eugenics again?

Umslopogaas writes

how daft are you?

do you have any children?

do you have any idea how to implement such a mad scheme in such places as China or India; places that are going to be doubling population faster than North America and Europe combined in the next 50 years?

What is your solution?

Euthanasia?

Genetic manipulation?

Forced sterilizations?

talk like this goes in the wrong direction.

Punishing parents any more will not work.

gasoline tax

A carbon tax on gasoline makes sense for all you lower mainlanders who have access to already subsidised public transit (and who SHOULD be taxed for not using it), but the tax becomes inequitable if it is imposed upon rural people for whom distance travel by personal vehicle is unavoidable.

Caring Economists? Now that is an oxymoron

It has been the modern economic dogma that growth is ALWAYS good and red tape, government or otherwise, is ALWAYS bad, which has brought us to the state of affairs of a planet polluted by various industrial wastes, along with the possibility of human produced carbon dioxide also having a deleterious effect.

So now, the same people come up with a "taxation neutral" carbon tax scheme, while others of the same ilk have a "carbon trading scheme" not unlike Enrons energy trading scheme.

My Grampa always said that you don't go to battle with the same Generals that lost the old ones. I don't see any difference between the economists that are trying to provide an opinion on how to fix this problem, and the ones that got us into this problem in the first place.

But how can we use public transit when it is so god awful?

The public transit system only benefits Vancouver & Burnaby, the rest of the service is dismal.

A carbon tax is just another excuse to drive up taxes so politicians can spend on goody two-shoes type of projects that will not achieve anything but garner a few votes.

All the carbon tax will benefit is the new bureaucrats hired to collect it!

birth rates

In what appears, at least, to be speaking against inducements towards limiting population growth, Murdock opines:

Well, regarding China, there's no end of info re their programme on the Net:

"Michael Kozak, a State Department assistant secretary, said the Chinese government instituted the one-child policy in the 1970s to slow population growth."
http://www.lifenews.com/nat1066.html

And so too regarding India:
"Realizing these consequences, India has been implementing official family planning programs to curb population growth since the 1950’s."
http://www.colby.edu/personal/t/thtieten/Famplan.htm

China, with its strong authoritative traditions, has been having trouble with some local authorities forcing abortions on women, and India has had to cope with illiteracy and tradition with its rural populations.

Both countries have extremely strong traditions of male dominance, and so the onus for control control has been placed upon women who lack the ability to do so. There is also a tradition of parents needing to raise enough children to care for them in their old age.

In the first instance, positive change is rapidly happening with the emancipation of women, which is following the cure for the cure for the second, a rapidly rising standard of living.

It is well-known that a high living standard brings with it a reduced birth rate. This is the Case in the Western World, in which the birth rate hovers around the replacement rate.

The only people here who bemoan this "Decline of the family" are fundie Christians and market-oriented neocons who see growth as the only societal good.

Comments and questions

First, I would like to thank the Mr. Green (who is trying to live up to his name, I suppose) and the other economists, who are trying to change things and to make it fair. It is hard to know if there are more details that the article lets on, so I have a few questions before I go criticizing this proposal. If I understand the premise behind this tax, it is to force people to use reasonable systems of transportation and/or to live closer to where they work and seek entertainment! So, yes, the single man or woman who uses his or her SUV to drive to and fro his or her work from Langley to dowtown Vancouver might think twice about keeping his SUV! Fine! I agree! But, wouldn't iut make more sense to give people who use reasonable (in relation to their real needs) an incentive to continue or to switch, instead of hitting them with a tax, even though it will be offset with another cut in another tax? In other words, will those cuts/taxes be progressive (in relation to one's situation). Why is the parents of a family of 4 or 6 who earn $50,000, who rent a house in Langley (because it is cheap), and who work in dowtown Vancouver do? Find a job that is closer? Trade the van for a motorcycle? Use transit? First, "what transit" as Me2 has aptly remarked? And, second, why should a single person living in Vancouver be receiving income tax or other tax cuts when s/he is getting all the benefit of a pretty cheap transit system, if s/he needs to use one at all! Of course, these people probably pay more taxes or rent, but they also get lots of fantastic amenities, like better theaters/films, concert venues, schools, hospitals even. And what about if these people have their houese all paid of or were privileged to get inheritance money to enable them to live in the West End? What to do about that unfair situation?

