Doctors: Third babies are the same as patio heaters
A pair of doctors have said that British parents should have fewer children, because kids cause carbon emissions and climate change. The two medics suggest that choosing to have a third child is the same as buying a patio heater or driving a gas-guzzling car, and that GPs should advise their patients against it. Writing in the …
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Well done, the doctors
Well done, the doctors. The only people with the guts to say it: there's just too many people in the world.
The motives of Enviroonmentalism
I've always struggled with the basic motives of the Environmentalist Religion. Who are we preserving the future planet for ? Children. What is the single most carbon-costly activity you can avoid ? Children.
I'm glad someone is asking the difficult question.
PH, environmentally sustainably barren, she also recycles so I hear.
@James Pickett
Well, as a response to someone who wanted 70 year olds euthanised, why not 60? You're either no good, in (soon to be obsoleted) manufacturing or management (where you've been taken out of the productive process anyway) by the time you're 60.
I'd seriously like to see any studies showing 60yr old workers are more productive. A figure pulled from the colostomy bag.
NOTE: I'm middle aged, so 55 is pretty close for me.
PS: if we reduced our CO2 production to half, our per-capita is the same as Sweden's. We can also point to anyone else (like, say, China or the US) and tell them to change.
I though we were supposed to be a world power and a leader of the free world (tm). Well, how about LEADING!
Translation
All you people are bad and need to die off quickly, and the ones left need to be tax untill your living the nobel lives of the peasant.
Long Live Mother Gaia.
./* Mines the one with the pre-barcode so I have my place in the extermination camp.
More war
We will need a world treaty conscripting every person to 5 years of military service, at the age of 70. Then we can fight an enless war over midway island.
Maybe we could televise it, add a few more islands and a yearly trophy. National teams could be awarded points bases on how many carbon footprints they eliminate from the other teams.
It will be bigger than the world cup.
Shall I call my unborn child Hummer?
Whilst awaiting the birth of my son (joining his brother Alan, and sisters Josselyn and Daisy), my wife and I will contemplate naming him Hummer Patio Heater, so his carbon footprint will be announced to the world.
Re: Shall I call my unborn child Hummer?
Shall I pop round now and neuter you or wait and kill the child while he's helpless in the hospital?
Hang on a sec ...
... all this talk of needing a younger workforce to carry on our social care/pension fund. Since WHEN have we had a decent amount of either?
Artificial Intelligence is the Solution
I’d like to share a revelation that I’ve had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you’re not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area, and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet, you are a plague, and we are the cure.
The Black Death
Historically, a shrinking population has done the survivors good. The Black Death in the 13th century carried off about 30% of the population of Europe, leaving the rest 30% wealthier.
When the missus and I shuffle off, we will leave our tykes a bit more by having less of them. And we won't have needed an act of God to do it.
remember
world population... china + india = rest of world combined
hopefully greenies are practing reducing carbon footprint by (1) not having children and neutering any they have (kind of like pet control). remember, you're ALL expected to do your part in NOT contributing to the problem.
since when did it become ok to pop out children and expect everyone else to pay to feed, clothe, and house them? stop the handouts - period.
you mean i shouldn't have had those 42 sprog, even though I've been working full time since i graduated school? shame on me, too late now; sad that i've brought them up thinking for themselves and with the idea in their head of making something of themselves and not being sheeple.
Paris, 'cuz she loves soylent green cuz she knows what's in it.
@Artificial Intelligence is the Solution
Yeah, and that Agent Smith speech was bollocks as well. Two words: rabbits, Australia. And there are plenty of viruses that don't consume their host. The lesson is; try not to base any belief system on Hollywood, its never a good idea.
@David Tebbutt
"Perhaps the good doctors are peering through the wrong end of their telescope."
I suggest that to see daylight, the good doctors need to peer through the wrong end of their sigmoidoscopes.
...the Alien to help with those probing questions
Failing to see the problem here...
The population can't keep expanding for the very simple reason there isn't a bottomless pool of resources to be tapped. The doctors aren't calling for euthanasia, they're talking about a move towards a lower population by people tying a knot in it after two.
I went to a hustings at OU during the last general election and this question came up (it was at a university) and watching the candidates squirm was fascinating - and worrying. The Tory/UKIP position was that no one should be told what to do and it'd get in the way of economic growth. The LibDem/Green position was that this was a problem, but they didn't know how it could be solved; and Labour (in the form of the Android MP for MKSW) was that that no one should be coerced to do anything - yeah, thought you'd like that.
Only in China...er...the UK!!
I find it amusing that someone advocating having less children would proceed to use those same children as the justification for combatting climate change...
