"I love that you've brought this to attention. An extensive database of uncommon but resistant and hardy plants/foods could be developed and organized by climate. Ease of growth and processing should also be taken in to account. I will try to…"
A crash course in changing the world.
Neutrality
Alright, so it's been a long two or three weeks, stressful and all, everything happening at once, but I've made it through now (and slept off the accompanying post-stress illness) and I'm trying to get back into the swing of my normal routine.
The other day this topic came up in one of my discussion cla****. I will attempt to present it with as much objectivity and neutrality as possible. Maybe such things have been discussed here, maybe they have not - I'll throw in my own commentary at the end, so that'll at least be something new, right?
So, I think we can all agree that overpopulation (of any species) is an issue that leads to some degree of famine, disease, overuse of resources, all sorts of resource shortages, habitat destruction/degradation/fragmentation, etc.
If a species starts to be "overpopulated" (however that is defined), methods may be introduced to cull some individuals to restore the balance and prevent all these issues from occurring. Where I live we have a problem with deer, but if you want a really extreme example of this, consider pretty much any invasive species. Basically, we as humans try to manage the system as we would like it to be, and we try to reduce the survival or longevity of the overpopulated species.
Consider the human animal. The human animal creates all of these issues (and some more that could fall into previous categories - for example, industrial pollution leads to habitat degradation).
The goal with the human animal is to increase survival, increase longevity. We want people to live long, healthy, happy lives through medical technology, social support structures, etc.
So, given the following:
1) Overpopulation is an issue, including for H*** sapiens (that's us!)
2) Reducing the number of individuals can reduce overpopulation issues
3) We want to help as many people as possible live long, healthy, happy lives.
Don't points 2 and 3 contradict? How do we solve overpopulation as a major issue and promote the well being of humans around the world? By trying to help people, are we really helping, or does it, in the long run, make things worse?
---------
Ok, so this came up in a classroom full of ecologists. We likely see the world a little differently by virtue of our training. And honestly we didn't go into the topic in all that much detail before we moved onto a different topic. I think it made us uncomfortable. It made me uncomfortable - which is why it's been on my mind.
See, I personally view everything scientifically. I mean, I've decided that I don't want children. Not now, not ever. But in the back of my head, I think "I am a terrible member of my species! My genes will never be passed on!" Now this is more of a silly thing and not something I seriously consider in the children/not children debate, but it still has crossed my mind at some point. So this is how I see the world.
And if we applied this situation to ANY SPECIES that isn't H*** sapiens, we (meaning the public, the scientific community, and policy makers) would likely conclude that we should step in and control the population somehow - to REDUCE the number of individuals. I try to see past the pedestal that we've placed our own species on. But we can't go and cull a bunch of humans, of course, as we can with deer.
What I want to see? I want contraception EVERYWHERE. I want every person - both sexes, at young ages - in every village, town, and city to have education about reproduction and methods to reduce the number of children produced. This would require additional support in places where children are produced to be laborers, for ways to provide additional income to the family, so it certainly wouldn't be an easy thing.
There are two main problems with this. First, there's a lot of religious and cultural barriers to cross. I'm not sure the best way about doing this (perhaps it's the atheist in me). Second, it only addresses future growth - it doesn't address the current population, which is quite high in some places, and will only get higher even if growth were to stop (see population pyramids: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_pyramid).
But it's really the only way to go about solving such an issue without reverting to - quite simply - genocide.
Bah, I don't know...I just feel like you could present someone with the story of human population growth and replace the word "human" with any other animal, and people would be like "oh yeah, that's a problem, we should do something", but then put "human" back in there, and it's not ok. And I can see how it's not ok, of course. It just...messes with my head. Somehow.
So yeah, there you have it. I don't really know what to make of this...it appears to be a very, very tricky topic. So flame on, if anyone reads my rambling thoughts. I need to go enjoy the nice weather.
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