In order to establish a sustainable human civilization on planet Earth, we need to reduce the number of humans on planet Earth, and stop poisoning the air, the soil, and especially the water.
Update:
Here is a good link. After you click on this link, click on the link of the title of the book, Limits To Growth. It lets you print up a short summary version of the book.
Read it.
But in order to stop the poisoning, and especially in order to reduce the population, we need to step back and look at the big picture, and ask ourselves what we really need to do.
In order to reduce the population, we could:
- SNARK!!! Nuke most humans, leaving a sustainable number of humans alive. Very few of us like that idea, because the humans left alive would suffer too much grief and radiation poisoning to enjoy life much. SNARK!!!
Option number one is snark!!!
- Persuade more than 99 percent of humans that voluntarily restricting the birth rate, with many humans eager to have zero children, for the greater good, is just common sense, a given, an 'of course, what else could we possibly do?' kind of idea. I like this idea best, and it is slowly growing, but at this rate, it may take more than two hundred years to catch on, and it may be too late for billions of starving humans by that time. How many hundreds of years did it take for more than 99 percent of humans to agree that the Earth is not the center of the universe, but rather, the Earth is spinning, giving the illusion that everything is revolving around Earth? How long did that take?
- Bribe everyone into working for a low birth rate. I do not think this is practical. Couples already have a strong material incentive to avoid having any children, and see what we have.
- Deal with high birth rates the way we deal with pollution: We pass laws, and we attempt to enforce those laws.
I am beginning to think we need to consider option 4. However, we need to do a much better job with the birth rate than we are doing with pollution and greenhouse gasses. We need to be stricter, more aggressive.
And with the birth rate, we are dealing with people in their most private areas of their lives, and the most private areas of their bodies.
So, we need to set aside the idea of freedom when it comes to making babies, because that act of making a baby at this point in history could be the act of bringing a human into a miserable, nightmare life.
And consider: what if the young men and women themselves, at some later date, realize they made a big mistake, making babies at this point in history? How do you suggest they fix it? Do you expect them to kill their own children? Do you expect them to kill themselves?
I am saying that I am all in favor of freedom to do things, and make mistakes, when those mistakes can be easily remedied.
Such as, the mistake of moving to the wrong city; just move back, or to a better city.
The mistake of taking the wrong job; just get a different job, after the health care bill passes, so there will be no gap in coverage.
The mistake of marrying the wrong person; divorce or separate, and get a different partner.
The mistake of buying the wrong house or car; trade them in for a different house, a different car.
The mistake of buying the wrong size underwear, take the unopened package back to the store, and get the right size, and donate the rest of the wrong size shorts from the opened package to Goodwill.
All these mistakes can be easily remedied, without anyone getting killed. But the mistake of a baby at the wrong time in history simply cannot be fixed by any means short of death.
Now, I understand that for any one baby, the solution is to make it work, somehow. I am not expecting anyone to get too stressed about any one baby, after the stick turns blue, showing the woman is pregnant.
I am simply stating that if we look at the big picture, we cannot maintain the idea that we must let all humans have the freedom to make their own mistakes, including making babies they may regret later, because of the circumstances of the world they will grow up in, within the next one hundred years.
By the way, to give specific goals:
I do not have a collge degree, and I have not crunched the numbers to see if these numbers are reasonable or realistic, whether the numbers I am giving you are too little, too late, or if they are way too aggressive, and would cause more harm than good.
I am simply tired of waiting for Al Gore to give any population goals, or Bill Clinton, or President Obama.
I am tired of waiting.
I will talk only of women who have not had any children yet; those who already have children should mostly stop right now, and have no more.
I propose a goal of somehow gathering all young women who have no children yet, into groups of six women to a group. The women would discuss amongst themselves which one of them will have three children. The other five women will get all their husbands and boyfriends, present and future, to submit to vasectomies.
Do you see now, why we will need to either persuade everyone that this is just common sense, and the only sensible thing to do, or bribe them, or pass laws and strictly enforce them? This is very private, cutting into a man's scrotum. It will take a grand persuasion, a very powerful carrot or a very painful stick, or a mix of both, to make this happen.
Alright, at this point, nearly every one of you reading this is saying that none of these options, bribery, laws, or persuasion, will ever work.
And I agree. You are right. It will never work. It is too late anyway. Any young person who has a child now, that child, or that child's child, will live to see billions, not millions, but billions of humans starve to death in some parts of the world. And, in some places, humans will kill each other for access to safe, pure drinking water from a good well, because that may be the bigger problem. Access to safe drinking water is always a challenge, even in this country.
So, you are right, there is nothing in this diary that is useful. There is no hope.
However, just to entertain myself, I will go ahead and tell you what I wish we would do.
As I said, by way of drastic family planning and contraception, we should reduce the birth rate per woman to a lifetime birth rate average of point five. As I said, I do not think a child should grow up without brothers or sisters, so I suggest one woman in six should have three children, with the other five having zero.
Imagine the other five women coming over all the time, begging for a chance to change a poopy diaper. And a woman can use a breast pump, and the other women can use a bag on a sling, and in effect breast feed the baby, using the mother's milk.
Any way, with the birth rate that low, I hope that we could bring the population of humans on planet Earth down from the present 6.7 billion to less than 6 billion sometime before the year 2100.
Then, maybe by the year 2200, we could get the numbers down to about 4 billion.
Then, by the year 2300, we could be down to 2 billion, or maybe even 1 billion humans on planet Earth.
Then we can level off. By that time, we might have such a deep cultural urge to avoid making babies, that we may need to get a little pushy, to get the birth rate back up to 2 babies per woman, to maintain our numbers at a nearly stable state of affairs.
Imaging New York City as a museum, a tourist attraction, with only enough people living there, such as about 100,000, just enough people to give the tourists a historical show, reenacting the scenes from the old New York of the twentieth century, for the tourists. Just as many old cow towns have reenactments to entertain the tourists.
I know, just a silly fantasy. But what should I do, to entertain myself? Read endless green diaries that ignore population? Is that what you want me to do?
Doing that does not entertain me.
Doing that gives me fits.
So, I will keep writing diaries like this, to entertain myself.
Maybe a few of you will enjoy them, also.