[shinesw]

Like I said above, I am for drastically decreasing the population of the human race. Except for sexual predators, I am for making policies that encourage people to do something for their benefit with a positive reward available, rather than coercing people to do something out of fear for negative consequences arising for actions done.
Here are some policy recommendations (some more draconian than others) that I think would be effective in realizing that goal:
1. Government pays for all sterilizations that people volunteer for. The younger age it is done at could even have some extra bonuses such as cash payments.
2. All those convicted of sexual crimes are forcefully sterilized.
3. Any inmate in jail (except those without eligibility for parole) may have a few years shaved off their sentences if they volunteer for sterilization while incarcerated.
4. Anyone who volunteers to be sterilized before having any children would have their college (4yrs) paid for in full by the government. If anyone reverses the procedure they will have to pay back the costs plus interests and a penalty for violating the contract.
5. Anyone who volunteers for sterilization after one child would be elgible for 2 years of payment for college.
6. A high school drop-out who volunteers to be sterilized will be elgible for the government to co-sign for a loan for purchase of a house at a special government subsidized interest rate on the loan.These are just a few to encourage volunteers. I will think of more and search around for other ideas on it. Perhaps negative inducements are a good tool also, eventhough intuitively I feel an aversion to that route. But, I may list some just for the sake of throwing ideas out.

Glad to hear that you are at least not for coercing people into population control. That is good to hear.

However, if you really want people to stop reproducing government is not the answer. Government interference in anything always ends up with lower quality anything. This includes reproduction control.

If you want people to do such things you need to raise awareness yourself by starting your own organization, ect. The problem with government handing out rewards, ect. is that it still costs tax money on something a lot of people will disagree with. So at the root of your plan there is still coercion.

Now for my opinion on the issue. I think it is good mankind increases its population. You can't forget the fact that we are animals, the higher population our species has the greater our chances of survival in a horrible situation. Now that may seem a bit silly, especially considering the fact that we have around 6.5 billion of us. But the truth of the matter is we are vunerable to many things such as astroids from space, super volcanoes, ect.

The ultimate goal of life is to survive and reproduce. So I see reproduction as a fundemental natural right. No government institution should force their view on reproduction.

You can't compare a virus to a human. A human is a highly evolved animal with culture and society . In any case being the dominant species we deserve to do as we please with our enviroment and other species. HOWEVER, you will find that most of us want to protect the enviroment and want to animals to survive into the future. So I am not too worried at things. There is still a chance all this can backlash later on and if it does it is our fault. But I doubt humans will become the ultimate destruction of this planet .