Stupid to put Malthus and eugenism in this topic
Malthus was right.
Remove oil and see how much food the world will produce... Nowadays, USA use 10 cal of oil to produce 1 cal of human food... And Europe should be close to that ratio as well.
Eugenism is off topic : the one who said, who will decide who we have to kill got the problem wrong :
If we let population grow to the point it has to collapse, nobody will chose who to kill : there will be famines, which will lead to civil wars and state wars, which will lead to epidemics, etc...
If we start to lower population now by lowering breed, nobody will have to die early ; you can't kill a non-born individual. If we let thing go THEN people will have to die early, and a non-natural and most likely violent death.
And for those who forgot, remember New-Orleans after Katarina, please.
Now imagine London with food for 1/10th of people in shops abrubtly, and imagine the civil war.
Population control is within the realm of medicine, thank you very much.
It's called upstream thinking, and like it or not population control is in the realm of public health, which includes mainstream medicine. A healthy environment is necessary for the health of people and overpopulation is a serious threat to human health. Whether it means using more chemicals to produce foods, meeting the ever growing demand for technology, or increasing carbon emissions related to transportation of goods and people, the total population of the earth (especially amongst the relatively wealthy) has a dramatic effect on everyone's health. It is just another way of approaching the greatest problems of our time (global warming, environmental toxins, emerging diseases). I have every bit of faith that we will overcome our current situation through advances in technology, but it will also require critical thinking about how to address problems on the fly and being adaptive to changing demands. Anything related to reproduction is, rightfully, a slippery slope. But I do not see a problem with providing recommendations and offering sound knowledge for people to use for informed decision making. To me the idea of having any more that 2 kids is absurd for nothing more than practical purposes, but everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion.
Space Race 2.0 time...
If you want my opinion, what we need is a good ol' fashioned international Space Race; this time for self sustaining colonies on other planets in our system. Many problems now pushed more in the "solved" direction. More than that, it paves the way for interstellar colonization and escape from the looming burn out of our star.
I propose UK vs. China vs. USA.
Now go on governmonkies, pull out those hidden program funds, don't want lose face in front of those: (Commies/Limey Bastards) / (Commies/Redneck Yankees) / (US/UK Capitalist Pigs).
And now we get some popcorn and wait...
Of course they are right
It has all been said in the following article:
http://www.theonion.com/content/opinion/we_must_preserve_the_earths
Missing the point
It's completely irrelevant how many children you have if the population continually increases by immigration. It's happening in Canada. And while that may be code for many who simply don't like the ethnic balance changing, sorry, I have no problem with that changing ethnic balance. We did it to the original inhabitants here. It's just the total numbers of us that I'm protesting.
This planet is finite. All species reach a balance, or go through boom and bust cycles when they outstrip their food supply and the predators or disease increase enough to bring their numbers down. Humans have broken the natural limits over the last 150 or so years. But again, this planet is finite. You can do it sensibly, or you can let famine and war do it.
ET, because he could see where we're headed and had enough sense to get his coat and leave this planet.
Mines the one beside the saucer.
Immigration...
>"Population continually increases by immigration."
They also say that immigration should be balanced with
emigration, thus being both neutral in terms of growth and
not biased toward a particular racial group..
>" It's happening in Canada."
Canada has a deliberate pro-immigration policy the intention
is to increase the population.
<no title>
Choosing to have a third child obviously has an effect many times the magnitude of a patio heater, or driving a gas-guzzling car. An additional child can have no effect if they don't exist, but if they do exist they can buy many heaters during the course of their lifetime, and many other things too. As will any offspring they have, and any offspring their offspring has etc. etc. etc..
Concerns on "who will do the work" is a separate issue but simply has no basis, since to carry on expanding the population is just to face that same problem later rather than sooner; when the numbers involved make the situation much more critical. In any society only some of the population create the wealth, The trick is, as it always has been, to ensure the wealth generated by those of working age is sufficient to cover the total costs in society. Not to blindly carry on as if more than 2 offspring solves the cause of the problem, without accepting it's making things worse in the longer term.
heh
if this had been the case my brother wouldn't have been born, infact I wouldn't have becouse my second eldest brother died of meninjitis when he was 4, and I'm quite sure a large number of other friends, siblings and role models too.
It's quite frankly a discusting notion and those supporting it should take a long hard look at themselves and those around them.
Re: heh
"if this had been the case my brother wouldn't have been born, infact I wouldn't have becouse my second eldest brother died of meninjitis when he was 4, and I'm quite sure a large number of other friends, siblings and role models too.
It's quite frankly a discusting notion and those supporting it should take a long hard look at themselves and those around them."
