Friday, December 11, 2009
Reproductive quota
If you are thinking about having a bunch of kids, you'd better act fast, before Diane Francis (writing an op-ed in the Financial Post) gets her way:
The "inconvenient truth" overhanging the UN's Copenhagen conference is not that the climate is warming or cooling, but that humans are overpopulating the world.I guess the World Court would handle all of the "planetary law" violations. They're really going to have to staff up.
A planetary law, such as China's one-child policy, is the only way to reverse the disastrous global birthrate currently, which is one million births every four days.
Ms. Francis is presumably intelligent enough to realize that her proposal would require a high degree of totalitarianism to reign world wide. She must also realize that her proposal is inherently racist, since every population study I have seen in the last several decades shows clearly that non-Caucasians are out-reproducing Caucasians, and non-Westerners are out-reproducing Westerners.
OK, so this is a silly proposal. The thinking underlying the proposal -- that Malthus was correct, if perhaps a bit early, writing in the beginning of the 19th Century -- is actually quite common among many environmentalists. I don't know if that's because they have special knowledge regarding the carrying capacity of our planet, or because maybe they just don't like people all that much.
Oh, and I should clarify. The acting fast part in the first paragraph? By all means, take longer than 10 minutes. As long as you are going to help wreck the planet, you should have fun doing it.
CWCID: The Corner
11 Comments:
By 
, at
Fri Dec 11, 08:57:00 PM:
"Ms. Francis is presumably intelligent enough to realize . . . ."
Why would you presume someone making such a profoundly stupid statement as this is intelligent enough to realize anything beyond the day of the week? If that?
By 
Brynmor, at
Fri Dec 11, 09:07:00 PM:
Everybody focuses on birthrate, not on how long people are living. At some point, we are going to have to make hard choices about how far we are willing to extend longevity.
The bulk of medical research is focussed on diseases of old age, social security and medicare are going to outstrip the federal budget within my lifetime, how much more longevity can we afford?
Can any society afford a large population of people that are neither gainfully employed nor helping to raise future generations?
By pst314, at
Fri Dec 11, 10:03:00 PM:
"Ms. Francis is presumably intelligent enough to realize that her proposal would require a high degree of totalitarianism"
Okay, once again all together: "That's not a bug, that's a feature!"
By , at
Fri Dec 11, 11:35:00 PM:
The bulk of medical research is focussed on diseases of old age, social security and medicare are going to outstrip the federal budget within my lifetime, how much more longevity can we afford?
If at some point science manages to extend life well past a hundred years (this assumes they will have come up with something that slows down the physical aging process as well), why wouldn't people keep on working well past what is now considered retirement age?
By Arthur, at
Fri Dec 11, 11:37:00 PM:
As Kate at SDA mentioned, Ms. Francis has two children. Which one would she give up?
By , at
Sat Dec 12, 12:42:00 AM:
Brynmor said:
"Can any society afford a large population of people that are neither gainfully employed nor helping to raise future generations?"
We do now. It's called "welfare".
And let's see her display the courage of her convictions. Put her on a plane to one of "moderate" Middle East Muslim countries.
Jay Stevens
By JPMcT, at
Sat Dec 12, 09:01:00 AM:
"The bulk of medical research is focussed on diseases of old age"
Well, that's generally when we all get diseases....isn't it?
If we focus of diseases of youth...it is with the intent that such youths reach old age...heh?
I had thought that we had dispensed with all the "Population Bomb" and "Soylent Green" foolishness thirty years ago. Weren't we all supposes to be starving and dead by now?
Is this the NEXT "catastrophe" on the horizon...placed there just in case global warming doesn't work out too well for the wealth redistributors.
It is no less idiotic. The elderly are not "ungainful" and they do play a huge role in passing along generational wisdom, work ethic and knowledge...as long as we let them.
One can easily judge a society by the manner in which it treats it's seniors....and I'm not just referring to health care.
By wayne fontes, at
Sat Dec 12, 09:43:00 AM:
The simplest, most certain way to reduce the birthrate is to increase the wealth of wealth of individuals. GDP and fertility rates have an inverse relationship that has been demonstrated across various societies over time across the globe.
The current proposed schemes to fight AGW will certainly decrease world wide economic growth which will increase the birth rate. I've never read of a single proponent of AGW ever giving a moments thought to that inevitability.
By Anna, at
Sat Dec 12, 01:42:00 PM:
What's next if the Chinese one child policy is enforced worldwide? Besides a worldwide disparity of males being born versus females if the Chinese end result is any indicator. How about UN ARM doing mother hunts for women who have violated the rules? So much for being pro-choice.
By ZZMike, at
Sat Dec 12, 09:56:00 PM:
Besides all that (including the commentors), their draconian policy has an immediate short-term effect: female babies are routinely aborted (either pre- or post-partum).
The long-term effect will be a preponderance of men over women, thus guaranteeing a population decline.
Another long-term effect is that men unable to marry have traditionally (at least in Western Europe) gone into either the clergy or the military.
There is no clergy in China - so the outcome will be an even bigger and [possibly] stronger army.
By , at
Sun Dec 13, 11:30:00 AM:
Maybe we need World War III ... you know, to save the planet.
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