Freeconomy Blog
Sun
19 Sep
Sustainable Sex
| 120 comments |
The only thing more taboo to question than the consequential unsustainability of using money, is the sustainability of sex. Given that the population is predicted to hit 9.4 billion by 2050, coupled with the fact that we're already suffering from Three Planet Syndrome (3.1 to be exact), a growing number of people are understandably questioning how many children we now bring into the world. Obviously, you can have sex without making babies, and whilst using contraception is definitely more sustainable than having sixteen children each, it still doesn't mean it's actually sustainable, or even close.
Whilst I certainly don't agree with the approach of limiting each couple to a certain number of children (who on Earth gives someone the power to make such a decision), is there a case for conscious self-regulation? And if we do believe so, how do we do so in a post-industrialised, truly sustainable society? Or should we just do as we like, spread like a virus (some would already describe us as such) and deal with the consequences as they inevitably arise, or hope others are willing to go childless to make up for our own desire to have a large family whilst simultaneously have a biosphere that will still sustain them?
If you believe we still should have sex (I'm going out on a limb here and guessing you do), and you want to do it in a way that enables future generations to do so also, what are the options? Currently the main widely accepted forms of contraception are condoms, the pill, the coil and the diaphragm to name a few. All of these require a global infrastructure that is inherently destructive, inherently unsustainable and inherently unhealthy to come into existence.
The pill has the added benefit of messing with the sexuality of fish, due to the amount of oestrogen released into our water supplies, and this has become a very serious and growing problem. But who really (I mean really) cares about that, fish aren't as sacred as humans, the 'world' was made for humans afterall. The Pope is in town, he must be having an effect on me. £50,000,000 for a visit. I'm sure Christ would approve. I digress.
Speaking of the Pope, latex condoms and the like can't be made without a huge industrialised system - the machinery and vehicles required to source and obtain the materials, the factories required to make the component parts of these vehicles, the factories required to make the component parts of that factory, and so ad infinitum. Not to mention their actual production and distribution, or that of the spermicide, the laboratories and their equipment and the factories required to make that equipment; you catch my drift. A whole destructive and polluting global infrastructure unfolds.
So it would seem that we can't be both 'pro-choice', and simultaneously be 'pro-sustainability'. Pro-choice is an emotive issue - few of us are brave enough to say we're not pro-choice, whether it be in relation to sex or the supermarket aisles. But all it means, to begin with, is choice for humans - others species certainly don't get a choice even though our actions hugely affect them also. Who speaks up for the choiceless voiceless? Or are we anti-choice for other species other than humans? Or do we believe humans are more important than anything else on this planet? Should gender-bending fish also have their needs considered, or just humans?
There are other forms of birth control. Celibacy is the most obvious, though I have to admit that this is one of the few areas where me and the Mahatma Gandhi disagree. I see making love as a beautiful thing, and not something I'm prepared to stop right now, though I've massive respect for those who can and do so by choice (as opposed to wanting to have sex but just not having it for whatever reason). I may decide to make a virtue of it when I'm pushing ninety years of age, when I'll probably not be up to much anyway. But that's probably about it, unless the vipassana course I'm booked in for gives me a huge realisation on the whole topic.
The Rhythm, Knaus-Ogino, Standard Days, Cervical Mucus and Basal Body methods are other tools in the unfertilised toolbox, all reported to have varying degrees of success. Like any contraceptive, none are 100%, but they can be especially successful if the man practices non-ejaculation at the same time, therefore combining two non-100% methods to make a 99.9% method.
Next on the list is Tantric sex. If that's a bit too far out there for you, there's always anal, fellatio and cunnilingus - the contraception of the past - but then again you already knew that. I think Victorians in agricultural communities done it with animals as a form of, er, contraception, but lets not even go there. Apparently they tied up the forelegs of the poor things just to avoid injury, which one book I read oddly stated as a 'wise' move on their behalf. Very wise. I guess we're still effectively fucking animals today, we're just a little more subtle about it.
The rape of the cow, followed by the abduction of its child and its subsequent commercial milking, is one of the ugliest blots of humanity's moral landscape today.
Using these methods (with the exception of Tantra) does raise the question of sexually transmitted diseases (STD's) obviously. Again, who is brave enough to step forward and say they think such viruses and diseases are Gaia's (or the Biosphere for anyone not versed in Lovelock) way of keeping human population down? Does anyone really believe that anyway, and if you did, would you say it? By the way, I am not saying I do or don't, I'm just raising the question. You could argue that having sex in a committed long-term relationship with someone who is clear of STDs is your protection against that, and brings its own rewards. But how do you even have an STD test without all the plastic crap (and the resource wars over obtaining it - the unobtainium - cheaply) that is needed to undertake such a thing?
Using the intestines of Roadkill to make condoms is a very sustainable option, but it again requires a car to inadvertently (we hope) knock it down in the first place, so hardly a sustainable model. And I'm not sure it's an excellent turn-on either, though there's only one way to find out. It's also a bit too revealing whether you use a stag or a squirrel as your source of intestine. Cycling along the UK roads makes one thing quite apparent - there's no end of choice. Given the ecological destruction related to fossil fuel extraction coupled with cars inevitably killing wildlife, can you be fully vegetarian and drive a car?
Many argue that if all those who want to create more sustainable human societies didn't have kids, then the only children born would be the sons and daughters of capitalism. Others would argue that that argument fails to appreciate the fact that kids like to rebel, and that children born into eco-families are likely to turn into massive consumers of the earth's dwindling resources. Or vice versa: that those born into the filthy lucre and the unhappiness it often brings won't look for a more gentle alternative. Personally, I think it's much more complex than that.
For those who want children but also don't want to add to the burden on the planet, adoption is a very beautiful option, as many already-borns already need loving parents. This probably won't stop the biological clocks of male and female humans ticking, but it may be an acceptable middle ground for many wannabe parents. A beautiful child gets a loving home, loving parents get a beautiful child, and the population doesn't increase.
I'm considering a vasectomy before we enter the Freeconomy Village (a blog on developments in that soon), but I'm very unclear about how I feel about it in general. Some say this is unnatural, and I find it hard to argue against that, but is putting a rubber wall between you or your partner, or dropping a pill every day, even close to it? Its a once off-snip, a very easy operation, and maybe something that only the climate change generation need to consider before we evolve to a more gentle, responsible way of living.
I'd consider adoption, but what social service would consider me for adoption; without money it would be a non-starter, no matter how much love I had to offer him or her, or how gorgeous and liberated a life this abandoned child could have. A scary insight into the value system of this deluded society we've created to enslave ourselves within.
This blog may read like I am against people having babies. I'm certainly not, I think having a kid is a precious and natural thing, and such a gift to be given. But we live in a fascinating point in human history. Do unnatural times call for unnatural measures as a a balancing act, or does that just increase the unnaturalness of the situation?
I describe the last 100 years as a long sexual act (a mass rape of our Mother, one could say), which has been a lot of fun for many, but like any sexual act it cannot last forever. We are now reaching that little moment, you know the one, that comes just before the orgasmic point-of-no-return, where even if the local priest knocked on the front door looking for donations towards the restoration of the cemetery, you couldn't possibly stop yourself.
Ecologically, we're just about to orgasm, and set off a whole chain of feedback loops and events which change our biosphere in a way that means humans (and therefore human sex) could be a thing of the past anyway. Nature always finds her balance eventually; a 100 years is like a millisecond to Her.
I feel the last 100 years has been about sex, not making love; and the difference is massive. Maybe we need to start making love to the Earth, by making love to each other in a way that is more loving to Mother Earth, and all that lives on Her, and therefore ultimately, ourselves.
I don't have the answers here. But I think its important to not fear asking the questions. For something that gets more column inches that any other topic on the planet, the question of its sustainability is still taboo. The more perspectives we get on it the better.
Great to be sharing the planet with you all, and glad your parents had you.
THE FREECONOMY BLOG is written by Mark Boyle, who has been living for 19 months without money, and is the founder of the Freeconomy Community. He is the author of The Moneyless Man.
Comment on this Post:
Gilly Williams comments ...
Mmmm...maybe within different perspectives we could include natural selection...nature can reduce a population rather rapidly as we've seen in Palikistan and eslewhere and even in a land where we think we are safer from natural distaster pe...ople can lose all their children from one thing than another....could we be interferring too much with all our ponderances, all the while there are other sectors (more than one as Im not pointing the finger at just one group) of our communities deliberately breeding more children, its their ethos(for the use of a safe word) so we can ponder as much as we like and reduce our numbers but theirs will keep growing. Its a dangerous subject all round, if not life itself.
Chris Dixon comments ...
gilly should have stayed at school and learnt to read & spell the simplest of words rather than staring at the stars and eating mushrooms that have magic powers. but your comment was funny to read. i mite go on a trip to palikistan soon. ha! and by the way...people will never stop fucking and having babies and its always the ones that dont have or want kids telling people to stop breeding. if idiots want 10 kids we cant stop them so grin and bear it.
Peter comments ...
Hm, for some reason making love to our Mother sounds wrong to me, even though I agree with the idea of a mutually respectful way of existence that is behind it.
tread lightly comments ...
great blog as always mark !
i fear that many many people want to make the world a better place to live in by taking small steps to help. but they tend to want to leave the things that will "inconvenience them" to other people to do. i think if people are really serious about saving the human race then we need to take bigger steps to do this.
i say the human race and not the planet because i believe the planet will be fine. all the earth has to do is shake us off like the fleas that we are becoming (do you know whos qote this is ? :0) )
the planet will be able to repair itself without us on it, even if it takes 100 000 years, its just a smalll amount of time. i think like mark, we all need to put as much love into our earth as we do to our life. because our planet is our life
MaiZ comments ...
Reminded me of Tom Robbin's passage about birth control:
"the constant battle with the reproductive process, a war in which her only allies were pharmaceutical robots, alien agents whose artificial assistance seemed more treacherous than trustworthy, was gnawing with plastic teeth at her very concepts of love. Was it entirely paranoid to suspect that all those stoppers, thingamajigs, and substances devised to prevent conception were intended not to liberate womankind from the biological and social penalties imposed on her natural passions but, rather, at the insidious design of capitalistic puritans, were supposed to technologize sex, to dilute its dark juices, to contain its wilder fires, to censor its sweet nastiness, to scrub it clean (clean as a laboratory autoclave, clean as a hospital bed), to order it uniform, to render it safe; to eliminate the risk of uncontrollable feelings, illogical commitments, and deep involvements (substituting for those risks the less mysterious, tamer risks of infection, hemorrhage, cancer, and hormone imbalance); yes, to make sexual love so secure and same and sanitary, so slick and frolicsome, so casual that it is not a manifestation of love at all, but a near anonymous, near autonomous, hedonistic scratching of a bunny itch, an itch far removed from any direct relation to the feverish enigmas of Life and Death, and a scratching programmed so that it would in no way interfere with the real purpose of human beings in a capitalistic, puritanical society, which is to produce goods and consume them"
Alf comments ...
