It surprises me that people still sheepishly ask us, “But won’t this (health aid) lead to overpopulation?” Women will naturally have fewer children if they know their kids have a greater chance of survival. Knowing that is really key.
Melinda Gates in The Tools to Save Lives, Newsweek, Nov 9, 2009
Gates is a roman catholic mother of three
Go forth and fill your libraries with media.
Seriously, thanks to everyone for being so amazing and patient. You are the reason I love Vox.
I was just told that the Amazon Conduit will be fixed by tomorrow. I will post here as soon as I get word that it's back up and running.
I know this has been frustrating and I am sorry there wasn't more I could do to make it less so. I really appreciate your patience though.
Cheers,
Bad news. As many of you have probably noticed, the Amazon Conduit was not fixed in the last week's release. Unfortunately, there was an undetected bug that is preventing the conduit from working.
We are working on this bug fix and hope to have the Conduit back up and running this week.
I will keep you posted.
Thank you for being so patient.
Blog Action Day is every October 15th, when blogger are asked to post something about a single issue to show our strength and conviction as an online community. It's a great way to feel connected to the greater good, and the participation of so many bloggers to support the world's leading non-profit organizations is something you can do to help, right now. By blogging today, you're supporting some of the world's leading non-profits and sharing your voice for change.
This year's topic is climate change, and we'd love to read your thoughts on the topic. If you participate, leave us a link to your post in the comments, so we know to check out your post!
Go to www.blogactionday.org to learn more, get a badge for your blog showing your participation, and see some ideas for your post on climate change.
Can't wait to read your posts!
~ daisy
I will go with the activist, but we really cannot tell who will turn out right.
Can homo sapiens – self-styled – have the wisdom to learn to manage fertility
for the common good? It is a unique experiment. We have examples of
other species being too successful in isolated situations such as islands,
impoverishing the environment and eventually diminishing in numbers
through starvation. We have similar examples in the human experience, but
we have no such experience for the species as a whole, spanning oceans
and historically warring cultures. I cannot imagine social regulation – except
in an Orwellian state – becoming so perfect that the human race actually
reaches an optimum level and stays there, but a future of population
fluctuations around a moving optimum level would be much better than we
now have.
The point of this paper is that that level is indeed moving – downward.
Human activity is already degrading the environment and its resources.
There are now too many of us to live decently on the impoverished resource
base toward which we are moving. It is not enough to hope that “something
will turn up.” That view betrays a vitalistic view of history. Nothing is likely to
turn up by itself.
I have read and browsed a long series of books on current and future human conditions. Most authors are concerned about the future of man, most are expressing a certain optimism, some are reluctant to express a clear opinion and advice.
This situation has prompted some poetic lines of questioning:
Whom should I trust?
Would you trust a pope
who doesn’t understand
the message of Malthus?
Would you trust a politician
who doesn’t grasp
The Tragedy of the Commons?
Would you trust an economist
who believes
in perpetual economic growth?
Would you trust a newspaper editor
without knowledge
of The Population Bomb?
Would you trust a prime minister
who doesn’t understand
Liebig’s Law of the Minimum?
Would you trust a professor
without a working knowledge
of exponential population growth?
Would you trust a philosopher
who does not understand
the consequences of ”Peak Oil”?
Would you trust a President
who believes in
superstitious forces?
Would you trust a NGO leader
who thinks
sharing will solve world problems?
Would you trust a CEO
who denies
the finiteness of Earth’s vital resources?
Would you trust a powerful pundit
who did not recognize
the development of social entropy
Would you trust a UN Secretary General
who fails to understand
The Human Predicament?
Would you trust a Nobel Prize laureate
who will save the world
with fluorescent lamps?
Would you trust a god
who made borderless multiplying
an order?
Tell me whom I should trust,
Show me a person
who is not missing a point
crucial to the survival of Man.
Reiel
In this wider perspective it is clearly far too soon to judge whether modern industrialized societies, with their very high rates of energy and resource consumption and high pollution levels, and the rapidly rising human population in the rest of the world are ecologically sustainable. Past human actions have left contemporary societies with an almost insuperably difficult set of problems to solve
Clive Pointing in A Green History of The World, 1991
The Amazon Conduit will be working again on October 15, 2009. Thank you to everyone for your patience.
Have a great weekend,
daisy, Team Vox
We can have a country of smart voters. I hope we make the changes needed to have this kind of country. It would be a nice place in which to love.
Rick Shenkman in JUST HOW STUPID ARE WE?, 2008
