Today in the Register Guard there was an article on Page 1 highlighting some population and income data from the early 2019 mini census. But it is not until the page 8 continuation that a reduced birth rate was bemoaned as a threat to our economy.
On page 4 was an AP article on the greatest threat to our economy (and also life on earth): climate change progressing faster than previously anticipated.
I am sending this to the Guard's mailbag today. I have scant hope it will be published, but if so, I expect it will be followed by published opinion pieces wherein the fact of human impact on the earth is in no way linked to our ever increasing numbers and/or an argument for how capitalism (meaning economic growth) is the only solution to climate change.
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| Polar bear arrested in Paris in 2015. Sad. |
"Again I read in a Gatehouse sourced article that a declining birth
rate is a problem. If the earth needs more people to thrive, I have yet
to read a single science based assertion of that fact. The earth is
suffering from our fecundity, and our economies (as currently structured and narrowly defined as
people buying stuff) benefit from population growth. I am reminded of
the most cogent protest sign at the 2015 Global Climate March: "You
can't have a [expletive deleted here] economy without a planet."
I so wish I had kept a copy of the sign. Here is one I did keep.
