Population Control an Answer to Saving the World?
Thomas Malthus first raised the ideology that the world could one day have a population crisis. He was a British Presbyterian minister who lived in the early 1800s. He put forward that the available food supply increases slowly, while the population increases quickly. Therefore, if nothing happens to curb the population, such as war or disease, the food supply will eventually stop, causing a famine until an adequate amount of the population have died. Then, the accessible food would sustain the people who were left. A cycle would start over, causing ongoing effort for existence. Malthus’ work also had a philosophical effect on Charles Darwin, and played a large role in his Theory of Evolution and the concept of “survival of the fittest”. However, in spite of the dangers of over population and in keeping with all of Christianity, Malthus thought that contraception was immoral and wrong. Instead, he thought the hope for humanity was to have a deeper morality regarding sexual self-control. His work was very popular, but none of the calculations that he made came true, since he did not take into account the constant social and technological changes.
Today the question is raised as to whether population control is truly necessary.
Some will say that population control is a necessity in poorly developed countries, and they strongly criticize the Catholic Church, for insisting that artificial birth control is morally wrong. It has been said that it is irresponsible to allow an underprivileged family to bring another hungry mouth into the world, and that underprivileged people should be encouraged, or even forced, to use some form of birth control (including abortion, if necessary), for their own good. However, even if there is truth to the idea that overpopulation is threatening some people’s standard of living, the solution is not to kill off part of the population. It may be true that there are huge problems with poverty and inadequate food distribution, but the attention to should be focused on fixing those problems instead of the sterilization people. A reasonable plan would be to enhance food production capabilities with improving technology. Historically, global food production has kept up with population growth, and as technology continues to improve there it is reasonable to state that this will continue
Most advocates of population control think that the correct solution to this so-called population control problem would be to use birth control. At the same time, they also feel that people should be free to have sex with anyone, but naturally this attitude to sex would procreate far too many hungry mouths to feed. Thus, to insure unrestricted sex while keeping population growth in control, their solution is artificial types of contraception, abortion drugs, and sterilization available to people world-wide. The consequence of this would be a society of unrestrained sexual activity.
In 1990, the United Nations did a study on population trends, and that report predicted the world population would level out at 11.3 billion by the end of the next century. Other estimates say somewhere between 8 to 9 billion. This population is sustainable, thus there is no need to panic.
Children are a valuable resource to the future of protecting this Earth. Instead of trying to control population through attacking people with sterilization, we should attack the underlying problems of poverty and poor food distribution, as well as advocate population education and awareness. Women should be allowed freedom to chose birth control. While we must be careful guardians our resources, overpopulation is not at a crisis level. When it comes to something as basic and natural as the human desire to produce offspring, resource responsibility is a misleading approach. The kindness and love that children bring to the world, and the potential for future conservation ideas by subsequent generations will sustain this world.
Conservation and Environmentalism – Almost the Same?
The definition of conservation is ‘sane use’. This is a political and social movement that strives to protect natural resources, including plant and animal species, as well as their natural habitat for the future, the conservation movement includes fisheries, wildlife management, water and soil conservation and forestry. Today’s modern conservation movement has widened it’s spectrum since the early 1900s, when it placed emphasis on sustaining natural resources and the preservation of wilderness areas to now include preservation of biodiversity. Thus, the conservation movement is part of a wider and more far reaching environmental movement. Environmentalism encompasses preservation, restoration and improvement of the natural environment; for example, conservation of natural resources and the prevention of pollution. In today’s modern language, the term environmentalism is associated with resource efficiency, minimizing waste and the ethics and morals of environmental responsibility. The ethics of conservation is to protect against exploitation of the Earth’s natural resources, with the primary focus that of maintaining the health of the natural world and create biological diversity. A secondary focus is placed on materials and energy conservation, both of which are important to protect the natural world.
It was the mid to late 19th Century conservationists such as Henry David Thoreau and John Muir who brought to attention to the people that one should become friendly with nature, to respect the natural environment. It was the principles in conservation, including the intrinsic privilege of the natural world, which was to become the foundation of today’s environmentalism. The modern environmental movement is a term that includes the conservation and green movements. It is a varied scientific, social and political movement whose goal is to advocate management of resources of the natural environment through changes in policy and individual behavior. Environmental groups advocate that humanity has the critical responsibility to participate in maintaining ecosystems, human rights, health and ecology.
