Kipp
Lord of the Ledgers
- Joined
- 23 November 2005
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Actually, I would disagree with you here. Take a long term view. say 200 years (which is, after all, only a blink in man's 200,000+ year history). This "wasteful" childless couple, who lived the life of travel and luxury have long gone... there are traces of their existence for sure, through non-biodegradable wastes etc. But for all intents and purposes, they are no longer a drain on the planets resources, except for the 2m3 of space their grave plots take up.
Now, lets take a family of 6 (i.e. 4 kids),multiply that trend for 8 generations and you end up with around 196 people. Even if they are all eating tofu, recylcing, and saving whales on their solar powered boats. I would defy you to say that 196 eco-livers don't do more damage than 2 plasma TV-owning, humvee driving (childless) capitalists.
Nope, I'm not arguing that, though I don't think rationing is the worst idea in the world, and yes it would certainly reduce waste, and make us more appreciative (and open up an interesting blackmarket!)
You open up a Pandora's box with comments about population control, since in Australia we have an ageing population and actually require more children not less. Maybe we could have a children's trading scheme? We could then spread the human race about a bit. Of course there are a few here that balk at having "our" country filled up with "non Australians"
Half the people I have met that have been for forced population control are only meaning "outside of this country". That's not called environmentalism.
So, by what criteria does Australia "require" more people? From where I sit, our eastern cities are all struggling to keep up with infrastructure pressures traffic, water, urban sprawl.
The government (esp P.Costello) might talk about the dangers and economic turmoil of än aging population" - but I think this is nothing to fear. As it has been mentioned elsewhere in this thread; kids <20 years old require nothing but support from parents and their government and represent a burden on our tax base (except tradies of course!). Wheras conversely, many retirees are self funded, and since the gov't has introduced compulsory super of 9% (and very healthy incentives for extra contributions) I anticipate this number to increase.
Or retirement age could be upped a little bit to cope with our increased longevity. etc etc I can not think of a single country in the world that would benefit from more people.
And lastly, where you have decreasing family sizes, each individual child all stand to inherit alot more, which would I feel would also offset this ageing burden. Or I would also believe that childless couples are more likely to leave their inheritance to charitable causes (not me though, will donate it all to Google and James Packer!)
Half the people I have met that have been for forced population control are only meaning "outside of this country". That's not called environmentalism.
Putting words in my mouth here.
But I will get off this environmental high horse for a minute, and agree that my primary reason for not having kids is simply that it does not appeal me. That is far a greater motivating force than population pressures. And I am sorry (in part) for deviating off the topic of this thread.
