“The problem with your response is that it doesn’t address the issues I raise”

Examinator, I don’t know what you expect me to say then. I agree; the issue is enormously difficult. BUT, I don’t believe that it is inherently any more difficult to address than climate change or AIDS.

You could ask just the same questions that you did in your first post on this thread in relation to these and other huge issues. They’d be just as difficult to answer, but that hasn’t stopped the mobilisation of huge forces in an attempt to deal with them. So why should it be different for population growth?

Yes, the agenda is crowded. So one of the main points is to emphasise that sustainability should be at the top of the agenda, then look at its main components and address them in order of priority, with population growth being right up there.

It would be lovely to be able to outline just exactly how to proceed while upholding equality, respect for cultural and religious practices, human rights, etc. But we can’t. If the population issue is to be dealt with decisively, there will be ’compromises’ in all of these areas and the whole exercise will carry a lot of unfairness with it. But this is no different to other huge social and environmental issues.

The key is to get it through to national leaders and then to whole national populations just what the urgency of addressing population growth and sustainability is all about and what it WILL mean for us all if we fail to deal with it.

If we can just get our heads around that, instead of upholding our extraordinary blind-eye attitude, then we CAN deal with humanity’s greatest scourge – its own fecundity.

As has been demonstrated numerous times; when countries are on a war footing, they can mobilise enormous united forces…of the type that they wouldn’t have a hope of hell of organising in times of peace.

So the key is to make the psychological breakthrough.

Melinda Gates could just about be the most important person in the world. If she was to get out there and start really promoting the urgency of a holistic push for sustainability, including tough action on population growth, then we might get there. If she doesn’t, and the world continues addressing side-issues and symptoms, then….well….

Melinda could cement her place in world history. When the world looks back the year 2200 or whatever, at a time when all this strife is behind us and the people the world over accept the significance of overpopulation and the mind-numbing absurdity of the lack of action when it became a critical issue, until Melinda led the way, they’ll remember her as being greater than perhaps any other person from the 20th and 21st centuries.

Ooow, Bill too of course! This would be much more significant than a ’mere’ Nobel Peace Prize!

Two essentials to limit population growth are:

1. Education for women.

2. Availability of contraceptive facilities and education in their use

Islam objects to the first, and Catholicism objects to the second.

Those of us who believe we should allow poor countries to self-destruct, should remember that the mining operations in Africa, by multinationals from the West, have created an ecological and health time-bomb and failed to help African people out of poverty.

"This is an ecological time-bomb," said Swiss journalist Gilles Labarthe, the author of "Black Gold.”

"The accumulation of ecological degradation and the damage to health caused by open-cast gold-mining is going to ruin the producing regions for generations to come," he added.

Two of the three major culprits, who seemingly operate with impunity, are also mining giants in Australia. All three were financed by major banks such as UBS of Switzerland and France's Societe Generale for the African projects.

Africa holds half the world's known gold reserves and annually produces a quarter of the world's output and it appears, that the “hit and run” operations of the West’s big guys are flourishing. They have profited handsomely, have done little to remediate the degradation they've caused to these people’s lands where these people are the poorer for it.

And in other areas, communities from Argentina to Papua New Guinea have organized to demand their basic human rights and resist the exploitation of their natural resources.

In 2003, before the Standing Committee review and recommendations, the UN Special Rapporteur on Toxic Waste and Products had made special note of Canadian corporate behaviour and lack of accountability.

The report also noted that illicit movement and dumping of toxic and dangerous products and wastes by Canadian corporations had adversely impacted human rights.

The rapporteur recommended “that particular attention is paid to allegations relating to threats to the traditional lifestyles and rights of indigenous groups” and called on “the Canadian and other Governments to explore ways of establishing extraterritorial jurisdiction over human rights violations, committed by companies operating abroad.”

UN to Canada: “Hold your corporations accountable for human rights abuses.”

The major Canadian culprit operates the largest open cut goldmine in Australia.

To my knowledge, neither Canada, Australia or this particular company have implemented the UN recommendations.

What's the deal here, Melinda?

*In a. recent interview an African tribesman was asked what he thought about the fact that of his 6 children only 2 may make it to adulthood.*

I saw another interview of a bloke with 11 children and he was
really proud of his achievement. Meantime he wanted food aid.
With 11 children I would need food aid too :)

Fact is that still hundreds of millions of women don't have access
to family planning and people will have sex, especially if they
have no tv.

All the surveys that I have seen show that when women are asked if
they would like to limit their family size, most say yes, often
its the men who insist on ever more baby popping.

I remind you that before Western women had cheap and easy access
to family planning, they too had huge families. Crossing your
legs for Jesus is a dismal failure.

The average life expectancy in a place like Niger is around 41,
so not too many would even make old age.

Recently a story done by CNN, had the Western correspondant go
to Nigeria, to some of the villages. She was rather surprised
that various women approached her, offering to give her their
babies.

Some of these women are sick of popping out kids, they need a choice,
which many don't have right now.

I think there's a few crucial points examinator's raised which really cut directly to the heart of the problem.

Take Australia for example - in recent times our fertility rate has been below replacement level, but with migrant intakes our population increases.

This is a pretty important point - once a country reaches a certain level of prosperity (and perhaps secularism, but I'll leave that to one side for now) its population growth slows.

For all of you echoing Malthus - remember, he was wrong.
Advances in farming weren't factored in to his calculations. Never underestimate humanity's will to push forward.

The problem is that this level of prosperity appears to be incredibly wasteful when it comes to resources.

To me, the issue is about resources rather than population growth. Unrestrained population growth leads to a problem with resource consumption - however, when resource consumption per capita within a country reaches a certain point, population growth slows.

I've heard projections that suggested the world population would stabilise at about 10 or 11 billion. Other projections have it crashing. There's some fascinating reading on wikipedia here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population

If we can figure out ways to bring prosperity to third world countries in a sustainable manner that doesn't dramatically increase resource useage, then we've not only solved our overpopulation problem, but I'd wager we've reduced the risks of conflict and ultimately delivered happiness to billions of people.

Of course, this is possibly the largest, most difficult problem that has ever existed.

Hmm... well, at least that puts another slant on the problem...