I would suggest that we should give incentives rather than having this expensive bureaucratic method of taking-and-giving-back. According to your income tax (job, number of children, work address and living address, ...) one would get an incentive or none (or a penalty).

And, on a related story, what about implementing this public bike system or this electric stackable car system http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/19651/?a=f ? Of course, transit over the bridges is still one of the smartest moves, IMO, given smart logistics, f course!

Baby boomers and tax

Umslopogaas writes

What we need is a baby tax!

But, for every 2 parents, we need at least 2 children to make it, unless you want to work or pay more taxes! True! We could bring immigrants! In any event, do not worry! Most women and men are so preoccupied by keeping with the Jones that they have forgotten all about the baby thing --EDITED FOR SEXIST COMMENT (TYEE MODERATOR) but the divorce after the second child does tend to leave you with a bitter-sweet taste in your mouth (in your mouth oddly!), if you know what I mean! But, I digress!

Embrace Tax Shifting

Some have suggested that this tax is unfair because it penalizes those who don't have access to public transportation, and are forced to use their cars.

But the economists have made it clear that this tax shifting will be incremental, therefore giving everyone time to adjust. But we need to begin, because right now those living in rural and suburban areas generally are responsible for more CO2 emissions than those in urban areas.

There are many things we can do to change this, and they won't put an undue hardship on those living outside the city cores:

Drivers can use more fuel efficient cars.

Bicycle use can be increased.

Children can walk or cycle to school or to their recreational activities.

Some employers can make arrangements for employees to work from home.

City planners can increase density in the suburbs, therefore making public transportation more viable.

We can do away with "bedroom communities". The suburbs need places to work, shop and recreate.

Houses can be renovated to be more energy efficient.

The question for Mr. Green

The question for Mr. Green and all is; Where does the revenue from that carbon tax go? Back into general revenue?

Which tax to cut

Carbon tax makes good sense -- we should pay the COSTS we impose on others (including environmental cost).

Not so sure total taxes should be cut, however, given serious shortfalls in a wide range of activities (including: welfare, homeless, families and children, transit, etc.)

But if taxes are cut, cuts to sales tax might be more helpful to lower income folks than the income tax cuts mentioned by the economists. (After all, there are a lot of people at the bottom of the income disitribution who pay little or no income tax-- but they can't escape PST.)

Once the carbon tax proceeds exceeded total PST revenues, and incremental needed expenditures on other items, cuts to income tax could be considered.

reality_check needs a Reality check

Your math is way off. If every 2 parents continue to have 2 children, population will continue to growth exponentially.

Simply because the children will themselves have children long before their parents croak, and so on, and so on, and so on.

If it continues, there will be unimaginable overpopulation.

And Murdock, we won't have to worry about euthanasia, sterlization, eugenics or any other scientific solution.

Cannibalism will take care of the problem, because there won't be anything else left to eat.

Baby Tax

Yes Murdoch, I do have children, two children. I know several families that consist of parents with ten children and many, many, more with three and four and five children.

My point is we can indeed cut down somewhat on carbon dioxide generation but to what avail if we just continue to increase our population. Any gains we make will vanish as the population continues to grow unchecked.

There are no politicians, scientists or especially religious leaders who want to really talk this subject in our country. Our leaders even turn a blind eye to travesties like Bountiful, the human equivalent of a puppy mill.

There is the analogy of a bacteria colony that starts with one bacteria and it divides every hour. Eventually the bacteria population fills an entire beaker of nutrient solution. A second beaker of nutrients is provided and it is filled in just one hour.

If we had an other entire planet we are at the point where we would use it up in one hour inequivalent.

We have removed so many of the checks and balances that controlled our population for generations. Our numbers have boomed because we discovered how to extract and use oil and that is what is feeding the teeming billions at this moment. When the oil runs out the poor will starve first and then many of the rest of us, including our children.

I challenge any politician, David Suzuki, or any of the 70 economists to prove that the only solution to our pollution problems is not population control.

