The Effects of Pollution On Our Environment

News of the devastating 7.8 earthquake in China on May 12 was troubling for all of us. The death of so many school children, the numbers rising as the hours and days passed was particularly sad. If you have ever had school-aged children you have probably experienced the pangs of separation anxiety that occur after events like these. I, too, couldn’t help but wonder how my children would feel during such terrifying events and how I would feel rushing to reconnect with them.

One of the other ideas that struck me was the horrible toll the one-child rule would now take on thousands of forlorn parents. Population control was something that has always seemed necessary to me in countries like China and India where the population has grown so large. When I was in college a mere 20 years ago, the world census was estimated to be 5 billion. Now we’re up to nearly 7 billion people on this planet. How could child-bearing restrictions not make sense? The Earth can only produce so much food and so many resources. The atmosphere can only handle so much CO2 emission from product-demanding humans.

Yet, on May 12, population control stopped being just about numbers to me. An earthquake and a law enacted to save a country’s resources tore away the reason for living from thousands of parents in a number of seconds. Suddenly, Nature’s population control stole the very reason these people woke up every day and lived.

I have four children aged two to 13. If the same type of earthquake struck Southern California, chances are that some of my children would survive (if not all – such a horrible thing to think about!) I would still have children; I would still be a mother. How can I be in favor of a law I wouldn’t want imposed upon myself – not even to save the Earth?

Rationally, I know that government-ordered population control may be the only solution to allow a sustainable number of bodies to successfully coexist on this planet, but the effects on our fellow parents, our fellow humans, need to be considered when crafting public policy. Saving the planet is absolutely and necessarily vital to our survival, but it should not come at the expense of broken hearts.

Tags: child, China, China earthquake, environment, mother, one child, parent, population control, Public Policy   Posted Public Policy |