If you love children and want a family, kudos to you–it’s not an easy decision. But please live and let live, and stop bullying the rest of us. It really doesn’t help your case any.

We have a rough transition ahead, dealing with climate change and peak oil. It will be possible to maintain a good standard of living, but society will change. 20 years from now, we’ll only be able to produce 1/2 the conventional oil (there are other hydrocarbons at increased cost) currently in supply. Demand will go up. It will be a big deal. That doesn’t mean we are all going to die, it means there will be a major adjustment in how we live our lives around the world. Our parents won’t believe that, because they’ve heard it all before, but all big oil companies excepting Exxon acknowledge this fact. That is only one issue, perhaps the most important, since on average any food item you purchase has already traveled something like 1500-2000 miles. Big change is coming.

The world will change harshly and rapidly over the next 20-30 years. This does not mean we will all be impoverished living in slums and there will be catastrophe. It just means it will change. The outcome is uncertain. I bet on a difficult but doable future, and I’d much rather adopt and help someone who doesn’t have a chance than populate my own progeny.

By the way, I agree with you completely about adoption. There are so many children in this world who need love, why shouldn’t we take care of them first. Are we that vain that our kids need to look like us? Not having looked into it, I wonder also if adoption is, or just seems, cost-prohibitive.

Talking with women who are in the midst of making this important decision, I created a six-week series on the subject. It’s over the phone for women to support one another so we each can decide and move on confidently, as you have. If you know women on the fence about being a mother, I hope you’ll recommend my series starting on Sept 22.

Info: http://www.groundedinpotential.com/mommydrama.

LaureeOs last blog post..Looking for a Change? Look Around

lisaqs last blog post..Not Eligible for Dating…Ever!

We’ve already exceed global carrying capacity. We are now in “overshoot”. Global population is nearing 7 billion. As you observe, global carrying capacity is about 2 billion. (This assumes some level of social justice and a moderate, low by US standards, standard of living.) We will get to that 2 billion number the hard way (wars, famine, disease, and their accompanying losses of environmental quality, freedom, and social justice) OR the less hard way (immediately and drastically reducing our population voluntarily).

Yes,all of us, yes everywhere. Yes a drop in population will cause problems, but none of those problems are as big as the problems, suffering, and environmental collapse that is certain to occur if we don’t.

No technological / “alternative energy” options have the capacity or can be ramped up fast enough to avoid major global calamity. That isn’t to say we shouldn’t do them. Aggressively shifting to alternative energy is necessary, just not sufficient.

It’s also too late for any “us” vs “them” arguments or any belief that national boundaries will do much to help anyone in the long run. This is a global issue with local and nation-state consequences. For example, immigration is a consequence of overpopulation, not a cause of it. Likewise global climate change is not impressed by national boundaries.

One of the key factors in this scenario is also our sense of time. This is a slow motion crash that requires immediate action, a bit like trying to steer a supertanker on a crash course by putting in consistent input over a multi year time frame, and the one effective input is to stop making babies. The supertanker analogy is also apt because it was oil that allowed us to get this far out on a limb, and peak oil has already happened.

Given the ‘memeplexes’ of nation-state political-economic-religious institutions, no reduction in population is likely to occur from the top (at least not until it is far too late and the suffering, conflicts, starvation, disease, and social collapse can no longer be ignored. If any kind of global population reduction is to occur is will need to occur “memetically” ‘from the bottom up’. (Too bad Brad and Angelina didn’t just adopt and decided to breed, too.)

For a more comprehensive analysis of this I highly recommend Approaching the Limits http://www.paulchefurka.ca

“For us, sex is still a means to an end-however, that end is connecting with each other, reinforcing our emotional, physical, and intellectual bond through the creation of moments that are shared with no other.”

I would like to mention, though, that my boyfriend and I have no shortage of time to spend on nurturing that sort of connection. I do have three grown children and three small grandchildren. I am very involved in their lives, although they do not live nearby. This does not seem to interfere with our ability to maintain our personal closeness, the BF and me. But, as I said ~ those children are up and out on their own, raising their own. The BF has never had children and doesn’t want any. Which makes him purrrrrrrrrrrrrrfect for me!

Cathouse Teris last blog post..Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?

Of course I know the plan I propose will never come to pass. All I can do is make the choice for my own life that I find socially responsible, make my arguments public, and hope other people do the same.