Monday, October 26, 2009

Kasun

Kasun’s “The Unjust War against Population” is an interesting piece that examines the reality of much of the negative effects we associate with large-scale population increases. I thought that the most credible element of the piece was the variety of statistical data Kasun uses to add credibility to her arguments and it made it difficult to find fault with. However I did have critiques of some of her ideas.

The first was the confidence that she put into widespread individual responsibility when it comes to overall species survival. She stated that “The historical record clearly shows that human beings can act and cooperate on their own in the best interests of survival…”(p.403) The problem is that people are bound by their personal needs and thus bound in their abilities to act in this society. If there is only one food source, despite the fact that its use may be detrimental to the overall population, individuals will exploit it to survive. Even if they desire to act in the best interests of the overall wellbeing of the population, those interests may not coincide with their own survival and thus fall by the wayside. This idea brings to mind the example of the Russian peasants and their desire to eat the edible seeds we read about in an earlier piece discussing responsibility to future generations. While the best interests of all would’ve been to keep the seeds until spring, their personal interests were those of immediate survival. I’m not advocating the elimination of a few for the good of the population, but pointing out those individuals can only be responsible for rational group logic to a degree.

Jacqueline refers to the almost inexhaustible sources of energy of planet provides us with. Therefore she concludes that there is no threat from resource depletion. The problem we are facing now is the clean energy crisis, where the forms of energy that are readily available may inadvertently be harming the environment. Kasun merely flows over this fact, despite that it could be a contradictory effect of large-scale energy usage to sustain a large population. The larger the population, the more energy consumed, and unless new clean technologies are implemented the more environmental impact. I thought that this was a critical point that should’ve been addressed in the whole debate of population impact.

The last point that I thought Kasun drew unfounded conclusions was on pg 410, she stated a number of the positive advantages to having a large population. I thought that a few drew credit, but some I thought were without statistical support. Kasun states that population growth “encourages governments … to devote more resources to education. If wisely directed these efforts can result in higher levels of competence in the labor force.” Just because a society is devoting more to education, such as America has done, this does not equate directly to higher competence levels. Additionally, she states that “one advantage of large cities…is that they are mentally stimulating”. Again, without statistical data backing this up I’m not sure how much credit they lend to the argument.

Overall I agree that there is a great deal of unfounded negative occurrences linked with large populations such as larger politically volatile age groups, something that Kasun mentions. I do not think that a large-scale population is necessarily negative, but just as with anything else it must be managed properly for the best interests of the group. Pollution, resource management, and human rights must all be monitored with any size population.

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