This article blew me away. Like a lot of people, I was under the illusion that one of the underlying causes of poverty, war, and pollution etc. — hell, the major underlying cause of human suffering — was humanity’s rapidly expanding population. And that, of course, since it’s such a big deal, it is taboo to talk about.
I watched the video Zen recommends at the end of this article. Intrigued, but still skeptical, I then looked at the “science” behind the video: see overpopulation is a myth.
It was at that point that my whole-systems permaculture perspective took over, and I remembered just how much food can be grown in a tiny space, and furthermore, that even desert environments can be remediated using permaculture and other biointensive methods. Furthermore, both permaculture and other holistic perspectives also recognize that fauna and flora in the wild tend to re-balance themselves whenever they threaten to get out of control.
In Jackson Hole, where I used to live, everybody noticed that the gigantic elk population would wax and wane, depending on the availability of food that particular year as well as as how many cougars and bears were in the area. When I was a kid, wild rabbits took over the Southern Idaho desert for awhile, which, of course, meant lots of food for coyotes. So then, too many coyote pups born, and soon the rabbits got scarce, which decreased the number of coyotes . . .
Likewise, “invasive” plants, when first introduced, may crowd out native species, but within time will settle down into a mutually cooperative arrangement with other flora — a process that, admittedly, may take 50 years!
If the “science” is correct, then we humans, as the invading species on this green/blue paradise we call Earth, are also, in the very near future, stabilizing our numbers. (BTW: the video does not mention another scientific study that corroborates its thesis: semen counts are down.) I like to think that the process of balancing our numbers with other flora and fauna will correlate with our opening to our innate sensitivity; that we will become like the Naavi in the movie Avatar, feeling our communion with the natural world so fully that we tranform out of the dominator control mode altogether.
Only in a world of perceived “scarcity” is “survival of the fittest” necessary.
World Population to Pass 7 Billion — So?
October 17, 2011
by Zen Gardner
Cause for concern? Only if this imposed parasitic world system isn’t rectified. There’s plenty for all, it’s just being hoarded and deliberately withheld and manipulated.
What? Have you too been convinced there’s “too many people”? Can you imagine an ant colony thinking there’s too many babies? They WANT offspring. What the heck’s wrong with people? Got too many for local resources? Move to the country!
Here’s today’s scare, compliments of the United Nations, of course:
Room for one more? World population to reach 7 BILLION in next few days
- Children most likely to be born in Asia-Pacific region
- Fears over pressure on food supply and medical care
The world’s population looks set to smash through the seven billion barrier in the next few days, according to the United Nations.
It comes just 12 years since the total reached six billion – with official estimates saying the figure will top eight billion in 2025 and 10 billion before the end of the century.
And it is most likely the baby will be born in the Asia-Pacific region – where the population growth rate is higher than anywhere else in the world.
Scroll down for video…
<a class=”wpGallery mceItem” title=”gallery2″ href=”http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/10/15/article-0-092488B3000005DC-249_468x313.jpg” rel=”prettyPhotoCrowded: The world’s population looks set to smash through the seven billion barrier in the next few days – and it is most likely the baby will be born in the Asia-Pacific region, such as Mumbai, India, pictured here
Experts say the pace of growth – which has seen the number of people on the planet triple since 1940 – poses an increasing danger to citizens.
With more people to feed, house and provide medical care for, they say the world’s resources look set to come under more strain than ever before.
As populations stabilise in the industrial world, almost all growth in the near future is expected to take place in developing countries.
Read more: here
It’s All About Control
The PTBs want a population they can control. That we are many freaks them out, as per the Occupy Movement. They’re getting the crap scared out of them.
The Georgia Guidestones, which should have been investigated and disclosed to the people of Georgia and the United States and the world as to what they were intended for and who did them, say the Earth’s population should be limited to 500 million inhabitants.
Says who, I ask.
Social and scientific engineers have been tinkering with humanity at the behest of mega powerful wealthy elites for eons. Now it’s accelerating at such a rate we’re apparently approaching an event horizon of sorts, a “singularity”.
So what’s the truth on population growth?
Try this out.
Video HERE
Simplistic?
Go ahead and support wars, sterilization and depopulation. Your viewpoint is manipulated.
-Zen
0 thoughts on “Zen Gardner: Overpopulation is a myth”
My take for several years has been that it’s not population as a number that’s relevant, but population as a function of resource use. Seven billion Naavi is different than seven billion SUV drivers (or wannabe SUV drivers).
