OK, while we are a little afield of Bird's topic, let me give us a little dose of reality, maybe a shock to those who view the world as a huge Disney theme park.
Back in the early days of the Peace Corps when many highly motivated and well intentioned folks joined up to make the world a better place, to light a single candle rather than to forever curse the darkness, to start the journey of a thousand miles by taking that first step. (Choir singing ***-By-Yah in background) lots of attention was focused south of the border into Central America.
Infantile mortality was rampant. Mothers were having 6-12 children to have a few survive to adulthood. An almost daily occurrence in the little villages was at least one funeral procession for an infant. Why?????
People would just squat anywhere and any "public sanitation" was a slit trench or out house, if you were lucky, not too far from the town's water well where cross contamination was virtually guaranteed. So the well intentioned PC volunteers supervised better toilet considerations and separations from well sites and taught water boiling for purification.
Yahoo, it worked, infant mortality plummeted and populations grew at exponential rates outstripping the ability of their farming to feed them. So we introduce chemical fertilizers and put more land under cultivation to try to keep up with the growing population. It is a vicious cycle. They NEVER got ahead no more than a dog chasing its tail can pull ahead and win the race.
Population control? Well I don't think so. After all the volunteers are guests of the government and the residents of the villages and the population is Roman Catholic and mostly avoids birth control.
OK, what is the bottom line? They are worse off than before we intervened (in my opinion.) They have to farm in a non sustainable manner to get the yields they need to feed the growing population. This includes continually putting more land under the plow, some of the time by slash and burn.
Watching the entirely predictable train wreck play out was painful and all the glass half full, better to bail the Titanic with a thimble that to do nothing crowd didn't get it before or during the abject failure. So long as the volunteers put there shoulders to the wheel, knew in their hearts they were right, and at least TRIED they felt like they had fought the good fight. Bottom line was making things worse.
We talk sustainability. We should include it as a criteria for judging quantity of and duration of aid to the poor starving millions who with our help will become the poor starving billions. These starving masses are typically easy pickings for folks looking for canon fodder to be used in someones grandiose plans of conquest and rule. We are helping grow huge crops of future AK-47 wielding youngsters. Sustainability applied to aid is a good idea but is it Politically Correct?
P.S. Over population is the chief cause of poverty. Many ills follow poverty but reducing over population will directly benefit the populations. No one is advocating a "reasonable suggestion" like eating the babies or curing overpopulation overnight by any means BUT not to address the root cause will frustrate efforts and waste finite resources. Think sustainability, think triage. There is no acceptable simple or easy way to reduce populations immediately BUT if ther is no credible element of that in our aid program then we are fooling ourselves thinking we are helping the poor starving masses.
At some point the ability of the planet to feed the population, even with 100% vegetarianism, will fall short and there will be wide scale famine and food wars. Is the right goal to try to hasten that situations arrival or to prevent it through curbs on population. Simply going veggie vice omnivore is a short time delaying action not a solution. Instead of the big colapse today it would be tomorrow. Big deal.
What is the way toward a sustainable population? Being veggie won't do it, just delay the problem a bit. With exponential population growth outstripping increases in agricultural output we will get to the point that the population will begin to compete with agriculture, living space vs farmers fields.
Going veggie is not a long term solution, it will fail no matter how good its vocal proponents feel prattling on about their superior enlightenment. There are finite limits to Earth's food production capabilities and there are few choices in limiting populations to what can be fed. I think they are: starvation, sickness, war, and birth control or a combination thereof (suicide is likely not to help much.)
Which of these do you prefer?
//SOAPBOX MODE=OFF//
Pat