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in my initial review, i only made a passing mention on population growth. in the final chapter, there’s a list of the 12 environmental issues facing humans. 11 and 12 are both related to population growth and third world to first world life style growth respectively. while all of the environmental problems are interrelated and all must be solved, you can’t discount that having a larger population doesn’t exacerbate all other problems. more people competing for limited resources greatly increases volatility. unfortunately, i can’t find the direct quote in the book. i should probably start reading with a highlighter.

more alarming to me, was this quote that i was able to locate.

my best friends in the third world, with families of 4 to 8 children, lament that they have heard of the benign forms of contraception widespread in the first world, and they want those measures desperately for themselves, but they can’t afford or obtain them, due in part to the refusal of the u.s. government to fund family planning in its foreign aid programs.

how depressingly stupid. even though i’m inclined to believe jared diamonds research, i had to find something further. i found one document from something called the guttmacher institute. here’s another article from the new york times (jggilbert:password if you don’t have a login).

the general principle seems to be abstinence is the only method of family planning as far as bush is concerned. brilliant. it, of course, worked so well in his home state where lubbock, texas has the highest rate of teen pregnancy. there’s a movie eventually coming out on dvd about lubbock. i believe the thing i saw about lubbock was on pbs. here’s a quote from the girl from the movie:

“Why so much sex in Lubbock?” said Shelby Knox, 16, who initiated the student effort to change the Lubbock curriculum. “There’s nothing to do. You can only go to the movies so many times on Friday night.”

so, from this rational, obviously it will work fine in the middle of nowhere third world country where there is even less to do. right? we’re creating a situation where we’re sending food and aid to poor countries that have the highest population growth rates in the world. i’m sure i don’t even slightly grasp the mechanics of how a third world country operates (corrupt government, a lot of poor starving people?) to be authoritative, but this seems obviously illogical. there’s another passage in the book (should have marked it) that talks about knowing when to give up particular societies values (especially religious). the president might want to look into a little self evaluation.

on the subject of lubbock, there was another bit in the article that stood out.

“…and local lore holds that the city has more churches per capita than any other in the nation.”

it doesn’t say it’s fact, but by being “local lore” it’s implied that the citizens want or believe it to be true. so from that, it would lead one to believe that they think themselves to be the most religious. what’s that commandment, “thou shalt not kill”? luckily, our own f.b.i. keeps crime statistics for the country. conveniently, lubbock is on the same page as both los angeles and sin city itself, las vegas. clearly, either of those 2 should have much higher crime stats than the epicenter of holiness. these are all in rates per 100,000 inhabitants. we’ll go for violent crime for starters. violent crime is defined as: “offenses of murder, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault”. lubbock, 1,051.6, l.a. 902.4, vegas 678.9. so, percentage wise, you’re telling me it’s more dangerous to live in lubbock? it can’t be? well, i’m sure since abstinence is working so well, “forcible rape” (isn’t rape by definition forced? whatever.) must be almost non-existant (yes, that’s sarcasm you detect or if not, your should be). lubbock 60, l.a. 29.3, vegas, surely vegas, nope, 40.1, all per 100,100 people. is the “bad parts of town” just segregated out of the l.a. and vegas statistics? the vegas stats are per inhabitant. that probably doesn’t even account for the number of tourists through there each year. you might even expect fewer reported rapes in lubbock due to the girl not wanting to be branded as a “slut” for having sex.

anyway, i’ve probably said too much already. here’s a couple of interesting links.

• worthwhile to review the u.s. entry from our own c.i.a. factbook. particular sections of interest might be “environment - current issues” and “economy - overview” (”two-tier labor market”).
• “frontline: the choice 2004” - excellent documentary that was being played repeatedly on pbshd leading up to the last election. you can watch it online, but it’s probably better on dvd. unfortunately, netflix doesn’t appear to have it. they do have some other frontline episodes though.
• this is a transcript from the second debate leading up to the 2004 election. i found it through question 17. i understand why kerry lost, but he would have had to try really hard to be a worse president.
• world’s smallest political quiz

this may have gotten a little of track. to get it back on topic, read the last section of the book.

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