Share Your Thoughts About Gna Options

[Craig Minowa]

After alerting Organic Bytes subscribers about the new Grassroots Netroots Alliance, some of our readers sent in comments. Below is a discussion between on of our readers and GNA coordinator Alexis Baden-Mayer:

----

NOTE FROM READER: I commend your concern but believe that the climate change issue subsumes everything else and must take precedence. Until the social justice and peace groups recognize this, climate change will remain just an entry on a laundry list, not the major focus. Everything else pales in comparison to the climate emergency we face and we have very little time to turn things around, maybe ten years.

RESPONSE FROM GNA: I couldn't agree more, but I also believe it's all connected. Especially as the US military is the single greatest consumer of fossil fuels and what the war has cost so far would have been more than enough to convert the world to clean energy. (See NoWarNoWarming.org and priceofoil.org)
I hope that you will choose to send the GNA survey to the politicians in your area with this message.
Cheers,
Alexis Baden-Mayer Grassroots Netroots Alliance


RESPONSE FROM READER:
Whenever the peace movement holds a rally or demonstration, and tries to make it a multi-issue event, the environment and global warming are just tacked on as afterthoughts and given token attention or publicity. The environmentalists get sucked in to these events and end up just as window dressing.

This is because of the dismal record of the peace movement and other social justice groups in educating themselves about the dangers of global warming and other environmental issues, and because they really dont seem them as urgent.

When is this going to change? Not while you continue to hold these cross-issue events and campaigns, which you think are connected but this is only by a very tenuous thread.

What it all amounts to is anti Americanism to one degree or another. I dont believe this can ever build any movement. There are too many heterogeneous interests and beliefs: unions and workers, environmentalists, peace activists, minorities, gays, feminists. Everyone has a stake in their own movement. I have been around a long time and seen this kind of thing for forty years, with all the attempts to unify progressives. It has NEVER worked. It never will. It is the wrong way to go.You are wasting your time and money.

The best way to go is to organize an environmental movement that challenges the corporate globalist capitalist system that is destroying the earth and its human societies and freedoms. Right now challenging economic growth and challenging the energy companies - fossil fuels primarily - and stopping them in their tracks would bring far more social and economic justice than some vague coalition with a list of the things they dont like. In any case, if we dont curb global warming through drastic reduction in energy consumption soon, all the social justice issues will just be drowned out and forgotten. Surely you can understand this.

RESPONSE FROM GNA: While you might not agree with the multi-issue approach, I hope you'll stick with us, as we share the same desperate feeling you have that we must take action to address the climate crisis now. The Organic Consumers Association is dedicating the June 26 version of Organic Bytes to challenging, as you put it, the corporate globalist capitalist system that is destroying the earth and its human societies and freedoms. Please feel free to give me any suggestions for content that you have. Perhaps we could use your note in our letters from our readers section?
Thanks for your interest and feedback! Alexis

RESPONSE FROM READER:
I would never discourage honest serious activism of any kind. What I am suggesting is that global warming is the paradigm that exposes the corporate system for what it is, far better than any other issue you could name: war, racism, etc. Moreover, global warming - its origins and contributors and effects - can provide not only a clear picture of corporatism but a very specific targeted focus for action, unlike all the other issues where action cannot be effectively targeted and is therefore purely symbolic or an expression of moral views.

I have spent over forty years as an activist, organizer, writer and agitator on environmental issues, and because of the studied refusal of social justice activists and movements to take environment seriously, much less see it as a clear example of a system gone horribly wrong, we are in a dire situation today.

Yes, I blame the peace and social justice groups, as well as some black groups who prefer to blast environmentalists rather than corporations, for avoiding the real issues. In the 1970s the peace movement leaders like Cora Weiss and others (even including Helen Caldicott for a while) tried to squash public dialogue on the dangers of nuclear power. So did the scientists by trying to shift the conversation to nuclear weapons and pretend they were more dangerous than nuclear reactors (they are not).

Yes they did. I was there. I can verify this. These people made my job very difficult. I remember, when Caldicott headed Physicians for Social Responsibility, a group out west requested from them a film about nuclear weapons and they were told that they were forbidden to raise the issue of civilian nuclear power at the film showing. I learned this directly from the person involved who called me at Friends of the Earth to complain about this. At that time, FOE was the ONLY group in NYC dealing with nuclear power. There was WESPAC in Westchester and SHAD in Long Island. That was it for metropolitan NY.

