population must fall by 50% ! ... how?, page-37

BH!

200 years is but a pimple on a whale's bum in the history of the Earth. In the last 200 years, we humans have got rid of most of the rainforest, polluted loads of rivers and sea, turned agricultural land into desert, all in the name of growth. And that's ignoring global warming. Think forward 500 years.

Not sure what the worlds population is (and cant be asked to Google it) but let's assume 7 billion. How many HC members would prefer it to be 3.5 billiion or 1 billion right now, probably most.

The stresses on the Earth's environment would be greatly reduced if there were a lot less people. Just imagine once all the Indians and Chinese have enough money to buy that $2,000(?) car, what this will do to the depletion of oil reserves etc (memo to self: buy more Woodside), and global warming and traffic congestion. I was in India 16 years ago, and there were rickshaw traffic jams - will be a lot worse with 1 billion cars.

I don't believe in radical solutions, but feel the advocacy of population growth by Costello etc is grossly irresponsible. And the Catholic Church's position on contraception, where kids die daily of AIDS, is simply immoral, no evil.