Crap,

Go and get other nations to pay per kid. we dont have a problem here with overpopulation or a high birth rate and we do not effect the worlds population.

People who concieve these ideas are idiots

An after thought.

Simon's (and hence Cook's) use of language is interesting.

They refer to human beings as a resource, which implies that living-breathing-feeling human beings are just another marketable input into the whole production process. And hence to be bought and sold, and discarded just like any other item.

And they thus end up in the vast holding camps described by Mike Davis in Planet of Slums.The numbers of people living in such slums is growing every day.
And how many tens of millions of refugees are roaming the planet right now. They have no where to go. And again, the numbers of which are increasing every day.

Meanwhile this reference gives a disturbing picture of the future awaiting us all when infinitely expanded "consumption" rules the day.
The word consume means to destroy.

1. http://www.truthout.org:80/issues_06/121307EB.shtml

BTW, I would suggest that before criticising Simon, you actually go and read what he had to say: http://www.juliansimon.org/writings/Ultimate_Resource/

Most of it makes a lot of sense, and I say that as someone who is highly skeptical of his economic-libertarian ethos, and someone who is highly concerned about the world's natural limits and the extent to which we appear to be running up against them.

It is true that he really didn't have the necessary scientific understanding to appreciate the danger of destroying biodiversity, or of accepting that we can never except to truly manage nature entirely for our own benefit, due to fundamental limits imposed by the laws of thermodynamics among other things.

However, in one sense he is right - that population growth itself isn't necessary a problem, provided that we are able to continually reduce our per-capita ecological footprint. The challenge is being able to do this without reducing our quality of life (even though it may well mean stabilising our material standard of living, which probably can't keep growing forever - cars and fridges and TVs can only get so big and fancy after all).

FWIW, a specific carbon tax on babies is silly. By all means, restrict the baby bonus to the first two children (with exceptions for multiple-births), but as long as the actual cost of living correctly embodies environmental cost, via whatever means, then parents can make a decision as to whether they can afford the cost of bringing up a third or fourth child.

Wizofaus,

This graph from Wikipedia shows the problem with blithely claiming that all we need to do is cut consumption

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Highlight_Findings_of_the_WA_S0E_2007_report_.gif

It is a plot of environmental footprint (a measure of consumption) against rank on the UN Human Development Index (a measure of human well-being). As you start from the left where the poor countries are, you can see that well-being rises with consumption until you get to a European standard of living. After that, the correlation breaks down, so even more consumption doesn't necessarily make you better off. It is thus reasonable to say that the US, Australia, Canada, and a few other countries are indeed overconsuming. However, if the US population disappeared entirely and its resources were shared out among the rest of the world, the benefits would be erased by global population growth in about 20 years.

Of course you can support more people if the only criterion is the bare minimum necessary to sustain life, but giving everyone that optimal European standard of living would take the resources of 3 Earths (see Oct. 6, 2007 New Scientist, article by Daniele Fanelli on p. 10).

Liberty,

You need a lot more land than is occupied by you or your house and garden. If we can support many, many more people, then why are species going extinct in a big way? Why is carbon dioxide building up in the atmosphere? Why are there problems with getting enough fresh water? Why did grain production per person peak in 1984? Why are world grain supplies at their lowest in 34 years (in terms of days of supply)?

Realist should take a look at the MAP reports on how our environment is deteriorating, if he thinks that everything is rosy and we aren't overpopulated, at least for our present level of consumption.

I'm not "blithely claiming that all we need to do is cut consumption".
I just happen to believe it would be more feasible to concentrate on technologies and lifestyle modifications that allow us to reduce our ecological footprint, rather than attempting to reduce our numbers.
Indeed, there's really very little that could realistically be done to stop our numbers ballooning out to 8 billion - even if you were able to convince most of the world of a need to restrict themselves to no more than 2 kids each immediately. Given the huge percentage of the global population that is in the 0-35 age group, that would mean at least 2 billion more kids are going to be born in the next 20 years, and another 2 billion in the 20 after that. So allowing for 2.5 billion deaths in the next 40 years (which would require a significant increase on the current death rate), that's 8 billion easily before 2050. More realistically, current fertility rates are only going to come down slowly, adding at least another 1 billion.
With the right technology, and sensible lifestyle choices, I don't see why the planet can't support 9 billion of us. And there's good reason to believe that after that point, population will plateau and perhaps even start to decline eventually (which, mind you, brings its own problems).

"At the heart of this hostility towards new life is a lack of faith in the capacity of humanity to solve its problems."

Mr Cook, that's a silly statement, is it not?

Humans are now having to confront the biggest problem ever and they have not yet found a solution.

It is "humanity" and the uncontrolled population explosions which have caused the problem and humans have not yet found any firm solution to correct the environmental monster they have created.

And as in 17th- and 18th-century Britain, peasants in the Third World are kicked off their land by foreigners (including Australians) and the local ruling elite, who then use the land to produce cash crops and mineral resources for export while their fellow country people starve.

The starving millions lack education and continue breeding thus exacerbating the problem, a result of the Western philosophy to exploit the poor by having the peasants do their dirty work for a pittance.

Is your article not a strategy for distracting people from the root-cause of both ecological destruction and population growth: namely, the capitalist economy and hierarchical social relationships it requires?

Australia's carbon footprint remains among the largest per capita in the world. Official documentation reveals that CO2 levels are rising each year, not diminishing and we Australians have an insatiable zest to continue polluting.

I would advise you Mr Cook to "think globally but act locally."

After all should our own population become inadequate to sustain economic growth, we can always second a few million from other nations to do our "dirty" work so we can continue in the style to which we've become accustomed.

Hopefully they won't arrive without an invitation!