A recent letter in Biological Conservation criticizes TOP researchers for writing about how more people means less space for wildlife. We are curious what our readers think of the arguments and how you would respond. Please share your suggestions in the on-line comments below.
by The Overpopulation Project
This summer, TOP researchers published an article titled “Overpopulation is a major cause of biodiversity loss and smaller human populations are necessary to preserve what is left” in the respected scientific journal Biological Conservation. We summarized the evidence for how excessive human numbers destroy and degrade habitats for other species, and how population decrease can open possibilities for ecological restoration. We also encouraged conservation biologists to advocate for smaller human populations, through improved access to modern contraception and explicit promotion of small families, arguing that in the long term, fewer people are necessary to preserve biodiversity in both richer and poorer nations.
The editor of Biological Conservation recently published a letter critical of our paper, where 8 researchers accused us of supporting colonialism, eugenics, and exterminating people. We reprint it below verbatim. We are curious what readers think of these criticisms and how you would respond to them. Please share your suggestions in the comments!
A response to Cafaro, Hansson & Gotmark (2022): Shifting the narrative from overpopulation to overconsumption
by Aalayna Green, Department of Natural Resources & the Environment, Cornell University, and seven colleagues
A recent paper by Cafaro et al. (2022) attributes the decline of global biodiversity to overpopulation and encourages conservationists to “advocate for smaller [human] populations, through improved access to modern contraception and explicit promotion of small families”. In so doing, Cafaro et al. maintain a history of population-reduction solutions which encourages eugenics by recommending the erasure, extermination, and extraction of socially marginalized peoples (see Zacharias, 2021). Simultaneously, their assertions perpetuate discriminatory practices toward historically marginalized communities (e.g., Original Nations or Indigenous groups) who live in areas of conservation concern (e.g., Ancestral Territories). We argue that global biodiversity decline is caused by the rise of the overconsumption of natural resources for capitalist monetary gain, particularly attributed to the rich, former colonial powers originating in Western Europe, the United States, and Canada. Shifting the blame from overpopulation to overconsumption more accurately addresses the issue at fault and provides the foundation for a more effective, long-lasting, and ethical biodiversity conservation framework.
In conservation and wildlife biology, overpopulation brings to mind actively managing a population until it is reduced to “appropriate” levels. This is hugely problematic when applied to humans (see Stoddard, 1920) and it is likely due to these problematic connotations that it is “now rarely used in the scientific literature”. Despite this, Cafaro et al. uses the term and muddies its definition with overconsumption. A simple arithmetic example shows that if Country A with a population of 10 million people has a per capita consumption rate of 1 unit/person, it is just as “ecologically sustainable” as Country B with a population of 5 million people, with a per capita consumption rate of 2 units/person. The populations of both countries could increase by 5 million and Country A would be more ecologically sustainable than Country B, despite five million more people. In short, consumption rate matters more than human population numbers.
Additionally, Cafaro et al. further argue that, “global biodiversity decline is best understood as growing numbers of people and their rapidly expanding economic support systems crowding out other species.” However, the correlation between increasing human population size and species decline cannot be stated in this context without acknowledging the uneven distribution of consumption globally. Cafaro et al. link human population growth to greenhouse gas emissions, yet overlook the top 10 % of global income earners who are responsible for 40–60 % of global emissions (Nielsen et al., 2021). Furthermore, they do not discuss the geographic variation in ‘ecological footprint’ nor do they address that overconsumption is often not localized in a general context. For instance, sustaining an average modern American’s lifestyle requires ≤9.5 ha of land, while the average modern lifestyle of individuals in India or Africa requires ≤1.0 ha (Lin et al., 2018). Cafaro et al. further limit their attribution of biodiversity increases to human population decline to one section of the paper (Section 3), thus ignoring deeper, intersecting complexities involving habitat restoration and protection.