By the way we don't get a second beaker of swill to breed in.

Be very careful

We are doing well.
It's smart to be skeptical though.
We can argue about it, but we have just been given a tax break.
The business community is crying for a 1% reduction in the PST.
We will probably get it.
But beware. All of this progress could be wiped out, and then some, by our misguided affair with Ms. Green.
The warmists could wipe out any progress we all have made to put more money in our own pocket.
We have to defend ourselves from this python, sneaking around, hell bent on destroying the economy in the West.
Stand up for yourself.
We don't need to cave in to another dragon, when we just got rid of the last one.

Beaconhill ... point(s) well taken ...

If this is an incremental process, I think it could be viable as you aptly pointed out that this could give people time to change their behaviour. The question is what is the time frame?

Population Bomb

When asked what number he thought was a sustainable population with a reasonable expectation of a standard of living, Paul Erlich responded with 250 million. We're now over 6 billion. He might have said 500 million, I can't remember, but the point is our society is not sustainable. Certainly not with rampant consummerism and the obscene excess of wealth for the top 2-5%. I remember first hearing the test tube analogy from Suzuki, and the question was at what point is the food all gone? At expontential growth the food consummed doubles each minute. So if the test tube (or beaker) has one hour of food at what minute is the food half gone? The answer is the 59th minute. If we're having trouble feeding 6 billion now how would we feed 12 billion? Remember at 59 minutes there would still appear to be an abundance of food in the test tube, it's still half full. But in one more minute it's all gone. Perhaps we're at 58 minutes and because the grocery stores are still in full operation, no one see's the urgency to address the coming crises. A crises that will soon make us forget about CO2 and climate change issues. And that's just us in the first world of economic wealth. We know poverty and malnutrition exists on a massive scale and also lives here within our own borders. Making the hoarding of wealth and conspicuous consumption even more obscene. Legalized by the fraudulent economics that Ed has repeatedly pointed out on these forums. How anyone can argue against these issues and then look at themselves in the mirror and honestly say the system works is beyond stupidity. It's separate reality at the extreme. To sit back and watch the loss of bio diversity, the desertification of agricultural land, crises in the oceans fisheries, pollution and toxicity, multinational takeovers and privitization to maximize profits, etc. etc. is to sit back and cheer on the collapse of society and bring on more pain and suffering than we can possibly imagine.

Lets see now which fool would like to step up and prove their total ignorance on what is so obvious to anyone who can add 2 + 2. The Limits to Growth, was a book written in mid last century and the Club of Rome warned of the perils of exponential growth and use of natural resources. Even if the timeline is off by 100 years, in a short span of time the book would read like a plan to commit total destruction and implemented with surgical precision. Why worry about the future when the test tube may still contain half it's food? Tick, tick, tick...

Point of clarification for jw stewart

ON the subject of fertility rates.

In industrialized countries, with lower mortality than in most developing countries replacement fertility level is a TFR of about 2.1. Developing countries with higher mortality levels, particularly among children, can move replacement-level fertility upward considerably even as high as a TFR of 3.5 or 4.0.

TFR is a summary measure of fertility. It represents the average number of children a hypothetical group of women would have over their childbearing years (ages 15 to 49) if they survived to age 50 and experienced current fertility rates for their age group. No reference is made to the actual number of children any woman or actual group of women has. Age-specific fertility rates are the number of live births per year per 1,000 women of a specified age.

More, much more, available here:
http://www.infoforhealth.org/pr/m17/m17tables.shtml

in the name of...?

Umslopogaas writes:

Good then you can understand the outrage that could come from your earlier general missive:

along with:

combining to make a new LAW that simply states, in some form or another, that there will be a 'cull' of the population and that your children have been selected (by 'random' allotment).

or perhaps a LAW stating that all children, after the first born, will be sterilized. Making it impossible for them to reproduce.

If you understand the 'right to life' debate then this sort of talk is going to make that uproar seem like a kindergarden argument!

and if you do not feel any outrage at even the idea of your progeny being selected for this sort of 'medical' treatment then I feel sorry for your children.

more to come

Life and death

starve? no.

get really hungry, hungry enough to begin to prey on others whom 'have what they want/need?' YES.

