"No better way of participating in population control than by leading by example"
Sorry but that is just silly and trite, so I will ignore it. Other than to say it is silly and trite.
There is nothing funny about this. And the rosy picture you try to paint is misguided at best. While our criminal disposal policies have improved, the problem has not stopped. Both at the macro and micro levels.
The word population is EIGHT billion people… the earth’s resources are strained providing for that many people. In 2050 it will be around 10.5 billion. How will they get fed..? watch Soylent Green.
Water supplies also are threatened, quality and quantity.
There are something like 150 million metric tonnes of plastics in the oceans; and we add 8 million metric tonnes more every year. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is 1.6 million square km… bigger than Texas. The plastic breaks down and enters the food chain… every year each of us consumes the equivalent of a credit card’s worth of micro plastic. And there is no end in sight.
We make CO targets but no one adheres to the plan and you even get some politicians refusing to believe that global warming is happening. It is inconvenient. The Arctic ice is going fast, the polar bears will soon be extinct, the Antarctic ice shelf is starting to decay. Water levels will rise, entire countries will be underwater as well as all low lying land everywhere in the world. There will eventually be mass migrations and walls and wars. Weather patterns will be extreme and chaotic.
But at least we can sail the Northwest Passage.
Now we are looking to populate Mars or maybe Titan… we have totally destroyed this planet in basically in a couple hundred years; and we are likely past the tipping point. So where else can we destroy..?
Just nothing funny about this. There is also no answer to it and no solution because until it reaches crisis stage, when it will be too late, it is politically and economically inconvenient. Everything is dollar driven.
So best to have a beer and go sailing. We will be fine, our kids ok; it will start to get quite messy after that.