Hello. Twenty years ago I would have been in complete agreement with
your sentiments, but I no longer am.
Tom Barber wrote:
> control (other than imigration control) in my lifetime. The birth rate here,
> by the way, has just recently gone back over the 2.0 level considered to be
> "zero population growth."
2.0 is below bare replacement. Consider that many people die before
having kids. Replacement is usually considered to be somewhat above 2.
The United States population for native born is stable. Immigration is
about a million a year so population is showing steady growth, but
that is not from any lack of overt population control measures,
religion, culture or whatever. Immigrants who stay in the US drop to
US levels of childbirth within a generation.
The situation in Europe and Japan is even more clear. Population is
peaking now and will begin a long and sharp fall in a few decades at
most. The average age is rising rapidly, which means a reversal of
this trend is very unlikely.
Longevity is not increasing much. We live about 14 months longer than
people did a hundred years ago. The lower death rate for children
makes it seem as if we have sharply improved longevity, but in fact
there is little change. We can not expect hoards of old people to hang
on increasing population in the long term.
The situation in the third world is much the same. Africa is due for a
major drop in population in the coming decades, though not by choice,
AIDS will be the cause. India, China and other Asian countries are
already sharply reducing the number of children per family. China is
using the most brutal means, overt population control, but the same
effect is being achieved peacefully in most other countries via
personal choice. All over the world population is stabilizing. Check
out the latest UN projections, they are lower than the lowest
projections of just a few years ago. It is a fallacy to project any
current trend into the future indefinitely.
There is a lot of good news out there if you look for it. Remember
that is it not in the interest of government, scientists, or the media
to tell you anything good. All of those groups get more money the more
they can scare people. Good news is buried.
A personal example, when I was a kid, 30 years ago, it was rare to see
deer or any other wild animals in the countryside where I grew up. The
rivers and roadsides were filled with garbage and chemicals. The
difference now is astounding. Deer, turkeys, coyotes, all kinds of
animals are so common people hardly comment on them anymore. The
roadsides and rivers are so clean it is hard to find a piece of trash.
I came home to visit my folks, and spent a lot of time walking the
countryside. My mother laughed at me when I told her about all the
animals I had seen. She can see them every day, but they were not
there 30 years ago.
City people tend to see the whole world as a park. The reality in the
countryside, at least in the US is that things are getting better and
better. More animals, more trees, cleaner water and air. Just a
hundred miles from my hometown bears are common enough to be
considered a nuisance, and an elk was seen a few years ago, the first
in a century. No one knows how it got there, but it did.
The situation you see in Vermont is more due to people abandoning the
big northeastern cities. New Yorks population is down a million from
it's peak and still falling. Those people are moving to smaller cities
and the country.
One big problem for the environment is land taxes. On my fathers small
farm, for example, land tax is several thousand dollars, a heavy
burden for a small farm. Even if he wanted to reduce the intensity of
his farming, he could not as the tax stays the same. He is forced to
farm every inch to make enough to live on and pay the tax. If he
wanted to plant trees, or just let the land rest a few years, there is
no way he could do it. Landowners are forced to develop land or lose
it. It is no choice. If you want to reduce land exploitation fight to
eliminate land taxes.
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