Tuesday, October 04, 2005

I'm at home today...

Tuesdays and Thursday I stay in Caruthersville. It is kind of weird being totally out of town three days a week. Before I commuted to Dyerburg three or four days a week, but if I had to, I could come back across the river to do something here in Cville in the afternoon or whatever. Now it's like I am totally gone. I really couldn't come back to Caruthersville for just anything during the middle of the day, unless it was an emergency. And that makes me feel distant.
I did a paper on population growth for biology. I turned it in yesterday. I'm wondering how much of a problem population growth is or could be for the environment, and particularly for our future as a species. I think we've well been fruitful and multiplied. Maybe it's time to take care of the earth a little. *gasp* some of my readers just called me a liberal. I heard you.
Anyways, it seems to me like maybe it is a more ethical/humane thing to do to encourage contraceptive use in countries where many children grow up to die anyway. I mean, we should do our part to ease the suffering of the poor. But would it be wrong to encourage people to have few children?
"Capitalism is the best contraceptive" or so goes the common wisdom. So, when the people of the world's developing nations really get a hold of the ideals of our society (commercialism, greed, envy), they will willingly choose to have fewer kids to improve their lifestyle.
Wait, so it's a good thing if the developing nations become greedy and wasteful like us? Because I don't think that would solve anything. When the world's poorest become the world's newest middle class capitalists, there will be some 4 billion SUVs hogging the roads and polluting the air of the world. What would that solve? Maybe as a nation we should (join our developing nation partners) and begin to set an example for fuel-efficiency, environmentalism, leisure, and values that would actually be positive for the developing nations to adopt. Then we can feel as if we are leaving a better world around for our children and theirs.
God forbid that the whole world should become greedy Americans!
God's blessings on my readers.

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