Caldicott came in the 1970s to a rally out here on LI against nuclear power, held by the Shoreham Opponents Coalition (which I organized) at a night club in Shoreham; she talked for over an hour and NEVER MENTIONED SHOREHAM OR NUCLEAR POWER. Afterwards I confronted her and asked her why. She gave some feeble explanation of how the PSR doctors and scientists would get upset. I said to her: But Helen, this is YOU. YOU have a right to address this on your own. You aren't representing PSR here. She didnt talk to me for years.

Another person had a similar experience at a lecture of hers. For a long time Caldicott went around saying that nuclear power was "the pimple on the pumpkin", meaning I assume that the pumpkin was a nuclear bomb and the pimple was trivial.

I remember at least two events Cora Weiss organized in NYC. During the question period I got up to ask why they hadn't discussed nuclear energy. Weiss tried to shut me up. Etc, etc. This was standard in the 1970s. The peaceniks were just ignorant, narrow minded and obstacles to the rest of us. They were manipulated by the nuclear scientists.

Here we are today, nearly forty years after the first Earth Day and we are back at square one, with scarcely any institutional memory of environmentalism, fighting an uphill battle against corporations, developers, government, globalization, and liberals, progressives and the left, and progressives still are staring off into space or chanting peace mantras. I fail to understand why they do this since they have little or no chance of succeeding. The peace movement has been around for well over fifty years and they havent accomplished bubkas. All they have done is detract attention away from the issues over which we COULD have some influence. And the social justice groups are no better, even though they are very good at guilt-tripping whites and environmentalists. (That's a whole other story).

The global warming/energy issue is, however, a locus that could bring dramatic change. Indeed, it already has, though obviously not nearly enough. But the fact that no day goes by without a story on global warming or energy is proof that the issue is now in people's consciousness, despite the efforts of the media and the energy sector and despite the failure of our educational system to embed environment in the curricula at all age levels.

Rhetorically, I would like to ask: What part of catastrophe don't you understand? (Not you personally).

[Craig Minowa]

Here is a letter from another anonymous reader of Organic Bytes:

The OCA website directs me to write to you re: the 2009 survey.

The 2008 survey, for being the first one, is a thorough questionnaire on today's critical problems and issues. Yet, it misses THE issue that sources all others!

Indeed, it misses the ONE fundamental problem we must focus on urgently. The ONE HOT POTATOE no one is willing to handle--certainly not beyond a mere mention. It misses the ONE crisis that, if it were approached and dealt with directly and honestly, drastically and thoroughly, would in time resolve ALL other current crises. Because this one crisis is THE source of them all!

I refer to the 6.5 Billion humans and counting we have on earth right now.
I refer to the urgent need to control birthrates and limit births, to manage and stabilize the human population. The many crises we’re facing are telling us that our present numbers are in excess of the planet’s carrying capacity: we have overburdened on every front its ability to sustain us and itself! If numbers are not stabilized, nothing else we do can solve the problems we face, from climate change to corruption! They can only worsen!

Yet, we have not begun to discuss “POPULATION EXCESS” as THE problem! Even as the time needed first to manage and stabilize birthrates and population, then for stabilization to impact and reestablish balance on earth’s systems, even as that time is fast running out!

The measures needed to manage population and prevent civilization’s collapse are not acceptable to people in today’s world. We are in urgent need of a new paradigm, a higher worldview, greater awareness. But..., who'll tie the bell to the cat's neck? Who will dare formulate a plan, a basis that could lead to discussion and, eventually, to swift action? Politicians with votes and offices at stake and with no mandate to do so, they do not dare. Academicians, experts, professionals in possession of inside facts and figures have indeed published them, yet fall short of painting the full picture. Who then? Only you and I, only The People, only individuals can raise a shared awareness and share a higher responsibility!

I repeat: if this one issue is not faced, dealt with and resolved and very soon, nothing else we may do or not do can keep global civilization from eventual collapse. The problem requires radical surgery; band-aids and remedies will not do! When collapse comes, population numbers WILL drop radically and fast. The problems we now have will be eliminated and replaced, and we will find ourselves where we will not want to be: having arrived at the end of the road we travel!

Time is THE luxury we no longer possess!

