MKI wrote:
Brian O'Neill at University of Colorado, Boulder, did an analysis of what would happen to climate if we made a major effort in promoting family planning and small family norms. And he concluded it would yield between 16 and 29 percent of what is necessary to avoid catastrophic climate change.
Since "climate change" (let alone "catastrophic" climate change!) has no meaningful definition (why the term is always used methinks) it makes the whole statement merely emotive.
But even if it was somehow defined with numbers...we've shown zero scientific ability to predict climate anything (which makes it more akin to witchcraft than science). So I call BS on said study. But hey we gotta do something with all that global warming money...
Also shook my head here: ...my parents have ten children...and my father beats my mother...
Why exactly does having 10 children have to do with beating one's wife? Freudian slip, anyone?
But on the subject of overpopulation: it's sort of amusing, from a scientic (say Darwinian) perspective. It's just math: cultures who deliberately restrict breeding for ideological reasons will...vanish from the genetic pool. Those who feel otherwise will become more numerous. There is simply no way around this without force. Which is why intelligent people are so uncomfortable about the subject.
Also, war tends to thin out human populations if they get too high, long before resource shortage becomes an issue.