The authors attempt to link declines in the number of humans residing in an area to increases in biodiversity, but do not acknowledge the history of violence, harm, and dispossession which undermine the goals of biodiversity conservation and disproportionately impact Indigenous peoples and others whose wellbeing and cultures rely directly on the land and sea. A majority of the most biodiverse areas in the world are protected by Indigenous communities (Fa et al., 2020) yet, they continue to be threatened by colonial influences. Cafaro et al.’s article continues the neocolonial practice of associating land inhabitants as a problem, which can only lead to unethical solutions. It is this sentiment that can be found in the earlier ideologies such as ‘manifest density’ used to justify extreme violence, displacement, and the dispossession of land from Indigenous peoples. At best, the authors are unaware of the problems of mistaking overpopulation for overconsumption, and calling for a reduction of the former and not the latter. At worst, the authors are encouraging eugenics in the erasure, extermination, and extraction of Indigenous and other systemically disadvantaged peoples for the sake of biodiversity conservation.
In summary, Cafaro et al.’s (2022) article raises ethical and human rights concerns that undermine the collective effort of biodiversity conservation and “a just and sustainable future for all”. Global biodiversity decline can instead be described as the loss of biological diversity caused by the rise of human overconsumption, largely attributed to former colonial powers of the Global North. By shifting the narrative from overpopulation to overconsumption, we can embrace our critical responsibility to acknowledge modern conservation’s colonial roots and avoid perpetuating harmful top-down policies regarding human population management that have proven to be both deeply unethical and ineffective for biodiversity conservation in the long term.
References
Cafaro, P., Hansson, P., Gotmark, F., 2022. Overpopulation is a major cause of biodiversity loss and smaller human populations are necessary to preserve what is left. Biol. Conserv. 272, 109646 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2022.109646.
Fa, J.E., et al., 2020. Importance of indigenous peoples’ lands for the conservation of intact Forest landscapes. Front. Ecol. Environ. 18 (3), 135–140. https://doi.org/10.1002/fee.2148.
Lin, D., et al., 2018. Ecological footprint accounting for countries: updates and results of the National Footprint Accounts, 2012–2018. Resources 7 (3), 58. https://doi.org/10.3390/resources7030058.
Nielsen, K.S., Nicholas, K.A., Creutzig, F., Dietz, T., Stern, P.C., 2021. The role of high-socioeconomic-status people in locking in or rapidly reducing energy-driven greenhouse gas emissions. Nat. Energy 6, 1011–1016. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-021-00900-y.
Stoddard, L., 1920. The Rising Tide of Color: The Threat Against White World Supremacy. Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, NY.
Zacharias, R.L., 2021. Fewer of whom? Climate-based population policies infringe marginalized people’s reproductive autonomy. U. Pa. JL Soc. Change 25, 81.
Read our response to their critique here.
Yes the connection climateproblems and populationgrowth is evident. And than is there also connected with overpopulation the suffering of millions of refugees.
The editor of Biological Conservation published letter critical of TOP accusing them of supporting colonialism, eugenics, and exterminating people is misguided and unfortunate. The editor dangerously, and needlessly, conflates issues.
As many know, education and self-empowerment, especially among women, have been shown to lower birth rates and enhance the quality of life for people and the environment.
Most models of carrying capacity have shown the planet can sustain roughly 1.5 billion people living very modestly. As we pass 8 billion plus people – the problem is both over consumption, consumerism and just way too many people.
We cannot possibly conserve our way to sustainability and need both radically less consumerism and people.
To blame poor people for overpopulation is nonsense. I live and work in relatively rich Los Angeles. When I got here 30 years ago you could get places. Now, it’s gridlock 24/7. This is happening everywhere even in rich countries.We need fewer people in “rich” areas too.
The U.S. can sustain roughly 125 million people and now we’re headed toward 400 million. And don’t get me started on our water needs here in Southern California. Records show that this area used to sustain 40,000 Native Americans. We now have over 40 million people that must import everything to sustain us, And we cannot discuss that this is too many people?
No one here even talks about how fewer people would make life better – especially the media selling consumer goods.
We all have to work together urgently to save the planet. Overpopulation must be included in discussions of sustainability and biological conservation. Re-usable food bags and electric cars won’t save us.
