Editor,
The world's population was 1 billion in 1850, 2 billion in 1930, 3 billion in 1960, 4 billion in 1974, 5 billion in 1986 and 6 billion in 1999.
More than 6 billion of us are alive today, six times as many people now as were living less than 200 years ago. So, why make more babies?
If you already have biological children, love them, treasure them, care for them and teach them by your own example to enjoy living simply, consuming no more than their fair share in our world family of more than 6 billion brothers and sisters, plus the many billions to follow us, if human beings survive.
Billions more people consuming more resources, billions more people poisoning the Earth with more waste and pollution - where does it end? In massive disasters, suffering, wars, famine, starvation?
The worst population problem is not in China, in India or Africa - it is in the U.S. because most people here consume and pollute far more per person than most people in China, India or Africa. The U.S. has 5 percent of the world's people but consumes 25 percent of the world's resources.
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No American child has the right to live in luxury with a room full of toys and a closet packed with clothes while a child in Africa dies of hunger.
You have no right to spoil your child rotten while a child in China suffers in the cold with no home.
I have no right to more than I need while others in this world have less than they need. Your child is no more precious than a child in India, Haiti, Iraq or anywhere else on the Earth.
As Gandhi said, there is enough for everyone's need but not for everyone's greed.
If you have no biological children, and if you are committed to fairness for all people now and in the future, how can you justify having more than one biological child? Far better yet, have none.
If you love children and want to help them, help the millions of children worldwide who desperately need love, care, food and shelter. Adopt a child to become foster parents.
Give money to children's organizations that stretch every dollar to do the most good with no fancy offices and no highly paidˇjobs.
For many reasons, I am glad I have no biological children. Why make more babies?
Don Schrader
Daily Lobo reader
