Individual,
Also education and providing family planing methods, like Iran did, would be far more effective in lowering carnon emmissions than any tax.

Think of all the advantages in lowering world population.

Dear Individual,

You're right about population growth. It is a worry
that an unprecedented explosion has occurred in the
poorer nations of the world. However as Poirot
and others have also pointed out in this thread -
we are beginning to recognise that the high living
standards of the developed countries have depended in
part on the exploitation of the limited resources of the
less developed countries.

It's time we realized that population cannot increase
indefinitely in a world that has finite resources.

From the little that I've read it seems that much of
the poverty in the lessdeveloped countries results
from an unequal distribution of global resources. If
all the world's food was equally distributed, there
wouold be nough to maintain the present population above
subsistence level. But, in fact, half the world's grain
is fed not to people but to livestock, so that a small
part of the global population may enjoy a diet high in
animal meat and fats. In years, when millions of
children in other countries literally starve, the US
government pays farmers millions of dollars to keep land
idle, in order to avoid local surpluses and maintain
prices. And even if the various political and distribution
problems could be overcome, the world's food would feed
only a third of the present population at the dietary level
that many North Americans, and Australians, take for granted.

Moreover, the gap between the rich and the poor nations is
steadily widening and is likely to continue to do so. The
picture is rather bleak.

Hi Lexi,

I've posted this link a few times previously here and there on the forum. It's from a Reith 2000 lecture by Indian physicist, philosopher and environmental activist, Vandana Shiva. She argues that biodiversity is integral to third world food supply - that autonomy has been usurped from subsistence farmers and that traditional knowledge has been lost due to globalisation and industrial agriculture. She asserts that much of the rich diversity and sustainable systems of food production have been destroyed.

I think you'll get a lot from the article - she's a knowledgeable lady.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/events/reith_2000/lecture5.stm

Dear Banjo,

I agree with you that education and family planning
is vital in these poor countries. However, the
problem is further complicated by the fact that
like people everywhere, people are reluctant
to accept changes in cultural values, particularly
those related to family.

In many traditional societies a man's virility
is gauged by the number of children he fathers, and most
traditional societies emphasize the domestic role of the
wife as mother and child-rearer.

Poorly educated people in
a tradition-bound society may have difficulty appreciating
that the value of a large family has changed within the
course of a generation or so. Even today, a large family may
serve important functions for parents in developing
societies. In countries that lack a system of social
security, children provide the only guarantee that one will be
looked after in old age.

Still something needs to be done - especially in Africa,
where famines are now common place.

It may prove to be
the case that the planet lacks the resources to support
many billions of people at anything remotely resembling
the standard of living of the developed countries.

Nor is it easy to see how the environment could tolerate
the amount of pollution involved in a world consisting
entirely of heavily populated and fully industrialised
societies. It is possible that some of the less
developed societies will never reach the level of
socio-economic development that has historically been
necessary before a demographic transition occurred.
The best that can be said is that, at present, the
demographic fate of the world and its peoples hangs in
a precarious balance.

Ah, another of Poirot's favourite anti western gurus :)

Never mind that in my lifetime, the population of India has
tripled, never mind that the farm plots are getting smaller and
smaller each year, with more and more people trying to make a
living from those smaller and smaller plots, its all the evil
West at fault!

Dear Poirot,

Thank You. It's a brilliant article one
which I'm going to ear-mark for future
reference. Gandhi summed it up beautifully:

"The earth has enough for everyone's needs,
but not for some people's greed."