I realize that population reduction sends fear into the hearts of the political right and left. The political right doesn’t want to be chastised by their religious supports who belief in keeping (human) souls from hell. The political left wishes to respect the ideas of other cultures and does not want to be seen as “dictating” a life style choice to other cultures.

My own position is 2 fold:

I believe that population has a major impact on the planet and I agree with the UN that universal, voluntary access to family planning, "...could bring more benefits to more people at less cost than any other single technology available to the human race."

I also believe that our species’ intelligence and current knowledge of science is sufficient to overcome our species’ biological desire to freely propagate.

My hope is that the emotional resistance of both the political right and the left can be replaced with rational thinking about this most important issue. In the name of other species, we need to reduce our population to a level that we can all share and enjoy our planet together.

Robert Hope
Owen Sound