I’ve been a bio-cultural anthropologist, (and professor of maternal health), conservationist, and filmmaker for 40 years. To suggest I am into eugenics and colonialism, etc., because I am for both a decrease in the human population along with more sustainable behaviors and less consumerism, is misguided.
TOP and Biological Conservation both have valid points and we all need to work with each other. There is way too much urgent to work to do! please excuse any typos!
These arguments are used to shut down any discussion of population. I can find the same ideas repeated (with more and less degrees of accuracy) in the WP and NYT comments any time someone dares to mention the word ‘population.’ It’s a useful tactic for those who want to avoid any mention of overpopulation because people are so afraid of being called ‘racist.’ Even the word ‘eugenics’ will shut down a conversation. The only way to stop this is to end the paralyzing effects of such words. Discussions of birth control and population are not inherently linked to eugenics or colonialism, but that doesn’t matter if the conversation can be stopped so easily.
Thanks for your comments, Dr. Clark! I don’t blame the editor for publishing the letter; in fact, with some reservation, I think it was the best thing to do. These arguments are out there, and it is better to have them in print and available for critique and discussion, than to have them whispered behind people’s backs. Conservation biology has not been well served by 30 years of near silence on population issues.
Phil, I totally agree with you. Communication is crucial. I am glad they did write the letter and start a dialogue. Indeed, I rarely post but wanted to add my voice on what I think is the single most urgent issue of our day. Climate change, loss of biodiversity, and overpopulation are inextricably linked. I work on many conservation issues and never do these groups ever mention overpopulation. TOP is so important we must speak up in away that reaches out to everyone with facts.
Got the facts right, but again, not the thinking. Too academic, exactly the kind of thing that has led us into this mess, believing we’re the smartest guys.
Do not forget who is controlling academia, trying to make ancient, real knowledge inaccessable f o r e v e r, by killing off all indigenous knowledge.
Now you know who burned down the Great Library of Alexandria (after stealing all its contents). And killed Hypatia whilst they were at it. Bless her.
It takes only one to ruin the party.
So rather than the absolute [population) numbers, the behaviour of that population better be our first concern.
With proper conduct, would even a larger population produce the kind of insane, cruel and devastating mayhem that we see today, and which even IRS-efficiency inspired regulations cannot remedy?
I argue that if our world leaders – not those of course we all know (?) – would have the required competences -and I assure you, they do, they know us better than we do- then one would expect healthier environment, beter and far more advanced healing, better and far more advanced energy management (for which the hundreds of patents have been locked away for almost a century) less crime, safer streets, better education (dumbing us down), … rather than what you and I see around us getting worse every single day. There is a word for things unable to stop growing when they should. We all know it. Just stop feeding it.
Therefore, my friends, all this mayhem must be DELIBERATE.
Get off your knees friends and wake UP.
No more of this. There needs to come an end to the pain, the suffering, the slavery of our people.
It will.
https://mahb.stanford.edu/library-item/failure-of-the-universities-the-culture-gap-is-now-near-lethal/
An example.
Some people ARE waking up my friends.
Also, I can agree with Dr Cafaro’s response. Respect
You so nailed it, Teddy. We get so engrossed in the DEADWOOD (as my college writing prof called it) and ancillary stuff THAT (1.) we buy into an VALIDITY of an argument that should not have credibility to begin with and (2.) we forget the obvious, such as WHY did the Sierra Club go from believing in carrying capacity–as it published a bumper sticker reading THE UNITED STATES: THE MOST OVERPOPULATED NATION–to, like this writer, attacking any and all that would presume to believe in why Sen. Gaylord Nelson founded Earth Day, TO FOCUS ON POPULATION! I simply WILL NOT in ANYWAY allow the woke crowd to sucker me into a conversation via their calling me a racist.
