Author: Jimmy Akin
Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."
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I guess I’m a REALLY bad parent, with 5. However, like the Examiner commentator, I subscribe to the Julian Simon model, not the Malthusian one.
Add me to the “bad parent” club – #4 is due in December.
I must be twice as bad because I have eight.
+JMJ+ Add in my parents. I’m one of nine.
Though I don’t have kids (cannae do it cap’n), I also endorse the position taken in the article.
I do wish the comments (to the original article, not here) included rather less disgusting anti-Muslim, anti-Hispanic sentiment, but I should have known that you never read the comments.
I hope not. My 4th was born this morning. I’m pretty sure the expected value of my brood is high, but maybe it’s different for Brits? (I jest).
Eric, congratulations on your new little “tax deduction!!” That is a beautiful thing (the baby, not the deduction…although that is, too. lol)
We have five and wish we could have more.
While I’m certainly no fan of population control, abortion, or artificial birth control, the planet does have a finite amount of certain resources, when looked at on the grand scale. And the life cycle that permits agriculture is dependent on a very long period of infused energy (from the sun) which has led to the death and decomposition of billions of animal and plant lives that fertilize the soil we grow our crops in. And we’re using that up far faster than it is replenished. I wonder if at some point it would be responsible to use NFP to reduce the aggregate consumption of humanITY in the interests of sustainability.
Abortion, euthenasia, and artificial birth control, whether voluntary or, god forbid, enforced, of course would never be a permissible option under any circumstances.
The Population Research Institute (www.pop.org) produced a series of short, fun and informational videos on this topic – Overpopulation: The Making of a Myth. The first can be found here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZVOU5bfHrM and the sequel is here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBS6f-JVvTY.
The earth’s resources are finite.
But it’s not total population that is the issue, it’s total consumption. Average Population x Average Consumption.
A child born in the US is likely to consume the same amount of resources as tens of children born in say Bangladesh.
7bn people cannot sustainably consume the earth’s resources at the same level as middle-class North Americans. But the earth could probably sustain a higher population IF the average resource consumption was lower.
If those of us who are relatively rich wasted less, eg using energy more efficiently – we could still live comfortably. We need to get out of the idea that ‘I can afford to buy it, therefore I can do what I like including wasting it’.
The rich exhort the poor to reduce their birthrates while the rich increase their own consumption. Some of those who say there is no global population problem want to restrict immigration to their part of the planet because their part is ‘too crowded’.
As Ghandhi once said “there is enough in this world for every man’s need, not for every man’s greed”.
Healthy large families require more generosity within that family. A larger human family requires more generosity.
When I was younger I remember my society being bombarded by the writings of several “experts” who assured us that society would absolutely collapse in chaos and starvation by the 1980’s.
They wrote “expert” books, they “proved” their predictions with unarguable “facts”.
Well – guess what? They were 100% wrong! Not just a bit wrong, totally wrong.
Does that stop them? Do they admit their stupidity?
Not at all. They just start all over again, this time with firstly global warming, then when it seems that temperatures are not really going up, they change the name to climate change.
Their policy and real motives? Simple – they hate, absolutely hate families. They hate marriage, they hate children and above all they hate God. They are partb of the culture of death.
They want to contracept, abort and euthanase us out of existence.
“And we’re using that up far faster than it is replenished. ”
A quote to remember regarding our resources. It might even be true regarding, say, oil. But it has never been true regarding agriculture. We humans have always found ways to get more out of less. We’re currently during that on the DNA level.
To add to the numbers, I’m one of 11 and have 6 of my own.
While we certainly have always been able to do more with agriculture, the world is a closed energy system EXCEPT for sunlight. But that sunlight is harvested into agriculture (to feed plantations, not for photosynthesis) by organic material which must die and decompose to make soil to feed plants. Nitrogen Fertilizer takes even longer. Sure, this cycle plus our technology may sustain 7 billion people. What about 15bn? 40bn? 100bn? At some point it will become unsustainable and I suspect at that point it becomes a very compellling moral reason for married couples to use NFP to keep the earth sustainable. And of course we should colonize other planets. Unless Jesus returns first.
Closed-Energy Earthers,
Well, when we get our moon and marsian colonies set up we’ll have no problem then.
Oh wait, NASA was just shut down… doh.
asfd,
NASA was not shut down. If you think that NASA has abandoned manned space exploration, please be aware that RIGHT NOW, NASA is designing the Space Launch System to replace the Space Shuttle. This flexible platform will put cargo or people in LEO AND will be upgradeable to send PEOPLE to the moon and Mars. Shuttle was not going to get us closer to the moon or Mars. THIS WILL. http://www.nasa.gov/about/whats_next.html
While we certainly have always been able to do more with agriculture, the world is a closed energy system EXCEPT for sunlight.
