POPULATION BOMB / TREATISES FROM 1968 AND 2014

"...Asteroid bomb in the Yucatan? Meh?"

GUEST BLOG / PROLOGUE TO POPULATION BOMB BY PAUL EHRLICH—The battle to feed all of humanity is over.  In the 1970s the world will undergo famines—hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.  At this late date (1968) nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate, although many lives could be saved through dramatic programs to “stretch” the carrying capacity of the earth by increasing food production.

But these programs will only provide a stay of execution unless they are accompanied by determined and successful efforts at population control.

Population control is the conscious regulation of the numbers human beings to meet the needs, not just of individual families, but of society as a whole.

Nothing couild be more misleading to our children than our present affluent society.  They will inherit a totally different world, a world in which the standards, politics, and economics of the 1960s are dead.  As the most powerful nation on earth today, and its largest consumer, the United States cannot stand isolated.  We are today involved in the events leading to famine; tomorrow we may be destroyed by its consequences.

Our position requires that we take immediate action at home and promote effective action worldwide.  We must have population control at home, hopefully through a system of incentives and penalties, but by compulsion if voluntary methods fail.

We must use our political power to push other countrdies into programs which combine agricultural development and population control.  And while this is being done we must take action to reverse the deterioration of our environment before population pressure permanently ruins our planet. 

The birth rate must be brought into the balance with the death rate or mankind will breed itself into oblivion.  We can no longer afford merely to treat the symptoms of the cancer of population growth; the cancer itself must be cut out.  Population control is the only answer.

"...Don't blame me, Buster!"

MORE MODERN THOUGHTS ON POPULATION CONTROL:

2014:

 Climate change isn’t the problem. A population bomb is killing us

Humans are doing nothing to stop their own self-destruction

GUEST BLOG / By Paul B. Farrell, a MarketWatch.com columnist--The dinosaurs went extinct without knowing what hit them. But human beings know what’s coming and refuse to act.

The human race is in a suicidal rush to self-destruction. We can’t blame some grand conspiracy of climate-science deniers, Big Oil, Koch Bros, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, GOP governors and Congress.

We are the problem. You. Me. Too many of us. Population is out of control worldwide. Seven billion today. Ten billion by 2050, in one generation. Too many babies. Too many old folks. An out-of-control civilization committing mass suicide. We are responsible for destroying the planet.

We keep buying gas guzzlers, keep investing retirement money in Big Oil, forever in denial of the widening gap between perpetual economic growth and runaway population living on a planet of rapidly diminishing resources. We’re in denial, suicidal, blind. Forget global warming ... until we face this deadly population bomb.

We’re solving the wrong problems. Yes, even the United Nations and the 2,500 elite scientists in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). They’ve updated us with 2,000-page technical reports, every five or six years since 1988. They estimate global population out to 2150 with 12 billion people on the planet. Then, politicians, economists, businesses and families just ignore the disastrous impact of too many people.

As problem solvers, the U.N.’s climate scientists aren’t much different than Exxon Mobil’s CEO Rex Tillerson. He admits climate change is real, just an “engineering problem and there will be an engineering solution.” Same with the IPCC. But Tillerson doesn’t trust those “climate models to predict the magnitude of the impact.” At least Tillerson has faith that humans will “adapt to a sea-level rise.” After all, humans “have spent our entire existence adapting. We’ll adapt.”

The U.N. says we’re 97% certain climate change is human-caused. So what? Even if the U.N. has 20,000 scientists who are 100% certain that climate change will wipe human civilization off the planet like dinosaurs ... still you can bet your Big Oil retirement stock that Tillerson and every other science denier will keep fighting for free-market capitalism, subsidies and deregulation, keep investing $37 billion annually in exploration. And with their war chest of $150 billion annual profits, they can still pay off all the politicians and investors they need to make sure Big Oil keeps beating all the U.N.’s climate scientists.

Even 2,500 scientists are in denial about the killer problem

What’s wrong? Everybody on Earth is in denial about our biggest problem — runaway population. Too many new babies, a net of 75 million a year. Admit it, we’re all closet deniers — leaders, billionaires, investors, the 99%, everybody. Even Bill McKibben’s 350.org global team. Everybody knows overpopulation is Planet Earth’s only real problem.