[Craig Minowa]

Another note from a reader which was sent to us via email:

"It seems the topic at the forefront of everyone attention is "CLIMATE CHANGE.' Understandably so. It is the one issue heavily impinging on everyone's lives directly and globally! But, what is THE source of it? Corporatism and its excesses, yes, to be sure. And what is at the root of that?

The world I was born into 75 years ago had only half the population we have now and NO CORPORATIONS. Indeed, few of the rampant problems and evils we're saddled with now. Few people now seem to remember the Antitrust Laws of the 50's and 60's that sought to prevent, curb, and manage company mergers. President Eisenhower, on his address to the nation on leaving the presidency after 8 years, warned us about the "military/industrial complex" as it existed then, in 1965. The corporate entity did not exist quite yet, but he saw where the 'military/industrial complex' was headed and he saw the perils that threatened. IT and its perils have now arrived! IT as well as climate change are both direct products of the doubling of the population and of everything else in the last half century.

--Corporations exist to make profits.
--Profits are made from the sale of products or services.
--Products and services are of many kinds and come in many wrappings, but they all have one thing in common: people need or want them.
--When population increases everything else also increases, the goodies and the baddies! The products we want and those we don't. The products we need and the excesses we indulge.
--Hence climate change, crop losses, water scarcity, price increases, eco-collapses, species extinctions, hunger, wars, social and economic disruptions, state failures, and, eventually, the collapse of civilization itself.
--The above are symptoms. Addressing symptoms mitigates the problem temporarily, but does nothing to cure the disease they signal!
--The above symptoms have all happened before to various populations and cultures on Earth. In different places. At different times. Some became extinct. Some responded in time, changed directions and survived.
--Difference: those that became extinct were local, isolated populations having no reach beyond their territories and no impact on other populations; our world now is highly interconnected, our population is global, crises have a global reach.

Even as we seek to mitigate the impact of symptoms, the only viable long term solution to climate change, and all other environmental crises, is the attainment of a sustainable population. This necessitates imposing limits and controls on birthrates and on births. Which will entail an informed population, education, awareness, commitment, law and order...

IF WE do not pursue this in earnest, Nature will. There are no alternatives. Through our excesses, mankind has created imbalances and disharmonies in the planet's ecosystems. Nature must restore their balance. Indeed, It has already begun to do so. That is precisely why climate change has everyone's attention--Nature has begun the work we continue to neglect.

Alma Cristina

[Haven]

After alerting Organic Bytes subscribers about the new Grassroots Netroots Alliance, some of our readers sent in comments. Below is a discussion between on of our readers and GNA coordinator Alexis Baden-Mayer:

----

NOTE FROM READER: I commend your concern but believe that the climate change issue subsumes everything else and must take precedence. Until the social justice and peace groups recognize this, climate change will remain just an entry on a laundry list, not the major focus. Everything else pales in comparison to the climate emergency we face and we have very little time to turn things around, maybe ten years.

RESPONSE FROM GNA: I couldn't agree more, but I also believe it's all connected. Especially as the US military is the single greatest consumer of fossil fuels and what the war has cost so far would have been more than enough to convert the world to clean energy. (See NoWarNoWarming.org and priceofoil.org)
I hope that you will choose to send the GNA survey to the politicians in your area with this message.
Cheers,
Alexis Baden-Mayer Grassroots Netroots Alliance


RESPONSE FROM READER:
Whenever the peace movement holds a rally or demonstration, and tries to make it a multi-issue event, the environment and global warming are just tacked on as afterthoughts and given token attention or publicity. The environmentalists get sucked in to these events and end up just as window dressing.

This is because of the dismal record of the peace movement and other social justice groups in educating themselves about the dangers of global warming and other environmental issues, and because they really dont seem them as urgent.

When is this going to change? Not while you continue to hold these cross-issue events and campaigns, which you think are connected but this is only by a very tenuous thread.

What it all amounts to is anti Americanism to one degree or another. I dont believe this can ever build any movement. There are too many heterogeneous interests and beliefs: unions and workers, environmentalists, peace activists, minorities, gays, feminists. Everyone has a stake in their own movement. I have been around a long time and seen this kind of thing for forty years, with all the attempts to unify progressives. It has NEVER worked. It never will. It is the wrong way to go.You are wasting your time and money.