Right so Kathleene (thank you for your response), I understand your fight against the “Wir schaffen das-brigade” – as Edith Crowther coined it with polished pinpoint sarcasm – and I would agree, if only you would fight FOR (borrowing your beloved capitals) the things diametrically opposed to that “brigade” or by extension all that is negative or degenerative. I would love to discuss this with you full monty, but let me say this: if someone insists on being a fighter, the fight FOR something, because than that something will grow. Fight AGAINST something, than THAT will grow – which is exactly what is happening to everything around us today. It is a law. If you think about someone/something, you (r brain) sends it energy… which it sees as food… That is a natural law that has been deliberately obscured for many generations.
If it may be a consolation to you, well, as long as the “WsdBrigades” are using Faulty Powers, none of their actions will be sustainable, like auto-snuff candles.
Thank you for providing a link to YOUR paper and I look forward to reading it in full. Meantime, I would be inclined to ignore the Response because it is pedestrian and uses language in a biased way throughout. Indeed at one point it risks a lawsuit, with its wild accusations of “neocolonial practice” and “encouraging eugenics”. Looking at the self-description of the lead author, Aalayna Green, provides several clues as to why this would be.
I realize Letters have to be short – but powerful minds are capable of conveying depth in brief, if they have to. Conversely, even a short piece can convey extreme shallowness.
The Response calls to mind the furore surrounding the publication (in 1968) of Garret Hardin’s “The Tragedy of the Commons” which was denounced in an emotive way by many scientists who make a living partly by concealing the role played by human Overpopulation in the extinction of other species and entire habitats. There are no jobs and no research monies attached to the simple proposition that less humans ALSO consuming less per capita (whatever their income, ethnicity, gender, etc.) are a “sine qua non” of any possible rescue or salvage of what remains of the world as it was before human numbers started to exceed 1 billion, i.e. before 1800.
In an effort to lift the issue up above the assorted wails and squawks of the scientific “community”, Garrett Hardin much later (in 1986) devised a cool (in both senses) way of considering the issue based on Game Theory. He called it “The Commonize Costs–Privatize Profits Game” (or CC–PP Game). Although many researchers might sneer at the idea of using this game as a prism through which to view matters of life and death such as Biodiversity Loss, I think they would be wrong because it forces everyone to abandon any axes they have to grind. And in the end, it is our personal need to earn some sort of living somehow that drives most of us, and this has always been the main obstacle to preventing the Tragedy of the Commons on a global scale – whether the entity commonizing costs and privatising profits is a TNC or little old me.
I will describe the CC-PP Game in a separate post, and also refer to the Global Footprint Network whose crystal clear statistics for each Nation’s per capita Ecological Debt or Credit simply do not allow red herrings such as “neocolonialism” to muddy the water (if red herrings CAN muddy water).
You’re right, Edith, that the money isn’t in advocating fewer people or less consumption by the people we have, but in technofixes. This is evident, for example, in the most recent IPCC Assessment Report (#6), and in the funding for the Biden Administration’s climate change bill.
Garrett Hardin is another scientist and thinker who is demonized these days for writing about limits. But decades after his death, his work can still be read with profit. For links to some of his most important writings, visit : https://www.garretthardinsociety.org/info/links.html
xxxx and thanks for link
I think we need to remember another great activist’s (environment and population) great words, words I believe he would have applied to the letter writer. That person, Dr. Al Bartlett, would have likely cautioned not to waste too much time on this spewer of vitriol, because he’s obviously a follower of “Disney’s First Law: Wishing will make it so,” and let me add, if it wishing and delusional thinking doesn’t work for him, he and those like him can start calling those guilty of “Wrongthink” racists, believers in eugenics, etc.
“contraception and explicit promotion of small families”. In so doing, Cafaro et al. maintain a history of population-reduction solutions which encourages eugenics by recommending the erasure, extermination, and extraction of socially marginalized peoples”
Shaving read this statement I felt like giving up further reading.
Do they realize this statement is outright mandacious? Your paper calls to NO any of those.
Is it really academic level of dispute?
The populace influence on diversity is a function of consumption and the number of consumers.
Moreover it is a function presenting it’s results in a certain moment. For a certain border conditios. Which are subject to be changed. models prove that the less consuming nation will soon be willing to consume as much as the more consuming one and will take up all actions necessary to fulfill its inhabitants dream so as not to be removed from power thus a toto impact will be exacerbated.
