*I dips me lid.*

Which might just make you a bit of a hypocrite Pericles, if you are
having wild sex with plenty of family planning, as otherwise you
could not feed all the little blighters, but can't see the need to give
others the same choice.

[contd]

The upshot, Popnperish, is that population reduction may on the one hand

* require a sort of equalisation of educational opportunity around the world, and therefore a great deal of positive social change, especially in regard to the rights of women and the overthrow of many abhorrent cultural practices,

and on the other,

* it needs to proceed at a very slow pace, once world populations have been stabilised over the next century, to avoid the next generations of Deep Greens re-inventing the Solent Green solution.

Dropping the population back a few per cent per century may be the most painless way to bring about what you want, but only if it could be managed without interfering with anybody's equal rights to decent lives.

But of course, if you want something of a quick-fix, or quicker fix, then my suggestions still stand. Be the first !

Cheers,

Joe

Well said, Popnperish. With no vision re the stabilisation of population Rio and all other environment conferences are a waste of time. As Paul Ehrlich said: "Whatever your cause, it's a lost cause without population control".
Yes of course we need other reforms as well, though it would help to group them into three main ones (with population stabilisation as the first of the Steve Jobs' four). But without a stable population we're just pushing gravel uphill.

So Popnperish & Lady Jane, how do you propose to bring about this New Utopia ? How fast are you contemplating ? Who is to be sacrificed, other than your good (and so valuable) selves, of course ?

I've just been cogitating on the possibility that Leninism was a useful precursor to Fascism and especially Nazism - that it provided the rationale for the elimination of undesirables in both societies - well, in any society actually. A timeless principle, and perhaps a necessary corollary of all Utopias:

'If only we could get rid of [insert out-group here] ....

So who are YOUR 'undesirables' ? How do you propose to eliminate them ?

For the Common Good, of course :)

Cheers,

Joe

We can plan, we can recycle, we can come up with myriad ideas, all of which may assist.
Population control, is really only possible, when all females become educated demographic?
Micro loans financed by a tinsy winsy Tobin tax, will pay for the proposal?
Or, we could do what some seem to be suggesting? Deny the poorest communities both preventative health medicine and food aid?
However, we really do owe our current first world nation status, to our immense mineral wealth, which mostly currently prospers foreigners; and, will eventually run out.
Some of it as soon as 30 years from now?
So, on the driest inhabited continent on Earth, we have no guarantee of continuing prosperity. And indeed, if current trends continue, we may well join the least prosperous nations
No, on reflection, I think we'd all be safer, if we simply concentrated on educating the world's women.
We need to recycle everything! We need to stop wasting our waste, or sending it to land fill, where it can then add to climate change, with methane emission.
One unit of methane, equates to 21 units of carbon.
We need to convert all our economies to non carbon polluting ones! The best solutions will walk out the door.
Our world is threatened by real happening now carbon pollution, rather than hypothetical nuclear Armageddon.
We need to decentralise, given city dwellers produce 2.5 times the carbon of their country cousins.
But most of all, we need all those who know all the reasons we can't succeed, to get out of the way.
[ Any opportunity to convert to much lower emission lower cost fuel, as an interim alternative, must be taken.]
Ditto those who don't/won't believe, like the super rich/ultra-privileged, we can no longer grow our economies based on an ever increasing population/exploitation model!
But particularly, when simply ending poverty in all its forms and guises, will work far better at growing both the economy and wealth creation opportunities!
Even more so, if recycling absolutely everything is part and parcel of any successful future economy! Rhrosty.

popnperish

'The issue is serious and you have to deal with it. It comes down to a balance between resources and population.'

Just about all the earths problems boil down to moral issues which excludes the UN or any other world body from being able to deal with it. Have you not read of the data manipulation and lies by the IPCC, have you not heard of UN representatives raping woman in Africa. Teaching kids and modelling generosity, self control and love will do a billion times more than love feasts such as CopenHagen and Rio.

You might genuinely believe that we are overpopulated or heading that way but up to now the evidence does not confirm this and even if it did man is incapable of solving greed, lust and pride. The hypocrites at Rio confirm this.