Is It O.K. To Overpopulate The Earth Because Babies Are Cute?
That, in effect, is the question Ayelet Waldman is asking herself. Ms. Waldman's already had more than her share of offspring, but is contemplating more, apparently because babies' heads smell nice to her. (I am not making this up.) To her credit, at least she's trying to resist the urge to re-re-re-re-reproduce. On the other hand, she seems to be more worried about her waist line than about, um, what was that other thing? Oh, yeah--killing the planet. At one point she acknowledges that it "feels like gluttony" to contemplate having another child--but [she says that] it feels that way only because some other people can't have any.
It's a kind of gluttony alright.. But that's not the reason.
I've got nothing against kids. Kids are fine with me. Who knows, I might even have one of my own some day... But let's show at least a minimal amount of restraint out there, o.k. people?
[Note: o.k., this is too cranky. But be that as it may, nobody should have five kids.]
That, in effect, is the question Ayelet Waldman is asking herself. Ms. Waldman's already had more than her share of offspring, but is contemplating more, apparently because babies' heads smell nice to her. (I am not making this up.) To her credit, at least she's trying to resist the urge to re-re-re-re-reproduce. On the other hand, she seems to be more worried about her waist line than about, um, what was that other thing? Oh, yeah--killing the planet. At one point she acknowledges that it "feels like gluttony" to contemplate having another child--but [she says that] it feels that way only because some other people can't have any.
It's a kind of gluttony alright.. But that's not the reason.
I've got nothing against kids. Kids are fine with me. Who knows, I might even have one of my own some day... But let's show at least a minimal amount of restraint out there, o.k. people?
[Note: o.k., this is too cranky. But be that as it may, nobody should have five kids.]
posted by Winston Smith at
10:38 AM
24 Comments:
I have two kids, two, and unless there's a major oops that's all there will be. I love both dearly and can't imagine life without them but 2-is-enough...and, I believe, is an environmentally and biologically sound number of children to have. And if there is a major oops I will go have that operation for men (though my wife doesn't want more children she wants the option to exist so she has argued against the vasectomy - I haven't quite figured out that logic yet, but it does sorta make sense).
Babies are cute, no doubt about it and in a silght, ever so slight, defense of Ms. Waldman babies heads do smell nice. No joke, they do. But to have another kid to smell it's head? After you already have five? 5!!!!!?????
But here's a clue, Baby-sit or just borrow some other parent's baby for a few minutes. It's not that hard and then you can just give the kid back...but five? Five?
What would David Brooks say?
I dunno, but PJ O'Rourke's view of people concerned about overpopulation is "Just Enough of Me, Way Too Much of You."
To add some non-snark (which works quite well as a noun, wmr) and altho I do agree with O'Rourke, in the interest of extending the discussion beyond orthodoxy and the game but lame heterodox David Brooks, I offer one Newton Leroy Gingrich's review of a recent Ben Wattenberg book.
"Europe is going to lose population dramatically by mid-century and therefore become significantly older. This will almost certainly entail a significant shift in power and in economic competitiveness away from an aging and shrinking European Union.
Mexico is on the verge of dropping below the replacement rate; over the next generation this will almost certainly slow the rate of migration to the United States. Russia is facing a demographic crisis, with the shortest lifespan for males of any industrial country and a catastrophic decline in women willing to bear children.
Mr. Wattenberg highlights the intellectual dishonesty of the Paul Ehrlich, left-wing environmentalists and their factual mistakes over the last generation. Mr. Ehrlich had predicted famines beginning in the 1970s. They simply haven't happened. The global warming projections all assumed a population of 11.5 billion. If the human race peaks at only 8.5 billion people - 3 billion fewer than predicted - and then starts a long-term decline, how that changes all those gloom-and-doom predictions.
Mr. Wattenberg highlights the unique role of the United States as the one industrial country that will keep growing. American population growth is a combination of the highest birthrate of any industrial country (2.01 children per female) and our willingness to accept immigration. Mr. Wattenberg projects that the United States will continue to grow in economic and other forms of power, while Europe and Japan decline dramatically. Indeed, in the Wattenberg vision of the future, there are only three large nations by 2050: China, India and the United States."
It is hoped that our community maintains its usual high standard of examining the ideas presented and not their originators.
Well, if people are our most important product, we should start immediately to establish a comprehensive national health system so that no one--especially no child, immigrant or native--lacks access to good medical care.
Socialism? Maybe, but Wattenberg and Gingrich seem to think that our future demands it.
FROM wmr:
Oops, that last anonymous comment was from me.