Yes, it seemed amazing to me, too, that scientists, or scientists-in-training, would put their names to such a letter. Engaging in ad hominem comments, and engaging with the substance of what we say in the paper little if at all. I would be embarrassed to write such a letter. I think it’s an example of how standards decline when we become too sure of our own righteousness.
Yes, it’s incendiary presumptuousness. Academic standards have declined into ideological dogma to such an extent that the Grievance Studies Hoax was able to get peer reviewed studies published that were fake because they supported the journal’s editorial board’s biases.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievance_studies_affair
Extending life spans artificially by suppressing
communicable diseases is a selfish decision at the
expense of other critters, future generations, and
the environment! There’s nothing “normal” about adding
one billion people every 12 years!
I gulped when I saw “one billion every 12 years” – but looking at the figures, world population was (roughly) 7.8 billion in 2020, 6.8 billion in 2008, 5.8 billion in 1996, 4.8 billion in 1984, 3.85 billion in 1972, and then (a slightly longer gap) 2.8 billion in 1956. Exponential doubling has occured once, between 1927 (2 billion) and 1973 (4 billion). 4×4 is 16 billion so we have not reached that yet, and it seems unlikely that we will as the current 8 billion or so is already causing minor population crashes in a few locations plus a general levelling-off of birth rates in most Nations. It is also causing die-offs of many life-support systems, especially groundwater. It seem obvious that if humans do not drop back to 2 billion voluntarily, they will be forced into it by a series of environmental catastrophes or natural disasters. So in a way we can all relax when it comes to DOING something – but we should prepare as individuals and families for hard times and also tell the truth – because telling the truth eases the pain of trying to live a “good life” when it is no longer possible even on a rural smallholding, due to the ripple effect of overpopulation in distant megalopolises and the resulting wars, droughts, plagues, etc.
No, we should be DOING something because “nature”‘s way of reducing our numbers is extremely painful for all involved including other species that would go extinct before we’re reined in by catastrophe.
And, since this “racist” focuses almost solely on U.S. growth, are you aware (as NPG focuses on in its FORUM papers) that when I helped celebrate the first Earth Day, the U.S. population was roughly 200 million? And, though the Rockefeller Commission and Clinton’s Council for Sustainable Development both tried to give warnings, that became 300 million in LATE 2006, and today, if you’ll boot up the U.S. CENSUS BUREAU’S POPULATION CLOCK, we are already–less than 20 years out–bumping up against 334 million, with that 92-percent immigration-driven AND in a nation, thanks to media, DENIED A NATIONAL DISCUSSION ON ANY OF THAT because they keep it under a news blackout!
The letter writers fail in their criticism in several important aspects. Their attribution of racism and colonialism to the authors is fabricated, as is labeling them pro-eugenics. Nowhere do they advocate for these policies directly or indirectly. In fact the societies that Cafaro et al focus on in their paper are rich ones–the US and Europe for the most part. There are two reasons population is so important–one Cafaro et al mention, the other they do not. Most all modern societies and the people in them, want to be richer. China and India are two examples and there are many others. Among other things, more people create more demand, especially for food, which generates human conversion of forest and grassland to agriculture (Crist et al 2017). Secondly, ignored by leftists and most others, is that more people equals more hierarchy; larger societies are never egalitarian or just. (Flannery & Marcus 2016; Pringle 2014; Pennisi 2014; Johnson and Earle 2000; Boehm 1999; Shepard 1982; Harris 1977).
Boehm, Christopher. 1999. Hierarchy in the Forest. Harvard University Press. Cambridge MA.
Crist et al., Science 356, 260–264 (2017) 21 April 2017
Flannery, Kent and Joyce Marcus. 2016. The Creation of Inequality. Harvard University Press. Cambridge MA.
Boehm, Christopher. 1999. Hierarchy in the Forest. Harvard University Press. Cambridge MA.
