Ludwig and Mirko - I'd be fascinated to see how a green agenda of reducing population would be consistent with utilitarian ethics. Presumably one could argue (though I’d disagree) that if there were fewer of us there’d be more per capita goods and resources to go around, so aggregate utility might be higher with fewer people. But how does one square the process of getting from here to there – posters on other threads have speculated cheerfully about the benefits of millions dying in a pandemic, for example - with seeking ‘the greatest good for the greatest number”? And what possible ethical system could set out to wilfully create such a thing?

Thanks Mirko

Your article highlights man's selfishness and how easily we can become indignant about far lesser matters. It is refreshing to hear something a little more balanced than the GW hysteria where many are cashing in on.

Mirko

You disappoint me. Poverty is anthropogenic! Uncontrolled population explosions equals environmental degradation.

And unethical exploitation of our environment by the influential big boys in the unregulated, pollutant industries worldwide, in collusion with state and federal governments, is another reason.

And the "Greens" have been warning of this dire situation for decades.

I am prepared to put global warming and climate change aside and look strictly at anthropogenic carbon dioxide's effects on ocean waters.

Currently the oceans are receiving 1 million tonnes per hour of CO2. That's 10 times the natural rate.

The ocean acidity is increasing and the ph is decreasing. More than a quarter of man-made CO2 is entering our oceans where the acidity is reducing the abundance of the right chemical forms of a calcium carbonate which corals and other sea animals require to build shells and skeletons.

Acidified waters asphyxiate those marine animals which depend heavily on oxygen. Algae bacteria etc are proliferating at the expense of other marine life including coral reefs.

The equilibrium of atmospheric CO2 is completely stuffed!

The method of testing for acidity and PH is simple chemistry which can not be disputed. I even do it successfully for my garden soil!

Though you appear sceptical, surely there is an ethical requirement for authors to address the dire situation of the atmospheric and ocean pollution from the indisputable excesses of man-made emissions?

Environmentalists have never desired to see industry shut-down but they have, for decades, requested that pollutant industries cap their emissions and act responsibly.

While a few pollutant industries do cap their emissions, the "burning" question is, "Why are other big polluters resisting an ethical requirement for CO2 reductions, whilst desperately seeking authors, like yourself, to write articles supporting the status quo?"

The senior bureaucrats, attached to governmental environment agencies have been telling lies about the state of the environment for years and really deserve to be incarcerated!

A "sustainable" future, without an immediate reduction in anthropogenic CO2, will see all nations becoming hungry and poor and incapable of looking after anyone but themselves.

This article just follows the usual plot of trying to make people feel guilty. I don't happen to be into guilt. If I do something, I don't consider it to be wrong.

The problem of the third world lies within their power to solve, and nobody else's. Japan, in the late 1940's, and China more recently, have shown the way that a third world country can haul itself out of poverty. The way is to limit population increase. Japan did that in the late 40's with a massive abortion program, and China is doing it today with its one child policy.

Underdeveloped countries that refuse to limit their populations are condemned to everlasting poverty. Since 1945 the west has poured over 1 trillion dollars of aid into the third world with no result. Is it any surprise that voters will not sanction the waste of any more money?

Utopians who dream that the third world can be brought up to first world standards by the use of foreign aid and without limiting population ignore that the resources to do this simply don't exist. For example, if the whole world lived at the standard of the USA this would require 550 million barrels of oil a day, when we are struggling to produce 80 million. In addition, even if the resources could be produced, workers in the first world would simply refuse to give them away on the scale necessary. Such a scheme would require marginal tax rates of 80%, and most people, including myself, would simply not be prepared to work under those circumstances. This is quite apart from the horrendous levels of pollution that would be caused by all that consumption. If utopians want to reduce the gap in living standards they should concentrate on cutting the living standard in the first world, particularly of the common people.

What needs to be done is that aid to third world countries must be linked to population control, and countries that refuse to limit their population should be refused all aid, both governemnt and private.

once again perseus slumps to ridiculously implausible and inane insults that show him up to be the clueless shill that he is.

"The green movement is not motivated by self interest, it is motivated by narcissism."

Sorry mate, but only your constant, pointless uniformed opinionated bickering is motivated by narcissism.

while the writer of this piece may play at a hollow attempt to blame the green movement for the rest of the worlds problems (why stop at poverty, why not include nuclear proliferation?), you have again deliberately and predictably missed the prime motivations for what drives those within the green movement. i hate to break it to you, but its not a want for us to all live in caves or to go back to our primordial sludge.

while the right's politics forges new fake reasons to go to war with other nations, while the right's economics finds new ways of financially kicking the poorer nations while they are down and while the right's corporate heroes find yet more ways to decimate the ecosystems that ultimately support human life, the green movement is working to find ways of living within our means and maintaining as higher living standard as possible for as long as possible, not just for the next political term.

until you have something decent to say, time to go back to your saddam-hole.

Well said, Plerdsus. Until all the world, and the poor countries in particular, reduce their populations, there is absolutely no chance that aid from the rich countries will have any effect.

The world just does not have the resources to sustain its present population. Something around a half of the current level may be OK. Until we get back to that, then climate change and poverty will not only overwhelm the poor nations, but the rich as well.

I may not be around to see it, but I expect that by half way through this century, the worlds businesses will be working to a new set of economic parameters based on survival, instead of expansion.