We need to continue to decrease the growth rate of the global population
By Steven Duke
Editor, One Planet, BBC World Service
There are already too many people living on Planet Earth, according to one of most influential science advisors in the US government.
Nina Fedoroff told the BBC One Planet programme that humans had exceeded the Earth's "limits of sustainability".
Dr Fedoroff has been the science and technology advisor to the US secretary of state since 2007, initially working with Condoleezza Rice.
Under the new Obama administration, she now advises Hillary Clinton.
"We need to continue to decrease the growth rate of the global population; the planet can't support many more people," Dr Fedoroff said, stressing the need for humans to become much better at managing "wild lands", and in particular water supplies.
Pressed on whether she thought the world population was simply too high, Dr Fedoroff replied: "There are probably already too many people on the planet."
GM Foods 'needed'
A National Medal of Science laureate (America's highest science award), the professor of molecular biology believes part of that better land management must include the use of genetically modified foods.
"We have six-and-a-half-billion people on the planet, going rapidly towards seven.
"We're going to need a lot of inventiveness about how we use water and grow crops," she told the BBC.
"We accept exactly the same technology (as GM food) in medicine, and yet in producing food we want to go back to the 19th Century."
Dr Fedoroff, who wrote a book about GM Foods in 2004, believes critics of genetically modified maize, corn and rice are living in bygone times.
"We wouldn't think of going to our doctor and saying 'Treat me the way doctors treated people in the 19th Century', and yet that's what we're demanding in food production."
In a wide ranging interview, Dr Fedoroff was asked if the US accepted its responsibility to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be driving human-induced climate change. "Yes, and going forward, we just have to be more realistic about our contribution and decrease it - and I think you'll see that happening."
And asked if America would sign up to legally binding targets on carbon emissions - something the world's biggest economy has been reluctant to do in the past - the professor was equally clear. "I think we'll have to do that eventually - and the sooner the better."
The full interview with Dr Nina Federoff can be heard on this week's edition of the new One Planet programme on the BBC World Service
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7974995.stm
Published: 2009/03/31 18:17:22 GMT
© BBC MMIX
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Quoting Mommy_of_Riley:
Since when did everyone become China. I don't want to be told that I can only have one child (or two) and then be told what they are going to be when they reach 18... And that seems like the direction the world is headed. I have a son, our daughter is due in May, and we want atleast 2 or 3 more later on... and no one can tell me not to have them.
And aren't you lucky to live in the good Ol' USA?
Amen! I consider it very lucky to live here! :)
Quoting ellyc19111:
Quoting Mommy_of_Riley:
Since when did everyone become China. I don't want to be told that I can only have one child (or two) and then be told what they are going to be when they reach 18... And that seems like the direction the world is headed. I have a son, our daughter is due in May, and we want atleast 2 or 3 more later on... and no one can tell me not to have them.
And aren't you lucky to live in the good Ol' USA?
Wife of a Marine - Mommy to a Little Prince
& Expecting a Princess in May!
I pay enough to live here, so if I wast to have 20 or 40 kids than I will. Its not my fault the world and economy is what it is, but if they think I will stop having children because they tell me to they can kiss my @$$. They also need to take into account how many people from those other countries live here thus racking up the U.S. population.
Get in your car and drive across the country. It will change your mind. Heck get on hwy 45 between TX and NM. Then call me and tell me about over population. I know, come with me for a nice 4 hour drive to Superior, WI- the over population will kill you. LOL No No drive through NB, MO, SD. ND, MT OR, etc. Yep just get on the highway and drive. Then,if you can get cell reception, call and tell me all about over population. I recommendAAA on your trip, you know you would hate to break down. Damn overpopulation and you can't even get a tow truck outside a couple hundred miles in either direction. Gosh- this nation is just crawling with people. Wait- go to your local grocery store after hours, ask to see what they are sending back to the distributor. Unsold product. I am sure they will gladly show you the semi truck loads of food. Or maybe they will show you the dumpster full. Damn overpopulation- I mean my God there is hardly enough food.
Quoting Eilish:
Doesn't anyone else see how this violates liberty? And how exactly are they going to decrease the "growth rate?" To what extreme are they willing to go?
I dunno!! Maybe castrate every newborn baby boy at birth for an entire generation? Then they can Fuck their asses off and nothing will come of it.
I don't think the USA population will decrease at all. Medical technology is enabling people to survive longer and longer. And it's human nature to want children. So those two factors will definitely increase our population.
As for the amount of space on this Earth, I'm surprised we still have space for landfills. Garbage hasn't spilled out into our streets yet so that means the garbage is still going to the landfills.
If I'm not mistaken, if you obey the one child policy in China, you get government money to support your family. If you want more than one, you're on your own.
Do you find this to be a waste of money?
- Eilish
on Apr. 1, 2009 at 8:46 PM