: Dammit Red, the problem isn't too many poor people, it's too many fucking people (and too much fucking in general, haha). Lets put it this way, when people are poor, they mtend to have more babies than when they are well healed, the only way to curb population growth, is to actually redistribute wealth, handing out contraceptives (especially to them as *need* the babies for work), or sterilising as happened in India (here, have a nice radio....) is useless...
: Statistics i've seen say that we could feed twice the current population on a latin American diet, which still might include some malnuitrition.
Right, well twice our population is a long way off, lets concentrate on redistriubuting wealth now to avoid that eventuality.
: Do you not care for the rain forests, or the diversity of life on the earyth? Do not the gorillas,the dolphins and the crocodiules have a right to exist? i fiully recognize that redistribution has to be part of the plan, howevre, can you not acknowledge taht we need to protet our resources, natural beauty, adn biological diversity? And that this cannot happen without a reduction in our numbers?
No, we don't need to reduce our numbers, we need to use our resources better and in a more sustainable manner- of course I care about those things,but I do not see the number of humans as bing an effect upon them- reember under capitalism the economy grows faster than population growth- the idea must be to redistribute, and share what we have better.
: Reduction in population means a bigger pie for everyone. If you can guarantee me, 100% certain, that we can feed and clothe X billion people WITHOUT significant redu ction of our remaining wildernesses, animal and plant life, and natural resources, then I will concede your point.
We could do it with our current production levels, with our current world usage- think of EU butter mountains, wine lakes, set-aside schemes (our farmers are *paid* to not produce, in order to protect prices) We could do it with our current wealth.
:But if tehre is a chance that you are wrong., don't you think it's safer to first achieve sustainability at our current populationmbefore daring to expand any further?
And how do we do that, pray tell- the best way seems to me to raise everyone standard of living- noticeably we have low populatiobn growth rates in europe- in fact IIRC italy is dangerously close to population stagnation.
Lets not attack the poor, lets get at the real problem, end capitalsm.
None.