This is a primary part of the overall push to generate electricity without the use of oil/gas plants, specifically Nuclear energy. Whether we can get enough generation online before a significant crash is another question entirely.

I agree that in many ways we are 'eating oil', due to the increasing use of oil for fertilizers, however I think that there is enough oil here in our oil sands to continue this practice for a very long time. The problem is that the 'price' will tend to go up, pushing out more whom cannot afford it and driving the arable land into ruin along the way...sadly it will be the North American farm lands that may very well end up like the former 'fertile crescent'.

continued

fertility...and all of us

Umslopogaas writes:

I disagree about the need for direct 'population control', not only will that require a very nasty sort of mentality but it will be very inefficient.

Better would be to 'develop' the "developing world" faster, enable them to enjoy life and have a prosperous future (inlcuding old age) which is why so many in the "developing world" desire to have more children - so that there are survivors to care for them in that old age.

Of course this accelerated development is not in the neo-malthusian concept.

More than enough evidence exists that when a nation develops the birth rate drops, quite often below replacement, such as it is NOW in Canada at 1.53 (well below even replacement at 2.1).

This action would do more to quell the population growth, along with greater emancipation of women, which is an equal factor in the reduction of the birthrate.

So, Umslopogaas, I disagree that any 'cull' needs to happen in any urgent way, and I think that any of the other 70 economists and DAVID SUZUKI would also disagree with your Mathusian view.

Whereas Malthus:

He argued: “Instead of recommending cleanliness to the poor, we should encourage contrary habits. In our towns we should make the streets narrower, crowd more people into the houses, and court the return of the plague ... But above all we should reprobate ... those benevolent men, who have thought they were doing a service to mankind by projecting schemes for the total extirpation of particular disorders.”

Suzuki says none of these things and I am fairly certain that he would agree that rapid development within the developing world would bring about a reduction in the birth rate moving human population on the planet to stability, then to reduction.

Personally I think we will reach close to 8 billion before the stability level then a long slow decline to a 'sustainable level' likely far in our great-great-great-grandchildrens' future.

That is provided leaders like the current decider in chimp do not end us all...

Umslopagas

The greatest stimulus to reducing the number of children born in any society is to increase education and economic opportunity. Canada's example is particularly instructive here, where, in 1953, Quebec's total fertility rate was 4.05 children per family, dropping to a low of 1.45 in 2000, coinciding with the emancipation of women.

This is occurring everywhere in the world, interestingly in India, where the Deccan Chronicle reports that some Indian states are considering changing tax law to benefit middle-class families who are not having children. They too are also below replacement at 1.91 TFR. India is particularly interesting, having the largest middle-class population in the world at 450 million, to match the largest population of poor, also at 450 million. One trembles to think of the eugenically-minded thoughts that might be running through some heads there.....

Only the poor continue to increase in population. This is why the population of Palestine's Occupied Territories continue to skyrocket, and why Israel is so confounded by the multiplicity of mistakes they have made in that region.

limiting population?

I agree that we must find a way to limit population, but increasing the consumption of less-developed countries is not the way to do it. That's exactly counterproductive, akin to the Reagan/Bush idea of spending ourselves out of debt.

Perhaps social pressure is more appropriate for those too ignorant or too selfish to limit their progeny. We are already sure to have severe disruptions as the climate changes stress water and food supplies.

State-sponsored birth control can be provided, education, and perhaps some sort of tax based on wealth for every child over zero population increase for that family.

These are tough questions and situations, but now require tough and well-conceived (no pun) responses.

oops

I made a slight error in my previous post, regarding the Reagan/Bush plan to "spend us out of debt".

It should have stated " bungled, squandered and swindled" our way out of debt.

Revenue neutral?

For the govenment, is what they recommend.

Cutting income tax and installing a tax on energy use isn't revenue neutral for too many people as has been pointed out by others here.

