Some physics educators may be interested in a recent post "The
Elephant in the Room: Overpopulation" [Hake (2009)].
The abstract reads:
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ABSTRACT: A recent LA Times report "Tackling the elephant in the
room: overpopulation" calls attentions to a study "Reproduction and
the carbon legacies of individuals" by Paul Murtaugh and Michael
Schlax of Oregon State University. Their abstract reads: "Much
attention has been paid to the ways that people's home energy use,
travel, food choices and other routine activities affect their
emissions of carbon dioxide and, ultimately, their contributions to
global warming. However, the reproductive choices of an individual
are rarely incorporated into calculations of his personal impact on
the environment. Here we estimate the extra emissions of fossil
carbon dioxide that an average individual causes when he or she
chooses to have children. The summed emissions of a person's
descendants, weighted by their relatedness to him, may far exceed the
lifetime emissions produced by the original parent. Under current
conditions in the United States, for example, each child adds about
9441 metric tons of carbon dioxide to the carbon legacy of an average
female, which is 5.7 times her lifetime emissions. A person's
reproductive choices must be considered along with his day-today
activities when assessing his ultimate impact on the global
environment."
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REFERENCES
Hake, R.R. 2009. "The Elephant in the Room: Overpopulation," online
on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at <http://tinyurl.com/krfmw9>. Post of
8 Aug 2009 20:09:31-0700 to AERA-L, Net-Gold, and Physoc.