Too Many and Too Little.

First, I would like to comment on the graduate work done by Professor Ericksen.  I found the presentation very fascinating.  I was really interested in the content about women, men, marriage and the number of children that families have or want to have.  As I was reading this, I found myself asking a lot of questions.  

Why do women and men feel they need to have so many children?  

Why do men prefer younger brides over older brides?  

Do the women marry more than once like the men do?  

If people living in Niger already mentioned over population and feeling overcrowded why don't more families practice family planning or want to have less children?  

Instead, most women want at least 10 children and men want even more (even though these numbers may not be realistic).  Is it their culture? Are they educated in this area?  And if they were, would they still want 10, 11 or even 15 children?

This was all very interesting to me.  Maybe men and women in Niger feel they need to have a lot of children because infant death rates are so high and the average life expectancy is so young.  I could understand if you have five children and expect only four of them to live until age ten (only using this as an example) you would want to have as many children as possible.

This topic and these questions would be something I would definitely like to research a little more.

Here is a very interesting TED Talk about population and child survival.  It's only ten minutes, and worth a watch.

http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_growth

In regards to the reading; I knew that scarcity has always been a concern and population growth is not making it any better.  It is kind of unsettling to think that population will out number our resources sooner rather than later and it may seem like we are not doing anything to reduce our carbon footprint, live sustainably or are trying to prolong our resources as much as possible.

From an economic perspective, once these resources become more scarce their price will sky rocket leaving them unattainable to many people.  This will not help the problem that developing countries are having in regards to their economy, poverty, infant mortality rates as well as social and environmental issues.  

It is all a viscous cycle and until we realize that we need to conserve our resources reduce our ecological footprint, mankind is settling itself up for ultimate and complete disaster.

Singer.

As a reflection on the pieces by Singer, Animal Liberation and Famine, Affluence, and Morality both pieces have the same underlying message, minimal suffering.  Animal Liberation highlights freeing animals from undue pain and Singer goes on to say that factory farms and animal experimentation cause animals undue pain therefore they are wrong.  Singer also suggests to stop animal experimentation and factory farms in order to stop these pracatices.  

In a perfect world it would be very easy to stop animal experimentation and factory farms but it is not always the most effective or most realistic route.  Just because these practices would be halted does not mean that all animals are free from undue pain somewhere else in the world.  In the case of factory farms, they control the majority of our food supply. I definitely agree with Singer that all animals should be free from pain and suffering but believe I also that it is our fault that they have pain and have to suffer at the expense of the newest cosmetic product, food supply etc.  

I think that having better guidelines, rules and more consequences for companies that test on animals and factory farms would be the better route to take.  If factory farms had guidelines and rules as to the minimum amount of land that is required for x amount of animals, requirements on the size of pens and better living conditions then I think animal suffering would be minimized.  As for animal testing is concerned I definitely think that using an animal to test out a new type of mascara is wrong; why don't we test on the sex offender down the street that watches your kids walk home every day instead? Oh yeah, because he/she is a human and thats wrong.  Well I'm sorry but causing an animal to suffer is just as wrong.

I was also left wondering how Singer would feel about using animals for clothing, such as wool, cashmere, mink etc. Or how mink is used for false eyelashes or the ivory "trade" in general.  These animals suffer just as much, practically being skinned and ripped apart alive and are only killed for their fur or their horns; the rest of their bodies get tossed into the trash or left to rot.

As a disclaimer, I am by no means a vegetarian or vegan.  But as an aware, educated human being I try to make a conscience effort to not support companies that test on animals, try to buy "free range, organic" if I can and I will never, ever buy a cashmere, wool or any type of clothing or cosmetic product that uses animal fur.

In Famine, Affluence and Morality Singer as the same perspective on human suffering as he does on animal suffering.  I, too, think suffering and poverty should be prevented as much as possible and I think that countries that have the means to help poverty stricken countries definitely do not help out as much as they could.  I agree with Singer in the sense that not everyone can claim to be oblivious to what is going on in the world and that our priorities are not in line.  For example, we should not build another rail system when millions of people and children go without food, water or shelter day in and day out.  However, I think that it is difficult to delegate and guarantee that help goes to the actual cause and that we should be helping the system that caused poverty in these countries.  In my opinion if a country has that many suffering and poverty stricken people it is not the people's fault, but it is the system that lead to these horrible circumstances and that is what needs to be fixed first.  If we do not fix the problem at the top then the problem at the bottom is only going to get worse.