An accurate article re: Populaton, finally

Robert:

I write to you directly thanks to your fine article...http://www.alternet.org/environment/87520/

I am sharing it with a most Environmentally Conscious group: WWW.VHEMT.ORG.

 

Our firm stance is that no more humans ought to be born, as a voluntary decision by everyone!  Although members have many reasons for joining, personally I find any decision to have children an immoral one, given the consequences at which you so eloquently hint!

 

From your first paragraph:

"All historical eras are shaped by the material and environmental realities of their time. Our own reflects the adjustments society and nature have made to accommodate the unprecedented 6.7 billion human beings now alive. And those changes are dramatic."

 

Nature can react (likely in a very bad way) to our deprecations, it cannot make accomodations!  Unless you feel that things like the natural ability of the world's oceans to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, acidifying the oceans to the detriment of coral reefs etc., is an "accomodation"...

 

Less than 100,000 years ago, there was only one extended family from whose genes we all descend.  It is not enough to reduce our population, we must no longer be on the planet at all if LIFE ITSELF is to survive...

 

Our culture, used by our earliest ancestors to overwhelm nature, has now officially done so.

 

We've "beat" nature, and now we will have to MANAGE ALL OF THE PLANETARY SYSTEMS AND CYCLES for any chance to survive...

 

We've proven we're capable of ruining the planet, but no where near ready to run it.

 

Nature will "respond" (without consciousness or direction).  

 

Having NO MORE CHILDREN is the best way to both save the biosphere and to reduce the numbers of those suffering at the end...

--
Cheers,

Frish

P.S. We ought to discuss the origins of agriculture, I make the case it was due to overpopulation and the "carrying capacity" of women to tolerate so many children under 5 years old...they stopped walking and permanent settlements and agriculture followed...overpopulation created the need for agriculture, not lack of prey...