No, it is not. It is a far-from-equilibrium system in certain areas, such as fluid flow in weather, but it is nowhere near a closed energy system, since the earth leaks energy into space via radiation. Sunlight is nothing compared to high energy cosmic rays that strike the upper atmosphere and is thought to trigger lightening (lightening would not occur in a closed energy system and the earth would die out from ozone depletion). There are also frictional tidal forces due to earth-moon interactions as well as smaller effects due to the chaotic coupling to the other planets. Even with the sun, there are solar flares which are unpredictable and certainly not a closed energy system. Even the universe is not, apparently closed, from what we can tell. Now, it is clear that this is a matter of context. Certain process are quasi-conservational, but not all systems ad not even those that affect agriculture.
The Chicken
Chicken,
Technically, you’re correct. But you’re nitpicking; how does any of the energy forces you’re discussing alleviate the limits of the agricultural cycle and its ability to feed a population of 15 or 30 billion people?
I probably should not have raised the “closed system” question at all. My ultimate point is that if population growth remains unchecked, there are resource limits on the earth that we will run into, at which point the principle that “more people in better in and of itself” will no longer be tenable.
At that point, our choices will be exporting people to other places in the universe (hopefully this will be an option by then) or practicing NFP in the interests of resource conservation.
Chicken, I’m sorry that I’m confused by your post.
I don’t recall the definition of a closed system requiring it to be a conservative system (= no loss of energy). Would you mind defining your use of the terms closed system vs. a conservative system so I could follow your terminology more clearly.
A closed system, by definition, is one that is not in contact with the rest of the universe. Imagine the inside of a thermos bottle. It is, approximately, a closed system in that no energy enters or leaves the system. Thus, the total energy of the system is constant and the law of conservation of energy holds.
An open system is one that is in contact with the rest of the universe and energy can escape. Thus, depending upon how one defines the system, energy conservation does not have to hold. Ultimately, one can expand the boundaries of the system until the conservation of energy must hold (assuming the universe, itself is closed, which is a reasonable hypothesis, barring m-brane theory, which would put the universe in contact with another universe), but for reasonable sized quasi-open systems, conservation laws can be leaky.
Put more precisely, a closed system means that there is a closed thermodynamic path from the initial to the final state. From the Wikipedia article on Conservation of energy:
So conservation of energy refers to the conservation of the total energy of an isolated system [closed system: my note, MC] over time (including rest mass energy mc² associated with the rest mass of particles) and all other forms of energy (kinetic, potential, nuclear, chemical, thermal, etc.) in the system together.
A consequence of the law of energy conservation is that perpetual motion machines can only work perpetually if they deliver no energy to their surroundings.
This is the First Law of Thermodynamics as well as a consequence of Noether’s Theorem.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics deals with equilibrium systems, which are systems that tend to maximize entropy, or, in other words, tend towards an equilibrium. In order for there to be an equilibrium, either the system must be closed, or there must be a constant influx and outflow of energy at the same rate.
Far-from-equilibrium systems are systems in contact with an energy reservoir such that energy is continually entering the system, or entering and leaving the system at non-constant rates. Such systems are always open systems and are non-linear, prone to pattern formation, such as in the classic Raleigh-Bernard cells in convective fluid flow.
It is an open question whether or not most systems are equilibrium of non-equilibrium systems. Many processes, if not exactly equilibrium, are sufficiently close so that the First Law of Thermodynamic holds over short time-scales. The systems I mentions, above, add or remove energy to the earth and render it, at least on long time-scales, an open system for most purposes (unless one can take into account much larger parts of the universe).
That having been said, on the subject of population increase, it is obviously clear that if the earth is considered a closed system, then one can reach a point where all of the energy of the system goes into making people. Since space is vast and there are also emergent technologies that may, eventually, allow us to reform matter at the atomic level with ease, however, it may be possible to make food out of the rocks of the earth and then feeding many more people will be possible. Ultimately, moving out into space makes the issue moot.
In any case, I see no need for gloom and doom in the population area for a long time to come.
The Chicken
Hmm.
Has everyone noticed the difference between renewable resources and non-renewable ones?
It’s that we never run out of the latter (like gas) just the former (like whale oil).
Thomas, Agnes, et al. – add my parents to the list: I’m the oldest of 8. (How dare my parents give me so many brothers and sisters? Don’t they realize they were depriving me and my friends of valuable resources, such as more money for me to have a fancier car and more video games? How rude of them!)
Dear Veritas
The author of the statements below believes in human-caused climate change but does not hate families, marriage, children or God. He is not part of the culture of death.
Some extracts from his 2010 World Day of Peace Message
If you want to cultivate peace, protect creation
…
…
Catholic teaching on the environment is ignored by both the left and the right.
Oil and many other natural resources are renewal. For years we’ve been fed nonsense based on evolutionary long age assumptions. We can even manufacture oil and even thigns like diamonds in much shorter periods of time.
As some one said. The main problem is overconsumption when there isn’t a need. We waste sooo much food everyday. Restaurants just toss it out. They have to because the customer expects fresh food as a right. And they are afraid to donate the leftover food to a food kitchen because if for some reason accidentally someone gets sick, they will be held accountable.