Thanks for some stimulating reading, Mark. No pun intended. :0)
I agree that sacrifices need to be made. However, what we think of as a "sacrifice" may actually be a blessing in disguise. If someone told me 11 years ago that I would live the next 10 years as a total celibate, I would have laughed at them! However, this ended up coming to pass, with the last decade being the best years of my life. As Chris mentioned, there is the tendency for people without children, or not wanting children, to say that other people should do the same. However, I'm not saying this. I don't think it is wrong to marry and/or to have children. However, I do think it is wrong to do so without seriously thinking through the issues and consequences - for your sake and the sake of your children and the world at large.
One sustainable solution which I don't think you touched on, is simply masturbation. Regular hugs and masturbation are a winning combination as far as I am concerned! And also taking one day at a time.
Although I haven't ruled out getting married or having children, I think I've reached a point where I really don't want to. I think this is the way with much of human behavior - where often we only change when we feel it benefits us personally to do so.
I'm quite a cynic with regard to where the world is headed over the next decade or so. I would definitely advise anyone who wants to retain their independence from what is likely to become an increasingly monitored society, to think twice, or preferably thrice, before choosing more responsibilities/attachments - emotional and/or material.
Oh yes... and I think your suggestion of adoption, wherever possible, is an excellent one. If we start thinking more and more as a global, interconnected family, then we will see the sense of looking after all existing needs (that aren't being met) before choosing to create new ones.
Shaun Chamberlin comments ...
Regarding moving from raping Mother Earth to loving passion for Lover Earth, see:
http://www.darkoptimism.org/2009/10/16/rituals-for-lover-earth/
Lyndall Fitzgerald comments ...
I think the problem is solved through education, by making women and men realise that there is more to life than having children.
I think we've gone too far to withdraw contraception, but natural methods could be taught more to individuals ...who could take it on board and face the consequences of failure.
I think it's great to talk about entering a loving relationship, but I don't want to go back in time when sex was not before marriage etc, as we are basically animals n most of us - male & female like to experiment, especially when were teenagers. therefore the condom can't n never die, for the impact on the environment re treatment etc would be huge. otherwise if we make a decision not to treat where dies that end?
Education education education!
xXx
Talita comments ...
I found the Tom Robbins quote quite poignant. I think there is an overpopulation problem, but at the same time I agree with what I have heard Mark say before - that we are becoming to comfortable, and that it is a good thing to expose ourselves to the elements. You only really feel and appreciate being alive when exposed to danger and accept that we are vulnerable. I use contraception, but I'm also aware that it's another way for us to try to keep control over everything. Do you think sex means more when we don't feel so safe and in control? Or when you have to make the decision that you're ready to face all the consequences and responsibilities that it may entail?
On the other hand I'm sure that in the past there were many women who died having dodgy abortions and children born unwanted into difficult circumstances, with parents that couldn't support them...
Mormons have it that there are many souls waiting to be born and it is a good thing to have as many children as you can provide a good home for. At the same time there are so many children growing up in care homes and orphanages.
I don't know if it is so much because of taboo that this subject isn't discussed, but because there are so many arguments either way that there isn't any logical solution, while at the same time, it is a very emotive subject.
Mark Boyle comments ...
@ Peter and Shaun Chamberlin
Shaun - given how good your last link was, I'll be checking that one out at first chance this evening.
Peter - would it help if I called it Lover Earth instead?! But then, she did give birth to us. Maybe I'm suffering from the Oedipus Rex complex.
@ Alf - you always seem to touch on something very important in your posts. Thank you mate.
@ Others - some great comments and perspectives.
Alan Walton comments ...
This thoughtful and thought-provoking post addresses a sadly under-addressed gap in society's discourse on human future. One can be completely 'green' (oh, how I hate that word); eating nothing that one didn't grow oneself; producing no waste destined for landfill; not driving or flying anywhere; and so on. But if someone chooses to have even one child, then that person has, knowingly or unknowingly, permitted the existing 'system' to continue for a further generation. Solutions that could be addressed now are deferred for the child to address, perhaps twenty years or so down the road.
Let's leave aside for a moment the small matter of how humanity's burgeoning numbers are destroying ecosystems that are essential for human survival on a planetary scale. If overpopulation is going to prove to be a major burden on governments' ability to provide social support in the future (as looks increasingly probable), perhaps it will be necessary to drastically reduce such financial support for parents. I know, I know; there'll be howls of indignation from some. And, possibly, cheers from others. But it's a pretty sad indictment on the state of our society, isn't it, that real opportunities are now so few and far between, that many young women see 'popping out a sprog' as the best chance they have to make a 'living' in modern society ('living' is probably too kind a way of putting it; for many it's really more like 'existing' on the lowest rung). Remove incentives for certain types of behaviour, but provide incentives for other types, and maybe minds will be changed. That's what is really needed: a completely new vision for our human future; not more social programs to act as fingers plugging the leaking dyke, to use the analogy of Hans Brinker, the little boy of Dutch legend.
We need a broader system of education that emphasises whole-life learning; based on both social and individual needs, not the system we currently have, which churns out automatons barely capable of doing what they're told; obeying authority without question; producing or serving; endlessly consuming; breeding; and ultimately dying.
Like Mark, I also have no children, and also considered getting a vasectomy at one point, although I'm not big on scalpels. I realised a long time ago that I had no desire to bring a child into a society which is incredibly inequitable, and only becoming increasingly more so. But who knows? I may yet change my mind, if I met the right girl… (never say 'never'!)
In this 'culture of maximum harm', where "it's all about ME!", the choice not to have child(ren) shouldn't feel like a sacrifice that one makes in order to allow the Earth a bit more breathing space, but a personal decision that ought to be celebrated. Because, let's face it: we only have one world to live on and share, regardless of the way in which many people choose to live. Since it would require several more Earths (if China and/or India ever actually attained first-world status, which now seems highly unlikely) to support us all, what's going to give way first: the Earth, or Earth's ability to support us?
To refer back to the point that treadlightly was making(*), it's been said that when the Earth no longer wants us around it'll just shrug us off, like a bad case of fleas.
I sign off with a couple of quotes:
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Jiddu Krishnamurti
@ Alf - I hope this makes you smile:
"Don't knock masturbation, it's sex with someone I love." - Woody Allen (from the film Annie Hall)
(*) possibly by the comedian, George Carlin, but he may just have quoted someone else.
See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eScDfYzMEEw
Konstantine comments ...
Hello Mark, about the issue of contraceptives...
Indigenous people have known natural contraceptives for thousands of years. Allthou in europe this knowledge has been wiped out from the "oh so holy" inquisition, there are still tribes that use various plants to prevent whomen to get pregnant. Shurely the european pagans used other plants compared to the american indigens, but maybe we still have a chance of retrieving this knowledge somehow. It is rather interesting that only whomen used to know about this in american tribes, and took care about the population of theyr group - whithout asking the men about it...the never had a clue anyway about how babies get made... :D
But this triggers the issue of Patriarchy VS Matriarchy again...maybe we should focus there aswell a bit.
Best regards from Colone, Germany mitakuye oyasin, konstantine
Gilly Williams comments ...
Some people were born with language problems Chris, maybe you need to further your education. Maybe you could start with a visit to Pakistan, then you might have the right to laugh! Their sad suffering just highlighted a point of how nature... can reduce populations overnight. As for magic mushrooms and staring at the stars!! have you looked at yourself lately LOL !! Maybe we should start breeding more, its education that has reduced population growth...get a career they say to our young women, then when they are older they find it harder to conceive if they can at all or have small families, while others of different ethos are having the children (this has been shown officially with the lastest live birth research by the government - check it out and see who is having the most babies!)
Teresa Lewis comments ...
Maybe vasectomies are the way forward to cut down on the breeding but any man could try to convince a woman that he's had one so he doesn't have to use condoms. He should bring a note from his GP as proof.
Condoms might use up latex and the...refor resources but not as much an extra mouth to feed. Maybe we should build a condom factory in every city to cut down on distribution costs and energy.
If caps can be washable and reusable why not condoms.
Thom Browne comments ...
Educate and liberate women in third world countries,thats the key to sustainable populations...........free them from the yoke of macho domination,in nations that treat them as chattels,or less than people......
rich comments ...
I have given some thought to this subject in the past. My answer would be "tube ligation" while in the womb. At maturity, emotional maturity, the child's tubes would be unlocked so the child would be allowed to have children of his/her own. This would go without saying that a child that is not considered emotionally responsible would not be allowed to have children.
Jamie Harris comments ...
Very interesting read M. Seems having a w*** seems to be the right thing to do...
Sarah Astarii comments ...
Brilliant, Mark. I'd love to know how two non-100% make a positive 99.9% - My kind of maths! Happy for your meditation course too x
100% agree with you on the treatment of cows, and interesting that the thought arose during a section on Tant...ra: a practise in which the female energy is revered as sacred. Bless you and thank you for wandering in the green earth; the world is a more joyous place as a result.
Patrick Lujan comments ...
i agree, i feel like im doing a service to my planet now. way to remove the guilt on that issue!
Sarah Astarii comments ...
Brilliant, Mark. I'd love to know how two non-100% make a positive 99.9% - My kind of maths! Happy for your meditation course too x
100% agree with you on the treatment of cows, and interesting that the thought arose during a section on Tantra: a practise in which the female energy is revered as sacred. Bless you and thank you for wandering in the green earth; the world is a more joyous place as a result.
Francesca Maestroni comments ...
I propose that children can be adopted by a community.
Sophie B comments ...
Hi. This is something I've thought a lot about myself recently too. Thanks for raising the debate. I was celibate for seven years, then met someone I thought was a good chap and found I couldn't bring myself to go back onto contraception. It felt unnatural. I used the calendar method. I thought I'd be ovulating when I was on a girls holiday away from my boyfriend and therefor safe from getting pregnant, but I must have ovulated late or early.
Now I have a beautiful daughter, called Faith, who is my world! If it weren't for everything I've learnt from her I'd still be a consumer, wage/debt-slave.
I now find myself thinking that sex before marriage may not be a great thing, but also that marriage may not be so great either. My relationship with my daughter's father turned very abusive and I'm glad I didn't have the extra yoke of marriage to break.
All my instincts say contraception is unnatural. Not so long ago, at the beginning of last century people had may children, but many of them died young. More women died during childbirth. I think this will be what we go back to eventually. Circumstances will force it upon us.
Also on the subject of adoption. I think it is possibly the most vile act of child abuse imaginable. Totally unnatural. Adoptees are traumatized. They never get over it, and if it happens to them as babies their brain development is adversely affected. They live their lives in constant terror, although they may not recognize it as such. Many of them grow up to spend time in prisons and many are very promiscuous. Many have psychosomatic illnesses. Most (all?) suffer from depression. They tend to either be asocial or extreme conformists, lost children. If anything we need to be supporting women who feel they cannot cope with their babies, helping them as a community to stay together. What makes it worse is that social services are paid per child adopted. They are sold!
