Tuesday, August 12, 2008

population crash movement - moratorium on childbirth

It is politically unacceptable to talk about powerful incentives to discourage childbearing, as filmmaker Nina Paley noted in discussing her powerful 2002 animation. The Stork.

Three or four decades ago programs to give $50 to desperately poor third world women to be sterilized became the textbook case of uninformed non-consent. Population control also became associated with racism, genocide and eugenics, for example see this discussion. Zero population growth was a popular movement in the 1970s (if only more had listened), but who is calling for a committed movement to stop or greatly curtail all childbirth for a generation, given our global warming and mass extinction reality. It certainly beats wars, disease, famines and runaway global heating as an outcome even if it precipitated its own economic and elder care crises. As a near senior citizen, I would gladly forgo better medical and financial care and die happy if I knew major measurable steps to save the environment were under way. And I think a lot of young people are prepared to put off or forgo the pleasures and pains of family life, of a traditional human life, for one or 2 generations to save the world, no less than those who fought the Nazis, if enough women signed on, It could cause a bit of credible, measurable real demographic and economic collapse, but also fairly immediate environmental and social advantages would happen simultaneously. In a decade or 2 the next generation could begin to live like happy, non-violent pirates in the ruins and booty of the now emptier cities and towns as beautiful savannas and jungles reclaimed some of what they yielded before to sprawling housing and farms. A few maverick environmentalists continue to bring up population collapse as a very good thing.

Governments like Canada continue to tout 19th century policies that encourage population and economic growth, But I think the criticisms about racism can be overcome by rolling out the campaign to the vastly greater resource-consuming developed countries first. If France, the US, Canada Australia and so forth lead the way with cobwebs on the maternity wards, and making the short term economic and lifestyle sacrifices, then the rational objections to reintroducing vigorous population control measures everywhere would fall away. A lot of health resources go into maternity, so maybe I would even not have to give up some of cheaper, more cost-effective medical attention as I age.