Permaculture definitely broke me out of the notion that we’re up against a natural limit to food production, at least. Perennial polycultures, syncretic and robustly interconnected with their surrounding ecology, can be fantastically abundant, and produce lots of food in a very small area. John Jevins says 1/10 acre per person per year, and with no importation of nutrients necessary, to feed an adult. That’s huge.
My notion is we put a moratorium on the encroachment of empire into whatever wild lands exist, and use the techniques we know (biomimicry to reproduce nature’s abundance) to enhance production while keeping land use flat. Over time, we can attain more production on the same parcels of land using regenerative practices. Joel Salatin has famously about doubled the number of cow days per acre over the las 40 years, meaning the same land can now produce twice as many calories as it did two generations ago. At that point, we can start to cede back more space to zone 5, tithe back more of the earth’s net photosynthetic potential back to the rest of creation. I think the figure is that humans use something 40% of NPP- a crazy figure for one species among millions. That definitely seems imbalanced to me, but I see the above as a solution does not require forced sterilization or demonizing humans, but instead relies on cultivating that inherent sensitivity I think we have as members of earth’s community.
Plus, living in ways that make zone 5 integral to our life and not simply a haven for predators of our precious crops, will give us adequate motivation for preserving and even enhancing it, which naturally tempers population growth and perhaps enhancing quality of life too.
It seems it is possible that we have come to a path to deepen into
trust and respect for our own organic natures which will allow us to
recognize and identify with what we call ‘nature’ as a whole.
What joy to breathe this in.
Regarding the sperm count and soy products; I believe genetically modified soy products
were consumed by populations without their knowledge that it had been modified. Now we
look for organic. Is this a connection?
I have been a farmer and agricultural researcher for more than 30 years, was lucky enough to discover natural farming and Masanobu Fukuoka who helped me design my 17 year-old commercial farming system based on natural grassland ecology in Montana, studied permaculture, and also spent 14 months with Wes Jackson at the Land Institute where the terms “perennial polyculture” originated, and am now designing a forest farm. I agree that food production and distribution needs to be changed. However, as someone who has been feeding myself (and others!) for 17 years, a scientist, and one who respects the earth and all the other organisms with whom we share it, I know that human population needs to be diminished significantly for us to live equitably on this planet and feed ourselves in a way that works with natural nutrient cycles. Wes Jackson, whose work developing perennial grains that fit into a perennial polyculture mimic of a natural prairie, is an important step towards permaculture if we plan on eating grains, has dire predictions about the future of humans and our planet if we do not voluntarily reduce our population. Soil scientist Peter Solanis says it well, “Our ultimate goal, as we attempt to achieve a sustainable human culture on Earth, must be to move toward the sustainable exploitation of complex, species-diverse, self-managing, nutrient-conservative, natural grassland/prairie and forest ecosystems at rates that do not cause the loss of physical soil mass or plant nutrient capital any faster than they can be replaced by biological and weathering processes. This “solar-energy dependent economy” will not support the human numbers that have been able to exponentially increase slowly as a result of agricultural mining of soil nutrient stores for the last 10,000 years, and rapidly because of the availability of non-renewable fossil and nuclear energy subsidies during the last 250 years. In order to lower the human population to levels supportable by sustainable exploitation of complex, species-diverse, self-managing, nutrient-conservative, natural grassland/prairie and forest ecosystems we must begin to reestablish these natural ecosystems on lands that have been increasingly devoted to intensive cultivation during our agricultural past. The best suggestion so far to produce Rapid Population Decline (RPD) is for the collective global human family to adopt a One Child Per Family (OCPF) “modus operandi/philosophy.” Even with general acceptance of RPD and OCPF, the human population decrease that is necessary to achieve a sustainable solar energy-dependent culture will take several centuries. As human numbers are contracting/shrinking under a OCPF/RPD scenario, the extant population will insist on being properly nourished-and the only way we can produce enough food for them is by agricultural means that will further deplete the arable soils on the planet. During the centuries of transition, as we move toward a solar-dependent culture that again sustainably exploits complex, species-diverse, self-managing, nutrient-conservative, natural grassland/prairie and forest ecosystems, we should be exercising as responsible an agriculture as possible on the shrinking arable land-base upon which it is still practiced. During this transition, the growing portion of the arable land base that is abandoned will rapidly revert toward natural grassland/prairie and forest ecosystems as soon as we cease cultivating it.”
Helen,
Thank you so much for this informed and informative commentary.