From: roberts@CMR.NCSL.NIST.GOV (John Roberts)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Population here and elsewhere?
Date: 8 Oct 92 00:49:44 GMT
Organization: National Institute of Standards and Technology
	formerly National Bureau of Standards


-From: gdavis@griffin.uvm.edu (Gary Davis)
-Subject: Population here and elsewhere?
-Date: 5 Oct 92 14:37:39 GMT
-Organization: University of Vermont -- Division of EMBA Computer Facility

-     With the relatively low priority 

After all, this is the *space* list.

-and lack of basic understanding
-of our environment shown by most on this board;it is indeed merciful
-that none are actively in this area.
-What does bringing back dinosaurs have to do with such a critical
-human dilemma as 

Dinosaurs are an environmental issue, and after all the valuation of 
the environment is the value humans place on it. If we're allowed to
value owls and scrub jays and hypothetical Mars microbes, why can't we 
value dinosaurs as well?

-uncontrolled population growth. 

By "uncontrolled", do you mean legal control? Should population growth be
strictly limited by law even where it's pretty low (like the US and most of
Europe)? And if you feel the US should be controlling population growth
in India and Africa, what methods do you suggest? Offloading population
into space is extremely unlikely to be practical for the next several
decades at a minimum, and bringing in supplies from space (other than perhaps
rare elements, as discussed previously) would be very difficult to manage
at a level to significantly meet the day-to-day needs of the the entire
world population. Improving technology and education might help, and while
I don't have the same absolute confidence in the "increased prosperity always
leads to decreased population growth" concept that some other folks have,
at least it seems worth trying. Helping people to become happy and prosperous
is a worthwhile goal in itself, and if that doesn't solve the population
problem, you can always try something else. :-)

In the meantime, as others have pointed out, the population problem isn't 
quite as dire at the moment as some would have us believe. It *is* probably
a good idea to keep track of it.

-Persons who ecourage such
-must either be quite ignorant of the future consequences or so insensitive
-to the situation that reason eludes them.

I don't think bringing back a few dinosaurs would be all that disastrous.
I wasn't really thinking of covering the planet with them - maybe a few
hundred in zoos. And they might turn out to be good to eat - ever read the
science fiction story about "dinachicken"?

-Rush Limbaugh was quoted recently as stating that population growth
-was a "phoney" issue since if we move the entire world pouplation
-as it exists presently, to the state of Texas the human density would
-equal that of New York City. 

Yes, political extremists tend to leave important factors out of their
arguments - it's easier to "prove" one's point that way. Such as the
fact that humans have much greater demands on the environment than standing
room. Many argue this way to some extent, but the extremists (extreme in
any direction) are generally the ones who claim that theirs is the only
point of view worth listening to.

John Roberts                | "I *am* 'equal time'."
roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov   | - RL (television commercial, 9/92)