Chirac warns of 'African flood'

writes:

Or providing people with condoms, birth control pills, etc. But the US
won't provide aid to countries that use birth control, right?

I don't know. Won't it?

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Jim Ley writes:

How exactly is it true?

Famine and pestilence.

... you're saying the existence of war and murder
is the only thing that has stopped nature killing everyone on the
planet, because that's rubbish.

No. Controlling population and concentrating on improving the lot of
those already born (while reproduction is reduced) can hold off the
revenge of nature.

Interesting...

I agree.

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Jim Ley writes:

forced sterilisation, or forced abortions, or what??? is not a way to
eliminate suffering If you're not suggesting such things to "limit
population growth", exactly what are you suggesting?

I think parents should be licensed.

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Jim Ley writes:

I wouldn't even agree to that - there have certainly been population
explosions which didn't lead to poverty (UK in the 19th century, the
USA throughout it's history pretty much) but of course the continent
of africa is not going through a population explosion.

How fast does the population have to grow in order to qualify as a
population explosion?

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Jim Ley wrote:

On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 20:02:21 +0200, Mxsmanic
Jim Ley writes:

Let's
be clear controlling family size is not a sensible solution for
African poverty.

Why not?

Because it it's not the cause of poverty, it's a by product of the
poverty which leads to high mortality rates. You need to fight the
causes.

And families which are poor require more labouring hands to bring in
crops or income, to help domestically, and to increase the probability
that some offspring will still be around to care for you in your old
age. Political factors are behind most famine. It's no coincidence
that during the great drought of the 80s, it was countries in civil
war (e.g. somalia/eritrea/ethiopia) which fared worst.


--
Ken Tough

Apparently Mxsmanic wrote:
writes:

Or providing people with condoms, birth control pills, etc. But the US
won't provide aid to countries that use birth control, right?

I don't know. Won't it?

Yes, US aid funds mandate a specific proportion be tied to abstinence-
only and pro-life programs, and withhold funding related to abortion
and limit condom-related programs.

This is also the main reason why the US withheld its UN dues every
other year for dozens of years. (It had to pay up every second year
to ensure it didn't embarrassingly lose its vote in the General
Assembly).

It's a major bugbear in aid circles. The conservatives have a lot
of clout and nobble a lot of good work.

http://www.womensenews.org/article.c...ontext/archive
http://www.kff.org/hivaids/7185.cfm
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0830-02.htm
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/tgr/06/3/gr060301.html
--
Ken Tough

Jim Ley wrote:

On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 18:20:46 +0200, Mxsmanic
wrote:

Jim Ley writes:

Rubbish, whilst there is not an infinite amount of resources, there is
certainly more than enough for much larger population than the earth
has now.

How much, exactly, and with what standard of living?

How much what?

exactly what?

I have no idea what a "and with what standard of living?" can apply to
an exactly - do you mean population of the planet? I would say
12,453,123,109 and with a standard of living of 87.6 on the Theolophis
scale.


And they could all fit into the state of Texas...

--
Best
Greg

On Sun, 16 Jul 2006 00:39:51 +0200, Mxsmanic
wrote:

Jim Ley writes:

How exactly is it true?

Famine and pestilence.

So it's not true at all, there's quite a few rich countries in the
world who've not controlled their population through war, and haven't
all died out through famine or pestilence.

Jim.

On Sun, 16 Jul 2006 00:41:01 +0200, Mxsmanic
wrote:

Jim Ley writes:

forced sterilisation, or forced abortions, or what??? is not a way to
eliminate suffering If you're not suggesting such things to "limit
population growth", exactly what are you suggesting?

I think parents should be licensed.

how does the licensing scheme work?

Jim.

Ken Tough writes:

Yes, US aid funds mandate a specific proportion be tied to abstinence-
only and pro-life programs, and withhold funding related to abortion
and limit condom-related programs.

That's bizarre, but nothing surprises me about the US these days.

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