The media and the school system basically damage our children, so that they are so frightened of social rejection that having sex, regardless of the consequences, regardless of if they really want it, becomes a must for them. It drives all their consumer choices. It is the main reason why we have domestic abuse. This is one of the many reasons why I will be home educating my daughter.
Thanks again.
Danielle Vasconcelos comments ...
Hi Mark!
Interesting article!
The adoption is the best choice.
Masturbation(yes) hahahahhah
(my english is bad, sorry)
comments ...
@ rich:
Re: your suggestion to administer tubal ligations on female foetuses in the womb. Whilst it is a very ambitious plan, it'll never fly, for two reasons. Firstly, it doesn't seem medically possible, and appears more likely to kill or maim the unborn child than achieve successful sterilisation. Secondly, they used to call such procedures 'eugenics' or 'racial hygiene', and that it is exactly how it would end up being used, to remove those considered to be 'undesirable' by the power elite. What woman in their right mind would willingly submit to such a procedure on their unborn child? Only a government operating on the extreme ends of the political spectrum would sink to such a level. I hope.
One could argue that administering some drug to all men and/or women, which would make them temporarily infertile (until such time as it wore off) might do the trick. But isn't that the situation we're already facing? Maybe we're already being slowly wiped out, by our hand, whether by accident or diabolical design.
Do a Google search for "environmental causes of infertility" and you will find some of the following examples (not a comprehensive list): tobacco; caffeine; monosodium glutamate; tight-fitting underwear (no joke); Bisphenol-A; phthalates (amongst other things, responsible for that 'new car smell' we all love so much!); Teflon contains perfluorooctanoic acid, which is emitted during cooking; heavy metal poisoning (lead; barium; titanium; cadmium; arsenic, used to make chicken meat appear more pink!; mercury, used in CFL light bulbs, and the old 'silver' fillings contain mercury, which slowly evaporates in gaseous form!); radiation sources such as chemotherapy, CAT scans, or full body scanners; vaccines found to contain human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG), which causes women to miscarry.
@ Patrick Lujan:
Re: "doing a service… remove the guilt on that issue!", should that be 'guilt on that tissue'?!
Hehe...
@ Sophie B:
Bravo! I applaud your decision to home school your daughter. I'm sure she will enjoy the experience more than than if she were to attend a state school, which would only beat all the joy and wonder for learning out of her. I would recommend Jean Liedloff's book to you, The Continuum Concept, about how South American tribal peoples' attitudes to childcare produce secure, happy, loving, and notably, un-neurotic children. Don't take my word for it - check out the comments and reviews left by readers on Amazon.co.uk.
Alan Walton comments ...
I just started to read the Happy Planet Index website (happyplanetindex.org) and noticed a certain topic, that is quite remarkable by its absence.
Do you care to know what the results were when I typed 'overpopulation' into their search window?
"Your search for overpopulation produced no results. Please try another search or look at our sitemap."
Even just the word 'population' only received four results.
Now I'm not one to normally resort to the overused abbreviations so beloved of net users everywhere, but WTF?! This site, as well-intentioned as it undoubtedly means to be, is meaningless if population issues aren't being included.
Denis comments ...
Mechai Veravaidya in Thailand has reduced the family size from 7 kids to less than 2 in a few decades, without any laws, or forcing anybody. He put incentives, loans for people who use condoms or the pill, and free vasectomy after 2 kids. Instead of using hard words, he makes jokes about it.
The western world have have smaller population, but still promotes population growth (because of the pension system that is designed on the kids to pay for the parents). But when the economy will collapse, people will realise it hopefully. Russia population is decling now after their economic collapse.
the 17 laws of sustainaiblity of Albert Bartlett are holding true. We just need to teach eachother about it.
Paula Graham comments ...
amen to that, universal healthcare, contraception and education, economic opportunities, women able to initiate divorce, terminations on demand - and the thing is done.
Rosa Corr comments ...
Great read Mark, thanks. lol @Teresa's comment above...could you imagine a guy asking you to have sex, then adding...It's ok...I have a note from my doc!? Thanks Teresa!! LMAO! :)
This article reminded me (very loosely) of the film Demolitio...n Man...virtual reality sex helmets...perhaps the next new thing from Nintendo??
Though obviously not sustainable in relation to production. I think if more people embraced the idea of Tantric sex, we'd go some way towards reducing numbers. It's all well and good to say "if people were educated..." but different societies have different morals/attitudes to the subject of sexuality and also on the subject of national pride, who would decide the percentage of people that could bear children? Who would decide what's fair so that indigenous cultures don't die out?
I think Thom's comment on liberating the female population in the Third World really hits the nail on the head...(and I'm not trying to tar everyone with the same brush)...any women I've met from Third World countries are a force to be reckoned with when given a chance to stand up for themselves (i.e. they've left their country and are realising their rights!)
Thom Browne comments ...
Wait for the nuclear age when nuclear power is in every part of the world, wont need no contraception we will have areas where everybody is barren,and those that are not, will fear to procreate because of mutant/mix.............
Heiko comments ...
Mark, I agree with you on many points. The human species is not better or more important to the rest of the planet, but they are different in one important point: they have the ability to question their actions, ask why in other words. Every individual living being, from the amoeba to the Zebra, has one all overriding desire: to live! And to live forever! Nothing living wants to die, ever!
Hence the only way to live beyond the temporal restraints of our bodies the only way to do that is by passing on our genes, so they remain in the general gene pool. It's built into us, without this overriding will there'd be no life on earth or anywhere else for that matter.
But because we can question deeper than any other species we now start to know that if we as a species multiply uncontrollably we will diminish our chances for "eternal life" (I'm not talking religion here). The future of our own children and/or grandchildren is immediately threatened.
This is why people are only now starting to wake up. I made a conscious decision not to have children for those reasons 30 years ago, but more and more people are starting to see the threat.
Also on your remarks on accidental road kill, we have already interfered with wildlife to such an extent that we have responsibility to re-dress the balance. We MUST kill/ hunt deer/rabbits/wild boar/introduced species lest they destroy their own environment and woodlands and we should therefore eat their meat.
Alan Walton comments ...
@ Paula Graham:
Yes, I agree with you completely that providing the things you suggested would go a long way towards alleviating the problems in the Third World. But universal healthcare isn't even universal for over 45 million poor Americans, and they aren't nearly as poor in absolute terms as those in Africa or Asia. So where would the funds and resources come from to provide better healthcare to Third World poor, if those in rich countries aren't enjoying it yet?
Sadly, the same goes for education, economic opportunities, abortions, etc. "And the thing is done" is a wonderful platitude, to imagine that such a solution is within easy reach, if we all only pushed our leaders to make it so. Sadly, it is never going to happen. Politicians will pander to the people that voted them into office, and only plan 4 or 5 years ahead. The voters have more pressing economic problems on their plates right now. A few years back, Gordon Brown talked a fine speech about 'making poverty history' but real solutions were never proffered, nor was there the political will to do so. Without REAL will for solutions to be found, from the bottom up, the existing problems will merely be perpetuated.
If one has the time, it might be worth reading the following page, which contains an extract from the book, The Story of B, and a short interview with its author, Daniel Quinn.
http://greenapple.ca/blog/2009/08/26/approaching-population/
In it, Quinn explodes the popular myth that, just because we are sentient, self-aware and can, to use Heiko's words, "question deeper than other species", that humans are any different to other animals when it comes to population size and food availability.
You will better understand after reading that increases in food production categorically do not go towards feeding the starving millions, but actually fuel the further growth in population of people, who will themselves invariably end up starving. We are locked in a 'food race', just as the Americans and Soviets were locked in an 'arms race' during the Cold War. Note also the last paragraph regarding birth control, and how it is a poor strategy for solving the crisis of overpopulation, since it only addresses effects as opposed to causes.
david comments ...
well done Mark- it is a brave and difficult subject to confront and you do so with your usual honesty and unashamedness (?). I believe that the devotion to sex in the media and modern culture is to blame for our desire. Not to say some desire isn't natural and normal, but that our obsession with and need for sexual satisfaction is I believe from being programmed to believe that it is normal. That to not have/want regular sex is abnormal, wierd or celibacy is a bizarre religious act. Think how every single TV programme/ Movie/ magazine/ advert/etc glorifies sex and sexualisation of our appearance/ behaviour etc- it is omnipotent and difficult to free yourself from and deprogramme this.
The lack of fulfilled normal social functioning, via parents or peer groups leads us to search for comfort and pleasure in a misplaced desire for sex.
I do not therefore think masturbating is so great as it plays to this belief that we must have sexual feelings. And as with anything addictive- the desire is NEVER quenched and the addiction is fortified and increases!
I personally believe that a truly fulfilled life- free from the material and physical desires that we are programmed with, can lead us to a happy existence without sex! There are many physical ways of enjoying a partner without sex.
That said I believe in procreation as the most amazing and fulfilling role we can undertake as humans. We should never deny the natural law that sex/ making love is FOR procreating and should maybe only ever be undertaken for this purpose! Shocking or religious to most of us in our modern mindsets. And i truly believe that totally fulfilled/ natural/ balanced lives WILL create children that will care and procreate at a sensible and balanced rate.
So I'd say don't have the chop!
Layne Arlina comments ...
what an awsome post!
I was mulling over this exact problem the other day! I have always wanted to bear and raise my own children but if i weren't able to conceive i'd definatly comit my love to children who are in need, be it by foster or adoption.
However, the past few months i have felt a deep acceptance that maybe it's ok not to have kids, and as time went on i now feel i wouldn't want to bring kids into a world at a time of mass change, overcrowding, war etc and would much prefer to help educate those ready-born in love and all, by providing them with as much info as they are willing to receive and loving them no matter if they were to rebel towards my eco ways. with those two things..education and love, they have the best map in changing our world. Not sure i could use animal inners in place of a jonny... hopefully nature will decide wether i should be infertile and raise anothers, or fertile to produce an equally well informed young human. hmm toughy!
Thanks Mark! :D
Frankie comments ...
I'd love you to make love to me Mr Boyle. I'd have your babies. Don't get the snip! Humanity needs your genes!!!
frantasia comments ...
Aside from contraception, there is the question of 'safe' or 'unsafe' sex for those who would indulge in a casual manner. I haven't heard of a natural protection, technology in the form of condoms is the only recommendation I've heard of. Needless to say, I believe it would be best if people respected each other and the intercourse act to keep it for those they love.
I've read that honeycomb used to be used as a contraceptive; sponge too I've heard, as well as other natural substances - I guess their effectiveness would vary.
@Mark -
How would you organize a vasectomy without money or use of technology?
You're a very young man and I'd suggest waiting a (long) while before making a decision to sterilise.
frantasia comments ...
I'd meant to include in the above post - there is the old Irish and I guess universal method of coitus interruptus - Withdrawal - which is reasonably successful while leaving technology out but still keeping a frisson of risk-taking.
Arya comments ...
