ok, so i am ashamed to say i just read the article. i replied before without having read it  ::), typical hannah move. anyway, i don't like the article for a lot of different reasons. (plus, i like being a devils advocate, so deal.)

first, i don't like how whoever wrote it is obviously biased towards having children. you can see it all throughout the article, and if you are going to write an article like that you shouldn't go calling the people you are writing about as crazy, or even anomalies. there are many people who chose not to have kids for this reason.

second, i don't know how much i like the thought of the first person that was interviewed/talked about. (most will disagree with me on this point, but i'm putting it out there) i don't like that she aborted the fetus in order to save the environment. why, you may ask? because, an abortion is also killing life. yes, the life may not yet be viable, but i believe that all life holds value, whether it be child, adult, elderly, animal, or fetal. also, abortions are supposed to raise the risk of breast cancer. i don't know if it is necessarily the procedure or if it is due to those people not going on to have children (and not breastfeed), which also raises the risk (and no, i am not saying everyone should have kids, far from it). If she got breast cancer she would have to use all kinds of non-eco friendly treatments (probably, unless she has alternative treatment), materials, etc. she would also be less able (for a time) to do her part in activism. i mean, talk about looking at implications. everyone has to look at implications of everything they do, just because this was her initial 'aha! i can do this!' doesn't mean that she has to disregard everything else.

EDIT: meant to say, taking a life in hopes of keeping more/makings the ones in the future better. what is better?...

third, the fact that this woman thinks since she is being so good in other ways she can 'justify' doing something like a long-haul flight yearly. if she is going to be all about environmentalism, i want her to be all about it. not be like 'well, i do this so i am much better than everyone else, so i can do this and still be better.' as an environmentalist you don't compare your carbon footprint to others, you try to reduce reduce reduce, in any way possible. this just seemed weird and counter-intuitive to me.

i'm just wondering, doesn't she think she is a burden to the world? how about everyone? are we all burdens? i mean, couldn't she just kill herself? wouldn't that be the most environmentally friendly thing to do? why keep on living when all you are doing is burdening the world? i think people need to keep in mind that everyone and everything is important! there is a reason we want to make the environment better, and it has to do with species being able to continue on. our own and others.

while i do believe that we are overpopulated, and like i stated before i don't know that i will ever have a child (?who knows?), i believe that there are things we unfortunately did to artificially increase our population and it is unfortunate that we are constantly making it larger and larger.
I wonder if this woman would get medical help if sick and dying. if she funds stem cell research, if she wants to find a cure for aids, if she believes it is bad for a mother to get an abortion when the baby would take the mothers life (after all, that would mean -1 instead of 0)... i mean where can you draw the line?!

I really can't type more right now, i am sure this already is making people angry and doesn't make sense, but everyone here should know: i mean no offense to ANYONE. i hope that people know me well enough to know that i have respect for everyone in the way that they choose to live their life. i really like to see that people have thought out their decisions and see how that effects them and others AS A WHOLE. yes, that makes me happy. but some people don't, and i am not going to look down on them for that, but maybe in the future i can hep them explore the implications of their actions, and they can choose what is best for them (and hopefully others). it just bothers me when people see things as so one-sided.

One day I hope a doctor tells me that I can't do something to my body because I may fall in love with a person who wants something different.

;D  ;D  ;D ;D seriously.

and  i dont think suicide is the answer.
ha.

i lol'ed at this.

i don't think so either (obviously), if people buy her exact logic she could make a case for it, yeah?

I haven't read this whole thread. But, honestly, as an ecologist these articles make me  ::) . There is that whole movement ZPG - zero population growth. Which also makes me  ::) .

Not having kids, and striving for no population growth is is a very superficial solution to the problem of conscious living.

It's basic logic. If you have 300 people in the world, 90% of them who are living in a way that destroys earth ... then you're STILL on a path of destruction. It's only going to take longer to destroy planet earth when you have 90% of 300 people doing harm than when you have 90% of 6 billion people doing harm. When you stop having kids and stop growing the population, you simply slow down the path of destruction. But, you never fix the root of the problem.

It is not the amount of people, right now, that is the problem. It is the WAY in which we live. The unconscious, unthinking, destructive path/philosophy most of the world is on.

In order to change the world, we must change the philosophy of the MAJORITY of the individuals.

If you have 6 billion people, 90% of them who are on a path of healing and green living. Who have a cradle to cradle design mentality, etc. ... then there is no problem. It's a path of construction, healing, and improvement.

For the record, Europe is at a negative birth rate, America is at a stable birth rate, I'm not sure about the other developed countries. When it comes to the undeveloped countries, though there are many people in them and many children ... not to sound callous, but reality is most of them are dying, and will never reach old age. Their "burden" on the planet is really not that large.

The problem isn't population growth, right now. The problem is the philosophy of 90% of the population. We have enough food to feed everyone, we have enough green technology to replace our old, destructive technology ... the only problem is too little people want to change.

hmmm.... i think it is both. mainly the way we are living, but i think that the way we are living has ENABLED us to have an abnormally large population (over production of foods, technologies that allow us to live places that really shouldn't be inhabited, etc, etc.), which is a problem in itself. if that makes sense?

Time to be controversial!  ;)
Okay. Here goes. As a proud supporter of VHEMT-the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (www.vhemt.org), I feel obligated to criticize the logic of this statement.
VHEMT is a movement focusing on decreasing human population (eventually resulting in extinction in the span of thousands of years) by not having children. The people who support the movement believe that not having children is a more effective form of population reduction than "just killing yourself", because we are reproducing at a faster rate than we are dying. If everyone who believed in the movement simply committed suicide, not only would they be replaced tenfold, but the movement would also die with them. It is far better to not reproduce and to teach others about this line of thinking. Having no children at all is still negative population growth.

