Is enforced population reduction the only serious way to lessen man kinds impact on the environment?

Question

My question doesn't relate to anything as drastic as genocide. I'm referring to serious policies on birth control strictly applied to manage the population of the planet down to approx 3 billion by 2100. Let's face it - sticking a wind turbine on each of our houses isn't going to save the world is it?

Answer 1

So how would you enforce it??? We don't want to end up like China do we, look at the effect their one-child policy is having.

Answer 2

No.
Education is the best way.
That includes self-imposed birth control, AND energy self-sufficiency, but NOT enforced eugenics.

As a matter of fact, wind turbines on half the houses would indeed help save much of the world. (Actually, scientific studies show that if only one in ten American homes were wind or solar powered, our impact on the environment would be drastically reduced!)

However, that will never happen so long as centralized power brokers control power.

Here again, education is the best solution.
Educating people to the cost advantages of energy self sufficiency would definitely help the entire planet, though it might not have an impact on population directly.

You have brought up two seemingly separate concepts in one question, thereby making the question more difficult to answer. Still, I’ll try…

Energy self-sufficient homes create economic opportunity, and less dependence on big corporations and the government that fosters them. Both of those elements combine to reduce government interference with the populace. A self-regulating economy is healthier and promotes more freedom and education. That in turn, creates a more educated populace that is much less likely to breed unrestrained.

In respect of time, I had to make some far-reaching assumptions in that last paragraph, I know. However, if you look up more information on availability, cost, economic and environmental impact of alternative energy and also look at the burgeoning developments in green home and city design, you will start to see a more attractive picture.

Enforced population control is a bad idea, simply because those who have the power to enforce anything ALWAYS do it wrong. Although you may not see the correlation between energy self-sufficiency and a stable population, many others do. After all, you are the one who put those two concepts together into the same set of questions. Certainly, others have considered those concepts together too.

Education and communication are the ultimate tools for ameliorating or actually fixing all the world’s problems.

Answer 3

Probably is the best way and maybe the easiest if managed correctly. The only problem is that the places that would be able to successfully manage a birth control policy and would be willing to do it (majority of first and maybe even some second world countries) don't have the population problems. The places that do,(china, third and some second world countries) either won't be willing to control birth rates and actually want to increase their population, though have the ability to control it, or they want to control, like china, but can't do it correctly.

Answer 4

No! And who is to decide who doesn't have children, the nanny-state? The poorest countries have the most children and the highest rate of childhood deaths. They have big families because they know that nearly half their children will not survive to adulthood and only about a quarter will live to raise families, they need them to work the labour intensive farm, in the child labour factories, to buy food, and the cultures measure a man's importance by the number of children he has, especially boys.

Boys work, boys are warriors. A man with eight sons is of higher rank than a man with eight daughters.

Work to make these people educated, more wealthy and change their culture and much of the population increase in the world will end. Stop rewarding those who have more children, but do not punish those who do. Abortion, baby-killing is not an ethical solution. Providing low-cost or free vasectomies or tubal ligatures after the second child is a better choice. Give those people a big tax break to encourage others to do the same. Laws against children will not work and are inhumane. Incentives to get people to freely choose to have fewer children are the best answer.

I doubt man can save the world or destroy it, he can only save himself or destroy himself. The choice is between freedom and dictatorship to reduce population growth. Freedom uses persuasion, education and incentives. Dictatorship uses force, killing and punishment. I vote for freedom.

Answer 5

Not even your suggestion is drastic enough. It is impossible for earth's population to drop down to 3 billion by 2100 seeing as how earth's population went from 3 billion to the current 6 billion in half a century (if I remember correctly; perhaps in an even shorter time period). China attempted extreme birth control but all they accomplished was prevent their population from exploding even more. They did not lessen their population. Professionals believe that if we did control the population more effectively, we'd be lucky to stabilize at 10 billion people in year 2100.

Answer 6

Japan instilled a 1 child rule - it must be at least 10-20 years already. If you have a second child, you are financially penalized not like in our country, you get a bigger tax deduction, more food stamps, more childcare, more "freebies". How come it's the poorest people in our country that are having the biggest families? Even the richest aren't having big families since there's birth control. So in 15 years- our population will consist of 85% unemployed, welfare recipients that are 10th generation welfare recipients- and 15% rich........the anielation of the middle class in America is as dead on as global warming and we can't do a thing about it other than by lotto tickets and hope to make it into the 15%.

Answer 7

And when the population reaches 4 billion there will be mass starvation because the planet cannot sustain that many people.

You could give every person on the planet a 30' by 30' piece of land in Texas and still have room to spare.

Population control = abortion.

Answer 8

Only if it would work...I would love to support such a law. The problem is so many 'protesters' will fight it. Religious, ethical, and economically staunch people will complain about the 'human rights' complexities that will arise. As some anwerers have said, the population will end up consisting majority of lesser educated people, because the richer and more educated have much fewer children. (That is because they are usually less religious, and understand the wider consequences).

But the bottom line is that the world's people have to choose between more children than possibly necessary (plus most large families can't fund their children's education, and well-being; thus the children suffer in their future), and Earth's well-being (so the children that already exist can have an environmentally safe future).

It seems absurd to me really that we actually have to THINK before we make a decision...

Answer 9

China has been doing that for some time. It is a gross violation of human rights, sometimes enforced by coerced late term abortions. And it does not work. People who want children find ways to have them anyway. The only known population control is wealth. Rich people have fewer children. That is a statistical, historical fact. The richest countries have the lowest population growth. The U.S. would have a declining population except for immigration from poor countries.

Answer 10

I totally agree with population reduction! I think people should have to have a license to have children. If you get caught parenting without a license, you get fined for the first few offenses, then sent to jail and your kid goes to the state, like it would anyway because you can't parent and they would get taken away or imprisoned later in life. I think there are probably a lot of people who would not pass a parental licensing course or exam, they should be sterilized, thus reducing the population growth.

BE RESPONSIBLE, DON'T HAVE CHILDREN!
They will die in the global flood anyway.

Answer 11

My thoughts correctly. I expect by about 2075 a total breakdown of civilization, maybe as early as 2015, nobody knows. Our current economy is such a glass house, anything bigger then a tiny, tiny ripple, will bring on civil war. We went through the big depression in the 20's, but the next one will make it look like nothing. Currently, one little oil supply line leaking, one utterance of inflation brings on downturns like today, eliminating trillions of dollar.
Our politicians wll never stand for birth control, they are by very nature for more idiots to be born, to listen to their lies. and the USA is one of the most religious countries, with one of the lowest averag IQ's. Countries like Germany already have natural birth control, people who only have one kid, which is plenty. They prosper, look at the Euro.