Valid point, wmr, a full consideration of which is in the hopper at my blog, which you have kindly visited.
Everyone in our Philosoraptor community is invited by to take a look, with the proviso that we stay faithful to dance with who brung us.
I'm not leaving unless Winston Smith asks me to. This is a nourishing environment that I will not give up without a fight.
As to the subject at hand, "overpopulation," I will use scare quotes on it to illustrate that it's not a certainty.
My mom was the eighth out of twelve.
FROM wmr:
What's this stuff about leaving, tvd? I haven't seen anyone calling for your expulsion.
But if it worries you, here's some advice: next time someone criticizes you, don't climb on your high horse and complain of discourtesy or use any of your other evasive tricks. Either answer the criticism or acknowledge your mistake. It's not so hard--I've done it, Winston has done it, others have done it.
If you want to test your skills in a less forgiving arena, try commenting at Notes and Comments section of Butterflies and Wheels
Thanks for the kind albeit unsolicited advice. While you were at it, you might as well have asked me if I still beat my wife.
Thing about those folks who claim that overpopulation isn't a problem is that their arguments go a little something like this:
If we keep making new agricultural technological breakthroughs at roughly the same rate we have in the past, then we should be able to increase the carrying capacity of the land enough to permit us--probably--to keep reproducing at present rates. This, of course, presupposes a couple of stupid things. First, that there's nothing wrong with destroying the environment so long as people survive. And, second, that we don't need a margin for error, agriculture-wise. Those folks are not geniuses, let me tell you.
Winston Smith: on the other hand, is most of the damage to the environment actually caused by huge populations, or by certain individual sources? *hint*
In the industrialized/biotech world, far less land is required to create more food.
Affluence decreases population growth.
Affluence has the resources to take better care of the environment.
If globalization is indeed making the world more affluent, the population will level off as Wattenberg indicates, and the next step is taking better care of the environment.
I suppose bi means that industry, capitalism, Republicans, and the like are the creators of the pollution. Perhaps, or they may be in position to clean up more of it.
The USSR was an ecological disaster, and China's been pretty bad, too. It will be interesting to see if China's greater wealth results in better environmental consciousness.
FROM wmr:
tvd--
That's a bad analogy. I have never seen you beat your wife, but I have seen you do the things I cautioned against.
Yes, Javert, you have posted that opinion before, and really little else since.
Please permit me to occasionally address the topic at hand.
Love,
Valjean
"First, that there's nothing wrong with destroying the environment so long as people survive. And, second, that we don't need a margin for error, agriculture-wise. Those folks are not geniuses, let me tell you."
WS, your second point is well taken. With lesser biodiversity, a greater homogeneity of food crops is more vulnerable to ecological disaster. The potato famine.
As to your first, I find a reading of it in the converse, that there's nothing wrong with destroying the people so long as the environment survives, to be unacceptable.
I believe that's a logically/rhetorically fair objection. We cannot expect any people to commit suicide for the sake of the environment, even if the concerns about it were not for a future date if not entirely theoretical, which they are at this point.
Back in the real world, we know a third way is required. There are many options that the current political dialogue has banned from consideration. Foremost among them is nuclear power, an idea whose time, I believe, has come again.
China's and India's new ability to exploit fossil fuels, ala the West's circa 1900-2000 indicates another way is an inevitability among the more senior developed nations.
Soylent green. There's a solution that lets rabid breeders go at it like bunnies while still restricting the human population and thus reducing stresses on the environment. No new technology required, just a slight adjustment to ethics and morality.
VKW
Or Logan's Run. Dang. I'm over 30. Mebbe Robert Silverberg's Caught in the Organ Draft, then, where the Old (me) tax a spare kidney or lung from the Young (you?).
Sci-fi used to be pretty cool, come to think of it.
tvd,
But none but a tiny handful of extreme wackos think it's o.k. to *kill* people in order to save the environment. The point is to refrain from breeding like cockroaches, and to so refrain so that the Earth--and future humans, in case that's all one care's about--can live.
What's weird to me is that some people seem to think that a future in which we are all crowded into a world megalopolis eating Soylent Green (thanks for bringing that up, VKW!), and in which the only surviving non-human species are wheat and rats is acceptable.
Boggles the mind.
Er, um, that would be 'cares', not 'care's'... Sheesh.
FROM wmr:
Yes, Javert, you have posted that opinion before, and really little else since.
Please permit me to occasionally address the topic at hand.
Love,
Valjean
More evasion. Exactly how is it in my power to affect what you address?
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