But at least it's not "cap and trade".
http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/11/lieberman-warner-climate-bill-reactions.html

The fact that the reason for taxing the energy is based on a totally false premise and is a deliberate scam seems to escape people. The man-made global warming people have warped not only the science, but the scientific community.
http://outside.away.com/outside/culture/200710/richard-lindzen-1.html

The slow phasing in of the recommended tax does work to our advantage, in that people are waking up to the scam. Perhaps that will give us time to prevent the tax from growing. BTW, do you trust this government on anything? .
http://nzclimatescience.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=128&Itemid=1

More good stuff to be had at:
http://www.icecap.us/

gkam

I'm not asking the world to increase consumption. I'm asking the world to redistribute its wealth from the rich to the poor so that the poor can have one nutritious meal a day and maybe another one as well. When people are starving, their bodies do funny things, like consume muscle mass, produce toxins, and make themselves more fertile. This has been demonstrated over and over again, yet there are people who have still not heard or learned that this is so. Ehrlich's The Population Bomb has been proved bogus for years and years, but it seems people still believe it's true.

Why do you think 1st world countries have more fertility clinics than geriatric care centres? We're so well-fed and somnolent as a society that our bodies think we're all right as we are, thanks, and our natural fertility levels (not hormones, but the complex physiology involved in fertility) goes down.

Wanna get pregnant? Starving yourself produces the most amazing results, if you can keep it up for long enough. I mean several weeks or even months, not a day or two.

Focus on economic opportunity by redistributing wealth - here and in the Third World. There's no need to focus on fertility. Let it go, man....

emancipation...agitation...real freedom

ME2 has a problem with my argument:

Better would be to 'develop' the "developing world" faster,

This was written from the perspective of limiting population growth and in opposition to an extremely dangerous idea, put forward at the top of this thread, that a population limitation needs to come in an economic form, or that Canada even needs such a thing with our birth rate well below replacement.

The statement also applies to the 'supposed' goal of limiting CO2 emmissions.

How?

By moving the 'developing' nations to cleaner sources of energy and not forcing them to go through the same path as northern europe did, 1600-1850, to get to the level of development that we have. To force this action would see wholescale deforestation, massive burning of fossil fuels and other wasteful means to get themselves 'up' to the same (or nearly) the same as 1st world nations. The tightly held patents on many inventions which could bring this about is part of the 'development' that I was talking about. The use of non-plutonium reactors for power generation (with whatever oversight is felt needed to limit the potential for theft of the reactives) CANDU is just such a system, and it was supposed to be being built in India, Cambodia, the Phillipines and Pakistan (somehow it doubt that has gone on).

While my original intent was to express my total outrage at Umslopogaas foolish baby tax suggestions and to attack the mindset that accompanies such thinking, it has become clear that I have sparked other thoughts.

For that I accept the contempt aimed at me, thankfully. Agigation was something suggested be done by Fredrick Douglas, and if I have agitated you enough to argue then I have also made you think. You are welcome.

As far as the libertarian in me is concerned, there is also an acceptance that the other side of an agreement also is 'at liberty' or free to enter into those agreements. This means that the whole statement that libertarianism is all about the money or that only "Rape and Run" methodologies are used is the same as saying that Roman Catholics are responsible for everything that the Inquisition did, you know ALL of them are responsible. Such grandiose statments are folly and as such I shall only point out the folly and say that I do not endorse such wild-west "Free Enterprise" approaches, especially where local interest is harmed and due to that harm is taking action to stop it.

I mentioned 'show me the money' since I found it while working on the other items, and considered it another potential point to be more aware of...you know informed. Thank you for the background information ME2

Opinions OK

I have problem when someone states that Paul Erlich's population bomb was proven wrong years ago. When someone wants to make a point in debate they would generally have to argue the merits first, not disregard the entire book or works of an individual with an off hand statement. That makes the debater look foolish. Paul Erlich may indeed be an eccentric dreamer of doom and gloom predictions that don't come true, but you don't just throw away the whole message because some of his wild predictions missed the mark! The idea of limits to growth is not disproved in any way shape or form and simple mathematics proves this point. You see the naysayers and critics of these early warnings use arguments like these predictions of growth are based on constant rate of growth.... so what? Simple math proves that population control is inevitable even at 1.3% growth. It has a shelf life of less that a few hundrd years before it's physically impossible for that many humans to share the earth. We will reach zero population growth in the future, we will then go through a period of negative growth. If you can't understand this simple math then you have no business in this debate. You've completely missed the boat on what is happening. The timelines we are talking about here start to come into effect within our childrens life time. We have evidence of what is coming should we choose to ignore the warnings of the so called doomsayers. Energy wars have already started. Oil = Food. The reason we have grown from one billion people in 1830 to over 6.5 billion today is obvious. We raped the resources of the planet at an unsustainable rate to induce artificial wealth, and this feeling of superiority over every other society that has collapsed before us. When the world finally figures out the we must stop growing food from oil then we'll have taken the first step towards opening the book on sustainability. It's so simple even children understand sharing...

