Quote:
Originally Posted by Corey
Alternative is extinction. China had or has a policy regarding one child family and if they break it the parents go to jail for the life time of the child, while that child is alive.
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Yes, very true. But has that policy helped China in terms of their overall environmental issues?
I see you have just posted a thread that suggests it has not (
china #1 Polluter!)
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In fact a lot of attention is being paid to China's environmental record right now because of the approaching olympics (
Olympics Raise Questions over China’s Environmental Degradation).
While much of the increasing energy demand and pollution in China is related to coal-powered industrialisation policies, urbanization and consumption-driven westernization of the population lifestyle, the issues demonstrate that the "one-child" policy has not been the answer to all of the concerns.
Further to that, regardless of the original intentions of the policy, one of the outcomes has been selective abortion of female foetuses so that the parents can (if possible) have a male child; I am not sure how widespread that practice was, but this is something the western media likes to highlight (as if in preemptive argument against any such "one-child" policies on this side of the world). Another issue is that many families from China simply migrated to other countries if they wanted more than one child, so in that respect the policy was simply a
de facto transfer of population issues out of their jurisdiction (which in the longterm is no solution at all).
So the "one-child" policy of China has probably reduced their population growth rate, but in an environmental or sustainability sense, it has accomplished little more than allowing their neighbours (India) to catch up with them and close-in on becoming the world's most populated country, if they have not already done so...(
World Population Statistics[List Ranked by Country Population])
Speaking of India a policy very similar to what you were suggesting (i.e., sterilization of males) was proposed by Indira Gandhi in the early in the early 1970's (just about the time when many of us were born) - and simply put, there was a major political backlash and that plan never happened and (while it may have been totally unrelated) she did not exactly last for too many decades after that suggestion...
The point is - it is since the 1970's (effectively all our lives) that we have been hearing this imminent apocalypse and meltdown story (energy crisis, species extinctions, pollution, ozone depletion were the major issues of that time), but the problem is we are still here (and so are all the other large fauna, except probably the Chinese River Dolphin).
It can never be "business as usual" again, but the fact remains many of the predictions of that time did not come to pass (at least not yet!!!). So, that is part of the reason why so many people will remain unconvinced (in the face of all the crises of the present). In fact the irony is that they are seldom inspired to be more "green" in lifestyle choices, on the basis of environmental issues, but rather on the basis of things that have an immediate effect on them (like fuel prices).