The fundamental problem facing the planet is the increasing population. It is all very well reducing our per capita emissions, but while the population continues to increase exponentially we are fighting a losing battle. It took until A.D.1800 for the earth's population to reach 1 billion. At the present rate of increase we will have about 16 billion at the end of the century. You don't need to be a Rhodes Scholar to work out that whatever we do to curb per capita emmision, the earth will be in serious trouble long before then. Our politicians are all in the grip of a growth paradigm. Until we get out of it, nothing else we do can save the planet.

David

I think the virulent anti-humanists need to at least do some simple fact checking.

Global population increase has been declining since the 1960s, and is expected to plateau at around 9 billion sometime in the next century.

You want to cut birth rates? Help poor people get richer and better educated. It's the best birth control there is.

No need for any green progroms.

Now that you have identified the problem what do you propose be done about it.

Desmond, in spite of your good intentions, helping the poor people improve their lot isn't simple. Most of the money which is given to third world countries ends up in the hands of the wrong people so that it is largely wasted. These unfortunately seem to be the ones who have the most children so that the rate of population increase in these countries is only tempered by their higher death rate. This is not helped by the policies of the Catholic Church in Africa where it actively campaigns against the use of condoms. Although this policy helps the spread of AIDS and increases the death rate, it also does nothing for the increased birth rate.

Strange as it may seem to some, I am not an anti-humanist at all. I just take a more prsgmatic view of what will happen to the human race if we don't do something to stop the increase in our numbers. Past civilizations have disappeared because they ran out of the necessary resources to survive and we are heading in the same direction.

Politicians, economists and humanists who pursue the growth paradigm are our worst enemies.

David

The Lord gave us Three Score and Ten but modern man and science chose to alter it by prolonging life
Once we reach 70 by the grace of God go thee it seems callous and to many it probably is but the line has to be drawn
This would help in people getting a little faith back into the world
If you are a baby and your mother is sick and can't get out of bed then you go wanting the greatest mother of all Mother Earth is sick it wont be long until she can't get out of bed so her children will go wanting
Thanks have a good life from Dave

The recent rise of the AGW skeptics has me worried that humanity is not intelligent enough as a species to mitigate any climate change until confronted with irrefutable evidence in the form of millions, maybe billions, dead and numerous catastrophic storms, floods, droughts and destruction by the rising seas. We cant cooperate to stop war, poverty, disease or exploitation so why does anyone think we could do it for climate change.

Cynical and depressing I know, but I feel quite realistic. Sadly.