The best way to go is to organize an environmental movement that challenges the corporate globalist capitalist system that is destroying the earth and its human societies and freedoms. Right now challenging economic growth and challenging the energy companies - fossil fuels primarily - and stopping them in their tracks would bring far more social and economic justice than some vague coalition with a list of the things they dont like. In any case, if we dont curb global warming through drastic reduction in energy consumption soon, all the social justice issues will just be drowned out and forgotten. Surely you can understand this.

RESPONSE FROM GNA: While you might not agree with the multi-issue approach, I hope you'll stick with us, as we share the same desperate feeling you have that we must take action to address the climate crisis now. The Organic Consumers Association is dedicating the June 26 version of Organic Bytes to challenging, as you put it, the corporate globalist capitalist system that is destroying the earth and its human societies and freedoms. Please feel free to give me any suggestions for content that you have. Perhaps we could use your note in our letters from our readers section?
Thanks for your interest and feedback! Alexis

RESPONSE FROM READER:
I would never discourage honest serious activism of any kind. What I am suggesting is that global warming is the paradigm that exposes the corporate system for what it is, far better than any other issue you could name: war, racism, etc. Moreover, global warming - its origins and contributors and effects - can provide not only a clear picture of corporatism but a very specific targeted focus for action, unlike all the other issues where action cannot be effectively targeted and is therefore purely symbolic or an expression of moral views.

I have spent over forty years as an activist, organizer, writer and agitator on environmental issues, and because of the studied refusal of social justice activists and movements to take environment seriously, much less see it as a clear example of a system gone horribly wrong, we are in a dire situation today.

Yes, I blame the peace and social justice groups, as well as some black groups who prefer to blast environmentalists rather than corporations, for avoiding the real issues. In the 1970s the peace movement leaders like Cora Weiss and others (even including Helen Caldicott for a while) tried to squash public dialogue on the dangers of nuclear power. So did the scientists by trying to shift the conversation to nuclear weapons and pretend they were more dangerous than nuclear reactors (they are not).

Yes they did. I was there. I can verify this. These people made my job very difficult. I remember, when Caldicott headed Physicians for Social Responsibility, a group out west requested from them a film about nuclear weapons and they were told that they were forbidden to raise the issue of civilian nuclear power at the film showing. I learned this directly from the person involved who called me at Friends of the Earth to complain about this. At that time, FOE was the ONLY group in NYC dealing with nuclear power. There was WESPAC in Westchester and SHAD in Long Island. That was it for metropolitan NY.

Caldicott came in the 1970s to a rally out here on LI against nuclear power, held by the Shoreham Opponents Coalition (which I organized) at a night club in Shoreham; she talked for over an hour and NEVER MENTIONED SHOREHAM OR NUCLEAR POWER. Afterwards I confronted her and asked her why. She gave some feeble explanation of how the PSR doctors and scientists would get upset. I said to her: But Helen, this is YOU. YOU have a right to address this on your own. You aren't representing PSR here. She didnt talk to me for years.

Another person had a similar experience at a lecture of hers. For a long time Caldicott went around saying that nuclear power was "the pimple on the pumpkin", meaning I assume that the pumpkin was a nuclear bomb and the pimple was trivial.

I remember at least two events Cora Weiss organized in NYC. During the question period I got up to ask why they hadn't discussed nuclear energy. Weiss tried to shut me up. Etc, etc. This was standard in the 1970s. The peaceniks were just ignorant, narrow minded and obstacles to the rest of us. They were manipulated by the nuclear scientists.

Here we are today, nearly forty years after the first Earth Day and we are back at square one, with scarcely any institutional memory of environmentalism, fighting an uphill battle against corporations, developers, government, globalization, and liberals, progressives and the left, and progressives still are staring off into space or chanting peace mantras. I fail to understand why they do this since they have little or no chance of succeeding. The peace movement has been around for well over fifty years and they havent accomplished bubkas. All they have done is detract attention away from the issues over which we COULD have some influence. And the social justice groups are no better, even though they are very good at guilt-tripping whites and environmentalists. (That's a whole other story).

The global warming/energy issue is, however, a locus that could bring dramatic change. Indeed, it already has, though obviously not nearly enough. But the fact that no day goes by without a story on global warming or energy is proof that the issue is now in people's consciousness, despite the efforts of the media and the energy sector and despite the failure of our educational system to embed environment in the curricula at all age levels.

