Overpopulation: The Unpopular Issue the U.S. Government Won't Address

It's the dirty little/big word that no political party or government (save for China) wants to address. Overpopulation! The root cause of our planet's social, economic and environmental ills. It extends from the greenhouse effect with its truly horrific effects upon the planet - including
the horrendous prospect that we could actually lose the Polar Ice-Caps, leading to worldwide flooding and rising temperatures - to the job shortage situation in America and pretty much everywhere else in the world. It's something that countries around the world can no longer ignore if they want to survive and flourish. Finding alternative means of energy, reducing pollution and recycling technology all helps, of course, but there is only one true way to save the environment, aka, the planet.So why is it that nobody wants to address it? It's a simple answer. Because of how unpopular it would make any political party or Government that did. Nobody's going to win an election by addressing it as a main issue. The only effective answer to Overpopulation is to limit how many children are born each year and of course people being what we are there is the tendency to get all up in arms when 'Big Brother' tells us how to live our lives. But it's now coming to the point in countries like Africa and India where limitations are going to have to be made and this will of course lead to infringements upon human rights which is, what's the word.......tough!. (Pretty sure I agree with the arugument that countries like the US and Canada need to limit themselves before Africa and India... The pollution and energy we use up in America is riduculous and I really believe we need to think about what we are doing and WANT to change it.) What choice do we have, the price to pay by future generations is just too great and if we aren't prepared to do anything about it there may not be a future worth living for our kids/grand-kids. China of course is already implementing social change with a one-child policy, which grants economic advantages to those who agree to it. Unfortunately many people still cling to the idea of having 2 kids which shows we have to change attitudes as well. (This is a point that needs to be made in the paper...that we as a nation need too change our attitudes towards what is considered the "norm". So we don't tell people to not have chilldren, but only to limit yourself because you want to in order to help the planet because if you don't your children you have now will have a horrible future.) So before we start reaching these militaristic doomsday scenarios let's start on a more rational plane with simpler less intrusive and common-sense solutions. Perhaps penalizing those who have more than say 2 children would be a start. Instead of rewarding people for having large families by throwing money at them how about rewarding those of us who don't have more than 2 children or better yet how about rewarding those who have no children at all. (These ideas are smart to me... you can have as many kids as you want, but those who limit themselves or have no children at all will be rewarded. It's a little more "American"... once again, that needs to be a focal point.)Financial incentives in the form of Tax breaks to those who aren't being a burden on society by adding to the population. In America things aren't quite so bad.........yet! but complacency is a dangerous thing. Limiting each family to 1 child sounds tough but with limitations on the environment it is going to have to be done eventually. People are hardly a precious commodity. I mean did you know that there's a rat for every person in New York City. Rather than being appalled by how many rats there are I'm appalled that there's a person for every rat. When the Tsunami that hit the Indian Ocean a couple of years ago killing up to 300,000 people, sad to say but it didn't exactly make a dent in the world population. Giving incentives to people not to have children should take the place of giving incentives to have them. There will doubtless come a time when America too will have to tell people how many children they can have and enforcement of any such law although being totally un-American will eventually happen if people are allowed to breed unchecked. I can envision the day when nothing short of a cull of sorts will be necessary to keep the human populace in check. 'How many kids do you have Mr. Thompson. Let me see, Three? Well that's just one too many. Say goodbye to Peter, Jr............Bang!' Of course this would be an unpleasant scenario but look at what's happening in China right now. We aren't too far from that scenario right now. Of course I'm sure the American Gov't would be more subtle. An invisible form of ethnic cleansing via race-specific biological warfare could be used to weed out those immigrants deemed undesirable. Enforced Vasectomies to anyone over 30. (That would not work...telling people that they have to do something to their bodies that they may not want to or is against their religion. Of course, then what do you do about Christians that are against birth control messures... guess they have to figure that out themselves, or they would just not be apart of the incentives--taxes should be raised more??) Perhaps Bacterial Warfare imitating the 'Black Death' of the 1600's might be developed. All unpleasant scenarios but all things I could quite easily imagine happening. If we continue to allow people to have as many children as they like then we are completely doomed. This isn't in question. It's a fact. We are talking not just about Human survival but the planet's survival. In the next 40 years or so we could effect great changes in how we monitor and determine our populace but only if our respective governments have the guts to face the truth of the situation.