Cherkaou, SidiImad, Mohamed Boukherouk, Tarik Lakhal, Adil Aghzar and Lahcen El Youssfi. 2020. Conservation Amid COVID-19 Pandemic: Ecotourism Collapse Threatens Communities and Wildlife in Morocco. E3S Web of Conferences 183, 01003 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1051/e3sconf/202018301003, published online 03 August 2020; accessed 21 January 2022
Dasgupta, Partha 2021. The Economics of Biodiversity: The Dasgupta Review. London: HM Treasury.
Dobson, Andrew, Zeke Rowe, Joel Berger, Philippa Wholey and Tim Caro. 2021. Biodiversity loss due to more than climate change. 374 Science 699-700. (4 November)
Fanon, Franz. 1963. The Wretched of the Earth. Grove Press. New York.
Flannery, Kent and Joyce Marcus. 2016. The Creation of Inequality. Harvard University Press. Cambridge MA.
Harris, Marvin. 1977. Cannibals and Kings. Random House. New York.
Johnson, Allen W & Timothy Earle 2000. 2d Ed. The Evolution of Human Society. Stanford University Press. Stanford.
Pennisi, Elizabeth. 2014. Our Egalitarian Eden. 344 Science 824-5 (23 May)
Pringle, Heather. 2014. The Ancient Roots of the 1%. 344 Science 822-5 (23 May)
Shepard, Paul. 1982. Nature and Madness. Sierra Club Books. San Francisco.
Thanks for the comments David. We made a conscious effort in the paper to focus on the need for population reduction in rich countries, as you note. I doubt the letter writers even noticed this, in their rush to fit us into a preconceived box of “rich people who are worried about poor people having too many children.”
Your point that people in developing countries are’t willing to remain poor is extremely important. The “global middle class” is growing by leaps and bounds, and it is hard to imagine a future in which they do not seek to consume more. Another crucial reason to ratchet back overall numbers.
Thanks – and thanks for the links, Chris Boehm looks specially interesting. Ibn Khaldun, the Arab historian and socio-political theorist of the 14th century AD, was not a scientist but came up with with a similar observation (unevidenced) – namely that as civilisations grow and become more sophisticated, they become less “equal”. He does not use “equal” or “Equality” (weasel words in my opinion, and not much used in his day if at all). Instead, he introduced the word “asabiya” (solidarity, group feeling, or group consciousness), to show how an early civilization differs from its late stages by which time it has lost its bonds of kinship through over-expansion. The concept of asabiya has been translated as “social cohesion,” “group solidarity,” or “tribalism”. It may be seen as “primitive” (a bad word) or “organic” (a good word), but these are value judgments. All we know for sure is that there is far less difference between rich and poor, educated and uneducated, in such societies.
Born in Tunis, Ibn Khaldun was surrounded by Roman ruins – but his own civilization was on the way down in its turn, and would also leave behind glorious and lasting artefacts bearing witness to its zenith, but not to its earlier and more sustainable phase.
He does not mention population – but we know from other sources that populations did overshoot their accessible raw materials as they aged and expanded. Babylon could not overflow into Australia, and Ancient Egypt could not overflow into America as modern Iraqis and modern Egyptians can – and the result was not pleasant.
To be honest, it is difficult to see how Asabiya (or Boehm’s equivalent term) could prevent overpopulation – because it never has unless the tribe stays tribal and does not expand its horizons either geographically or mentally. Once humans start to expand their horizons, the die is cast. This may sound fatalistic, and not to the taste of the “can do” contingent. But history backs up the fatalists, not the “wir schaffen das” brigade.
It’s interesting how people forget how great, and expansive, and consequential for better and for worse the Islamic Arab civilisation was, how big its influence and wide its reach. We’re so caught up in a narrow view we forget many civilizations, and not just white Europeans, had similar cycles of rise and fall, of expansion and conquest followed by collapse. Jared Diamond is great about this, in his older books at least. So many lessons to be learnt there, about how humanity tends to behave, it’s a shame we get stuck in petty finger-pointing.
