Here’s the news: Media mogul Ted Turner thinks the world should have a one child policy. Here’s the non-news: Ted Turner is a hypocrite.
The Globe & Mail has the story:
Climate change and population control can make for a politically explosive mix, as media mogul Ted Turner demonstrated Sunday when he urged world leaders to institute a global one-child policy to save the Earth’s environment.
Mr. Turner spoke at a luncheon where economist Brian O’Neill from the U.S.’s National Center for Atmospheric Research unveiled his study on the impact of demographic trends on future greenhouse gas emission, a little-discussed subject given its political sensitivity.
… Mr. Turner – a long-time advocate of population control – said the environmental stress on the Earth requires radical solutions, suggesting countries should follow China’s lead in instituting a one-child policy to reduce global population over time. He added that fertility rights could be sold so that poor people could profit from their decision not to reproduce.
“If we’re going to be here [as a species] 5,000 years from now, we’re not going to do it with seven billion people,” Mr. Turner said.
Naturally, this speech was given to the delegates at the IPCC’s Cancun debauch-a-thon.
In the case of Ted’s parents, don’t you really think one child was too many.
Source: Globe & Mail
This post was last modified on January 26, 2021
View Comments (41)
How about we meet in the middle and welfare only pays for one child. Any more and you get to budget your same amount of money and make it go farther, or do something to increase your income. Let them understand that income does not magically increase because expenses do. (Unless you are the government).
Sadly I wonder how many million kids have been conceived just for a bigger welfare check?
If I ever get within 100 feet of this Ted Turner asshole I'm gonna knock that pencil mustache off his face even if I have to go to jail for 10 years. They can send me to the yard, I dont care. That guy's a piece of sh!t !
I noticed my old comment recieved 2 thumbs down, and most of you probably agree with those bad marks. So for all of you against birth control and limiting the population, would you ever feel uncomfortable with the size of the population? Twice what it is now? Three or four or five times this size? How about 50 billion people? At 100 billion would you still be thinking every birth is a blessing from God? Are you the same people pissed about all the illegals flooding into this country or Europe being invaded by muslums and probably turning into a muslum state 20 years from now, what do you think drives all that? Over population. I am not a liberal either, but on this subject I don't understand the stance of other conservatives.
There are a number of fallacies in that.
First, what you are talking about is population movements. While the areas you are talking about are overcrowded, it is not due to a high birth rate, but due to people moving there. When I go to Southern Cal, for example, I do not see tons of the people I used to see twenty years ago. Instead, I see a massive influx of citizens of a different country., causing all sorts of growth problems. California per se, did not have a population explosion through births, but instead through wholesale immigration stemming from both illegal and economic causes.
Second, it is not how many people are reproducing in an out-of-control manner, but *who* is doing that. 3rd world countries are the culprits. With a high infant mortality in many countries, it is a survival strategy, and when their country develops, they will have a population explosion, much like we did with our baby boomers. (We can blame that on the so-called 'miracle drugs' of the forties and fifties. People in the US don't die of stuff like consumption in the rates they used to.) In the industrial nations, there is a net population decrease -- but the citizens are being gradually crowded out by uncontrolled illegal immigration that our government intentionally ignores.
Third, the concept of family size is a personal matter. While I think that a family of 12 is excessive, if the family is self-sufficient, then the number is their business. When their sole method of support is as wards of the state, then they need to get the ol' tubes tied.
Fourth, some change in our environment is not bad, and population growth can be a very good thing. When it is change for change's sake, or in support of something stupid, then I agree. I'm a far cry from believing that 'every sperm is sacred', but I'm also not going to tell people how they ought to live their lives.
Ted Turner, on the other hand, wants to tell other people how to live their lives. He is willing to control the population by restricting the rights of others, without placing himself under that same restriction, making him a hypocrite of the first order.
When you want to control human population, bear in mind that the people you happen to be talking to are not part of the problem, and as such, are unlikely to be thrilled with an exhortation for cultural suicide.
I'm not speaking on Turners behalf, I know he's a hypocrit, I'm speaking for myself. You say the population explosion is not caused by births but by immigration, well the immigration is caused by overcrowding wherever they are coming from. You don't seem to understand what I'm saying,this planet has a finite size and regardless of who is doing the breeding the planet will become a nighmare of human mass eventually, simple mathmatics. A friend of mine described it perfectly, humans are a virulent species and will continue to breed like bacteria until the environment can't support them anymore and there will be a massive die off. I suspect the reason for our difference of oppinion is that you probably believe it is Gods plan and he will make everything good in the end. While I'm not convinced there is a God, so if we stay on a selfishly unconcerned path we will end up in a miserable world.
...and furthermore, that "God's plan" bit is a straw man argument on your part. It is uncalled for in a rational discussion.
Sorry to disagree.
First off, before you draw a conclusion that homo sapiens sapiens will overrun the carrying capacity of the planet, you have to have an understanding of the carrying capacity. Otherwise, it's just useless conjecture. I don't base theories on conjecture, and so I don't buy into AGW, either.