I think people should make a concious effort to become more aware of their fertility. It is incredible how oblivious most women are about their cycles (not to mention men about women's cycles which in case they have not notice affect men's lives everytime they have sex with a woman)... Fertility awareness works, if trained correctly, it is as effective as the pill.
So in short:
1) fertility awareness,
2) less intercourse sex, more other types of sex (this will become obvious once you are aware of your fertility)
3) for those that think it is acceptable condoms and vasectomies...
Also, for obvious reasons... casual sex will need to be re-evaluated as the increased risks are obvious...
arya comments ...
oh... and by the way, the calendar method is not (and has never been) a form of fertility awareness... (it is however a form of natural family planning that works for a very small % of women with very regular cycles, low levels of stress, no illness, no alcohol consumption etc)...
jason palmer comments ...
cold baths instead is the english method, do you find cold swims in the river help ?
Lincoln comments ...
Hmmm
There are other aspects to the argument of birth control which should be considered:
Is there any point in a sub-set of the population exercising celibacy whilst others continue with copulation?
Surely it's the smart, light-treading, eco-stewards that should be encouraged to breed and raise their offspring by the way of the greenie? If so, how could you apply that rule fairly in society? Isn't a green family of 4+ a more efficient use of resources than a childless couple?
Whilst 1-child policy may work at controlling population, does it work for the amount of pressure and expectation placed on the child?
And what would be the knock-on effect of this ageing society with no children, would our nursing homes become like our prisons – bursting at the seams supporting feckless individuals? How would the state cope with that? Perhaps for those who fail to comply we should adopt the ancient Greek policy of tossing babes over the cliffs?
Isn’t the idea a bit of an attack on “family”?
How have we evolved up until now through the millenia?
How have our traditional values and knowledge been passed down through the ages?
Is this interweb a suitable replacement for our local community/family?
If so, isn’t the energy needed to drive this engine unsustainable too?
In some ways we appear to be cheating nature’s own population control methods, through IVF and such like, yet are we really? What about the amount of heart disease, obesity, cancer etc which are causing increasing deaths?
Thank you for bringing up the question.
Annie comments ...
Very interesting topic.I'm glad you wrote about this as I've been thinking much about procreation and sustainability. I just had my second daughter. We could not afford to adopt either.Monetarily.
mike wilcox comments ...
We had our two replacements and the the big guns were silenced ;~) ( vasectomy) It's no big deal for men, day surgery and a day or two of frozen peas. Small price to pay. The problem of people like us who realize what's going and not having any children, we are soon outnumbered by the dunderheads who don't give a shit and act like yeast......
Sonjax comments ...
Mark
This is something I wanted to ask since the day you started living without money.
I know it's a long time away, but?
In about a billion years time, the Sun will have increased it's temperature to such a degree that it will be impossible for life to exist on the surface of the earth, as it would have become so hot that all water would have boiled away.
If we don't have developed starships much earlier then that, then what do we do?
Stop existing?
Ana comments ...
IMO the problem it's that in the west we give too much important to rationality (the education system in the west), leaving the emotional, spiritual fields etc of the individual and our social responsibility within the group as a second relevance. When we'll find the balance, all will fall perfectly into place, we won't need try to control all the aspect of our life only in the rational way as we constantly tend to do. Incidentally, how sad a world without playground?!
chrissy comments ...
well not an easy subject Mark!
I do understand your concerns, in a moneyless society the number fo children produced would have to be directly related to the ability to provide. With the money society this seems to be overridden as people can opt out of providing and allow the financial state to support the children, who I guess the state will assume will then pay it bakc by becoming part of that state and creating more money etc. etc.
But if people who have ethics and can bring up children in an open, loving caring family and society, then I believe they should do just that. If people like yourself do not have children to raise, how will children learn and be able to question the current society and sustain a moneyless society?
If we produce children who can love freely and care about their earth and learn how to have a fair and loving society living in peace with the earth, then please, as far as I am concerned, please keep producing!
Oh and those sheep, I reckon their feet are not really made for very good quality foreplay!
Medium Jake comments ...
From both my own experiences and watching other people in and around my life, I have come to realise EDUCATION is one of the most important factors in contraseptive understanding. Being only 24 and having only recently (in the last 5 years) come out of compulsory education, I was always shocked as to how little information was/is available to young people. I believe I had ONE sex education lesson (that I can remember) and I recall very little! As has been mentioned, there is a massive amount of presure on teens/young folk to "lose my virginity" to the point that its coming out of their ears. The whole psychology of meeting the standards and expectations of ones peer group, the general lack of information from the previous generations and the desensitisation of sex (whether from the film industry, the "sex sells" advertising world or any other large influential bodies) has created a strange ideology that has become the largely accepted veiw on sex....(I'm hoping that makes some sence....kinda got carried away with words...). How many people, of all ages, watch films? And in how many of those films made and watched every year have some sex scene in them? A pretty large count by my reckoning! So taking it as standard that alot of 'mainstream' films have a sex scene or two thrown in....how many of those scenes start with "Just a moment, I have to put a condom on." or "I'm sorry, I cant remember if you told me...are you on the pill?". Not very many that I remember!! As one of the largest and most widely veiwed industries, you might think some responsibility lies with film makers, writers, whoever to consider these things. But from what it looks like to me, everyone is expecting someone else to be the one to say it or teach people.
I guess my point is that (in my understanding) the vast majority of people in western cultures who are having the largest percentage of children are the less financially stable, and or under educated ones. So much time, effort and money is going into physical prevention that there seems to be a massive gap in the education in how, where, when and why to use said preventatives!
jason palmer comments ...
humans are evolved to outbreed war and disease, people prefer to reproduce than adopt, we are what we are, for more information on this... read the works of charles darwin ....
or www.vhemt.org
Alan Walton comments ...
@ Sonjax:
I hate to be the one to break it to you, but we, humanity, will never reach the stars.
Humans will have ceased to exist a LONG time before the Sun ever goes 'supernova'. No species larger than single and multi-celled organisms has been around since the beginning of life on Earth, about 3 billion years ago, and it is highly improbable that any ever will. Nothing larger than plankton existed 1 billion years ago; fish evolved 500 million years ago; amphibians, 360 million; reptiles, 300 million; mammals, 200 million; birds, 150 million; flowers, 130 million; the appearance of the genus Homo, 3 million years ago; 200,000 since Homo sapiens evolved; and only 10,000 years since the Agricultural Revolution. Evolution exists to drive species to 'become', to change. Evolve or go extinct. On our current trajectory, humans will probably end up in the latter category. We won't need any 'voluntary human extinction' movement - we're going to manage just fine doing what we already do!
It's a stark fact that we're going to reach seven billion humans sometime in 2011. That's seven billion of us that exist because other species elsewhere on the planet don't. We take the biomass of those other species and turn them into human biomass. Some of those species simply cannot compete with humans so they go extinct - over 200 species per day, or 70,000 per year. Makes sense, doesn't it? But it is poorly understood that 6 billion of those humans exist solely because of oil, the products it allows us to make, and the services it provides us with. Every species has what is known as a carrying capacity; a limit to its population that is based on the environment it lives in, the resources available to it, and the growth limits to its population are based on that environment and those resources. When oil was discovered, we found a cunning way to temporarily increase human carrying capacity. Oil has allowed us to alter the methods by which humans have traditionally practiced agriculture to incorporate tractors, irrigation, herbicides, pesticides, fertilisers, factory production, refrigeration, dehydration, storage; thus allowing humans to subjugate all of nature to our indomitable will. In his books, Daniel Quinn calls it 'totalitarian agriculture' and the phrase is an apt description. Every calorie of energy that comes from food you eat (if you didn't grow that food yourself) takes over ten calories of oil energy to sow, nurture, harvest, process, transport, and store. And that's before you've even begun to cook it!
However, for every four barrels of oil we extract and consume now, only one barrel is being found to replace them with - that can't go on forever. Infinite growth on a finite planet? Not possible. If there were a plateau in oil production (not a peak or decline, just a plateau), rising demand colliding with stagnant supply would drive the price of absolutely everything higher. Food, fuel, clothes, heating, electricity, consumer products - literally everything we see, touch and eat will become more expensive than it currently is. This is, in fact, happening as we speak, but such things as 'quantative easing' and 'monetizing debt' have hidden the effects from our view temporarily.
Wherever there is natural disaster that causes crop failure, you will find famine. It has happened throughout history, it is happening now (look at Pakistan for the latest occurrences), and will continue to do so. We in the West are very fortunate that we're not on the bottom rung of the ladder when it comes to food. Those people who are will find their rungs kicked out from under them as food production falters. The poorest will starve first. Notice I said 'first'. We play at being god with the environment that provides for all our needs at our peril. Education or contraception will not negate the effects of hard physical realities. We're all totally up shit creek without a paddle, and the majority of us don't even realise or care…
HAVE A GREAT DAY! =) =)
Tony Delaney comments ...
"Ecologically we are just about to orgasm" now theres a sentence lol,although i agree absolutely,and i think it will get far worse before it gets better and we may not be around to see "better" but i hope so,i do believe Mother Earth has her own way of dealing with this problem and we are the problem.Human arrogance dictates we hold dominion over this planet but we are merely part of an ecosytem i dont think we fully comprehend and to use your analogy,there maybe some serious "coitus interruptous" in the decades to come with natural disasters,famine etc,our race is reaching a crisis point,economically,spiritually,ecologically and personally i dont think we will change until disaster looms unfortunately or am i being too cynical? very interesting reading btw
Sitarane comments ...
I'd like to see a comparison of the damage caused by unchecked population growth with the damage caused by the life-cycle of contraceptives. I suspect that the Earth is better of with the condoms than with the billions.
Long-term solution that is missing: Fucking with the DNA of future generation so that they're not as horny as present-day humans. Or not at all.
Smokers get pleasure from smoking only because they're addicted. Prevent the addiction and there's no reason why anyone would smoke.
Steffaan comments ...
I don't think sex or number of people on the planet has much to do with sustainability. One billion people living lavishly can probably use up more resources than the current 6.4 billion humans on the planet.
Focusing on population just puts the onus on the poorer people of the planet with big families (a poor family of 8 people consumes fewer resources than a rich family of 4) -- and distracts attention away from the real issue: we the well-off people of the planet consume more than our fair share of the earth's limited resources.
vancouverite comments ...
If your head is telling you to have a vasectomy Mark, go ahead and do it.
Back in the early 80s I had my tubes tied at the age of 27. I couldn't find any reason (having read The Population Bomb) to bring more children into the world. Since then the world population has increased by 2 million, and I've never doubted my choice. I've also never had to rely on a man for contraception.
@ Annie
I fostered children with developmental delays for those maternal urges - adoption is not the only route. It cost me almost nothing as you get help towards the costs of their upkeep.
The only unsustainable issue that arose from my sterilization, done back in the days when skiing was considered dangerous and sex safe, was that later I needed to use other protection from HIV.
frantasia comments ...