Demographic growth is the one key dependent variable in the IPCC’s scientific equation. But we refuse to take action. So, yes, even IPCC scientists are science deniers too. They know population growth is the killer issue, yet we avoid it.

Thousands of scientists have brilliant technical solutions for their narrow specialties, so many solutions to reduce the impact of global warming. But they keep avoiding the root cause. They keep focusing on Band-Aid solutions to climate-change science equations. Warning, population growth is the cause of the Earth’s problem, not the result.

Time to stop, shift, focus on the real problem. Stop focusing on the wrong variables. Your scientific method makes this clear ... we are making too many babies, building an aging civilization. Out of control. Deal with it: Population is out of control. That’s the world’s No. 1 problem. Yet we’re trapped in mass denial. Nobody’s dealing with the world’s biggest problem. Listen:

Scientific American says global population growth is “the most overlooked and essential strategy for achieving long-term balance with the environment.” By 2050 world population will explode from today’s 7 billion to 10 billion, with 1.4 billion each in India and China. With China’s economy nearly three times America’s.

Billionaire philanthropists met secretly in Manhattan five years ago: Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, George Soros, Michael Bloomberg, Ted Turner, Oprah Winfrey and others. Each took 15 minutes to present their favorite cause. Asked what was the “umbrella cause?” They all agreed: Overpopulation, said the billionaires. But they’re still silent today.

Our collective conscience is trapped in massive conspiracy. In “The Last Taboo,” Mother Jones columnist Julia Whitty hit the nail on the head: “What unites the Vatican, lefties, conservatives and scientists in a conspiracy of silence? Population.” But this hot-button issue ignites powerful reactions. Yet politicians won’t touch it. Nor will U.N.’s world leaders. Even when it’s killing us. Cowards talking a good game.

Jeremy Grantham’s investment firm GMO manages about $110 billion in assets. He also funds an Institute of Climate Change at London’s Imperial College. He warns, population growth is a huge “threat to the long-term viability of our species, when we reach a population level of 10 billion.” Why? It’s “impossible to feed 10 billion people.” We don’t need more farmers, we need fewer small mouths to feed.

But how? Bill Gates says we must cap global population at 8.3 billion, even as his vaccine and contraceptive plans extend life expectancy. But Columbia University’s Earth Institute Director Jeff Sachs says even 5 billion is too many. Stop adding more babies? Virtually impossible. So how do we not add a billion? Or subtract two billion from today’s seven billion total? Voluntary? Remember how China’s one-child plan failed.

World’s biggest problem — out-of-control population — has no solution?

Worst-case scenario: There is no solution. Overpopulation is going to drive the world off a cliff. And seems nobody really cares. Nobody’s working on the real solution. No one has the courage. Not U.N. leaders, scientists or billionaires. No one. It’s taboo. All part of a conspiracy of silence. A denial that’s killing us.

Any real solutions? Just wait for wars, pandemics, starvation to erase billions? Wait in denial? But will wars, disease, poverty solve Earth’s biggest problem, the problem no one wants to talk about? Meanwhile, Big Oil’s marketing studies keep telling CEOs like Tillerson the truth about the inconsistent behavior of irrational humans living in denial. To Big Oil, population growth is good, more customers, essential for economic growth.

Yes, we just keep telling ourselves we’re recyclers, green, love hybrids, eat organic.

Even as we just keep adding to the billion autos on the planet, keep buying Big Oil stocks for retirement, keep stocking up on carbon polluting products. Why? Our subconscious secretly endorses Big Oil’s strategy. As Tillerson once told Charlie Rose in BusinessWeek: “My philosophy is to make money. If I can drill and make money, then that’s what I want to do,” making “quality investments for our shareholders.” It’s a subtle conspiracy.

Is it already too late? Will we ever stop our insane suicidal obsession?

Don’t bet on it. Watching how America’s dysfunctional government solves problems lately is not encouraging.

Millennium ago dinosaurs disappeared. Didn’t know what hit them in the last great species extinction. They vanished forever. Forever. The planet never brought them back. Today humans know what’s ahead. We can make the big, tough decisions ... if only we wake up in time ... if only we have the will to act ... before it really is too late.