that we take for granted are curable are lethal when ther is no hospital, no doctor, and no way to afford them even if they were within reach.

Death and disease spread when people refuse to take medications or receive immunization injections because they fear the government is conspiring against them - for example they think the vaccines are CAUSING the diseases. After we all but stamped out polio, it is resurging in placces like Nigeria for just this sort of reason.

AIDs is ramplant in Africa in particular. SOme people simplistically blame it on promiscuous sex. Dad goes off to the city for months at a time to work at a job and sends the money home. WHile there he contracts HIV from a prostitute. So far, promiscuity is at fault. Then he comes home to his faithful wife, whom he infects. She in turn infects her children, and any newborns come into the workd cathing it from the blood of the birth process. The midwife at the birth is exposed to the tainted blood and can be infected. Symptom free for a period of time, they don't know they have it until it is too late. The midwife has not infected her faithful husband, and on and on it goes. Except for the first step, all the involved are innocents. Yet they are infected with something they will never receive treatment for. Many die.

Even before the present population crush, ther were many parts of this earth where the people lived subsistence lives. They had no capital to improve their lot. Now it is worse.

[LouieK]

Umop wrote:

If it is entirely voluntary, it reminds me of these folks.

I think whoever wrote that site needs a different hobby.

[LouieK]

Hmmm, why ask the poorer nations to voluntarily stop breeding when you can simply do this?

[Мастер]

I am thinking more along the lines of food sources.

OK, more on this below.

Every nation can work towards weanning themselves off of fossil fuels.

I hear this goal expressed all the time. I have yet to hear anyone explain why it is a good idea - it is usually taken as axiomatic that it is a good thing.

If we (everyone, not specifically poorer nations) don't manage our farmlands, fisheries, and our hunting/animal husbandry industries then indeed we will find ourselves in a position of not being able to support our population.

Well, they are all being managed. You would like them managed differently? If so, how?

For example: the pollution and damage to air, soil, and drinking water caused by large scale livestock farming (except llamas :wink: ) is a widely accepted consequence. The trend of more of these "super farms" is on the rise; that however is another thread. Please note that this is only an example and not the entire basis of my explanation. I would end up writing a novel to serve that purpose. :D

Well, to my comments earlier, I would suggest that creators of pollution be charged for the environmental damage resulting from their pollution. You might be surprised at how much that would change things. . .

I am saying that the "super farms" are putting the traditional farmer out of business. The "super farms" cause pollution due to their condensed farming practices. Traditional farms are more dispersed and their amount of waste has less of an impact as the "super farms" have.[/i]

Not my line of work, but is there any evidence that the super farms produce more environmental damage per unit of food output than the traditional farms?

[Lance]

Not my line of work, but is there any evidence that the super farms produce more environmental damage per unit of food output than the traditional farms?

Good question. I would think environmental impact would actually be less.

[Dragon Star]

I disagree. Technology=Antienvironment at this point. Although technology allows better use of crops, it takes tons of power to run the technology, using fuels.

[Enzo]

But that fuel use also increases productivity of the land and the farmer. And the economy of scale comes in. One long cattle train can pull up to the super feedlot, and that is more fuel efficient than lotss of small operations each sending their fewer cattle in trucks to individual train depots. One train one stop instead of many stops. The schoolbus is more efficient than Each mom driving her own child to school.


On a per-cowpita basis, I don't know that super farms pollute any more than traditional farms, but they do concentrate the waste. SO it is conceivable that there is some sort of threshold effect. Concentrations could rise to the point of some deleterious phenomenon that would not occur at the lower levels of dispersed farms. But that is all speculation.

There is a local huge dairy operation that is allegedly contaminating the ground water with animal waste seeping into the aquifer from the storage lagoons. WHile that is a failure of the particular lagoon system, nonetheless, individual farms scattered around would not be able to deliver the level of pollitants into the groundwater.

I suppose everything has its tradeoffs.

[Мастер]

On a per-cowpita basis