@Jason Palmer
You wrote:
try not to worry so much, be happy, enjoy life :)
--------
I second that - thanks, Jason.
Mark Boyle comments ...
@ Frantasia and Jason -
I'm sure you're both well aware of this, but it is actually possible to think about life, question your conditioning and enjoy life too! Shock, horror!
In fact, one might say it was an important part of a fulfilling life! I don't sit at home scratching my ass, picking my nose, worrying about the world. I adore life. I feel its pain sometimes, and its vital to do so in order to respond to the appropriate extent. But I love life, and want to live it to its full, not some pre-condition story somebody has told me it must be... anyway, you already know this I guess.
One might also say that some only get to 'enjoy' their life so mcuh because they're riding on the backs of those who make all the stuff that buys them such nice. Just a thought, I'm not saying that applies to you (only you can answer that, but an important life question to ask yourself), but maybe its not quite so much fun for those who slave night and day in the South and South-East to keep us in the west in leisure. Just a thought.
Some people work 14hrs a day so you can meditate in nice purple fisherman pants, comtemplating life - they don't get the time to 'enjoy life', they're too busy buying you the time.
Frantasia - If I said the grass was green, would you agree? Would be nice to agree on something...
Jason - should we all go out and rape women, beat up old ladies, and mug pensioners also just because some others do?
Alice comments ...
Wonderful stuff there. Lots of tangents, but that's the best kind of writing/conversation. Me, I have one child, am allergic to most condoms, don't trust the ones I'm not allergic to, and don't want to take chemicals. The Decision: Not have actual intercourse. The Result: Be divorced. The Upside: I now live in a home with a rain-water collection cistern system, a garden, and working toward an apiary and hopefully a few chickens for eggs. Re: cars. Terrible terrible terrible. I sometimes think, when I see road kill "how many animals die so that humans can have comfort?".
On another note!!: I am working on writing a book about a specific subject, and wondered if you might be able to shed some light on a specific subject you are likely familiar with. I cannot find a "contact" area for you though, so I'm reaching out here. It is a children's book. themadgray@hotmail.com
Alan Walton comments ...
While consumption of resources by the richer, developed nations is certainly a massive problem, the burgeoning numbers of starving millions creates the demand for increased food production. Which, of course, the likes of Monsanto, Syngenta, Dupont/Pioneer Hi-Bred and others eagerly exploit for profit. The end result of increased crop production is driving the world's population boom.
I'll say it another way: the problem of overpopulation is only exacerbated by continual increases in food production.
You don't believe this is true? I can demonstrate it with a couple of thought experiments (with help from a passage in The Story of B by Daniel Quinn).
Okay, let's imagine a big cage with plenty of room, into which we introduce two mice and two kilos of food. Two kilos of food is more than enough for two mice, but you'll soon see why. The following day we take out the uneaten food and replace it with two kilos of fresh food. Keep repeating this every day. Soon, the two become four, the four become eight, eight become sixteen, and so on. The population growth confirms that the mice have plenty of food. Eventually the population of mice won't be eating just SOME of the food every day, they'll be eating ALL of the food every day. But we'll just keep on putting two kilos into the cage, and the mischief of mice (for that's the collective term for mice, btw) will remain static at whatever number it reached. Let's imagine the population reaches three hundred mice when they're fed two kilos of food. We'll keep feeding them for a year and recording the population. It won't stay rigidly fixed at three hundred - it will fluctuate between, say, three hundred and twenty and two hundred and eighty. But the AVERAGE will be three hundred.
Now let's move onto experiment number two. It begins the same way. A cage and two mice, but this time, instead of putting in a fixed amount of food and replacing it with the same, this time we'll still replace the food but increase it a bit more every day. However much the mice eat, they get fifty percent more than that the next day. Rinse and repeat. We keep expanding the walls of the cage to accommodate the growing population, and adding fifty percent more food than the mice ate the previous day. Eventually, there'll be sixty four thousand mice! At this point, someone runs into the room and says, "Stop! That's too many mice!"
And we say, "I guess you're right, what shall we do?"
First, we answer the question: how much did the mice eat yesterday? Assuming it was five hundred kilos of food, ordinarily we'd put seventy-five hundred kilos of food in tomorrow. But now we'll try something different. Five hundred kilos worked yesterday, so today we'll just put in the same amount. None of the mice are starving, they're all getting fed - no food riots, no famine, nothing. New mice are being born, old mice are dying, but the population fluctuates around an average point, as it did in the first experiment. Repeat day after day, wait for the starving mice and food riots, there'll be none. If five hundred kilos of food feeds sixty four thousand mice, then it will always feed that many. The population explosion stopped literally overnight.
Now, assuming that we want to reduce the number of mice to four thousand, we won't have to hand out little mouse-sized condoms, educate the women mice to want smaller families, preach mouse abstinence, or send all the mice to family planning clinics for advice on birth control. All we need is FOOD control. All we have to do is to reduce the amount of food we put in their cage. If five hundred kilos fed all the mice yesterday, today we'll reduce that by quarter of a kilo. That's like a flake of dandruff less per mouse. Then we wait for food riots and mouse famine, but there are no riots or famine. So the following day we reduce by another quarter kilo, another dandruff flake less per mouse, and still no famine. Repeat this for a thousand days and not once is there a food riot or famine. Eventually, given enough time, there'll be thirty two thousand mice, half the original number. Not a miracle, just a demonstration of the laws of ecology. Pure and simple.
The laws of ecology state that an increase in availability of food for any species will invariably produce an increase in the population of that species. Always. Invariably. Semper et ubique. Correspondingly, a reduction in food availability results in population decline. It's the same whether the species are mice, sparrows, ants, weasels, or butterflies. Or humans.
Many people object to being lumped in with other animals, assuming that because humans have free will, and can choose individually whether or not to have children, that they are not bound by ecological laws. And this IS true on the INDIVIDUAL level. Each of us can choose for ourselves whether and when to have children, or not to. But, ecologically speaking, our COLLECTIVE human population is as COLLECTIVELY subject to ecology as any other. Indistinguishable from any other species in that regard.
And, in defence of that statement, there is the evidence of the experiment that we, as humans, have been running every year for the last 10,000 years. And, in every year when food production increased, the population never failed to increase as a result. It's a 'food race' with corresponding 'wins' in population for every 'win' in food produced, much as the arms race between the Americans and Soviets produced increases in nuclear weapons on one side every time the other increased their arsenal.
It's been suggested that it would be possible to both increase the food production and decrease the population, as birth control advocates often do. But ecology says "no, this is not possible." This is an attempt to deny the fundamental laws of ecology, and it will never work. 10,000 years of history lends no credence to the idea that it is possible to both increase food availability while reducing population. History resoundingly confirms what ecology states to be true: that the more food there is available, the more people there will be to consume it!
Obviously, on the individual level, this is different. A farmer who grows a surplus of food can choose to keep his family size small. But what is he going to do with his increase in crop size? Pour petrol on it and burn it all? Of course not. He grew it all in the first place to sell for a profit, and would be a fool to have planted it in the first place if he didn't mean to sell it. So, assuming he sells his surplus, it will enter the global food supply and it will go to support the continuing global population growth.
The phrase 'you are what you eat' is highly accurate. People are not made of moonbeams or pixie dust or unicorn breath. They are made of food, and nothing but food. The population will not increase in the absence of food - it can ONLY increase in the presence of food. More food this year than last. Flesh, bone, sinew and blood cannot be made from anything other than food, so if there are more people, there must be more food!
"Oh, but what about the starving millions?!" people will say. "We have to increase food production to feed the starving millions!"
But why? The excess food that we produce each year doesn't go to feed the starving millions, it didn't last year, or the year before that, or the year before that. And it won't feed them all next year either. So where DID it go? It went to fuel our population boom.
Producing more food does not solve the problem, because that's not the problem. Producing more food just produces more people.
Because any attempt to fix a problem is pointless if it only addresses the effects of that problem (as abstinence, education and birth control do in this case) and not the root causes of it (increased food production driving population increases). It's like closing the barn door after the horse already bolted. Birth control is, unfortunately, a poor strategy for solving a crisis. When managing a crisis, one must make a goal to control causes, not effects. This is why you have to go through airport security BEFORE you get on the plane. The airlines don't want to control effects, they want to control causes. And birth control is a strategy aimed at effects, whereas food production control is a strategy aimed at causes.
Alan Walton comments ...
@ Steffaan, I'll have to take a view opposing yours, and say that I believe that sex and population numbers have a LOT to do with sustainability, or, more appropriately, the lack thereof. The dictionary definition of 'sustainable' in the ecological context in which it's commonly understood is as follows: "capable of being maintained at a steady level without exhausting natural resources or causing severe ecological damage, i.e. sustainable development." Mind you, there's no such thing as development which can be sustainable. It's a complete contradiction in terms.
Images of prosperous lifestyles are widely seen by poorer people, and they aspire to them just as much as westerners do. We eat a better diet, with higher levels of protein from meat, and industrial meat productions practices leave much to be desired. We live in nicer homes, drive nicer cars, wear better clothes, have better jobs, better health, better education - the list is endless. All those things represent development, and not a single one will be sustainable "without exhausting natural resources or causing severe ecological damage".
So nothing about the continually expanding population could be termed as sustainable. In fact, absolutely nothing about the monetary-based economy can EVER be sustainable. It is built on a foundation of debt, usury, inflation, limitless wealth for a rare few, and poverty of varying degrees for everyone else. Its biggest strength, according to its proponents (redistributing wealth upwards to the apex of the pyramid), will cause its eventual downfall. This has already begun.
Thanks Mark, for pointing out that the gizmos and widgets that rich people enjoy have to be made by people who invariably live in appalling conditions. Or "riding on the backs of those who make all the stuff", as you succinctly put it. I'm sure that if all the true costs of making a product (known as the external costs, or externalities in economic terms, as Mark no doubt well knows!) were factored in, it would force people to reassess their true level of consumption (cheap designer label t-shirts are routinely sold for less than the true cost of production to entice shoppers to purchase other, more expensive goods). These costs aren't reflected in the price the consumer pays, hence the term 'external'. And any action you personally take, for which you don't have to accept complete responsibility, contains an external cost. Sweatshops, clear-cutting of forests, extraction of rare earth metals, pollution of all kinds - these are all examples.
Moving on, intending no disrespect for the personal beliefs of others, I find it contemptible that the Catholic church doesn't adjust its attitude towards birth control in light of the glaringly obvious facts. The majority of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics live in the developing world, and they take the Pope's edicts as infallible, following them to the letter; even 'religiously' you might say. In order to satisfy his personal conservative beliefs, Pope Benedict has condemned millions to perpetual poverty.