Crazy on Steroids

A quote from Arundhati Roy on development.... what is at heart, coercive, "unnatural" development in the form of dams constructed in India to provide so-called "more efficient" year round irrigation of regions known as command areas, that would otherwise be dependent on the seasonal monsoon rains.

As Arundahti Roy writes in "The Greater Common Good":

Quote:

"How will the command area, accustomed only to seasonal irrigation, its entire ecology designed for that single pulse of monsoon rain, react to being irrigated the whole year round? Perennial canal irrigation does to soil roughly what anabolic steroids do to the human body. Steroids can turn an ordinary athlete into an Olympic medal-winner, perennial irrigation can convert soil which produced only a single crop a year into soil that yields several crops a year. Lands on which farmers traditionally grew crops that don't need a great deal of water (maize, millet, barley, and a whole range of pulses) suddenly yield water-guzzling cash crops - cotton, rice, soya bean, and the biggest guzzler of all (like those finned 'fifties cars), sugar-cane. This completely alters traditional crop-patterns in the command area. People stop growing things that they can afford to eat, and start growing things that they can only afford to sell. By linking themselves to the 'market' they lose control over their lives."

As she goes on to suggest, rather than constructing large dams to control water, what is needed are "watershed management measures such as rainwater harvesting, tree planting, and soil conservation."

Carbon Taxes are a Good Idea

I totally support this advocacy of Carbon Taxes.

It doesn't have to be all we do to fight climate change. We can combine carbon taxes with "Cap and Trade" Schemes for large point-source emitters (the two ideas actually work well together) add and smart (but mandatory) regulations on top of that.

Carbon taxes are not an alternative to more energy efficient technologies, they are a policy that will encourage the emergence and adoption of the best new technologies.

And yes, tax incentives to restrain both population growth and consumption growth are also good ideas.

Even with modest living standards and absolute social equality, with enough people on earth, we can eventually make this planet uninhabitable.

At the same time, even with half the present 6.5 billion humans, if we are wasteful enough in our personal consumption, the outcome will be exactly the same.

Policies that focus exclusively on encouraging population restraint, or exclusively on reducing per capita resource use, are not likely to succeed.

Michael Barkusky

Rural transportation also subsidized

When folks from rural areas complain in discussions like this about the unfairness of not having access to subsidized transportation, i.e. public transit, I must raise a sceptical eyebrow. What are the highways of BC if not subsidized transportation on a scale that dwarfs that of transit spending?

Note that I am not just some "city slicker" blowing smoke about things of which I have no idea. I spent the first 19 years (plus a few additional summers) of my life in Merritt, a comparatively small, rural BC community whose 8000+ inhabitants benefitted disproportionately from the public largesse when the Coquihalla phases 1, 2 and 3 were constructed.

And yes, that takes the toll into account. Sure, $10 may seem a lot, but not very many Merrittonians pass the toll booth more than once a week, let alone more than once a day. Compare this to the transit commuter who gets dinged at least twice a day, five days a week.

A fairly implemented carbon tax with the promised revenue neutrality makes sense for all British Columbians and will hopefully set a good example for other provinces as well.

But Michael

You write...."And yes, tax incentives to restrain both population growth and consumption growth are also good ideas."

Since Canada is not even at replacement in terms of 'population growth', how would you suggest packaging 'tax incentives' in that area?

On the consumption side of the equation, I have no problem with your proposition because we in the West are nothing if not "Over-Consumers"; however, I don't see how western nations whose population is not achieving replacement now can hope to square the moral circle of 'taxing' Third World countries where population growth is still happening.

Please clarify.