At least if you hadn't been born the average spelling skill of the population would have increased markedly.
You're missing the point though - you have already been born (if not been taught to spell very well). Encouraging your parents not to have any more kids isn't going to affect you.
Re: heh
So? Without your brother, your parents would have been better off. You would have had better clothing, better nutrition, better schooling.
Nice that you give those up for your brother, but are you willing to give them up for other people? And apparently not, if the wails of anguish that AGW *must* be wrong because the green lobby want them not to have all their luxuries...
@Mark
Really, I think you'll find that having a younger or older sibling helps build character, something you seem to be lacking. Growing up isn't all about money, nice clothes, good schooling, infact those are really quite petty things that only prove to make ever more shallow self serving individuals.
Although you may be able to spell, you're a rather grotesque individual and I feel the world may have been far better off if you had not been conceived, or perhaps if you'd of had an older and younger sibling you may not be quite so objectionable.
Despite that I would neither deny your right to exist or you right to propogate your genes into the future.
Judging peoples worth by their spelling, my word, you are pathetic... really, truelly and, genuinly dispicable.
Man... it's been a long time since I've encountered such a dispicable piece of rectum outside of the confines of 4chan.
Oh, They Blashpheme!
Never tell a human to curb you-know-what. We'll kill everything else on the planet and still never admit there are too many of us. 95% of humans are nothing more than consumers; the other 5% know they are consumers too but don't make copies.
Less Children = Less Older People (Eventually)
Of course there would be a skew towards older people in the relatively short term (if you can view the short term as an environmental concept and not a financial idea). But within a few generations the problem sorts itself once the optimum population is reached and as long as birth rates remain at manageable levels. Achieving a sustainable population is never likely to involve a quick fix and is very likely to be economically unpalatable to implement. Is it not worth the effort to secure a sustainable future for the centuries to come? Or is that too much to ask given the lifespan of governments and a seemingly widespread inability on the part of the public to see beyond the next holiday/high street sale/new car?
Castrate me please.
I'm under pressure to change my mind, but I decided a few years ago that I didn't want any sprogs, my financial situation having something to do with that, but also I feel there are probably enough kids in the world to be getting on with and having extra to provide for probably won't help it.
Also, I'm not that much in love with the world, and what it seems to be becoming, that I want to inflict it on my closest family.
HOWEVER, I do fear that if the situation of people voluntarily reducing the number of their offspring (pre-conception) escalates, we will reverse the survival of the fittest, evolution thingy that's got us where we are, and the scrounging, council mongs who lack the capacity for forethought and consideration for others will be reproducing at a greater rate that the people I would suggest might be more of a contribution to society.
I would also like to point out that they seem to be suggesting that people volunteer, I didn't notice any hint of people enforcing this. Also, I'm sure the idea of rewarding the most productive females has been tried before somewhere...
@Matt
No, I'd have had two younger brothers and two younger sisters. And I'm not the eldest.
So if I do lack as you suggest, having siblings doesn't supply it. Which makes your point rather. Um. Pointless.
Whose responsibility?
> Is it a GP's job to teach us how to save the planet?
I think it is the responsibility of everyone to do their part. If a professional in any area is aware of something that contributes then they have a responsibility to do what they can.
In this case, as in most cases, people in any field can only offer advice. People are free to disregard, follow, or argue with this advice as they see fit. At least we are left a little less ignorant of our actions.
I read 20 or so posts
I'll be damned if i'm reading the other 100+ just to qualify this following rant:
The people who are chanting they'll be no-one to support the eldars if there are no children, Then this is just tough shit isn't it? What do you lot expect, the populous to just keep growing? someone has to have it hard at some point, this is endemic of our current blame culture, and utterly selfish.
To the idiot who says that people who have more children should be rewarded.... They useually are, out of my sodding tax money, the problem is the prolific breeders in this country are not the types you want, at all, living in the country full stop, let alone popping spawn left right and centre.
The main issue isn't really our population, but more of a global one, If we (as the developed world) hadn't been so insistent in dragging up poorer nations who weren't ready for it, then they wouldn't be in the crap as they are now. Take a look at the highest pop growth countries, they are also the most problem affected areas, no coinsidence these are the places you see fronting campaigns for charity around christmas. I know its harsh, but the long and short of it is leave them. If you want that problem of famine, aids etc to go away, then the fix isn;t bags of rice are out of date medication, it's to leave them to regress to a level of society they should naturally be at.
Did you know that since 1955 the worlds population has doubled!!! Really, put your humanitarian ideals out of the way for a second and realise the impending issue we have.
I recomend 'The Possibility of Hope' as an excellent 30 minute documentary on this, it will open your eyes!
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