Families are exhorted, cajoled even, to have as many children as they possibly can by their priests; even while they subsist on the meagre income they can make from whatever work they can find. And, while many of his followers live on less than two dollars per day, the Vatican sits on untold wealth, plundered over the centuries of crusades, wars, inquisitions, and the like. How can there be any hope whatsoever of bringing global population into a balanced state while this situation continues? Pope Benedict's prohibitions against the use of condoms or other methods of contraception prevent people from protecting themselves against the spread of HIV and AIDS. And, when poverty is such a crushing burden for so many, what else do they have to enjoy in life except sex? Asking these people to 'keep it in their pants' is not realistic advice.
Of course, following on from what I just wrote above, these are just attempts to control effects, not causes! =)
artemis six comments ...
Wild yam root , if I recall can be contraceptive , though not 100% . Combine that with mucous testing ( a mutual engagement ) , and complete EDUCATION , which also proves to drop birth rates . No one solution exists .
Karen Lee comments ...
Great post Mark. My partner and I were discussing this topic recently. We want two children however we know that just one child who has one child will replace use in a lifetime. So we compromised we now think we will have one child and adopt one. A really good option for us since we want a boy and a girl so adopting the second child will ensure that. I have also been contemplating our contraseption lately as my pills come in none recyclable packaging and I throw away one pack a month, over 25 years or so that is a lot of waste. I agree that we need to do something to curb our population growth but I don't think an enforsed one child policy is the way to go just look at china and all the infanticide it caused.
Kin comments ...
Because we live, unavoidably, in a capitalist society I suggest the best way to curb over population is to charge people for having kids. We donate a ton of money to people having babies where I am from (Canada) and the result is a lot of people having children so they can get bigger "baby bonus" checks at the end of each month. Research shows that the more education a person receives, the less children they will have on average. It seems we reward people for having babies in an overpopulated world so they can support smoking/drug/drinking habits with baby bonus checks (this isn't all large families with under-educated parents of course, and education has nothing to do with raising a child well, but from my own experience, I have seen the system in place heavily abused to such ends). If we want to curb that direction, then perhaps it might be better to charge an annual fee per child, to be paid to the government - nickel and diming people who choose to have children might be a powerful incentive. This way anyone can have children, but it might be less financially beneficial to have a "brood."
Perhaps couples who choose not to procreate for the first year, five years, etc, of a marriage get incentives. "Look honey it is our silver anniversary and we just got a brand new car from the government for never having kids!" or "Look honey, we only had one child and the government has decided to pay for their full university education because they didn't have to pay out for us having more kids then that!"
Mark Boyle comments ...
@ Karen Lee - I think that is a fantastic option, it keeps the population down which in turn keeps the planet 'sustainable' for those who are born, yet ensures your child doesn't grow up an only child, which itself has repercussions.
There isn't a one size fits all on this (thankfully not yet anyway), as each adults needs are different, but I think this is an option that could work on so many levels. Thank you for sharing that.
frantasia comments ...
Mark,
Ref. enjoying life -
I merely responded to Jason Palmer's post - I wasn't making any allusion to your or anyone's attitude. It was just nice to see such a short, positive message and that called up a response in me.
You wrote:
Some people work 14hrs a day so you can meditate in nice purple fisherman pants, comtemplating life - they don't get the time to 'enjoy life', they're too busy buying you the time.
_______
I don't even know what fisherman pants are - perhaps you may enlighten me. Yes, I meditate sometimes, usually while preparing veg, washing up etc. Meditation and comtemplation are open to everyone, sometimes we can put all aside, sit and meditate for maybe 20 minutes, other times we can do this while getting on other stuff.
Mindful living is also there for everyone, be where you are, be with what you're doing and let concerns drift away for a while.
Good living to you, Mark, and to all.
Alan Walton comments ...
Get your Thai Fishermen's Pants at
www.fishermenpants.com!
http://www.wikihow.com/Wear-Thai-Fisherman-Pants
I used to have a pair of these when I lived in Belize - not purple though. They're very comfy, well ventilated and keep the mozzies and sandflies off a treat. Ideal for a hot country, but maybe not so great in the UK...
Mark Boyle comments ...
@ Alan - haha, thanks, I used to have a pair of yellow ones and a pair of purple!
@ frantasia - thanks for that, when I said you btw I didn't mean you or Jason, I meant western civilisation. It would have been more accurate to say 'we'!
Frank Levey comments ...
Thanks, Mark, for your thoughtful inquiry. If it doesn't get one thinking, they might be dead. Re: Goenka's vipassana course adding particular insight into celibacy, unless you're willing to take that desire for another and break them down into teeth, bone, mucus, blood, excrement,hair, etc. you'll have to keep searching.Great course, though.
anon comments ...
you are forgetting about gay/lesbain sex which is great and sustainable..there are a lot of us (more than u think). I was a bit upset to see that you assumed all your readers were heterosexual..
frugal queen comments ...
I don't think you will win that argument mark..............there will be someone one day who will want your babies!
rjbuxton comments ...
Fascinating metaphoric description of the precursors to the Malthusian event awaiting us in the middle of the 21st Century, or perhaps already upon us. I don't share your optimistic view that it isn't too late, nor your faith that a minority can influence the masses into a correct way of thinking. But thank you for voicing your thoughts.
Jason Palmer comments ...
good points mark
"The unexamined life is not worth living." Socrates, in Plato, Dialogues
have you seen this film by de botton where he talks about epicurus.... he said 'live in a commune and chill out dudes'
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3535764476733084568#
jason palmer comments ...
not sure how well that link posted so put it on your fbook 'moneyless man' fan page wall
stellanini comments ...
Interesting blog!
I believe the human infestation is coming to an end shortly and our rabbit-like ability to outbreed most other species is already in natural decline. If any humans survive we will try to recycle the process using different technologies perforce (fewer available metals, oil, fertile soils etc).
It doesn't matter in the least what individuals do now, we can't stop this vast change occurring. So although I agree with your thinking in the short term, a million more humans here or there isn't going to alter the general trajectory: huge species die-offs and climate changes and other stuff we won't have a further vote upon.
Perhaps intelligence is a sexually transmitted disease with no survival value: wisdom certainly got left out of the mix.
jason palmer comments ...
mark,check this out
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tit_for_tat
Ruskin had his law of helpfullness but Darwin says it is tit for tat
Ana comments ...
My Goenka's vipassana experience is that it's not only for monks/nuns, is for lay people too, it does not make you celibate, contrarily it improves your sex life because it refines the senses.
btw Mark, good luck in 'the torture chamber', I mean meditation hall. : D
Mike Robertson comments ...
Oh just get your tubes tied and stop overthinking it Mark. Or if you prefer, have one, maybe two, kids first, then get them tied. It's painless, cheap, and vital for the world. It's also a gift to any woman you're with.
Fra comments ...
Man, you're an idiot.
The very electronics and internet infrastructure you use to write this blog pollute far more than condom production.
Did you actually had a look at the actual C footprint numbers? Oh, wait, you need internet for that!
Achieveing the UN Millenium Goals *requires* the use of condoms, and will bring a significant relief to the stress of our ecosystem.
Also, Gaia is not dying, is not coming, is just passing through its *puberty*.
In a century or so her reproductive organs will bring life in lifeless worlds.
Many things can and must be done better, but mindlessly stop doing things is irrelevant at best.
Alan Walton comments ...
I highly recommend this film to everyone, La Belle Verte (The Green Beautiful). It's in French, subtitled in English - but I'm not telling you what it's about, you'll have to watch it if you want to find out.
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheGreenBeautiful#p/u/9/C5CmMm_SRpM
=======================================
@ stellanini:
I don't believe intelligence to be a trait with no survival value, otherwise it would have dropped OUT of the gene pool by now, wouldn't it? And are you suggesting that any non-human animal which demonstrates any sign of intelligence is similarly afflicted? No, intelligence is a gift, and any such gift can be used for good or bad purposes. It's the uses to which we chose to put our intelligence which will cause the downfall of industrial civilisation and much of the rest of the community of life, not the fact that we have it.
To me, it makes sense that those of us who care deeply about the planet SHOULD be having children, not choosing not to. We choose to walk lightly on the earth, and we will pass onto our children the wisdom of what it mean to be a steward to the planet, and not its masters. It's the non-carers who are breeding a further generation of non-carers.
At this point, the die-off, if there will be one, hasn't begun, so the severity it may reach can't be imagined. But humans will not go extinct, for several reasons:
1) there are so many of us - that fact alone more or less guarantees survival of the species in some locations that can support human life
2) we have intelligence and ingenuity on our side. Those of us that survive will be the ones that have adapted to changing circumstances, as long as they can adapt quickly enough
3) the survivors will also have seen much suffering, and will be humbled by it. They will remember what was lost in the Great Forgetting, and find their place in the community of life
=======================================
Are you sitting in the middle of the road, rooted to the spot and staring - caught like a rabbit in the headlights of an approaching car? Or are you doing something about it? Don't imagine that nothing CAN be done. Because that's simply not true.
Despair, nihilism, and learned helplessness are not the only courses of action one can choose.
Those are the choices most have made, are making, or will make. One has only to look to the past for countless examples of such behaviour. However, I, for one, shall not go gentle into that good night.
=======================================
@ Mike Robertson:
"It's also a gift to any woman you're with."
Not if that woman happens to want children at any point in the future, it's not. And so what? No risk of unwanted pregnancy doesn't equal no risk at all. STDs certainly won't be stopped by a vasectomy. Committed monogamy is the solution, but that's quite passé in our promiscuous, hyper-sexualised society.
Sophia comments ...
A very interesting article. In response to a few of the comments i've read, I think it'd be really good if in sex-ed lessons they taught the options of natural contraception. I believe it's rather effective, if used correctly obviously. It just means we can't have sex as often as we like, but I believe we'll all have to sacrifice alot more in the future.
Yes, I believe that there is a herb/combination of herbs that women can take as a contraceptive. I know of a Chinese remedy, which lasts up to a year! I'm sure there are herbs around Europe... somewhere! However it could be a protected species, or have dodgy side-effects.
Adoption is the answer, and is a very noble thing to do I think. Problem is so many people want to have their OWN children, I know I do! (not yet though). I really liked the idea of adopting a child into a community. They say it takes a village to raise a child! I've known children brought up more-or-less under these circumstances and they grow into well-rounded good individuals.
Anyway I shall stop rambling now!
Ana comments ...
The reality is that in the West does not seem to be a problem of overpopulation due to natality and contrapception is working, otherwise why in Europe the natality is negative and the French are incentivating people to have more children. All evidence aim that the problem lay somewhere else there is a link of poberty with high natality, raising the standard of living could be one of the solutions.
Tim Slade comments ...
You seem to have missed one:
http://www.newmalecontraception.org/heat.htm
Requires nothing more then hot water and a vessel to hold it in, in its simplest form.
Lili comments ...
I started reading and I had a series of thoughts popping in my head.
"Who is this guy?"
"He doesn't say we should limit others, but that they should limit themselves. But in any case, the "limitation" is the only option, the only way" and on that path, the blog goes on and on, elaborating on the only possible answer. But is it?
I don't like this.
We are supposed to be humans who try to get off our noses the ring that subdues us.
Money.
