http://culturedecoded.wordpress.com/2008/10/14/the-importance-of-the-final-presidential-debate/

For the argument that the problem with food is distribution rather than the amount of food produced I would recommend a book titled World Hunger: 12 Myths. There are other sources that have pointed out that excess food has been produced for the last several years, and if you want, I can give you a reference to someone who actually spoke on that recently but I do like the book. Something it should help people think about is that if we don’t deal with distribution then no matter how much food is produced there will still be people going hungry somewhere.

About gadgets, I think unless we come up with a way to have less of them (or ones that somehow aren’t related to pollution) the world’s environment is doomed no matter how limited the population becomes. The world population is predicted to level off in the future between 9-11 billion anyway. But nowhere attached to that is a limit on the amount of pollution that people are willing to put out. I suspect that unless Canada actively does something to limit and then lower the amount of pollution it releases then Canadian pollution will rise.

One of the general things Darwin’s theories as well as evolution are based on is who does reproduce and pass on genes. That is part of the reason it seemed fair to mention him in a discussion about having children.

You’d be correct to say I’m not a child bearing aged woman. But I’ve heard one mention (whom I knew on and off since high school) that she wanted to have alot of kids (high school) and then only 2 (later in her twenties). Besides I’ve seen some people (sometimes on blogs I come across) mention being limited to 2 children as some sort of moral obligation-when the actual practice of doing something like that hasn’t prevented higher rates pollution growth at all (a point I brought up with China before).

Here are a couple of old quick links on China’s pollution growth, and (as I pointed out earlier, so maybe sorry for the repetition) this has been happening while its population control policy is active and running.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2007/03/05/MNG18OFHF21.DTL&o=2

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?o=1&f=/c/a/2007/03/05/MNG18OFHF21.DTL

My point, which I didn’t seem to voice well at all, was that one or the other has to give, preferably both. Either we need to stop being so damn gadgety and “rich”, or we need to stop having so many people. I don’t know the exact number, but I’m sure the world could support a vastly smaller population at Canada’s standard of living. Say a million? Two? Maybe a billion? I don’t know. Not six or seven billion, though.

Where are you getting your statistics for the “everyone being fed to a point where they’re overweight”? Because I was under the impression that the food crisis is very real and very much because we don’t physically have enough food (especially with the rampant droughts and what not) to feed to everyone. Even more so when cars are being fed a good chunk of the corn. I’d be really reassured if what you say is true!

One last thing, would a lack of “motherhood gene” really be what Darwin was getting at? I thought natural selection was simplified to 1) living to reproductive age and 2) being selected by a mate. Both conditions I fill, regardless of whether or not I chose to have offspring.

(And as an aside: SQUEE I don’t have a clue who you are and you commented on my blog!! Squeeeee!!!!)

It is a free nation.

And this is also the way Darwin explains how a species evolves over time (lack of a “motherhood gene” being a self selecting problem.)

The problem with food (note the prices shooting up recently) is not that we are somehow running out (no having another “mouth to feed” isn’t hurting anything) but that (like the wealth and gadget gap you noticed) it isn’t getting distributed. For the past several years there has been enough food produced on the planet Earth to feed every man, woman, and child to the point of being highly overweight.

Yes there is more than enough food to go around. There has been more food produced than people to eat it in years past and this year. In years coming in the near future food its still more likely to be overproduced (in comparison to the number of people who need to eat it) than under.

Why the plentiful food the world has doesn’t get distributed to everyone in need is a very good question that doesn’t appear to be being asked (instead overpopulation is referred to as a more knee-jerk but inaccurate response).

You did talk about reducing the consumption of the wealthy nations. That does seem logical as Global Warming related CO2 is mainly related to them. Notice how many coal power plants and oil (through gasoline and other fuels) wealthy nations have. That puts coal that was buried underground into the air thus changing the atmoshpere and surface Carbon cycle. Note that these days the number of cars, computers, lights, homes, and what not are not made in any kind of ratio to the actual number of people. (Wealthier people can own larger and multiple homes, many cars, and so on). It is the effects of these actions, choices, and careers that result in greater CO2/Global Warming.

If you look at China they have a 1 child per family policy at the same time they are building a new coal power plant weekly. And they feel these coal power plants are needed because they are building alot of new factories with little in the way of environmental regulations. Proof that you don’t need to have alot more people to find ways to pollute alot more.

If China had decided never to start a 1 child policy and instead not industrialize in a polluting and breakneck pace then they would be putting out alot less pollution then they do today.

In sum, if you don’t want to have children that is your decision. But just don’t make it out to be a gift to the world as the problem the planet faces is that development is done in ways that encourage (even demand) polluting more. It isn’t overpopulation.

Although…

“Back in California, the Kern River field itself seems little changed from what it must have looked like 100 years ago. The same dusty hills are now littered with a forest of wells, with gleaming pipes running along dusty roads.”

See…now theres the problem. Add a few nuclear cooling towers to that vista and you’ve competely destroyed its charm.