Midway Proposal
As stated in my blog and on our Discussion Board, I originally wanted to examine the relationship between the governments of the world and overpopulation. Well, after a while that got to be as boring as it sounds. There was very limited information by narrowing my topic that much. Now, after researching a bit about overpopulation and noticing what seems to be the real stressor of the population situation, I’ve decided to compare overpopulation and over consumption to distinguish which is the bigger problem. My focus will be to weigh whether countries that use little resources, but that have large family size or countries that use massive amounts of resources, but have smaller family size are more at fault. This seems to be the most prominent issue for me personally.After looking at most of my surveys, it is clear that some of the people were near clueless about the current population growth and the risk for overpopulation—and what’s worse is that I can tell they didn’t care a great deal. Those that knew something about the population crisis, I could tell, didn’t understand some things or were getting their facts mixed up. In order to resolve this, my key audience for this paper—if for no other reason than personally satisfaction—are American citizens, which probably have very similar beliefs as my survey takers. One of my main goals for this paper is to educate my audience effectively. I take having an audience to please very seriously, and in order to do that I believe I will have to compromise. I don’t want to use the “shock and awe” approach for this paper—although that would be very easy to do. Instead I’d like to imagine my paper being read by American citizens wanting answers that stick to American values, yet are effective. So in my compromise I expect understanding from them that this issue is not just going to go away and never have to be solved. In other words, of all the solutions I might suggest in the paper, there isn’t one magic result that will make all people happy and I need people to understand that at the end of this paper.
My second goal would be to really learn something, myself from this paper. I’ve already learned quite a bit, but I really want to have an “a-ha” moment with this paper and that normal comes during the writing of the paper not the research, so I’m excited about that. That’s just kind of a personal goal for me—I’m not sure how to explain the “a-ha moment”—but I think it’s worth mentioning.
I see my paper having different “parts”, much like most research papers I imagine. For the first part of my paper—not the intro, but the body—I would like to explain exactly what overpopulation is and how it is the same and how it differs from over consumption. After that, I’d like to get to the meat of the paper by asking who is at fault and needs to work toward fixing the problem. I imagine the final answer will be “all of us on the planet, big or small”. With that, I can use the survey information to show that a varied amount of people either believe that it’s other country’s faults or that it is a shared responsibility. I want to get across that America is not blameless. I think as American’s we get to thinking that about everything. By comparing those of us in developed countries to people in undeveloped countries I think I can make a big impact on people and their preconceived ideas about overpopulation and where it stems from.
Some things that may influence my writing and attitude in the paper are my strong opinions on some of these subjects. China’s policy of the one child per family is fine for China—they’re used to that amount of control. But forced abortion is not something that sits well with me at all! I don’t believe in abortion, period, even in America where we’re supposed to be pro “choice”. I think it’s awful and people should have to take responsibility for themselves and not take it out on that life. I don’t consider myself a conservative, but that just makes me mad. Although I believe population should be controlled, it shouldn’t be “controlled” in that manner. One of my other opinions on this topic—which I’ve put in my notes a million times—is that any solution that is designed for America needs to be “American” enough for our citizens. That’s what I meant by compromising with the audience, earlier. I can’t just propose to the audience that we should give the Government control over of bodies and minds in order to reduce population. That may work elsewhere, but to make Americans comfortable enough with the idea I think talking about matters that concern Americans like voting, improving health care and schools, and reducing waste will improve their overall thoughts on overpopulation/over consumption in America.
To conclude, I don’t think this paper will end up with one concrete answer. It takes a lot bigger people than me to get a ball like that rolling. I just want to get it in the minds and thoughts of the people. And for the cynics and doomsayers, I want to let them know that it’s not as bad of an issue as you might think…as long as we do something now! We’ve already taken precautions against global warming, wastes produced, and resources used—so why not look at population growth and how that effects our consumption in developed areas of the world? And why haven’t we looked at this issue like any other American problem and fix it, instead of tippy-toeing around it? There’s plenty that needs to be examined and worked out, but in the end I think all of this is going to make for a great research paper.
Fabulous proposal! I can see the paper taking shape very nicely. I like how you have an actual direction while also being open to the a-ha moment. That moment could potentially change the paper, but in the meantime, you already have an achievable focus and gameplan. Solid work. Really good audience analysis.
ReplyDeleteP.S. My husband and I ended up discussing global warming and overpopulation over dinner tonight because he took your survey too! We didn't have any brilliant ideas or answers but found the possibilities interesting nonetheless. We usually discuss how to get the kids to bed on time and other such daily issues.
Regarding the subject of per capita consumption, many environmentalists conclude that reducing per capita consumption can solve the problems of environmenatal degradation and resource depletion. They almost universally point to high rates of consumption in the U.S. However, they're forgetting that per capita consumption and per capita employment are inextricably linked. You cannot reduce per capita consumption without driving up unemployment and poverty.
ReplyDeleteSome will argue that this isn't so, pointing to nations like Japan where a high standard of living and low unemployment are sustained in spite of low per capita consumption. They forget that such nations are dependent upon high per capita consumption in the U.S. (primarily) to provide them with jobs manufacturing for export to the U.S.
What concerns you and all environmentalists is total consumption, not per capita consumption. The only way to reduce total consumption while maintaining a high standard of living is by reducing our population.
The biggest obstacle we face in changing attitudes toward overpopulation is economists. Since the field of economics was branded "the dismal science" after Malthus' theory, economists have been adamant that they would never again consider the subject of overpopulation and continue to insist that man is ingenious enough to overcome any obstacle to further growth. This is why world leaders continue to ignore population growth in the face of mounting challenges like peak oil, global warming and a whole host of other environmental and resource issues. They believe we'll always find technological solutions that allow more growth.
But because they are blind to population growth, there's one obstacle they haven't considered: the finiteness of space available on earth. The very act of using space more efficiently creates a problem for which there is no solution: it inevitably begins to drive down per capita consumption and, consequently, per capita employment, leading to rising unemployment and poverty.
If you‘re interested in learning more about this important new economic theory, then I invite you to visit either of my web sites at OpenWindowPublishingCo.com or PeteMurphy.wordpress.com where you can read the preface, join in the blog discussion and, of course, buy the book if you like.
Please forgive the somewhat spammish nature of the previous paragraph, but I don't know how else to inject this new theory into the debate about overpopulation without drawing attention to the book that explains the theory.
Pete Murphy
Author, "Five Short Blasts"