Society’s selfishness and absurd laws without discerning justice are what will end us.
Besides which, God Himself is the one who sends us children. Don’t imagine for a second that we areselves are who make them. If population becomes a problem, God Himself will take care of our needs, limit population growth etc.
Besides which, it’s said that the more children women have limits how many children they have in the future. So having children may in fact be a natural birth control measure. As with each child reduces the chances of the next pregnancy. I’m not certain about that it’s just what I’ve heard…
Anyway all the population nonsense is ust a bunch of environmentalist and anti-life shills. There’s money involved in pushing the false global warming agenda, and abortions are a money-making racket.
I also believe in global warming and the probability that we humans contribute to it. I believe we need to reduce our introduction of CO2 into the atmosphere. But I do not believe that we’re all going to die in the near future because we don’t spend trillions of dollars on the problem. Conservation of resources makes great sense with an emphasis on equitable distribution, but establishing a despotic regime to enforce such has never worked. Quite the contrary, it results in more pollution, misuse of resources, and, worst of all, starvation.
I don’t believe any of us has the definite answers to environmental problems. But I do believe if we reason and work together we can find a reasonable answer.
As to the meaningless numbers promoted as a limit by Jeff Stevens, I would not in the least be surprised if the world could support 100 billion souls. I simply do not know. Jeff doesn’t either. I do know that more people have died from population control than ever died from overpopulation.
You shouldn’t believe in global warming, because it is rubbish. It was all in all an elaborate hoax and admitted to it as much. Notice now that politicians and environmentalists don’t say ‘global warming anymore’ but rather use the words ‘climate change’ the words changed because there is no global warming, now it’s just some vague concept being tossed around to threaten people that if they don’t adopt their environmentalist agenda we are heading for some catastrophe because of climate change… OoooooOOOoo!!!! The climates are changing! Sometimes we get hotter, sometimes we get colder, then hotter again and back and forth! Just like they’ve always been doing since creation!
You know that volcano that happened in Iceland? It alone cast more CO2 into the atmosphere than humans and ALL living things on the planet could ever produce in thousands of years! The whole CO2 fear argument is one of the most worst, most stupidest things society has ever deluded itself into believing. We need CO2! Plants need it! And they make Oxygen out of it! And nature pumps 100 times more CO2 into the atmosphere naturally than humanity ever could with all its industralization!
Don’t get me wrong. I do believe we should do what we can to take care of our planet and limit wasting resources as we do do a lot of wrong things. God commands us to be stewards of the Earth! But don’t let the environmentalist and government crazies take hold of us through using the worst non-science imaginable! The whole scientific establishment in this day and age is absolutely nutty! People need to learn to think more critically and challenge the fanciful nonsense that men in white lab coats are tossing out.
@Johnno: Global warming has been measured at a degree in the last 100 years. The name was changed to “climate change” because such slow warming is not very threatening. The suggestion now is that catastrophic weather is on the verge of happening, a la “The Day After Tomorrow” I imagine. This is much more exciting and certainly more immediate. It may even happen. The trouble is we have no way of knowing. I don’t mean knowing for certain. I mean knowing at all. That’s why the new argument is that the uncertainty emphasizes the need for drastic action, even though that uncertainty is on the same level as the arrival of extraterrestrials.
Dear Johnno
Please provide a source for your astonishingly bold assertion that the recent Icelandic volcano alone cast more CO2 into the atmosphere than humans and ALL living things on the planet could ever produce in thousands of years!
The American Geophysical Union says that Human CO2 emissions are over 100 times greater than volcanic emissions as does the UK meteorological Office. More from two popular science sources here and here
If what you claim about volcanoes is true, we would see massive spikes in the recent CO2 record whenever there was a major eruption, but volcanic activity is barely discernible, all we see is a seasonal pattern and a steady annual increase in CO2
Re: the use of the terms ‘global warming’ and ‘climate change’, there has been no backtracking as you claim. Those who are aware of this discussion will have heard of the IPCC – Intergovernmental Panel on CLIMATE CHANGE, which was founded in 1988. Within scientific journals … global warming refers to surface temperature increases, while climate change includes global warming and everything else that increasing greenhouse gas amounts will affect. NASA
97% of scientists who research and publish on this subject in peer-review journals believe that “human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures” 2% don’t know, 1% say no. source
Almost every scientific body, which has expressed an opinion on this, concurs with the view that human activity is changing earth’s climate. (drill down to the sources in my previous two links to check).
Johnno, how do you know that The whole scientific establishment in this day and age is absolutely nutty!. Have you done the research they have? or is it because you read the first part of the Book of Genesis as science and therefore anything which contradicts your interpretation must be false?
You reject the conclusions of these men in white lab coats researching physics, chemistry, geology, biology and their general conclusions about the age of the earth, evolution, oil formation, CO2 and the greenhouse effect. But shouldn’t you also be equally critical of the fruits of their alleged research in this day and age and avoid using their anaesthetics, surgery, antibiotics, modern aircraft, electronics such as cell phones, computers and the internet?