Old News

While cleaning out some files recently I came across a newspaper article dated 1994. "Earth has too many people" shouted the headline. A study at Cornell University led by Professor David Pimentel had concluded that the human population must fall substantially to an optimum of — get this! — between one and two billion. With this population the Earth can provide the water and fertile land necessary for a diverse, nutritious diet of plant and animal products. Otherwise enormous numbers of people will live in misery, poverty, disease and starvation. The study stated that the population could be brought to below two billion by 2100 if each couple had only 1.5 children.

Similar studies by the United Nations, the World Wildlife Foundation and Professor William Rees and his colleagues at the University of British Columbia also conclude that human population exceeds the carrying capacity of the Earth. They feel that a sustainable human population is in the four to six billion range. These are trusted and respected organizations with learned, reputable researchers. The validity of their studies is not in doubt.

Yet their results are buried on the back pages, ignored and treated as mere curiosity. No one is taking action. Instead, we march in the opposite direction. The world's population has increased by just over one billion since the 1994 study, and the count keeps ticking upward.
Signs of a teetering world are everywhere: war in Iraq, genocide in Darfur, food riots, peak oil, fisheries wiped out and now the biggest recession since the 1930s. This can't possibly end well.

How long can the pressure keep building? What will it take to get us talking seriously about population?

Erasing Poverty?

A solution commonly proposed to solve the world's overpopulation and related pollution and resource shortages is to eradicate poverty in the so-called non-developed nations. Once these people achieve good lifestyles, goes the thinking, they will not want large families and their economies will be able to afford pollution controls. We'll all live happily afterwards.

Noble as this goal might be, it is completely and totally unachievable. There are two reasons. Throughout history a gap has existed between the rich and the poor, the haves and the have-nots, the lords and the peasants, the wealthy and the working class. There is not a shred of evidence that this unfortunate but basic part of the human drive will change. Humans will always fight hard to climb the ladder of success and if some have to be trampled en route, tough luck. Sorry, but poverty in the form of poor nations—and a poor stratum even in wealthy nations—will be with us for the foreseeable future.

Even more important is that the Earth simply does not contain enough resources to lift two billion people out of poverty. As the United Nations and other organizations point out, we are already living far beyond the carrying capacity of the globe. Additional refrigerators, cars, televisions, roads, houses and the energy to power these goods cannot be supplied to the poor without ruining the world. In short, the rich and comfortable are already living beyond the world's capacity; there simply is no room at the party for more. The poor nations, which also have the greatest population growths, are condemned to lives of poverty. There is no escape.

Do you agree? Do you think that technology can overcome the impending crises of oil, food and water? How can we save the poor? I don't think we can, but I want to hear from you.

A Bad Attitude Day

A recent article disturbed me deeply. The author attacked those who claim that human overpopulation is damaging the environment and depleting resources as being anti-human naysayers. The more people, the better, he ranted. Even the founder of Earth Day, Gaylord Nelson, was included in the smear.

How do you respond to such disjointed logic? How does he possibly equate wanting a future for our grandchildren as being anti-human? It’s perverse! The author wants to run the good Earth into the ground, and then accuses those who want to slow matters down as being against the good of society?

I pondered this for many days and all thoughts led me deeper to the conviction that those espousing a slower population growth are, in fact, the true humanists. To stabilize population requires, at its most fundamental, empowering women and reducing poverty. This is a moral high ground that, sadly, has escaped most of modern society and is truly humanistic.

The author’s attitude is just the opposite and seems hooked on continuing to let the good times roll and to hell with everyone else. Stabilizing population, on the other hand, is intimately wrapped in developing our social skills: caring, sharing, helping, loving. Is he blind?

Have you encountered attitudes like this? Where do you stand? Send me your comments.

(You can watch CARE Canada's amazing "I Am Powerful" video on empowering women at http://www.youtube.com/carecanada.)