How about we just recognise consumerism as a mental illness?
Then anyone that makes, buys, cheap crap made in china designed to be obsolete in twelve months or just after the warranty period, get locked up in a padded cell.

We could start with all the ipAd and ipHone owners, then move on to winDows users!

You’ve got it Belly.
.

Pericles, your questions are taking us right away from the thread subject. I’d love to answer them but, the rules, the rules!

Oh pffff, I canna resist…..

You wrote:

<< I'd be particularly keen to understand what options you might have in mind that would not involve the suppression of basic individual freedoms. >>

Well firstly, there can be no doubt that reducing the world’s population at a steady rate for quite a long time would be a damn good thing.

Do you agree?

Now, of course whatever methods are implemented to do this are going to reduce some peoples’ freedoms to some extent, just as all laws in our society do. That needs to be weighed up against the reduction in freedom and quality of life that WILL occur for the majority of people if the number of us continues to become ever more wildly unbalanced with our life support systems and resource base.

Again, do you agree?

Rio, Cairo, Kyoto, Copenhagen… they all missed the biggest and most urgent issue – population growth!

We need a major global collaboration to implement binding agreements around the world.

Things like readily available contraception, much-improved education for girls and women, disincentives to have kids, and possibly in some places a strict two-child policy.

The methodology is not hard… if only the will was there.

What do you reckon?

Actually, the Cairo event was a population conference…

United Nations International Conference
on Population and Development (ICPD)
5-13 September 1994

But where has it got us?

NOWHERE!

We need to follow this up, with great urgency, nearly 20 years on.

Better contraceptive awareness and more woolly jumpers would be a start. Rather than trying to enforce small families how about recycling much more, and yes, buying less crap. Much less crap. Advertising is the enemy of the environment.

I think we're pretty much on topic, Ludwig.

>>...firstly, there can be no doubt that reducing the world’s population at a steady rate for quite a long time would be a damn good thing... Do you agree?<<

You use the active "reduce", which indicates that someone, somewhere is going to do the reducing. Which means that I cannot agree.

I would however accept a proposition that stated "a reduction in the world population might, over time, prove to be largely beneficial". Indicating, of course, that any reduction would be caused by natural attrition.

While on this point, I notice that you didn't comment on my observation on "humanitarian aid". What is your position on it - are you for it, or against it, in population-management terms?

>>...whatever methods are implemented to do this are going to reduce some peoples’ freedoms to some extent... That needs to be weighed up against the reduction in freedom and quality of life that WILL occur for the majority of people... Again, do you agree?<<

No. I am implacably against the reduction of our - already massively circumscribed - freedoms. Especially as the beneficiaries will not be me, or my family - or my city, or my country - in my lifetime or theirs.

>>We need a major global collaboration to implement binding agreements around the world.<<

Exactly. And that is not going to happen.

Ever.

Global population is not in dispute on the world stage, but it is going to come to that. How long before the world stacks on another billion.
The moslem countries breed at will, and that is not about to decline.
China has policies but the population is still rising.
How do you get stable population, environmentally friendly children, may be a way off yet. If anyone is likely to through rubbish from a car it's likely to be a younger person.