Rhetorically, I would like to ask: What part of catastrophe don't you understand? (Not you personally).

[Haven]

[indent][/indent]

Another note from a reader which was sent to us via email:

"It seems the topic at the forefront of everyone attention is "CLIMATE CHANGE.' Understandably so. It is the one issue heavily impinging on everyone's lives directly and globally! But, what is THE source of it? Corporatism and its excesses, yes, to be sure. And what is at the root of that?

The world I was born into 75 years ago had only half the population we have now and NO CORPORATIONS. Indeed, few of the rampant problems and evils we're saddled with now. Few people now seem to remember the Antitrust Laws of the 50's and 60's that sought to prevent, curb, and manage company mergers. President Eisenhower, on his address to the nation on leaving the presidency after 8 years, warned us about the "military/industrial complex" as it existed then, in 1965. The corporate entity did not exist quite yet, but he saw where the 'military/industrial complex' was headed and he saw the perils that threatened. IT and its perils have now arrived! IT as well as climate change are both direct products of the doubling of the population and of everything else in the last half century.

--Corporations exist to make profits.
--Profits are made from the sale of products or services.
--Products and services are of many kinds and come in many wrappings, but they all have one thing in common: people need or want them.
--When population increases everything else also increases, the goodies and the baddies! The products we want and those we don't. The products we need and the excesses we indulge.
--Hence climate change, crop losses, water scarcity, price increases, eco-collapses, species extinctions, hunger, wars, social and economic disruptions, state failures, and, eventually, the collapse of civilization itself.
--The above are symptoms. Addressing symptoms mitigates the problem temporarily, but does nothing to cure the disease they signal!
--The above symptoms have all happened before to various populations and cultures on Earth. In different places. At different times. Some became extinct. Some responded in time, changed directions and survived.
--Difference: those that became extinct were local, isolated populations having no reach beyond their territories and no impact on other populations; our world now is highly interconnected, our population is global, crises have a global reach.

Even as we seek to mitigate the impact of symptoms, the only viable long term solution to climate change, and all other environmental crises, is the attainment of a sustainable population. This necessitates imposing limits and controls on birthrates and on births. Which will entail an informed population, education, awareness, commitment, law and order...

IF WE do not pursue this in earnest, Nature will. There are no alternatives. Through our excesses, mankind has created imbalances and disharmonies in the planet's ecosystems. Nature must restore their balance. Indeed, It has already begun to do so. That is precisely why climate change has everyone's attention--Nature has begun the work we continue to neglect.

Alma Cristina

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[diared]

Population figures have been on the decline for sometime now. Many European countries have negative population growth and the US is not far behind. We have food and resources for everyone but not all countries care enough to see their citizens are fed and sheltered. Yes the US could work on cleaning up our polluting ways but we already have much higher standards than most industrialized nations and becoming " green " is the new corporate push. We have only kept records of climate cycles for the past two hundred years and this information although valuable can not really be used to predict future weather patterns. How would you explain the heat up of our whole solar system? Polar ice caps are also melting on other planets. For all we know we could be in the middle of a 500 year weather cycle. Greenland was green at one time and not the frozen tundra it is now. Obviously this planet has been warmer and colder at times. To imagine we can significantly alter weather cycles through population control is very narrow thinking on your part. This does not eliminate the need for us to be good stewards of the wealth of this planet but killing babies and the old and infirm will hardly alter weather patterns. Say what you mean and call the crime what it is. Population control is saying you have the right to say who lives or dies. You call it the right to choose or quality of life. Others would call it murder!

[micke13]

[indent][/indent]
(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Alma , You are sooooo right about everything you said in your comments! Diared is one of those religious zealots that seem to think population control automatically means abortion, when what it really means is birth control. Many poor women keep having children with no sense as to what they are doing. They can and should be fixed after the second child. They do it with animals & animals, at least, fertilize the ground. Humans don't even do that since they think they have to be buried in a vacuum sealed box. In 100 years, no one will know or care who they were anyway. So we should just do our best while we're here.

