Mormonism will mess with your mind...

https://bycommonconsent.com/2019/03/28/this-is-the-real-solution-to-climate-change-babies/

By now you have no doubt seen clips of a smirking Senator Lee of Utah pull America’s leg with his take-down of the Green New Deal from the floor of the “world’s greatest deliberative body.” This was, after all, two news cycles ago. But because I’m a day late and a dollar short by nature, I’m just now getting around to soliciting your views on his solution to climate change:

This is the real solution to climate change: babies. Climate change is an engineering problem—not social engineering but the real kind. It’s a challenge of creativity, ingenuity and, most of all, technological innovation. And problems of human imagination are not solved by more laws. They’re solved by more humans. More people mean bigger markets for more innovation. More babies will mean forward-looking adults, the sort we need to tackle long term, large-scale problems.

American babies in particular are likely going to be wealthier, better educated and more conservation-minded than children raised in still industrializing countries.

(The transcription is my own; if you find any mistakes, feel free to keep them.)
While not explicitly religious, this moment of American exceptionalism in Lee’s presentation strikes me as at least in tune with the notion of America as a promised land that I am sure most members of the church will be familiar with. It’s no accident that the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ occurred in and proceeded from North America; as we teach our missionaries to teach others, “Joseph Smith lived in the United States, which was perhaps the only country to enjoy religious freedom at the time.” In light of the global civilizing mission American Mormons have been engaged in ever since, it is no surprise that an American Mormon would believe—and have the audacity to express out loud—that the solution to an intractable global problem will be raised in an American home. (On this note, see also this excerpt from a missionary memoir reviewed today on this very website: “We meet together in our little bubble and convince ourselves that we alone can save lost humanity.”)

In making his case, the only authority cited by the honorable senator from the great state of Utah was an economist rather than, say, a prophet—”By having more children, you’re making your nation more populous, thus boosting its capacity to solve climate change”—but I can’t help but feel that his religious upbringing was showing as Mike wrapped up his 14-minute presentation in a rare display of sincerity:

The courage needed to solve climate change is nothing compared with the courage needed to start a family…. The true heroes of this story…are moms and dads…little boys and girls…. The planet doesn’t need for us to think globally and act locally as much as it needs us to think family and act personally.

The solution to climate change is … the serious business of human flourishing. The solution to so many of our problems, at all times and in all places, is to fall in love, get married and have some kids.

Now, I come from a family slightly larger than the one Brother Lee grew up in. I’m not going to claim that this experience gives me any special insights, but at the same time, I’ve gotta say—I have no idea what he’s talking about. I mean, kids aren’t a Blue Oyster Cult record—scaling up the advantages of more babies is anything but straightforward. Big families are undoubtedly good for some things—family reunions, for example, are a lot of fun—and not so good for others—like, say, making difficult decisions about how to care for dying parents. And along with a big family comes a big footprint and scarcity for all involved. (Go on, ask me how often I got a new pair of shoes growing up.) Since when was more automatically better? My peers from smaller families whose parents worked in the same fields as my parents had opportunities I didn’t, and small countries like Austria manage to flourish while larger countries like Afghanistan flounder.

Too many babies are what caused global warming. Adding a lot more babies is going to fix the problem ? Mike Lee is an idiot !

All of the world's problems have been caused by there being too many of us.

There will be a major reduction in population in the near future by natural events like a meteor strike, pandemic, ice age, super volcano eruption.

We are doomed.

Mother nature is a bitch.

Senator Lee needs to work on forgiving student debt and creating a workable healthcare system if he wants more babies.

Why forgive student debt? That makes no sense.

Agree on healthcare.

Student loan debt is a hurdle for many would-be mothers
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2018/05/22/student-loan-debt-is-a-hurdle-for-many-would-be-mothers.html

“‘A young boy wants a violin. It looks simple; all you have to do is get the kid one. But then you discover that he had dictated the letter to his sister. He is paralyzed and can’t even feed himself. He has a toy violin and hugs it to his chest, imitating the sound of playing with his mouth. How pathetic? However, one can learn much from this parable. Label the boy Labor, the violin Capital, and so on...’”

