NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/sci/environm/14119

Text File | 1992-12-30 | 4.9 KB | 92 lines

Newsgroups: sci.environment
Path: sparky!uunet!think.com!spool.mu.edu!umn.edu!csus.edu!netcom.com!ladasky
From: [e-mail] (John J. Ladasky II)
Subject: Population Control vs. Consumption
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 02:30:29 GMT
Lines: 81

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>I find John Ladasky's post very reasonable, but I disagree with two
>of its premises - one stated and one unstated.
>
>1. The stated premise is that the whole world cannot consume resources
>at the rate of the U.S.  I agree that it can't consume oil at the rate
>of the U.S., but it can and will consume energy (nuclear) at that rate.
>Etc.,etc.

    I think that energy will, in fact, be consumed at a higher rate
in Third World countries in years to come.  Whether the whole world will
consume energy at the current U.S. rate remains to be seen.  As I said in
my post, there are probably some efficiency gains to be had in the manner
in which we produce and consume energy.

    The comment about nuclear energy is just there to bait me, right?

>2. The unstated premise is that it makes sense to plan for the world
>as a whole disregarding the effects of national sovereignty.  When
>national sovereignty is taken into account, we see that some countries
>have population problems, but others don't.  There is no political
>mechanism in sight that can merge Australia and China.  [The Confucians
>lost China's chance at Australia during the Ming dynasty when they
>isolated the country.]

    Well, I think that it does indeed make sense to plan for the
world as a whole.  My reasons for believing so may be summed up in two
words: BORDERS LEAK.

    The Antarctic ozone hole did not respect the national soveriegnty
of Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, or Chile when it decided to spread
over their southern extremities, causing a significant increase in sunburns,
at least in Tierra Del Fuego (and who knows what might follow on the heels
of the sunburn?  Perhaps a melanoma epidemic twenty years from now).  The
buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may be almost entirely due to
Brazilian forestation and American traffic jams, but the whole world
breathes the same air.

    If the environmental examples are too abstract, let's take a look
at some political examples.  When life sucks in your home country, you
move.  There are hundreds of thousands of Southeast Asian refugees living
in the United States.  The U.S. government accepted their arrival, largely
due to political concerns surrounding the Vietnam War.  But even people
that the U.S. government claims not to want in this country, illegal immi-
grants from Mexico, still come to the United States in great numbers.
These people work for wages that no American would ever accept - and it is
these workers who are largely responsible for the low cost of food in the
U.S.  The American consumer benefits greatly from the participation of
illegal farm workers in the American labor market.  Now, let's consider
the seeming inevitability of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
NAFTA, to me, represents a further erosion of national sovereignty, at
least where the labor market is concerned.  And what about all those
Chinese students who come to American universities, and stay here to take
academic and industrial jobs that Americans are unable to fill?  Where
do their tax dollars go?

    At least in the case of the United States, I don't think that there
is any political mechanism, or even the will, to prevent the ultimate merger
of the labor markets of all these countries (despite the xenophobic tirades
you may hear from time to time).  It's too easy to move around these days.
So, maybe I should add a point to my previous posting.  Not only are we
unable to restrict the flow of opportunity to Third World countries, we are
similarly unable to restrict the flow of the Third World to opportunities
in First World countries.  If the U.S. is the place to find opportunity,
then the whole world will be on its doorstep.  Let's minimze the impact and
reduce the global population burden.

>--
>John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
>*
>He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.

--
== John J. Ladasky II ("ii") ========================= [e-mail] ==
"Great composers do not borrow -         "Talking about music is like
 they steal."  - John Ladasky          ~ -     dancing about architecture."
(quote stolen from Stravinsky, who    o o     - Elvis Costello?  Laurie
 stole it from a statement made by     >        Anderson?  Frank Zappa?
 Pablo Picasso about painting, who    \_/    -------------------------------
 stole it from...)                 "Property is theft." - Groucho
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