Yabby,

Actually your post raising the issue of third world contraception and family planning is pertinent to the feminist controversy I raised earlier. It also demonstrates why it was more than a "cat fight" and that the issues surrounding feminist representation in the Western world can have an impact on the ground in developing countries.

Here's an article examining MTR's role as a bioethics adviser to Senator Harradine.

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/tankard-reist-explain-yourself-20120123-1qdst.html

Harradine was instrumental in getting up Australia's version of the Global Gag rule which seeks to withhold funding for third world health services "that mention abortion or provide abortion services". The Global Gag rule has detrimental effects on the health of women in the developing world because funding is cut for other services also.

http://www.globalfundforwomen.org/impact/publications/newsletters/spring-2009/1154

Poirot, Harradine showed how much damage a single Catholic politician
can do. Other politicians generally won't touch the topic, as they
might lose votes, but not gain any. All very sad really.

At the time when Bush reimposed the Gag rule, I had subscribed
to some Catholic email lists, such as Priests for Life, to know
a bit more how they functioned, for much Catholic lobbying goes
on behind the scenes, in the name of all sorts of groups.

Whew, I was blown away. These guys moved heaven and earth to put
pressure on Bush and they won. Family planning clinics in much
of the third world were shut down. The power of the tentacles of
the Vatican, extend far further then many might presume, even within
our own parliament.

Population and family planning should be gender neutral and global
issues. If people had children that were loved and wanted, a great
deal of misery and suffering would fall away.

But I know I'm peeing into the breeze on this one. People are too
busy with their own little patch of self interest, to care.
Especially so, our politicians.

*It's the spirit of the human being, which can
fill me with more joy than anything in the world.*

Whew Lexi, luckily I have a far more realistic attitude
to life and our species.

We are a destrucrive species, we really are. We declare
the zygote holy and thousands of species will be decimated
and perish as a result, but of course only humans matter.
All very depressing.

So I prefer to see the amusing side of life, like human
foibles. Here we have a 500 million $ cruise liner
sailing along the Italian coast, and the true story
is slowly coming to the surface. The captain, trusted
and respected by thousands in his uniform, is trying
to impress the 25 year old dancer who has fallen in love
with him (her underwear was found in his cabin). He wines
and dines her, sails close to the shore to impress her,
the ooooops, he rips the crap out of the ship's side
and she topples over.

Ah, all that human spirit, mixed with good old testoserone :)

Sorry Lexi, but I am not proud of our species, but I do
see the funny side of life.

I refuse to focus on the human spirit. Why not the bonobo
spirit or the chimp spirit?

We are just another species, however a very destructive one
at that. That is not something to be proud of, IMHO.

Lexi, the idea that heat is the ultimate limiting factor to human energy use is not new. I can recall several SF stories I read back in the 70s to that effect. However, it really does take a stupendous amount of energy to add to the temperature of the atmosphere.Every gram of water requires about 4.2 Joules to raise its temperature by 1 degree and there are billions of tonnes of water in the atmosphere. That's without considering the specific heat capacity of the other atmospheric components. On top of that, the amount of heat impinging on the earth from the sun's radiation is about 1kW/sqare meter, which is so much greater than anything that man is able to contribute that it makes any such contribution insignificant.

Poirot:"The Global Gag rule has detrimental effects on the health of women in the developing world because funding is cut for other services also."

As I pointed out in another thread, femi-lobbyists have skewed health resources in Australia,with breast cancer taking a far larger slice of the funding pie than other more serious and more prevalent cancers, to the point that the Cancer Council has had to ask for reconsideration of the way funding is allocated.

It seems that making decisions on religious or quasi-religious ideological grounds is never good practise.

Dear RObert,

Thanks for the positive references.
Technology is only as harmful as humans make it or allow it
to be. There is a peculiar school of determinism that
disregards the power of humans to control the machines they
manufacture. That is one extreme on a continuum. The other
extreme is the school of technological optimists who
have unfettered faith in our ability to make machines that
are capable of replacing everything nature does for us, and
for free. Economists should note - reality is at neither
extreme.

Dear Yabby,

In pre-industrial societies people traditionally treated
nature with respect, considering themselves a part of,
rather than set apart from, the natural world; this
attitude was typical, for example, among the Indian
tribes of North America in pre-Colonial times.

In industrialised societies our attitude is different.
We consider ourselves the lords of creation and see
nature primarily as a resource for exploitation.
As our "needs" increase, our capacity for exploitation
expands. We do not see our ravaging of the environment
as "ravaging" at all, it is "progress" or "development."

We are so used to exploiting natural resources and
dumping our waste products into the environment that we
frequently forget that resources are limited and
exhaustible and that pollution can disrupt the ecological
balance on which our survival (and that of other species)
depends.

Dear Anti,

Today we're desperately seeking solutions - whether
its to climate change, water scarcity, pollution,
Third World poverty or cures for the various cancers that afflict
people. Hopefully our world leaders will start taking
notice of the vast army of experts who are willing and
able to guide us through the difficult coming years.
A better world
is possible. It will take time, It will be difficult.
But as RObert pointed out - it will be worth it.