bguy_1986 Posted June 22, 2011 Share Posted June 22, 2011 ?Fertility Management?: Al Gore Calls on Women to Have Fewer Children?to Curb Pollution On Monday, former Vice President Al Gore discussed climate change and pollution control at the Games for Change convention in New York City. Aside from his usual litanies of environmental advice nuggets, the 2000 presidential candidate delved into?family planning. Curiously, Gore said that couples need to learn to ?feel comfortable having small families? so that pollution can be curbed. When asked about what could be done to address population growth, he said: ?One of the things we could do about it is to change the technologies, to put out less of this pollution, to stabilize the population, and one of the principle ways of doing that is to empower and educate girls and women. You have to have ubiquitous availability of fertility management so women can choose how many children have, the spacing of the children. You have to lift child survival rates so that parents feel comfortable having small families and most important ? you have to educate girls and empower women. And that?s the most powerful leveraging factor, and when that happens, then the population begins to stabilize and societies begin to make better choices and more balanced choices.? Gore and his wife have four children and, as Tom Nelson and Chris Horner point out, he?s drinking not-so-environmentally-friendly bottled water on the stage. While the latter is certainly petty, it is a reminder of Gore?s massive electric bills that were discovered years ago in the midst of his green rhetoric. Watch his comments and look for the water, below (courtesy of Brian Merchant of Treehugger.com): http://youtu.be/NpCt8sEq0kI Source - You don't like it, find your own. It's out there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vice Posted June 22, 2011 Share Posted June 22, 2011 On the specifics he isn't wrong. I mean having less children would result in less pollution. But telling people how many children they should have or trying to enforce that in any way, even incentives utilising tax breaks for those without children would probably result in a heavy public backlash. People are inherently very selfish and if a couple wants more than one child they will do it without ever considering the impact those extra children would have on the planet and that is just a fact no one including Al Gore can overcome. He shouldn't of wasted that speaking opportunity talking about something that would never happen in our lifetimes and instead of focused on ways to make cleaner energy and more efficient machines that waste less energy. Of course having said that I do also believe making condoms available and birth control to anyone that wants them at a cheap or subsidised cost will benefit everyone, not necessarily from a pollution standpoint but from an economic one. What he is trying to do is admirable but he needs to keep his ideas grounded in possibility. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bguy_1986 Posted June 22, 2011 Author Share Posted June 22, 2011 On the specifics he isn't wrong. I mean having less children would result in less pollution. But telling people how many children they should have or trying to enforce that in any way, even incentives utilising tax breaks for those without children would probably result in a heavy public backlash. People are inherently very selfish and if a couple wants more than one child they will do it without ever considering the impact those extra children would have on the planet and that is just a fact no one including Al Gore can overcome. He shouldn't of wasted that speaking opportunity talking about something that would never happen in our lifetimes and instead of focused on ways to make cleaner energy and more efficient machines that waste less energy. Of course having said that I do also believe making condoms available and birth control to anyone that wants them at a cheap or subsidised cost will benefit everyone, not necessarily from a pollution standpoint but from an economic one. What he is trying to do is admirable but he needs to keep his ideas grounded in possibility. condoms and birth control are already pretty easy to get aren't they? Condoms are cheap, dunno about birth control pills. I agree that it would help a economy but I would hate to see the day families can't have kids because "we are polluting" to much. He didn't really say it but is he hoping for forced abortions too? What I don't understand is why we can't start putting those in prison 6 feet under instead of innocent babies that might one day have a solution to our problems. I would love to have some cleaner air, but I still don't believe Earth is in danger of global warming or man made climate change. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edrick Smith Posted June 22, 2011 Share Posted June 22, 2011 Don't worry folks what you don't realize is that the US Government has long been implementing tactics to cause all of us to become sterile. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matt4pack Posted June 22, 2011 Share Posted June 22, 2011 Who better to tell everyone this then the guy with 4 kids, heated swimming pool, while drinking bottled water, and flying around the world on private jets. Bush only has 2 kids so I guess he's much more of an environmentalist then this hack. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy Posted June 22, 2011 Share Posted June 22, 2011 The problem isn't in America :/ family size are already too small, the problem is in China/India/Africa Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anibal P Posted June 22, 2011 Share Posted June 22, 2011 Party affiliations aside, why does anyone listen to this moron anymore? Can anyone tell me ONE good thing he has ever done? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Flash Posted June 22, 2011 Share Posted June 22, 2011 I think the current world population is sustainable, the real problem is how the population is distributed and where it's increasing the fastest. Most of these people live in impoverished countries that lack the ability to utilize clean energy (nuclear, solar, wind etc.). As a country develops, the birth rate decreases because you no longer need the support of 5+ kids as a pension plan. Look at Indonesia, it used to have a high birth rate, but it is now rapidly falling to sustainable levels as the country progresses. Let things play themselves out like they have in western countries instead of preaching population control to other nations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hum Posted June 22, 2011 Share Posted June 22, 2011 Agreed. :yes: Less people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolfbane Posted June 23, 2011 Share Posted June 23, 2011 I agree that less population growth is good, but Al