We Need Larger Families

[Horizon 97]

My point was that you do not have to put any pressure on a society to reduce the number of children - all you have to do is provide more opportunity in education and employment to men and women. Once people no longer see their children as a resource to support them they stop having as many children. Add in space pressure and even the Catholic Italians in the vicinity of the Vatican find themselves having fewer chilren per family.

 

On the space side - I realize that the US is not all as cluttered as Southern California - I used to live in the Mid West. Some international travel let me see other nations (1st, 2nd and 3rd world) where population growth had reduced standard of living. For those telling me how much space they have around them - do you really want your town to look like Los Angeles?

 

Farms are being turned into subdivisions across the nation, reducing the arable land. Luckily, the use of pesticides and fertilizer helps us grow MORE crops per acre than ever before. Of course, we are still learning the effect of all of those pesticides and fertilizers. This is not to mention the issue of clean water. Irvine, CA is now filtering sewage water and pumping it back into the ground.

 

I was really only responding to the call for larger families. I think that each family must choose their own size, based on their own resources. I see no need to adjust anything other than the Ponzi scheme of Social Security and Medicare. Those we will need to learn to pay for without assuming a constantly exponentially growing population of taxpayers in the US.