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Good comments here, but I have one thing to add that I haven't seen yet: When you talk about limiting population growth it's worthwhile to look at where the limiting should take place. A long time ago I read about a concept called an "Indian Unit". An Indian Unit is the amount of resources a person living in India consumes, whether it's food, energy, water, whatever. And to be clear we're probably talking about the more rural, primitive part of India, where there isn't a great deal of electricity. Here in America it is said that every person uses resources equivalent to about 25 Indian Units, or 25 times what is being used by someone living in India consumes. So the burden we Oregonians place on our region is much higher per person than in developing nations. The reason this is important is that it's not uncommon for people from wealthy nations to propose population control for poor countries, where the numbers may be growing rapidly, rather than seeing how resource overuse is also part of the problem. Things are more complicated than simple numbers, in other words.

posted 3 years, 5 months ago
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I think the biggest "elephant in the room" has to be population growth. We've already far exceeded the carrying capacity of our planet, and our population is growing. The US, where per-capita resource use is greatest, is still adding people. How will any of the measures being discussed be sufficient if we don't stop adding people?

posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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It's very easy, it took me about 16 months from start to finish. You can start here http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/index.asp

posted 4 years ago
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I'd like Ambassador Wilson to comment on the issues that are keeping Amtrak from adding a second daily train to Vancouver. Amtrak is ready to put a second train on, but CBSA (Canadian Border Services Agency) has said that they'll charge Amtrak $1500 to inspect each additional train coming over the border. I've heard that a weak compromise has been finally reached that will allow the second train, but only for the two weeks of the Olympics next year. I'd like to see another train running every day. I read on a blog a while back that there used to be three "Internationals" running between Seattle in Vancouver back in the day. What's the problem with CBSA? 

posted 4 years ago
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