Ex-situ conservation “off-site conservation”. This method of conservation compromises some of the oldest and well-known conservation methods as it utilizes controversial laboratory techniques. This is done in order to protect endangered species of plants or anmials by removing part of the population from its habitat and putting it in a new location, within the care of humans. Ex-situ conservation takes the species from its natural ecological area and preserves it in semi-isolated conditions in the hopes that natural evolution is halted or altered in this unnatural habitat. This method is rarely enough to save a species from extinction and is used as a last resort. It is thought better to save a species at least in part, rather than to allow it to die out completely. The techniques are usually costly, and there are many other factors which come into play when making a decision to employ ex-situ conservation.
Environmental organizations are global, regional, national or local. These groups are government-run or private and they research information, participate in public hearings, lobby for changes, hold demonstrations or acquire land for preservation. Such groups include the Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Defense Fund, whose speciality is in lawsuits. Other groups include National Wildlife Federation, World Wide Fund for Nature, Friends of the Earth and the Wilderness Society. Environmental policy can refer to either the private sector or the public sector. In the public sector it usually means a government’s use and creation of the laws, regulations, and other policy mechanisms concerning environmental issues. In the private sector it usually means the compliance with those tools, or the independent development of self-regulation and law-making that can go beyond what is required by governments.
Individuals who think themselves as being environmentalists take great care to at least conserve water, energy and recycle waste. These may seem like small issues, but they are part of the vast conservation sphere to become environmentally responsible and to protect this great Earth.
Dividing Environmental Colors – Light vs. Dark Green
Environmentalists all the world over have argued about campaign strategies which involve the degree as to which they should take side with the government or private firms. Often, there is an inability of environmentalists to agree on issues. Strategies are available to environmentalist and ideology plays a large part in choice of strategy. A general way of explaining the differences within the environmental movement is as an uninterrupted spectrum from light to dark green. This spectrum, at times, is broken, due to incompatible goals within the environment movement. The spectrum from light green to dark green is explained as follows:
Light green environmentalists have environmental strategies available which range from activism to negotiation. Groups who want a good ongoing working relationship with policy makers to smooth the progress of negotiation; activism becomes less of an option because it can cause confrontation, which can hamper the mutual trust needed for the relationship to work. Likewise, the power of groups who negotiate with governments count on their capability to sway voters and this requires respectability and restraint which many types of activism ruin. Light green environmental groups prefer non-violent actions, however, even activists in lightest green spectrum are considered as being provoking and show a lack of trust towards society’s decision-makers.
Dark green environmentalists are more willing to be confrontational towards corporate and political power, unwilling to avoid activism in order to advance the relations necessary for negotiation. They are usually ideologically against negotiation and the compromises that it involves. Successful negotiations are difficult due to the lack of shared goals and theories between them and the policy-makers.
Environmental organizations use protest actions such as demonstrations, blockades, pickets, protest marches and meetings are the traditional method for groups of people to get their message across to the wider public. It is used as technique for getting people involved in a meaningful way to challenge unfair policy, a heartfelt commitment felt by a group about an important issue, and a way to get publicity to put pressure on government officials. The environmental group, Greenpeace, uses symbolic actions such as pipe blocking to garner publicity. They raise public awareness about issues by concentrating on the worst, and have been successful at raising funds rather than changing behaviors. Greenpeace is considered as becoming increasingly a lighter shade of green but with dark green roots.
The dark greens make deals that raise fundamental ethical questions. They feel that the environment is a resource and those who subscribe to it believe it is acceptable to compromise it in order to save the most valuable areas, thus the dark greens often agree to trade-offs that can lead to some environmental sacrifices. The capability to make deals and accept trade-offs, and to tone down on the confrontation, allows entry into the decision-making process. For others the road to power is through an involvement with the government.
Positive activism is intended to create a sense of necessity and crisis so that people will scream out for immediate change. However, negotiation can work against this by diffusing that sense of crisis and giving the feeling that there is no need to worry since environmentalists are leading government in the right direction. This can create an inaccurate sense of confidence given the lack of power of negotiating environmentalists. Of course any one environmental group will have different types of people as members and it is not so easy to characterize large groups as light or dark green. It is argued that there is room in any social movement for both reformers and the more radical, thus the environmental movement is able to have room for both the light and the dark green. But, conflicts arise from the differing perspectives and ideologies, and also from effects of differing strategies.