And now i read a speech over some individual's thoughts (don't care if he is the founder, the pope, if he is smart) as if they were the only way.
It is clear to me the blogger is NOT a parent.
It is clear to me the blogger is getting a bit too much into other peoples lives.
Cause its not just thoughts, and leaving it up to the reader to find what works for him, his own answers, its thoughts and suggestions, every thing is chewed up and guided to the blogger's conclusions..very clever.
And this is the only thing that has been scaring me about this whole freeconomy stuff. How much you begin to lose your individuality.
Would u sit and read any person's suggestions about your family? Of course not.
But here, due to the fact it is a smart, respected man and our host, due to the fact we want to find another way of life and he gave us that opportunity, we bend the boundaries.
And that I think bugged me even more than our host passing his theory as the ultimate truth more than him insinuating we are wrong to feel the most natural feeling in the world.
Or maybe my English is so bad, I didn't get it. In that case, I apologize.
Katy comments ...
Amazing article Mark and great comments! I’ll admit to feeling a little uncomfortable reading this at first – asking lots of questions without definitive answers, or at least no answers that I think most people would be ready to accept. However, I think that’s an indication of just how far we have yet to go in our thinking.
Thank you Mark for raising these important points and getting people thinking about this – it’s certainly an area of sustainable living I have overlooked – beyond not having lots of children that was about as far as it went for me. If I have two children to replace me and my partner when we die then surely that keeps the population level? Or am I missing something?
It seems that all of our contraceptives are a product of drugs companies, made to fill their pockets – we spend our youth popping pills to avoid getting pregnant and then our later years taking hormones and paying for IVF. We need to move away from this, we need to be in tune with our own natural rhythms – find sustainable and natural forms of contraceptive.
Kylie comments ...
Mark, you say of modern contraception methods "All of these require a global infrastructure that is inherently destructive, inherently unsustainable and inherently unhealthy to come into existence."
Yes, the production and distribution of contraception requires the expenditure of resources and the production of waste, but it remains entirely possible that these activities can be carried out in such a way that destructive impacts are minimised.
In realistic rather than ideological terms, it seems that enabling global access to contraception is much more 'sustainable' than would be the many inevitable unplanned additions to the population burden resulting from the use of the more traditional contraceptive methods you mention.
Sex, like many of the functions of human existence, is inherently 'unsustainable' yet inherently programmed within us. To live 'sustainably' in this day and age requires balancing desire (innate animal urges as well as personal longings) against an intelligent understanding of consequence. As long as people deem it appropriate to satisfy their desires for frequent sex (in the same way they might deem it appropriate to satisfy their desire for a food item produced on the other side of the globe, or their desire to watch a widescreen TV for hours each night), we will have a resourcing problem.
Hope you're well Mark :)
piri comments ...
are you like politician that look like they know what they're talking about, when ...........
Ana comments ...
For those that got a vasectomy in mind. I'm very suspicious of vasectomies and how are being implemented. Do you know that if you're married, husbands do not have any obligation to tell their wives if a vasectomy has been done, IMO it's utterly wrong and a marriage should be automatically nullify.
Besides you don't know what damage does to the subtle layers of your being until you have one done, ie how a vasectomy will affect to your health and future (sexual) relationship. So don't do it without having the full facts. Don't let yourself brainwashed from passing-by trends, you only got this momentaneous life, live it to the fullness without regrets.
Walden comments ...
Most environmental problems as far as I can see are, at base, a result of the fact that there are too many of us, far too many. Gaia, Mother Earth, biosphere etc can cope with a fair amount of our mess, but not in these quantities, any more. Reversing the population explosion is key. Sad to say for men I agree vasectomy seems to be the best option. Those who deal with animals tend to have no qualms in taking that option (a little more drastically) to prevent unwanted puppies, cats or to manage other livestock (though I know those who would object to that as "tampering" with the animal's true nature...) But no-one talks about the population problem, only green fuels and recycling -I wonder why...
Irina comments ...
Interesting post! Here are some of my comments:
Tribal people had sex for hundreds of thousands of years, they didn't have condoms or pills and still their population didn't grow like crazy. I'd look into that to find some answers. I'm pretty sure that paying attention to one's own body, as a woman, helps alot. Too bad that due to our hectic way of life, we're not able to do that anymore, we don't even know how to do it anymore... But avoiding having sex a couple a days a month can't be such a tragedy, or doing it in a different way.
About the population growth issue: if every 2 parents would only have one child, the population would slowly decrease. Of course that's not really going to happen, because not everybody cares about it, but it would be a solution, wouldn't it?
ceridwen comments ...
Hi Mark
Unrelated to above post I know - tho I agree with it...but I still cant find a way to add your blog to my blogroll on my own blog in a way that automatically updates it. You are at the end of my list of blogs - because you don't have an automatic "feed" on this in the same way other blogs do.
I never realise when you've added something new as a consequence - and have to remember/scroll down my list to see (as will those who follow my blog and read the sideblogs I give).
ceridwen
(from the "chez Ceridwen" blog)
Lygeia comments ...
46% of the land that can sustain life on Earth, it is uninhabited.
How do we really know there are 6.5 billion people on the Earth? We can only prove there are about 2 billion. We know how many people live in the U.S. (350 million), Canada (25-35 million), Mexico (60 million), Western Europe (350 million); Eastern Europe (350 million).
The population for India is extrapolated to be 1 billion based on the fact that there are 700,000 registered voters. Living as I do in a city known for voter fraud (the dead are registered to vote and do so early and often in our elections), I am less likely to accept that the number of registered voters is an accurate representation of the population.
China appears to have a lot of people in its cities, but then cities always appear crowded. People who have been to China say that when you go into the countryside, it is eerie how empty it is -- no people, no animals, nothing.
Africa does not have accurate census records and we don't really know how many people live there, again cities always look crowded.
While we do need to be careful not to have massive overpopulation, we may be too quick to believe that there are too many people.
You should ask yourself, who benefits from you believing you should not have children?
Fran comments ...
Good article. Thought provoking.
I think the most sustainable sex would have to be masturbation. At least that is one way celibates can satisfy their physical sexual needs.
My wife and I have chosen not to have children. A vasectomy makes sense, though there are also other ways of practicing safe sex without contributing to the destruction of the planet. For example, I don't think you mentioned the pull-out method or rhythm method.
Even though condoms do, as you say, contribute to destroying the environment, I do believe they use up less resources than bringing another human being to the planet does. Sometimes you have to choose the lesser of two evils.
One can drive themselves crazy trying to live a totally zero impact life and still function as a contributing member to society. It seems to me, what is important is to continually move in the right direction, even if we know that perfection is still a long way off.
tom comments ...
need to look into expansion, stop whinging and get with it! Otherwise sit on one thumb and suck the other!
hollie comments ...
just been watching an interesting ted talk on natural sleep cycles.
interestingly if we go back to a much more natural sleep pattern - sleep at dusk rise at dawn - we have a tendancy to 'wake' during the night and have a period of 'meditative' rest. during this time we increase our production of a hormone thats usually only produced after orgasm. thus we feel much much rested, relaxed and awake during the day and our urges to constantly be at it is greatly reduced in part to the extra hormone released during a good nights sleep.
maybe adopting more natural sleep pattern should be seen as a much more natural contraceptive?
combine this with education - well educated women tend to put off having children until they are older and have a tendency to have fewer children.
personally i dont use any contraceptives other than condoms and im sure there has to be a much more sustainable way to produce them locally with perhaps alternative materials?
Ana comments ...
It's occurred that perhaps they could try to make biodegradable condoms make from corn, like the elastic bio. plastic bags. ?
Ana comments ...
Sorry my lazy grammar above.
Hollie, I agree. Following the nature cycle of day-night and the season cycle like working more in spring/summer and less in autunm/winter would be the ideal, like probably farmers do.
katun comments ...
I think you missed the most simple and effective method, the old Christian way of life... if everybody will protect their virginity until the marriage... and after, the both man and women, will respect the marriage and don't commit adultery, then is not necessary to use condoms for protection... and can control the number of kids they have without pills, using the calendar method... make sex only in that days when is possible without any risks!
soms comments ...
i agree 100 percent but my problem i need a mate to have sex with ,not that is all am looking for right now am a verying loving and caring person
LyssaM comments ...
Gosh... never thought sex would be a topic for one of your blogs, lol.
Not sure I have any right to talk about the subject of limiting the number of children as I'm due to give birth any day now to our third child. My view was always best that I have a full family and teach them right than limit myself whilst others knock out tons of kids and teach them from an early life the joys of consumerism!! Plus I don't plan on sticking round this country forever... I'm off to Albania which is much less populated.
Something concerns me tho... you know every now and then SOMETHING happens to control the population, doesnt it? deisease, natural disaster ect... if we all limit our numbers and something happened couldn't this be dangerous to the human race?
As for contraception.... i would suggest its all down to the woman in that she needs to know her body inside and out... your body makes it very obvious when it is fertile and you are likely to concieve... the amounts of signs it shows makes it hard to miss. me and my husband have only used contraception for a short period of time once... apart from that i tell hubby when its ok and when it's not... funny enough my natural method was never wrong and the condoms resulted in pregnancies!!
Adoption is definetely something in my mind for future... I lost our baby on xmas eve last year...it was my 8th loss... that kind of loss is hard to take and I was begging hubby to agree to adoption but he worried he wouldn't love a child he didn't father... this isn't an issue to me... i know for a fact my maternal instinct is so strong I could mother any child! I dont think it's damaging at all to the child, as Sophie, I believe, said. My mother was adopted... her mother died... what else were they supposed to do? abandon her and leave her to it? She was actually adopted by her uncle and aunt those she had never met them until that point... my mother most definetely didn't go to prison or have issues, lol... my father was abandoned and grew up in various orphanages until one family wished to adopt him when his mother all of a sudden arrived on the scene to put a stop to that... my father had been looking forward to be being adopted. He did have mother issues but never did he allow this to make him behave in the ways you described. and he went on to be a great dad and we are extremely close!
I definetely dont want 3 to be my limit... I always wanted a big family that my body just wont allow me to have.... but I do think this is my last pregnancy... My plans are now persuading hubby over the next few years that adoption really would work for us.
Alan Walton comments ...
@Katun:
You advocate Christian principles of abstinence until after marriage, but seem to forget some fundamental facts that pertain to countries which are highly christianised.
Haiti, Mexico, Nicaragua, Philippines, San Salvador
In each of these highly religious Catholic countries, the Pope dominates discourse on family sizes. Condoms are forbidden; priests exhort larger families; family planning is practically non-existent; poverty is widespread; human misery proliferates, with high birthrates as a result.
No matter how much misery results, the Pope urges larger populations.
So much for "Christian family values", huh?
Debbie P comments ...
I had an interesting converstion with my daughter whilst she was absorbed in colouring and I absorbed doing something else, she asked me 'Why are all the songs about love?', I said 'because love makes the world go around, not money as many people think', she thought for a second and said 'Well of course, there wouldn't be any people without love, where would we all be then?'
I've just read The Moneyless Man, the main thing I came away wondering was how that kind of experiment would work with a family, but a great book, thanks
miranda morland comments ...
Sadly boys and girls are not taught the wonders of sex only the mechanics of it Which I feel is often taught way too early as most are not even interested till we start so called educating them about it We never teach them the beauty of love and consummating that relationship by making love with one special person. The other awful educator the media soaps and porno sites again completely guide them into fast aggressive sex where anything goes and that shouting at each other all the time is how family is Many young girls wnat a baby because they feel this is will be something they will love and be loved by Why are all the girls so insecure I wonder…….
So many varying medications make it almost impossible for a girl to understand her body and to notice the subtle changes it goes through each month Bring back Moon Lodges and the old ways so we are in tune with our fertility and needs Not to mention the importance of those nine months of pregnancy we are feeding our baby not only food but food for the soul so vitally important that we as mothers are calm and protective of what we see and do whilst pregnant
You would think we had learned something from Tantra and why women take longer to climax and that the be all and end all is not about ejaculation but about self-control and if we practiced this the only need for ejaculation would be to reproduce how blissful making love for hours…..
There are so many natural and very good contraceptives out there one off the oldest the natural sponge soaked in lemon juice will not only prevent pregnancy as sperm will shrivel up and die on contact but is one of the only things that is believed to help contain the aids virus another method the honey cap which would be just as easy to use with a natural sponge too is wonderful in the prevention of catching STDs
Adoption yes I totally agree that to take in another being is a wonderful thing I also think we all need to be a bit more aware of the state we are in when we are creating a life Sadly many children are the result of a boozed up fumble on a Saturday night with someone they may have only met a few hours before
I believe that any child that comes from a loving union of a couple who respect and care for one another has a head start also if that child is born in a soothing and loving way as naturally as possible (see the marvellous video birth as we know it on you tube) they would hopefully go on to be an inspiration to the world There seem to be more and more very aware souls being born at this moment in our history Because very soon we will need all the help we can get...
Friday night after midnight is the most magical time to make love….
The snipperty snip whoa up Mark very drastic and someone like you who is bothered to think about these things in the first place Makes you the sort of person who would be a great Dad Your very lifestyle would be such an exciting and great wonderland for a child to be brought up in.....
mx
Joe comments ...
Interesting article, Mark. It raises a lot of issues that challenge people in areas where most people are not open to change. While the ideal would be for couples to move away from environmentally destructive forms of contraception, the reality is that the best we can *probably* hope for is a slight reduction in that regard. The more we can do to minimize the damage to ourselves and our environment in the process, the better.
Good article.
Ant comments ...
Prof AJ Michmichael writes the following comment on an article in J.Public Health (June 2010)
"Some have downplayed the role of population in environmental impact for ideological reasons. Indeed, over the past two to three decades, a de facto coalition between analysts and think tanks from both right and left coalesced with the Catholic Church to help suppress discussion of the role of population in global environmental change. Many on the left, together with many environmental advocates from low-income countries, still consider consumption (a proxy for ‘affluence’) far more important than either population or technology. Meanwhile, the right largely denies the importance of either overpopulation or overconsumption. This group was influenced by Julian Simon's argument that every new person had a brain and two hands, and thus were part of an ‘ultimate resource,’ a claim echoed in the Brundtland Report. Few supporters of this view may have realized that Mao Tse Tung once held similar views, or that the Chinese pictographic character for population links people with their need to be fed.....A rights-based approach to global family planning would see a massive transfer of wealth and goodwill from middle and wealthy populations to the poor, accelerating female literacy and empowerment. While such an approach may appear utopian, one item of ‘low hanging fruit’ would be to make contraceptive methods more available and affordable to the 200 million women said to want lower fertility. However, much more international redistributive sharing is needed—along with deeper attentive listening (free of views that disdain demographic and carrying-capacity arguments) by groups and individuals who claim to advocate ‘Third World’ development." Well said...
Everybody should watch this documentary by David Attenbourough comments ...
After learning some facts about human population, take your own conclusions:
http://www.truththeory.org/how-many-people-can-live-on-planet-earth/
By the way, tons of good documentaries piled up on that site. (They are free on youtube and vimeo etc but just nice to have a compilation of educational videos in one site)
Best,
Claudia
Verena comments ...
there is another consideration: if a couple waits until after age 35 and has two children, they will not quite replace themselves. If they wait until 40 and have one, they are less than replacing themselves.
Alan Walton comments ...
Natural News article - food for thought.
Population Crisis can be Resolved by Breastfeeding
http://www.naturalnews.com/030151_breastfeeding_population.html
BexyMSc comments ...
Okay, so this grandmother goes off on an Internet search on the subject of ‘Tantric sex‘. then has to look up ‘Venus butterfly’ and recapped on Mark’s comment about ‘Stag or squirrel’ and must have exercised her chuckle muscle for at least an hour! But there lays the difference between my existence and that of many other women of this planet. I am free, I have some free time, I can and do have sex without getting pregnant or diseased, I have not had to give up my children for adoption and feel sad @ rich for his wanting us to sink to the level of mutilating little girls in the womb. This sounds like the next disgusting step for pediatric urologist Dix Poppas from Cornell University who alters things to suit society. Society can whistle and personally I am one of those who was about to be thrown away during a hysterectomy operation. Thankfully it was argued that my mother be given the choice and that she agreed to carry on with the pregnancy! Well I would preferred to have had the choice not just my mother, so I am NOT pro-choice, because it was MY life in the balance. Life is so precious and I really value mine and don’t challenge my right to existence compared to any others. Once we are here, we should be welcomed and share what we have. That’s exactly what Freeconomy is about, lovingly sharing resources and equality.
Ticking boxes:
Female empowerment of life [ ]
Male education of love [ ]
Vegan condoms [ ]
Breast feeding [ ]
Real nappies [ ]
Billy Connelly’s ideas and renditions on natural (e.g. aroma therapy) one size fits all “simple” solutions [ ]
Janrper comments ...
I am aware that this may be offensive to some, but to the woman who has missed a period and is less than three weeks late this is a relatively inexpensive and reportedly reliable solution.
To induce early embryonic loss and initiate menstruation:
http://angryforareason.blogspot.com/2006/02/how-to-induce-miscarriage-herbally-and.html
It can only be used up to 3 weeks after a missed period, but the sooner the better. I've done it within the first week of missing my period and it's always brought it back for me. The best time to start it is on the 1st or second day of the missed period.
You will need:
Fresh parsley (preferably organic...I don't want pesticides in my vagina, so I go organic)
500 mg pills/capsules of Vitamin C (Try not to get pills with Bioflavonoids such as Rose Hips. These PREVENT miscarriage.)
The treatment can last 3 days: DO NOT EXCEED 3 DAYS!! This will work or not within 2/3 days.
1. Insert a fresh sprig of parsley as far as possible into the vagina. (parsley induces contractions, yum) Change every 12 hours. When soft, it may be difficult to remove, but this is not dangerous.
2. At the same time, drink parsley infusions. 2 to 6 tablespoons 4 times a day.
Making an infusion: use 2 1/2 cups of boiling water for every ounce of parsley (If you buy it at the store, minus 2/3 stems (for sprigs) this should be the amount of water used to make the tincture). Add parsley to boiling water, remove from heat and cover. Very important that you remove from heat IMMEDIATELY upon adding the parsley. Boiling the water with the parsley in there will make the infusion less effective. Let it steep for at least 20 minutes (the longer it steeps, the more potent it will be. I usually let it steep for 2 hours.
3. During the 3 days (or until your period starts) take high doses of Vitamin C orally. Ideally, take 500 mg every hour up to 6000 mg [or more if you are not having diahrrea, which is how you know you have saturated your tissues, Linus Pauling PhD took 20,000 mg every day]You can continue using the Vitamin C for up to 6 days. Vitamin C can bring on menstruation even 3 weeks after a "late" period. you can begin taking Vitamin C immediately after unsafe sex, or if the condom broke, etc.
If successful you should start to bleed in 2 to 3 days.
Notes:
-You may have cramps, you can take whatever you usually take for cramps or make a ginger infusion and take that.
-The chances of success are less if you regularly take high doses of Vitamin C
-High amounts of Vitmain C can cause loose stools. No one I know has experienced this, but is has been known to happen.
-Do not use if you have kidney problems.
-Watch for signs of Toxicity Specific to Parsley: Nausea, hallucinations, vomiting, vertigo, hives, paralysis, liver swollen and
painful, urine scanty and darkly colored, and tremors.
Google Vit C + abortion or Joy Gardner + herbal
Andi-Joy comments ...
A fascinating blog, Mark, and very witty. Unfortunately not all of us are able to produce children and that can be soul-destroying. Kids are the greatest gift and we should all be able to reproduce if we choose to. But we all need to exercise a bit of restraint and accept that it's pretty irresponsible to have a whole tribe. The planet can't sustain a growing population anymore than parents can afford to raise several children without help. I think couples should limit themselves to one child only, then at least if they part company later they can maybe have another child with a new partner if they choose to without overloading the planet. But, as you say, this raises the problem of contraception. I agree with Teresa's comment that caps are washable so condoms could be too. But I believe in days of old, before modern materials and mass production, french letters were re-usable but I have no idea what they were made of....maybe it was the intestines of horse and cart roadkills. The mind boggles....!
Elliot Stuart comments ...
Mate I loved this post. You are so right when you say the last 100 (or more?) years have been about sex, not love. I am slowly finding my path amongst this money/debt/environmental degradation/capitalism stuff, thank you for the inspiration. I might have to come and visit this freeeconomy village someday.
thehumanpill comments ...
Great post and it's something I've given consideration to too. I got over my anger that the world was heel-bent on not being sustainable, when I found our perspective of sustainability is unsustainable in itself. The architecture needed to sustain renewable energy alone invites us to propagate and multiply. It might sound a bit cold, but it was this revelation to me that got me to accept trans-humanistic thinking. The problem really is us in some regards. We're too good at multiplying. But tampering with genetics and trans-humanism is itself unsustainable. That's when it occurred to me that this world is headed in the wrong direction. For me, the wisest choice, is to accept that civilization itself is a journey and not some fanciful dream world destination that cuts corners. I believe we first have to accept that maybe we aren't meant to be sustainable, not in this world at least, as it is. Perhaps, our clingy need for sustainability is also part of our insecurity complex, and a reason we have to always have a solution. There is no solution for the universe. Our disconnection from reality would seem to be the main problem here. There will always be cycles in history, on this planet for sure, as it orbits our sun, as it enters into conjunction with other planets and other phenomena recur. Nature, by the will of God takes care of these things for us. Every now and then a bunch of us get wiped out in a catastrophe - problem solved. The problem is that our 'global village' aint run that way. We aren't told to accept the cycles of nature, we're thought to live in fear, and lament our predicament. Really, I do believe the problem is quite literally in our minds.
