Population"Intensification of production to feed an increased population leads to a still greater increase in population." Peter Farb Whenever a Taker couple talk about how wonderful it would be to have a big family, they're reenacting this scene beside the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. They're saying to themselves, 'of course it's our right to apportion life on this planet as we please. Why stop at four kids or six ? We can have fifteen if we like. All we have to do is plow under another few hundred acres of rain forest --and who cares if a dozen other species disappear as a result ?' (From a novel: Ishmael by Daniel Quinn p181) Human beings are a biological experiment...If we choose to eradicate ourselves from the earth...the earth will regenerate because the earth has all the time in the world. Whatever happens to us will not have a lasting impact on the world. In time, the world will regenerate. It will come back green, and the waters will be clean again. It's just that there won't be any people here. That's all. We're not needed. We're parasites. We don't help the Earth, we take. So if all the people disappear, then the Earth is going to regenerate because there'll be peace here again. Oren Lyons "...humanity is already the first species in the history of life to become a geophysical force. We have, all by our bipedal, wobbly-headed selves, altered Earth's atmosphere and climate away from the norm. We have spread thousands of toxic chemicals worldwide, appropriated 40 percent of the solar energy available for photosynthesis, converted almost all of the easily arable land, dammed most of the rivers, raised the planet sea level, and now, in a manner likely to get everyone's attention like nothing else before it, we are close to running out of fresh water. A collateral effect of all this frenetic activity is the continuing extinction of wild ecosystems, along with the species that compose them. This also happens to be the only human impact that is irreversible. " E. O. Wilson, The Creation. "Bush administration officials have spoken out against an agreement, reached at a 1994 U.N. conference in Cairo, that calls for controlling population growth by expanding access to health care and being more responsive to women's needs. U.S. officials argue that certain phrases in the agreement - including "reproductive health services" and "reproductive rights" - condone abortion as well as sex and condom use among teenagers." Source here 12/30/2002. Links Science
Magazine on Population Population Growth over human history. Cliodynamics: History as
Science Population and the Environment The Best Statistics Presentation You've Ever Seen People Centered Development Forum. International Planned Parenthood Federation States Rejecting "Abstinence-Only" Funding Federal --Government Has Spent Millions On Sex-'Ed' Approach, Now 15 States Not Interested 07 Jan 2008 CBS News reports: The government has provided states a $1 billion during the past decade for abstinence-only programs. But many say it just doesn't work, and they point to the teen birth rate's first rise in 15 years as proof. A growing number of states are taking a stand and actually rejecting federal abstinence-only funds. New Mexico just became the 15th. Why
Malthus Got His Forecast Wrong (12/12/2012)
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