{"id":460,"date":"2009-09-17T06:13:39","date_gmt":"2009-09-17T14:13:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/canyoncountryzephyr.com\/blog\/?p=460"},"modified":"2009-09-17T06:13:39","modified_gmt":"2009-09-17T14:13:39","slug":"skid-marks-notwithstanding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.canyoncountryzephyr.com\/blog\/2009\/09\/17\/skid-marks-notwithstanding\/","title":{"rendered":"skid marks notwithstanding"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every now and then the New York Times<\/em> does something interesting. Depending on what you think is interesting. On a typical day (which aren’t that typical), the Big Apple paper runs a technophilic blog called Dot Earth<\/em>, who’s motto is “Nine billion people. One planet.”<\/a> In line with most neo-green ideologues, it pretty much rehashes the general consensus where all things anthropocentric are concerned. <\/p>\n

But a recent installment of Dot Earth <\/em>caught your intrepid blogger’s eye. It had this headline: “Are Condoms the Ultimate Green Technology?” <\/p>\n

Without belaboring the finer points of the piece’s brief foray into the adverse effects of unwanted births on carbon emissions, here’s a fun tidbit – “U.N. data suggest that meeting unmet need for family planning would reduce unintended births by 72 per cent, reducing projected world population in 2050 by half a billion to 8.64 billion.”<\/a> <\/p>\n

If you thought 7 billion Homo erectus asphaltus<\/em> was a few too many, maybe this line of reasoning falls a hair short. But it illustrates the extent of the problem: every human being added to the planet has an impact on the environment (carbon being only one of those impacts). The end result is, to misquote Bob Marley, “Very bad, mon.” <\/p>\n

At least the Times<\/em> is willing to raise the proverbial question. Which is more than most mainstream environmental groups are doing. But as long as the Green argument remains focused on addressing one issue at a time via technological fixes, the game gets closer to zero sum. Even if that fix involves carbon skid marks.<\/p>\n

As a final note: one commenter on Dot Earth suggested that, at least in Iran, the widespread introduction of television was instrumental in reducing the birth rate. As loath as I am to suggest the Boob Tube as an answer to our dilemma, there’s always Netflix!<\/p>\n

Pass the remote control….<\/p>\n

posted by Mudd <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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