Yes, we’ve got to move towards “sustainability” on a finite planet — though that term has been paraded and ruined by Agenda 21 programming. Maybe switch to the word “regenerative”?
So. Try again. We’ve got to move towards regenerativity, but not because there are too many of us. And for damn sure, not because we’re “useless eaters.”
Overpopulation: Fact or Myth?
October 25, 2014
Elina St-Onge
Before starting this article, I wish to specify that it is not because I choose to question the concept of overpopulation that I also question the need to end poverty, overconsumption and environmental destruction. Overpopulation may be a concept, but poverty and unsustainable practices are a reality and my life is geared towards raising consciousness about alternative ways to operate as a society.
However, I believe it is important to question everything; even claims closely tied to the activist and environmentalist movement. Why? Because by questioning theories such as overpopulation, I discovered an even more promising future than the never-ending struggle of trying to merely control the damage we cause to the planet and each other without addressing the cause.
Questioning scare-tactics, even if they seem to be geared towards noble causes, does not necessarily deny our support of the causes themselves. Yet they might save us from getting caught up on issues that distract us from the REAL problems and relevant steps we can take to create meaningful and long-lasting change.
The Overpopulation Scare: How It All Started
The concept of overpopulation originated in England in 1798, when the Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus saw that food production increased incrementally, while people reproduced exponentially. Based on his calculations, he predicted that the world would be out of food by the year 1980. Malthus blamed reduced mortality rates and encouraged population reduction.
In his Essay on the Principle of Population, Malthus calls for increased mortality among the poor:
All the children born, beyond what would be required to keep up the population to this level, must necessarily perish, unless room be made for them by the deaths of grown persons… To act consistently therefore, we should facilitate, instead of foolishly and vainly endeavoring to impede, the operations of nature in producing this mortality; and if we dread the too frequent visitation of the horrid form of famine, we should sedulously encourage the other forms of destruction, which we compel nature to use. Instead of recommending cleanliness to the poor, we should encourage contrary habits. In our towns we should make the streets narrower, crowd more people into the houses, and court the return of the plague. In the country, we should build our villages near stagnant pools, and particularly encourage settlements in all marshy and unwholesome situations. (Book IV, Chap. V) — Read it online.
All the children born, beyond what would be required to keep up the population to this level, must necessarily perish, unless room be made for them by the deaths of grown persons… To act consistently therefore, we should facilitate, instead of foolishly and vainly endeavoring to impede, the operations of nature in producing this mortality; and if we dread the too frequent visitation of the horrid form of famine, we should sedulously encourage the other forms of destruction, which we compel nature to use. Instead of recommending cleanliness to the poor, we should encourage contrary habits. In our towns we should make the streets narrower, crowd more people into the houses, and court the return of the plague. In the country, we should build our villages near stagnant pools, and particularly encourage settlements in all marshy and unwholesome situations. (Book IV, Chap. V) — Read it Not only that, he believed certain diseases should not sought to be cured for the sake of population control.
“But above all, we should reprobate specific remedies for ravaging diseases; and those benevolent, but much mistaken men, who have thought they were doing a service to mankind by projecting schemes for the total extirpation of particular disorders. (Book IV, Chap. V) — Read it online.”
As harsh as this sounds, the push for depopulation was defined by those supporting it as a necessary evil to save humanity and the planet.
In 1968, Paul Ehrlich of Stanford University adopted and propagated Malthus’ theory of overpopulation. He claimed that excessive human reproduction has overwhelmed the planet and predicted that the world would undergo massive famines, which would kill off hundreds of millions of people by the end of the 70’s.
In his 1968 work The Population Bomb, Ehrlich stated:
“The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s the world will undergo famines–hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.”
Because of the fear that such an alarming claim triggered, large sums of money were donated to the UNFPA (the United Nations Population Fund), which was founded the year after Ehrlich published The Population Bomb. This fund thrives on a crisis that – despite being “imminent” – keeps on being rescheduled over and over again for the past 200 years.
How “imminent” is this crisis exactly? Is there really too little space, too little resources and too many people? What are the facts and what are the myths?
First off: There Is Enough Space
Many believe that overpopulation is a question of lack of space. It isn’t.
Today, there is approximately 7,268,730,000 people on earth. The landmass of Texas is 268,820 square miles (7,494,271,488,000 square feet). If we divide 7,494,271,488,000 square feet by 7,268,730,000 people, we get 1031 square feet per person. This is enough space for everyone on earth to live in a townhouse while altogether fitting on a landmass the size of Texas. And we’re not even accounting for the average four-person family who would most likely share a home!
It is not to say that creating such a massive subdivision would be a smart, sustainable or practical thing to do, but this is just to give an idea of how it isn’t space that is lacking. Notice how small Texas is compared to the rest of the world!
Reblogged this on Awakestate.
I so disagree…… The question of “wild” as opposed to “domesticated” never enters into this debate, so humans still see themselves as the “superior species” (generally speaking) and they still think it is their place to domesticate all other life forms whether it be food gardens, domestic livestock etc – hence, they will never be free, because they do not “Give Freedom to the Life of the Planet” to just BE, just BE, just BE – WILD (not some commodity health or otherwise to survive a single species).
No other species goes to the lengths the humans do to save themselves, at the cost of millions upon millions of other species. We somehow consider this to be a “gift?” bestowed upon us as humans. I suspect there is a HUGE Re-think of so many, human paradigms that has to also happen.
So, no I do not agree with this.
Great comment, and thanks so much. Yes, the question of the wild does not enter in to that discussion and we do need to place the wild at the heart of all our considerings. Oddly enough, Agenda 21 does do this, in that it wants to make much of the planet a no-man’s land. Unfortunately, that includes pulling people off their rural land and warehousing them in cities. Freedom for the critters or freedom for the humans? A false choice. Somehow we have to find a way for all to exist in harmony.