I think that Rich's point was better taken 50 years ago than now.....I used to believe it myself.

Zero (or negative) population growth has been a subject of books and debated for the past 50 years and the "Nature will do it" argument always made great sense to me. In recent years our technology has begun to made such great strides and inroads in the medical field that sustaining life at any age and through many previous "killer" diseases and ailments has become commonplace........and we're getting "better" at it all the time. I know as I my curreent "life" is the result of some of those advances.

This doesn't eliminate war of course, as a means of nature's control. It is still a major factor. On the whole however, Mother Nature has a lot harder time of it then she used to!

What I think and believe at this point is that it will take a conscious and consentrated effort to overcome the "sacred cows" pointed out above and this will NOT happen until the situation is beyond critical. People of my generation (as a group) are not too concerned because it won't affect their life much. Perhaps it may not even affect the Gen X'ers, but I doubt it. Sometime very soon in the grand scheme, nature will be doing what she can and the people are going to have to make the conscious effort because they will see and feel everyday the drastic changes in their lives.............or Mother Nature will have another way and that is by starting over.

Spaw