Conservation and sustainability will not prevent our sending Earth to its grave. Birth control (quick to it) - an average of one child per couple - is the only solution. Lawrence S. Lerner, Emeritus Professor, California State University, in a letter to The Chronicle of Higher Education, section B, January 9, 2009, says the obvious:
With all his detailed attention to the complex political processes and the geographical and economic inequities involved in reducing ecological costs, Peter Dauvergne (“Conservation’s Uphill Battle,” The Chronicle Review, November 28) ignores the elephant in the room.
Even assuming that the rising economies of China and India do not spur accelerating consumption, what good would it do if I and others like me were to achieve the improbable goal of reducing our waste streams by 50 percent, if the population doubles?
All environmental projects, however clever and efficient they may be, are doomed to failure unless the world population stabilizes or, better, decreases. The fundamental ecological goal should be a reduction of world population to less than half what it is now, to about 3 billion. Even then, it will be about 50 percent larger than it was when I was a kid!
For more about Lawrence S. Lerner, click here.
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