Gore is, and will always be, an idiot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mudslag Posted June 23, 2011 Share Posted June 23, 2011 condoms and birth control are already pretty easy to get aren't they? Condoms are cheap, dunno about birth control pills. I agree that it would help a economy but I would hate to see the day families can't have kids because "we are polluting" to much. He didn't really say it but is he hoping for forced abortions too? What I don't understand is why we can't start putting those in prison 6 feet under instead of innocent babies that might one day have a solution to our problems. I would love to have some cleaner air, but I still don't believe Earth is in danger of global warming or man made climate change. Depends really on where you live. In the U.S. sure you can find plenty of places for cheap and even free condoms and pills, though pills are not as frequent as condoms are. Pills can get costly as well. But Gore really isnt limiting this view to just the U.S. and out side this country and others like it, condoms and other forms of BC are not readily available. And no I dont think he is for forced abortions. Providing cheap and readily available forms of BC is an important need though. The church has fought against this for way to long and only recently started to open up to this. Are you really advocating for killing off prisoners? You realize most people in jail are not killer right? Its not a solution that would have any kind of positive affect on population anyway. If you REALLY want to go with a more plausible solution, education is your best bet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Syanide Posted June 23, 2011 Share Posted June 23, 2011 Errm, how about finding more efficient ways to dealing with pollution, like, finding better and renewable energy sources and improving standards. There's plenty of room for everyone on this planet to waste time (and money) on convincing people otherwise. Not my personal opinion, because I believe at least 50% of people are not fit to be parents, but ecologically speaking -- there are better ways to deal with this than to say 'we need less people.' Then again, Al Gore is an idiot and no one should pay any attention to anything he says. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bguy_1986 Posted June 23, 2011 Author Share Posted June 23, 2011 Depends really on where you live. In the U.S. sure you can find plenty of places for cheap and even free condoms and pills, though pills are not as frequent as condoms are. Pills can get costly as well. But Gore really isnt limiting this view to just the U.S. and out side this country and others like it, condoms and other forms of BC are not readily available. And no I dont think he is for forced abortions. Providing cheap and readily available forms of BC is an important need though. The church has fought against this for way to long and only recently started to open up to this. good point. I kind of just assumed he was talking about what we could do better.. Are you really advocating for killing off prisoners? You realize most people in jail are not killer right? Its not a solution that would have any kind of positive affect on population anyway. If you REALLY want to go with a more plausible solution, education is your best bet. I kind of am. I think we should give out the death penalty more than we are currently - (After they are found guilty). No reason keeping a bunch of free-loaders that don't contribute to society in jails. Could save cash and energy on the years that they have to live out their life sentence... A lot better than killing an unborn child that has done no wrong, (except maybe having a slut/stupid mother).. (I do realize that they aren't all sluts and or stupid... but that's another thread) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jakem1 Posted June 23, 2011 Share Posted June 23, 2011 I think the current world population is sustainable, the real problem is how the population is distributed and where it's increasing the fastest. Most of these people live in impoverished countries that lack the ability to utilize clean energy (nuclear, solar, wind etc.). As a country develops, the birth rate decreases because you no longer need the support of 5+ kids as a pension plan. Look at Indonesia, it used to have a high birth rate, but it is now rapidly falling to sustainable levels as the country progresses. Let things play themselves out like they have in western countries instead of preaching population control to other nations. You also have to take consumption into account and by every measure people in developed countries have a greater impact on the environment than people in under-developed countries. Once you include consumption you quickly see that western populations are the ones that need to be reduced more urgently. There's far more to consider than just pollution levels as well. As we produce more people we need to clear more land for farming and industry and we demand more space for our houses and cities. This leads to a loss of natural habitats resulting in a lack of biodiversity and the extinction of more and more species. The seas are also being decimated as we dredge up increasing numbers of fish to feed our growing populations. When animal populations increase to the point where they are destroying their habitat or interfering with other animals (i.e. humans) we call it a plague and cull them. Humans are no different and something needs to be done to restore some balance to the world. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seizure1990 Posted June 24, 2011 Share Posted June 24, 2011 Oh, Al Gore is back after staying under the radar for a while? Doesn't he have stake in an oil company, among other decidedly un-environmental things? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
remixedcat Posted June 24, 2011 Share Posted June 24, 2011 He lives in a frickin 9000 sq ft mansion and he had 4 kids and all that.... how can he tell us how to live? Just like those creepy ugly as hell pagent moms.... totally not cool. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seizure1990 Posted June 24, 2011 Share Posted June 24, 2011 He lives in a frickin 9000 sq ft mansion and he had 4 kids and all that.... how can he tell us how to live? I wonder what his electric and gas bills are like. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
s1k3sT Posted June 24, 2011 Share Posted June 24, 2011 I've been saying for a while now that I think the whole "overpopulation" chicken-little crap is just a convenient scapegoat. "people aren't starving because we are unwilling to share, it's because there are too many people"... "the earth's not polluted to **** because we dump toxic waste in the ocean, it's because there are too many people"... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts