Re: the Population MYTH...until when????????

Thor Skov (mailto:raijin@U.WASHINGTON.EDU)
Wed, 12 Feb 1997 09:27:45 -0800

Message-ID:  <Pine.A41.3.95b.970212092143.42576D-100000@dante10.u.washington.edu>
Date:         Wed, 12 Feb 1997 09:27:45 -0800
From: Thor Skov <mailto:raijin@U.WASHINGTON.EDU>
Subject:      Re: the Population MYTH...until when????????
To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU

On Wed, 12 Feb 1997, B. Diamond wrote:

> I certainly did not mean to imply that peasants are having too many
children--I merely used them as an example of folks who are "living lightly" as it were, but even if they don't own two cars, a rolex, and a vacation home on Maui, 15-20 billion people is too many people, period.

Dear BD,

While am in no way advocating population growth (the oppsotie actually) I'm interested in by what calculation you say that 15-20 billion is too many people, period.

This type of pronouncement is a really difficult thing to substantiate (unless of course it is just your personal preference). If it is possible to develop a society in which people consume a whole lot less, have a much smaller per capita impact on the global ecology, then why necessarily would that number be too many?

Thor Skov