The real inconvenient truth

[Lumi]

The real inconvenient truth

The whole world needs to adopt China's one-child policy


The "inconvenient truth" overhanging the UN's Copenhagen conference is not that the climate is warming or cooling, but that humans are overpopulating the world.

A planetary law, such as China's one-child policy, is the only way to reverse the disastrous global birthrate currently, which is one million births every four days.

The world's other species, vegetation, resources, oceans, arable land, water supplies and atmosphere are being destroyed and pushed out of existence as a result of humanity's soaring reproduction rate.

Ironically, China, despite its dirty coal plants, is the world's leader in terms of fashioning policy to combat environmental degradation, thanks to its one-child-only edict.

The intelligence behind this is the following:

-If only one child per female was born as of now, the world's population would drop from its current 6.5 billion to 5.5 billion by 2050, according to a study done for scientific academy Vienna Institute of Demography.

-By 2075, there would be 3.43 billion humans on the planet. This would have immediate positive effects on the world's forests, other species, the oceans, atmospheric quality and living standards.

-Doing nothing, by contrast, will result in an unsustainable population of nine billion by 2050.

Humans are the only rational animals but have yet to prove it. Medical and other scientific advances have benefited by delivering lower infant mortality rates as well as longevity. Both are welcome, but humankind has not yet recalibrated its behavior to account for the fact that the world can only accommodate so many people, especially if billions get indoor plumbing and cars.

The fix is simple. It's dramatic. And yet the world's leaders don't even have this on their agenda in Copenhagen. Instead there will be photo ops, posturing, optics, blah-blah-blah about climate science and climate fraud, announcements of giant wind farms, then cap-and-trade subsidies.

None will work unless a China one-child policy is imposed. Unfortunately, there are powerful opponents. Leaders of the world's big fundamentalist religions preach in favor of procreation and fiercely oppose birth control. And most political leaders in emerging economies perpetuate a disastrous Catch-22: Many children (i. e. sons) stave off hardship in the absence of a social safety net or economic development, which, in turn, prevents protections or development.

China has proven that birth restriction is smart policy. Its middle class grows, all its citizens have housing, health care, education and food, and the one out of five human beings who live there are not overpopulating the planet.

For those who balk at the notion that governments should control family sizes, just wait until the growing human population turns twice as much pastureland into desert as is now the case, or when the Amazon is gone, the elephants disappear for good and wars erupt over water, scarce resources and spatial needs.

The point is that Copenhagen's talking points are beside the point.

The only fix is if all countries drastically reduce their populations, clean up their messes and impose mandatory conservation measures.

 

[Lumi]

Honk if you hate global warming

Honk if you hate global warming

Honk if you hate global warming

The spectacle at the world climate summit in Copenhagen leaves us wondering if there will be any consideration of the actual environment at the meeting. The lavish living by delegates and hangers-on, the over-the-top protests by enviro-crusaders, the threats by developing countries to pull out and the hollow promises from developed-world leaders ? all occurring under the cloud of Climategate ? make any practical, binding solutions on climate change unlikely, to say the least.

The first impression one receives of the summit is the sheer hypocrisy of it. Here are green campaigners who damn the rest of us for the size of our ?carbon footprints? and challenge us each to reduce our carbon output by one tonne per year. Yet they themselves are flying in using a squadron of private jets, hiring a fleet of limousines and gorging themselves on expensive food flown in from around the world.

In all of Denmark, there are only a few of dozen limousines for hire. So more than 1,000 of the gas-guzzling, carbon-belching behemoths have been driven to Copenhagen from Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands and France. Since, at most, 140 heads of state and heads of government will attend the week-long conference, the bulk of these land yachts are being delivered for use by United Nations officials, the heads of environmental organizations and celebrities. All these people preach environmental sustainability for others, yet do not practice it themselves.

And whatever became of the 100-mile diet? Delegates who encourage others to buy only local meat and produce, so as to reduce the amount of energy needed to transport food, will nonetheless treat themselves to jumbo Indian Ocean shrimp, Norwegian salmon and fruits and vegetables from South America, Africa and southern Europe, all flown in daily to ensure maximum freshness.

All of these perks and trappings might be a bit more acceptable ? but only a bit ? if it were likely that Copenhagen would lead to a workable agreement to curtain man-made climate change. This gathering was supposed to produce the successor agreement to the 1997 Kyoto accords, but it became obvious to most observers this summer that no such comprehensive heir was possible. Thanks to the recession, most voters in the developed world are far less eager for binding (and job-killing) emission targets than they were even two years ago when the countdown to Copenhagen began.

Developed-world politicians are reluctant to accede to comprehensive cuts in their countries? CO2 output. Although many of them are paying vigorous lip service to big reductions, few expect them to hold their citizens to the kind of painful cuts proposed.

U.S. President Barack Obama, for instance, talks a good game. He has promised that American emissions will be 83% below their 2005 levels by 2050. But as columnist George Will pointed out over the weekend, that would mean per-capita U.S. emissions would have to be at about the level they were at in 1875. Does that sound like something that will happen?

And without meaningful cuts from developed nations, developing countries that are just beginning to lift themselves out of poverty by using dirty sources of fuel ? mostly coal ? to make manufactured goods for export will not agree even to vague targets. The Times of India even reported a week ago that India, China, South Africa and Brazil had agreed to a common front and were ready to walk out of the conference if developed nations sought to pressure them into a deal.

Overshadowing all of this, too, is the controversy known as Climategate. A series of leaked emails and computer files from the Climate Research Unit in Britain ? most between scientists whose work is the foundation of the UN?s claims that climate change is happening, that man has caused it, and that its results will be devastating ? have cast doubt, even among respected scientists, about the validity of the global-warming scare.

All in all, we see little reason why developed nations such as Canada should rush to sign a deal in Copenhagen. An attitude of caution, as exemplified by our own government in the lead-up to the meeting, is the most prudent approach. The world may be getting hotter ? but there is little that the moralizing, self-pampering globetrotters descending on Denmark this week will be doing about it.