[Sousy]

Here we are today, nearly forty years after the first Earth Day and we are back at square one, with scarcely any institutional memory of environmentalism, fighting an uphill battle against corporations, developers, government, globalization, and liberals, progressives and the left, and progressives still are staring off into space or chanting peace mantras. I fail to understand why they do this since they have little or no chance of succeeding. The peace movement has been around for well over fifty years and they havent accomplished bubkas. All they have done is detract attention away from the issues over which we COULD have some influence. And the social justice groups are no better, even though they are very good at guilt-tripping whites and environmentalists. (That's a whole other story).

The global warming/energy issue is, however, a locus that could bring dramatic change. Indeed, it already has, though obviously not nearly enough. But the fact that no day goes by without a story on global warming or energy is proof that the issue is now in people's consciousness, despite the efforts of the media and the energy sector and despite the failure of our educational system to embed environment in the curricula at all age levels.

Rhetorically, I would like to ask: What part of catastrophe don't you understand? (Not you personally).

I thought I would comment on this interesting observation. I've always thought that Global Warming was the perfect "Wendell Berry" problem: a big problem that only has many, many small solutions.

It also brings to mind the singular failing that environmental/social justice/peace movements have compared to their "competitors" - a rather horrible aptitude toward marketing. I've noted the various rallies, campaigns, etc. that usually turn into the big chaotic events that don't seem to accomplish much. The type of things that have succeeded have been very good at focusing on a single message in very clear language: such as Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, which was brilliant in focus and message, even as various groups argue around the edges.

I think if I were to 'focus' a message that would probably address issues of both social justice and environmentalism it would be "Stop Externalizing Your Costs". Many of the things that most members of society do (even those that are 'aware' but unfortunately have to live with the system) is to not realize how much something actually 'costs'. The plug-in gadgets that you want more of have a certain cost in energy use that relies on coal-fired power plants, that $4.00 T-Shirt has a cost in the humanitarian/environmental costs required to produce it, etc.

[diared]

Alma , You are sooooo right about everything you said in your comments! Diared is one of those religious zealots that seem to think population control automatically means abortion, when what it really means is birth control. Many poor women keep having children with no sense as to what they are doing. They can and should be fixed after the second child. They do it with animals & animals, at least, fertilize the ground. Humans don't even do that since they think they have to be buried in a vacuum sealed box. In 100 years, no one will know or care who they were anyway. So we should just do our best while we're here.

Funny how you resort to name calling and then make poor women seam less than stupid by implying that the only way to prevent having children is by taking birth control or being sterilized. There are many poor people who raise above that status at some point in their lives. That would include the vast majority of young people trying to establish themselves in the world. Who chooses who is not worthy to change one's lot in life? Maybe we sterilize all women after l child. Of course that won't include the rich or influential because they aren't like the rutting stupid poor people. Take a lesson from China on this one and see how well that policy works in that county. Now why don't you comment on declining birth rates and the fact that many young couples are unable to have even 1 child. Birth control residues are in our water tables and causing all kinds of environmental problems. Now there is a pollution problem worth addressing. As for me and mine we will refrain form the chemicals and practice self control.

[rx1620]

FInally someone here i have found that has some sanity. Diared is RIGHT. by the standards of the others on population control maybe we should just let the rich Pro-create. Maybe our government could sell Child Credits (like carbon) and we could save the planet with all this money we charge for making a child. then the "poor stupid people" would eventually disappear and everyone left would be a rich. great population control. I would rebel and make 10 times more. just to show my god-given and constitutional right to LIFE, liberty and pursuit of happiness. it seems the more we try to "Save the Planet" the more rights we give up that our FOrefathers DIED for. The true Crisis is in the home and what our government is teaching our children. Sometimes i wish i was born in the 60's with the same mindset of the PeaceNiks gone environmentalists. Ignorance must be Bliss to last 40 yrs!

Funny how you resort to name calling and then make poor women seam less than stupid by implying that the only way to prevent having children is by taking birth control or being sterilized. There are many poor people who raise above that status at some point in their lives. That would include the vast majority of young people trying to establish themselves in the world. Who chooses who is not worthy to change one's lot in life? Maybe we sterilize all women after l child. Of course that won't include the rich or influential because they aren't like the rutting stupid poor people. Take a lesson from China on this one and see how well that policy works in that county. Now why don't you comment on declining birth rates and the fact that many young couples are unable to have even 1 child. Birth control residues are in our water tables and causing all kinds of environmental problems. Now there is a pollution problem worth addressing. As for me and mine we will refrain form the chemicals and practice self control.