What does abortion have to do with climate change? You’ll have to ask Pope Francis.

Climate change is about human species survival, not being 'uncomfortable' or 'creating difficulties'.

Yes, we also want the other species, on whom we depend in various ways, to survive. Ideally, all of them, given that they all fill different niches in the environmental web. But fighting climate change is still anthropocentric for most folks.

Yet. Asshole.

most directly threatening the long-term survival of the planet.

Mother Nature ALWAYS bats last and never gets cheated.

Still, the bulk of his message is a good one. This and his critiques of capitalism surely beat Benny the Rat and his pedophile protection racket.

and back for a while. And while he wasn't literally the head inquisitor in charge of covering up pedophiles, he's still covering up for that guy, and has endorsed child abuse (look up his speech where he says that it's natural to hit a child).

Free and readily available access to all forms of birth control so that people can make informed choices about reproduction. Wonder Popes regressive institution stands firmly in the way, despite all the superficially pleasant sounding words.

http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/population_and_sustainability/climate/

The thing with the word sustainable is that we don't really know what it means. All that really matters is today. Rule #1 is keep people alive, and figure out the consequences later. Every time we hit a limit of some kind, we find a way around that limit, since we're humans and that's what we do. Death is the ultimate limit, so that's the one that we really don't like.

While free and readily available access to all forms of birth control so that people can make informed choices about reproduction is a good goal, it's not a requirement for a sustainable human population, because there's no objectively set number for it. We think because we can measure something that we can control it, but the numbers exist nowhere but in our heads.

Even the word sustainable is created and defined by us. If 7+ billion wasn't sustainable, a lot more of us would be dying right now.

Which was the part that I was responding to. We're doing so well at sustaining 7+ billion, that we're projected to hit more than that in the coming years.

There are physically more people on the planet today than there were yesterday. Younger people, middle age people, older people, the whole spectrum. We get better and better at keeping people alive every day. What happens after that with everyone is more of a gray area.

We're doing an incredible job at keeping more people alive today than yesterday.

http://www.census.gov/popclock/

environment in which that population exists. That is nonsense.

Do you really not understand that population is one key drivers of human induced catastrophic climate change? That the current situation is not sustainable and its unsustainibility is getting worse?

In the 200,000 years or so that modern people have been around, it's the last 10,000 years or so of the resource concentration mechanism we call civilization that has been a real issue. Roads? One of the worst things we've ever done environmentally. Since we're not going to fix that...

We have 4 options:

1) More people doing more
2) More people doing less
3) Fewer people doing more
4) Fewer people doing less

#1 is basically what we're doing in the big picture. We know how to do that. That's how society functions. People with jobs going out and creating demand for more people to have jobs, and all the taxes that all those people pay.

#2 is basically what the developing world does. It adds people, but there's not enough infrastructure for them to really do that much.

#3 is the developed world. We have fewer people, so we have to import people just to keep pace. We use up more than our fair share of resources though, and the developing world wants in on some of that action. If the planet is finite, that's going to cause some issues.

#4 is...well, it's basically not a society. Where's the business? Where's the tax money? It might be the best thing for the rest of life on the planet if we did #4, but we're not going to do #4.

climate takes the fucking OPPOSITE of a helpful stance when it comes to birth control. It's irresponsible, hypocritical and harmful to women, the climate and society in general.

I don't understand why you feel the need to try to debate that.

Or anything that the Pope said. I was responding to the free and readily available access to all forms of birth control so that people can make informed choices about reproduction being a requirement for a sustainable population. It's a requirement for a better life for women, but just not a sustainable human population. Those are two different things.

http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/population_and_sustainability/climate/

http://climate.nasa.gov/effects/

How many people is sustainable? Depends on the context of the circumstances in which those people live, but lets just say at the current rate of human progress, since we're not going to want to live in a mud hut. How many people can be alive today, with a developed world lifestyle? It can be that of Sweden or Finland, it doesn't matter. It's certainly less than 7 billion.

It'll take a while to get to whatever that number is, but we don't have that long.

Current Population is Three Times the Sustainable Level

Though, how much people consume is a huge variable in the equation. If the rest of the planet consumed like Americans, the planet would already be dead.

The point that you keep trying to defer from is that population is a definite contributing factor to the environment.

Fuck the pope.

Just as they all celebrate his anti gay sentiments. The obvious concern with the more conservative straight folks in this Party is that they would so gleefully 'compromise' with Francis by giving away the rights of others to please him.
I just don't feel like I am a wanted part of this country. I'm sick of that.

Trading away my democracy, my world of trees & animals for easy cash. They give away my rights, they destroy my sources of joy and they celebrate it, in my face. I too feel unwanted.

I just hope you believe me when I say I want what you want. This country, this world, is for all of us, not the few.

I am no fan of the Catholic Church, but I am a fan of change and to me Francis is a huge step forward from the last.

I am no fan of how Thomas Jefferson made his wealth, but I am a fan of his words. Words that moved all of us forward.

Forward, we can do this.

That's a fantasy.

I have a set of articles which demonstrate how liberal he's not:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/11362224/Pope-Francis-he-aint-no-liberal.-Beware-of-his-two-faces.html
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/7249020
http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9112081/the-fantasy-francis/
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/116056/progressives-who-love-pope-francis-are-abandoning-women-and-gay-rights

movement (its was against the death penalty) and two, you can't be pro-life and pro-pollution. Hope that clarifies a few things (and no, I'm not for outlawing abortion).

Or are stubborn. No offense.

<then end with "No offense.">

Doesn't mean it holds water overall, just partially.

Pro-choice and pro-science (and therefore concern about global warming) go hand-in-hand. He still doesn't get it.

destroys life.

It is annoying as hell that we can not just look at the science, but the religious right believes science is a conspiracy straight from the jaws of hell.

Though I reject the convoluted logic, I applaud the effort to bring religious people to support work to save our ravaged ecosystem.

Of wall to wall happy fun times articles about blank Frank the wonderpope to enjoy.

My version of this thread in a different venue is. .. Less productive

....... how a bunch of unwanted babies help climate change.

His logic. If you want to preserve life, that means all life. In his opinion. Nothing wrong with that. It's makes more sense than being pro-life and pro capital punishment. On the other hand, he should also be pro-birth control.