This made me so angry I struggled with reading until the end. It’s sad that even scientists have such a blatant (fashionable) agenda that they cannot even look at the evidence anymore. They didn’t dispute what you said, they “whatabouted” it by criticising you for not discussing things that they think are morally bad (which I agree they are, but that’s totally beside the point). They accuse you of “maintain[ing] a history of population-reduction solutions which encourages eugenics by recommending the erasure, extermination, and extraction of socially marginalized peoples.” Which you do not at all. They might as well have called you Nazis.
As we say in Italian, “there’s no one more deaf that he who does not want to hear”, but I think you could make something like the following points:
1. You have ruled out coercive measures and think that offering family planning education and freely available birth control is a win-win strategy
2. It’s not “either/or”, because overpopulation and overconsumption are both significant issues that do need to be dealt with and it would be constructive for environmentally-minded people to address the one they want to address more without bickering with others who’ve made a different choice
3. It should be obvious by now that due to international migration, GPD growth in formerly poor countries, and intra- as well as inter-country inequality the “blame” for high levels of consumption shouldn’t be reduced so simplistically to a rich capitalist (evil) North vs poor victimised South. This binary distinction doesn’t even make sense anymore. Is China North or South? What are Saudi Arabia and the UAE, who have among the highest levels of per capita consumption in the world?
4. Speaking of “blame”, we should move on from the blame game and talk more constructively about reasons and solutions instead, so that people can stop getting defensive and form alliances over issues that affect everybody
5. Their whole Country A and Country B hypothetical scenario makes them look like they don’t know about math
The only one thing I sort of agree with here is that sometimes the focus on conservation of relatively wild and intact ecosystem penalizes more the indigenous people who live near them and depend on them, while ignoring the potential for rewilding and greening the much more depleted areas where the rich live. It also forces formerly self-sufficient populations into the wildlife tourism trap which is demeaning and dangerous in case an unexpected event stops tourism abruptly, as eg. Covid just did.
This is a real issue and you don’t need to go to Africa or India to see it – look at the Alps or other rural areas. It’s not an either / or thing, though, it’s more complicated than that.
Non c’è nessuno più sordo di chi non vuole sentire. Very true!
Gaia, you bring up great points. We should have put you in charge of drafting our response letter!
The math criticism is one we did pick up on, in our response. Using the same logic as this letter, you could prove that the length of a rectangle is more important to determining its area than its width — or vice versa. What is fascinating to me is that scientists could have overlooked such obviously fallacious reasoning.
Yes! Also, you don’t randomly add a certain amount of people to a population, you usually have things like growth rate, TFR, population momentum… but that’s getting technical and I’m no demographer!
You mention Jarod Diamond. Indeed, his book, COLLAPSE, was for me, defining, as he defined society after society which LIKE OUR OWN, knew they were in trouble, but yet kept doing the same things that they HAD TO KNOW were causing their problems
In my opinion, that includes us continuing to EXPLODE our population via immigration, even as we see every imaginable evidence that we’re exceeding the CARRYING CAPACITY “from sea to shining sea.” Of course, Diamond blew it with me when–perhaps to please his Big 6 Media publisher–he dismissed population as any part of the problem, in my view, HIS VERSION of the very things he pondered about and defined as those ‘who just kept doing the same thing,’ as like lemmings, they headed toward the precipice. Come on, Jarod Diamond, you can’t honestly write about COLLAPSE and NOT mention population, unless you’re being POLITICAL, RATHER THAN SCIENTIFIC!
P.S. One doesn’t have to be a demographer, and there is NOTHING complicated about momentum. My own parents were an example, punching out 6 children, who in their lifetimes, punched out 18 grandchildren, with the next generation (signs of a falling birthrate), producing only 12 children, while the following generation, though young, have produced only 3 so far. Yet, key in there is that, though both my parents died young, of their progeny and most of their progenies, progeny are STILL ALIVE, a whopping example of how long the high birthrates of the 1950 era will take to complete slow and reverse.
