Hi Jamie
For Longtermism see UNESCO’s declaration of the Responsibilities of Current Generations towards future Generations.
Also the Welsh Assembly in the UK has a working Future Generations Commissioner www.futuregenerations.wales
Best Regards
Trev Prew
There has been plenty of discussion above relating to family planning, birth rates and global population, but no mention of death rates. Longer life spans means a higher population. So does this mean euthanasia and right to die policies should be considered as a means to reduce population levels too?
I agree that a lower global population would solve many environmental problems but is fraught with issues.
In low income countries with minimal welfare provisions, children are seen as an alternative to a pension. Sons and daughters will look after you when you are old, so having many will be added security. Therefore female education and contraception provision should go hand in hand with increase in wealth and welfare.
Lowering population will lower GDP which is a principal measure of Governments success or failure. Countries with falling populations currently solve this by immigration which defeats the goal of a lower population. If governments concentrated on alternative measures of success, such as happiness measures per person this may help.
Other people telling couples how many children to have is an infringement of basic freedoms and morally wrong. So a programme of contraception education within local communities based on freedom of choice is essential.
Who decides what is the “correct” global population level? I see the “correct” level of population as a balance between life style ie consumption level and number of people. If everyone in the world adopted a western high consumption level then a low population would be obvious, but if everyone lived sustainable simple life styles a higher level of global population would be unproblematic. Proposing lower population levels could be viewed as culturally biased, ie rich westerners wishing to protect their high consumption life styles at the expense of other equally valid cultures. Dangerous ground to be avoided.
China adopted a one child per family policy which has been abandoned, so this is not the way to go. It lead to a sex bias of more sons than daughters and much resentment and suffering at the state intervention required to enforce it.
So to summarise, make contraception and the knowledge to use it correctly freely available, but do no more. Let people decide what is best for their lives, after all they are the true experts in this field.
Action on climate change is in its infancy and forecasts cannot be relied as they cannot include unforeseen events. Given human nature ie people do what is the least inconvenient to them (ie act in their own self interest) rather than what is morally right, I’m expecting a backlash to CO2 reducing policies which I doubt the IPCC forecasts include. Will the majority of people pay for new green infrastructure and a more expensive hydrogen economy? People are already up in arms about the current energy cost rises. Will Governments stand up to the majority who want cheap energy and convenience, as they have had for the past few decades?
The only hope to counter this self interested behaviour that I can see, is to portray the fossil fuel industries as being as bad as the slave trade of the 19th 18th centuries. Both are/ were cheap sources of energy but both have or will cause great harm to humanity. (Predictions of 4 Billion people living in a tropical hot house by 2050 was reported in New Scientist a few weeks ago).
See “What else is there to say about climate change?” on trevorprew.blogspot.com
As for AI, can’t you just pull the plug out if it starts running amuck!
Hello
Who I am isn’t very important, but like you, I endeavor to make the world a better place. To this end I write to who ever I think could make a difference and write essays on my blog. It all started when I stared into the darkness whilst standing in a railway truck that transported Jews to Auschwitz. After this harrowing experience, I thought “is this the way it is going to be? War and holocausts forever, as long as there are humans alive? Current events suggest yes, but I believe humanity can learn and avoid such a future. See my essay “A history of the world in a single object”.
Donating to charities is fine and will do a lot of good in the world, but I also feel it is like passing the buck, avoiding our direct responsibility to our fellow humans and other inhabitants of planet earth whether living or to live. I think that it is vitally important that we understand human nature, so that we can learn to change for a much more positive future. (I did get one of my essays published as the lead letter in the Economist Magazine March 5th − 11th 2022, if this is all sounding a bit wacky).
So I would be grateful if you could use some of your valuable time to read some of my work on my blog and consider my ideas.
Trevor Prew
Sheffield UK
trevorprew.blogspot.com