Time to be controversial!  ;)
Okay. Here goes. As a proud supporter of VHEMT-the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (www.vhemt.org), I feel obligated to criticize the logic of this statement.
VHEMT is a movement focusing on decreasing human population (eventually resulting in extinction in the span of thousands of years) by not having children. The people who support the movement believe that not having children is a more effective form of population reduction than "just killing yourself", because we are reproducing at a faster rate than we are dying. If everyone who believed in the movement simply committed suicide, not only would they be replaced tenfold, but the movement would also die with them. It is far better to not reproduce and to teach others about this line of thinking. Having no children at all is still negative population growth.

I understand the second point you brought up (movement dying with them), but the first not so much. It isn't a causation relationship (e.g. someone dies THEREFORE 10 more people are born), we just happen to have a positive population growth right now (and a low death rate due to all of the ways in which we can cure those who, at a different time, would not have been able to keep on living). Maybe you can explain this to me better, but that is what it sounds like you are saying.

It sounds to me that they want to extinction, but in the most natural way possible. That is fine, but to say that because someone dies more people are born?...

hmmm.... i think it is both. mainly the way we are living, but i think that the way we are living has ENABLED us to have an abnormally large population (over production of foods, technologies that allow us to live places that really shouldn't be inhabited, etc, etc.), which is a problem in itself. if that makes sense?

Well, do we have an abnormally large population? All of us can fit in Texas. If Europe has a negative birth rate and America a stable one ... and I know of no other developed countries who have more births than deaths ... it stands to reason that we're not out of control just yet. Undeveloped countries are out of control, but as I said ... their rate of dying is very high. 

I mean, we do have enough food to feed everyone. We have enough green technology for everyone. We have enough resources, right now, for ALL people to live comfortably.

The problem is we're not allocating the resources correctly, we're not using the green technology, and we're not allowing many people access to food.

I think earth can sustain a few more billion, even. But, we'd have to do it right. With the right technology, the right attitude, and a cradle to cradle design mentality. Without that, 300 or 6 billion ... we're still on a path of destruction.

As I said, I think avoiding having kids is a very superficial solution. Which won't change the path on which we are going down.

But, again, I know there are two camps of ecologists: the zero population growth one ... and the ones who think like I do. There's always more than one theory for everything. Which is good. More solutions are always a good thing.

I do believe that we have an abnormally large population. I understand perfectly where you are coming from, but my logic is this: we have made ourselves an unsustainable species. Even with green technology we are still using up many valuable resources to make (and generally to run/use, as well, just less.) them. We have voluntarily complicated our lives in terms of our necessities. Our necessities include food, water, shelter (enough to keep us from whatever elements may off us), and (as a SPECIES) procreation. For a long time we lived quite sustainably as a species as hunter/gatherers. We lived only in the places that we could handle (climate wise and that provided us adequate food), we foraged for food, and were egalitarian in how it was disbursed (everyone wanted everyone else to eat because everyones health helped) and we did not need much else. We could easily leave wherever we happened to be set up if there was no more food (famine wasn't a problem), etc. When we started farming full time (there was obviously farming before the agricultural revolution, but in very small amounts), we had to reward those who grew the food somehow, creating more diversification of what we did.  People were not working for their direct necessities anymore, but doing something else that earned them those. Because the food was greatly overproduced, our population was able to grow unnaturally.

Does this make sense to you? It's my view, and if you want to read something that is much more developed on the matter you should read quinn's ishmael. I'm sure he makes a much more convincing argument than me.

that's an interesting idea, kbone, but it doesn't take into account the INCREDIBLE amount of people (and MANY MANY women - often ending up as single mothers) who don't plan on having a child, or multiple children, but find themselves parents. that's life, and it''s unfortunate, when people don't plan on having kids but then - oops! and you know, we have so many single mothers, struggling just to get by. is it their fault they have children to raise? is it their fault they got knocked up at 16? fault doesn't really come into it. it's just reality. we can't leave these people behind.

  First let me say that what I proposed here is really just the germ of an idea- I haven't thought through every possible facet of how it could be implemented as policy. There would be wrinkles to smooth out certainly.

  As far as the unfortunate folks who find themselves with children they don't necessarily want, the bulk of my proposal wouldn't punish them for having children, it simply wouldn't reward them for it by giving them an additional tax break each time they added a kid to their family. In fact, they would get one big break for having a single child and would only lose that benefit if they had more children.

  Regarding your question "is it their fault they have children to raise"- actually, yes, in most cases. Between preventive and retroactive birth control there is really no reason to carry an unwanted pregnancy through to term. If a person decides to do so they at least shouldn't get a tax break for it.

Well, do we have an abnormally large population? All of us can fit in Texas. If Europe has a negative birth rate and America a stable one ... and I know of no other developed countries who have more births than deaths ... it stands to reason that we're not out of control just yet. Undeveloped countries are out of control, but as I said ... their rate of dying is very high. 

  You've made some very good and valid points in several postings here. I agree with you that better management of the earth's resources is a huge part of the solution to the problems we face. I think that should be coupled with population reduction because in my opinion the growth of population is outpacing the developement of new technologies (at least technologies that humankind has the political will to implement).

  Al Gore illustrates it well in his movie "An Inconvenient Truth". If I remember correctly he shows population statitistics that indicate from the dawn of human history until World War II the human population grew from whatever lowly number it began with to about 2 billion worldwide. Zero to 2 billion over tens of thousand of years. Since the time Gore was born in the 1940's to the present the earth's population has shot up to over 6 billion. I seem to remember him saying that if he lives to be 72 or whatever the average life expectancy is for an American male that when he dies the earth's population will be approaching 9 billion. Over a fourfold increase in one lifetime. That's startling. I dare say it is also unnecessary and not likely to benefit the planet.