Even though the overcrowding in some place like Mumbai is profound, the entire world is not like Mumbai. Where I live, there is less than 2 people per square mile. If you took the maximum population of an area, and figured out what it took to support that population, you may have some hope of coming up with that estimate, which would be much larger than you are estimating. After all, we haven't even begun to exploit the feeding capacity of the ocean, which covers most of the earth's surface. (yes, I know, certain species of fish are overfished. That is not saying that the oceans are overused, but instead that they are being mis-used, and there's a big difference.)
Even that number would be low -- as population increases, other food sources become viable economically. Your descendants may like eating things that disgust you. Mexican food disgusts my grandfather, but I enjoy it particularly.
You also assume that humans breed like rats, which is demonstrably wrong. In the industrial nations, population replacement via childbirth is insufficient to maintain the population level. Immigration is needed to maintain the population. There are a lot of causes -- mainly people are capable of deciding they simply cannot 'afford' extra children, and use birth control. China has a different problem, and they are on the verge of a massive population implosion. You can't have a one-child per family law, with a bias towards boys and have a mere 50% reduction in population over time as a result. The reduction is much higher.
Would the world at maximum population be a worse place? I cannot say. It would be different, and that is truly the heart of your argument. Things change. They're different. Get used to it. There are no more unspoiled islands in the South Pacific anymore -- but that doesn't mean that the world came to a screeching halt. Just that something was lost as our society progressed..
These changes often have nothing to do with population growth per se. Our great-grandparents would not recognize the world of their youth, either. Is it a worse world? Yes and no. There are very good things that progress has brought to us, including placing a much higher value on human life. If you have twelve children in order to have two live to support you in your old age, you just can't get all that attached. If you have two, then you have a lot more time to obsess as a parent over them.
Many of the things you call 'overcrowding', I would instead call the result of an increasingly mobile and prosperous society. The islands in the South Pacific are full of tourists not because of population growth, but because of a prosperous society with cash in hand and a desire for vacations in interesting places that our ancestors could only have dreamed of.
Personally, I'm a conservative in many ways. Not adhering strictly to all the tenets of conservatism, of course, since I have my own mind. I have always used birth control, and have zero offspring. I think it's the most responsible thing to do in this day and age. But I do agree with perlcat, (as usual), that it is the rest of the world that is irresponsibly breeding out of control. And it will be the ruination of the human race if allowed to continue.
Fortunately for the entire lot of us, the Fonda-Turner-Overdrive did not bear offspring. Hell, she was well into her 50s when they married and 64 when they divorced. Imagine if she had spawned his devil-child! We'd know who the 666 belonged to, for sure.
Yep, they'd have hooves.
In defense of Teddy, if YOU were putting the wood into Jane Fonda back then, you would want 50 kids!!!
Nope. Sorry, couldn't get past the traitor bit.
No, I would have used birth control, so as to spend more time in the sack, and less time raising the kids. But then again, guys like him don't actually raise their own kids, do they?
Four of his kids had better watch out!
This photo of ol' Teddy, with the snarling grimace, like a few other guys that pop into the mind - Al Gore, George Soros, Faisal Rauf or however you want to spell that name... They all look more natural to me with crosshairs super-imposed. Always adjusted for windage and elevation, looking for that apricot spot, the medulla oblongata.
Let me guess. The only thing you would feel would be recoil. I'd suggest a heavier rifle to cut that down. Guy I know has a .50 rifle for varmints (damn prairie dogs have been killing his chickens, and now it's personal*) that would do nicely.
* "You say the prairie dogs have been killing your chickens?"
"Yep."
"You don't have any chickens."
"Yep. Bastards killed them all."
.50 BMG prairie dog atomizer. Cool!
Yes, it not only atomizes them, but it digs a real cool trench. All's you need to get one is to see his ears popping out of the mound. Myself, I lean towards a .17 -- quieter, so I can shoot more.
But the nice thing about overkill is that it's, well, overkill.
This is nothing new! People are just to retarded to listen and believe it. They feed on the poor by making them believe they are there for them! It's all part of there master plan. The Liberals want to control the people! In order to control someone they have to go from independent to dependent! Once that happens all those free programs you got will be collected on! Your freedom will be a thing of the past!
"Mr. Turner – a long-time advocate of population control – said the environmental stress on the Earth requires radical solutions"
And there you have it. The real reason for the global warming scare, organic food movement and all other sorts of anti-industrialization. Go back to spending hours of your day scratching the dirt for roots to eat everybody. Its good for the environment. Just don't ask how everyone is supposed to get enough to live.
Hey Ted, as the largest landowner in the US couldn't you give the poor some of it to farm for themselves? Oh wait, "fairness" is for us and not you. Got it.
I hope someone bludgeons you to death with an aborted fetus.
My question is, which four of his children is he willing to sacrifice for the "sake" of the planet? And even China doesn't really have a "One-Child" policy. They are allowing people who meet ever less-strict conditions have two.