—Miss Lonelyhearts—
—Nathanael West—

(One of the fiercest books I will ever read.)

Social Security going broke? National debt out of control? No solution to long term storage of nuclear waste? Climate change? Mike Lee is hoping that some future person is smarter than him and can figure it out.
In reality, he's probably counting on the earth being renewed and receiving its paradisical glory so why worry about long term solutions.

"paradisical" rhymes with "part of a bicycle".

I'm embarrassed for Utah to have voted that guy in as Senator.

He basically gave a juvenile church talk on the Senate floor and implied future generations can solve the problems.

So he and Mitt are the brain trust of Utah?

His presentation was hilarious. I was in stitches.

Then he completely ruined it by going full mormon. It was expert trolling until he caught the every-senator-a-missionary bug.

The versions where the end is cut are awesome.

(Sorry in advance)

Is the senator a descendant of the Mormon-famous John Doyle Lee of MMM. notoriety?

many Utahans are, ya know
..

I'm still trying to get the Blue Oyster Cult allusion. . .

Don’t fear the reaper?

Still befuddled.

Don't make me come over there and take away your shiny baubles !

Well, the prophet of God™ said "We preach tithing to the poor people of the world because the poor people of the world have had cycles of poverty, generation after generation. That same poverty continues from one generation to another, until people pay their tithing."

So, using the same logic from that textbook applies.

I remember years ago feeling bad, then feeling a bit pissed off, then feeling racist, then feeling guilty, then feeling bad for feeling guilty about being pissed off about feeling racist when I heard a news story about a father fleeing an African civil war (Rwanda?) and having to walk 20 miles with his family; one of his young children died. Then the news report said he had TWELVE children.

And-the-way-to-put-out-fire-is-to-pour-on-gasoline-ly yrs,

S

At least there is something in the historical record about how terrible we were to our great great great grandchildren.

this is So Ridiculous that I won't comment further on this thread. Ever.

Lee's basic thesis is that we need someone brilliant to solve our problems, so having more children will improve our odds of that child being born. This of course ignores the possibility that that child is already born, or that no one person or group of people can solve our problems. It also ignores the fact that exponential growth cannot go on forever. Not even the universe could sustain the exponential growth of the early Big Bang. Exponential growth always always always has to stop at some point.

A poster here a few weeks ago basically agreed with Lee and argued that our economy demands a higher birth rate than we have. I think it was macaRomney, but I can't find the post for the life of me. Perhaps the thread it was in got nuked. There is a political subgroup that views the declining birthrate with Great Alarm, arguing that our economic system is not viable unless population growth continues.

Whether that is true or not is open to debate, but let's stipulate that it is correct. Then what we need is not more growth. We need a better, sustainable economic model. Exponential growth (that is, growth that grows as a percentage of what is currently present - savings accounts being an example) simply must stop at some point. In the case of savings accounts, at some point you take the money and spend it.

The earth population hit a billion around 1800. It hit 2 billion around 1930. It hit 4 billion around 1974. It is projected to hit 8 billion around 2025. We simply cannot keep doubling the world population every 50 years. Just no.

The fifth billion, 1974 to 1986, took only 12 years. Fortunately, that was about the time that the birthrate began falling like a rock, mostly because of The Pill, as it was known at the time. Damn good thing too. If that rate of growth had kept up, we'd be adding a billion people about every 6 to 8 years right now. Once exponential growth builds up a good head of steam, it really takes off.

Now birthrates are at or below replacement in much of the industrialized world. Third world countries are seeing their birth rates fall too, regardless of wealth (or lack thereof), race or religion. They likely will fall below replacement level within the next few decades.

And there's nothing wrong with negative population growth. It would take us centuries to get back to a billion people, and human civilization was producing some pretty remarkable people before 1800.

The current population is already not sustainable without fossil fuels. We simply could not survive right now today, without mechanized farming and transportation. We are living on a giant carbon credit card. Eventually we will hit the credit limit, if for no other reason, there is a finite supply of fossil fuels. They are guaranteed to run out at some point. We are going to need other fuels and/or fewer people. That's just simple physics and accounting.

We added a billion people in 12 years in the late 20th century. Think about that, and what our world would be today if that kind of acceleration of growth had continued to today.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/12/2019 05:27PM by Brother Of Jerry.

Very cool post. I'm going to read it again.

Thank you.

I agree, second reading.

BoJ does that. He is wicked smart.

As I'm reading the account of the speech I think what he's really saying is that people aren't causing global warming. Which is probably true. We simply don't have the scientific data to conclude that we're making much of any difference at all in what this planet is doing. This past winter was actually colder than normal and there was flooding across the country. We really should be talking about global cooling, because that's reality. There is some evidence that 1000's of years
ago the earth was actually warmer and more tropical with large plants and large dinosaurs everywhere. How do the GW activists account for that?

Mike Lee might not be educated in the PC approved psuedo sciences but he appears to be smarter than the establishment intellectuals that props up this global warming gag for their own purposes.

As for the "making babies" thing. He probably said it to poke fun at Bill Nye and the hysterical SJWs and fake news industry.

1000's of years ago there were large dinosaurs everywhere?

Yes, he wrote that. And what is truly disturbing is that it wasn't the most demented idea he expressed.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/12/2019 07:05PM by anybody.

macaRomney, where are your sources for your arguments? I am afraid you are missing the point about climate change. Please explain how the oceans are heating up and how animals are fucking dying from rising temperatures.

Guy, a few things about your post;

1. Global warming is the average temperature of the Earth rising over time. A cold winter one year is not evidence against it. Educate yourself. https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/climate-change/

2. Greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide, that are contributing to global warming have been released in the atmosphere more drastically due to use of fossil fuels. Saying that human activity isn't causing global warming is like saying gas fumes didn't contribute to a gas station burning down.

3. There is no such thing as "PC Science." There is real, peer-reviewed science subjected to analysis by other scientists and bunk science that doesn't. Even elementary students know that.

4. The reason Senator Lee made his comments is the same reason that you made your comment about dinosaurs thousands of years ago; I've caught trout that were smarter than the two of you.

The two of me? That includes me right, because if so, me and ookami are literally writing from the same perspective. I was trying to get macaRomney to show where he got his claims from to prove that his claims were inaccurate.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/12/2019 07:53PM by redskittle.

No, he meant macaRomney and Lee. You aren't in the picture.

Oops!

I meant Sen. Lee and macaRomney.

Sorry about the confusion.

It’s okay.

macaRomney, how can you possibly evaluate the scientific evidence? You have stated more than once that algebra and science are inappropriate subjects for instruction in school.

The developed world and also the PRC have a collapsing population due to their demographic trends. Japan and Italy are badly affected. This is being disguised by large scale immigration to make up for that shortfall. Many of these countries complain about global overpopulation while moaning they need to bring more people in to save their economies.

The idea that population is increasing too much applies to some areas and not others. The religious outbreed the irreligious, and the poor have far more children than the rich.

Hey Anybody:

To declare that someone sounds like the writer of "Camp of the Saints" is a fine complement.

I suppose few on here have read that one, But for a view of what Western Civilization can expect in coming years, here's
a short review of that prophetic book:

"Originally published in France in 1973 and in English translation in 1975 by the distinguished American publisher Charles Scribner Sons, The Camp of the Saints has been described as the 1984 of the late twentieth century. It envisions the intentional inundations, engineered by leftist banksters, of European civilization by endless streams of Third-world refugees". [Barnes & Nobel]

A prophecy in a book has really come true.

I'm just trying to work out what a "leftist bankster" is.

If Dave can help me nail down that remarkable phrase, I'll next try to see how those evil "banksters" organized the Third-World hoards.

Well that’s a persuasive argument.

If only we'd listened to the Blue Oyster Cult.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/13/2019 10:05AM by Lot's Wife.