The letter by Green et al. is an appallingly poor response to the carefully argued article by Cafaro et al. If it were written by a first year university student, I would grade it as a fail for completely neglecting to address the issues raised. Instead, Green et al simply drum up all the old, hackneyed tropes about racism and eugenics as an attempted character assassination without addressing any of the key concerns. I would like to know from Green et al if there is any human population number that is too many? Is 50 billion too many? But why? And I would counter that, by expecting the poor nations of the world never to be allowed to increase their consumption and enjoy what those in the West call the good life, they are guilty of the most egregious racism. Why should we in Africa be denied the right to develop? And the only way we can do that without also destroying the planet, is for us to have fewer children.
Yes, one wonders what these people would say when the “poor” in the “South” start consuming like rich people in the North. Whose fault is it going to be then?
One way or the other, they will still call it the fault of rich people in the North.
Grasshopper, unlike we mere old geezers out here, you’re apparently entitled to your opinion. But one place I do draw the line is someone putting WORDS INTO MY MOUTH (or others) that are not their words, exactly what you’re doing! You are affixing YOUR BIAS and YOUR ASSUMPTIONS and saying THOSE ARE OUR BELIEFS when, Grasshopper, you are not even REMOTELY DEFINING WHAT I BELIEVE. So, get over it!
As, as one who came from a family of 6 STARVING WHITE CHILDREN and a mother DEAD by age 35, I believe that the fact that I, taking another path, had ONE CHILD, late in life, meant enrichment of my life–and hers- in a multitude of ways, including WEALTH. If it is wrong for me to believe that, fine, BUT DO NOT YOU DARE CALL IT RACISM! That is just more WOKE EXTREMISM that is intolerant of ALL VIEWS NOT IDENTICAL TO THEIR OWN.
It is tiring to continually see supposed scientists respond to numerical, biophysical evidence with emotional, normative value replies. Reg Morrison (fwd by Lynn Margulis, co-developer of gaia theory) explains it in _The Spirit in the Gene_. Mysticism, once selected for team bonding, led to human successes, but it is now our Achilles Heel.
Review:
https://innovation.cc/book-reviews/2000_5_2_9_kurtz_bk-rev_morrison_spirit-gene.htm
synopsis of points:
http://www.zo.utexas.edu/courses/THOC/gambler.pdf
The fundamental flaw, in the argument by Aalayna Green and her colleagues, is that they naively ignore the fact that most people in the rich world (1.5bn approx) aspire to the levels of consumption, if not corruption, enjoyed by the current global elite (1% or 80m individuals), whereas people in the poor world (the remaining 6.5bn of the human population) understandably aspire to the standard of living (aka levels of consumption) of the richer 1.5bn. It would not be too cynical to say that only The Rich buy the “Austerity is good for you” argument . . . and they certainly don’t live by it.
Unimaginatively the contributors view the world through the boring old prism of “the continuing history of nasty colonising white men”. Ironically, however, the lasting long-term damage, that these “nasty colonising white men” have inflicted on the planet over the last 100 years, has been to introduce the benefits of western/”colonising” science and medicine to less technically advanced societies, outside Europe and North America, which has dramatically reduced infant mortality around the world and is the principal cause of the exponential increase in the human population from 2.5bn in 1950, when I was born, to 8bn today . . . and is forecast to reach 10.3bn by around 2050, according to the UN’s latest reports.
Yes! Most people around the world want to consume more than they do currently. That’s why studies that try to specify a sustainable or optimal global population, like Partha Dasgupta’s or Chris Tucker’s, say that the higher per capita wealth and consumption, the lower the number of people we can sustain.
Your point about how sharing the benefits of Western science, medicine and applied agricultural methods with the rest of the world has made possible the population explosion, seems like an obvious one to me. Yet it gets swamped in the “colonialist” framework in which progressives commonly discuss North/South relations today — 50 or 60 years on from the great achievements of decolonialism and independence movements around the world.
I think we need a reset on how we talk about these matters: one which holds peoples and leaders around the world accountable for creating just and sustainable societies. A topic for another day …
I submit that it has FAR LESS TO DO WITH MEDICINE and FAR MORE TO DO WITH ENGINEERING and the modern refrigeration, clean water and sanitation it’s brought to us.
Of course, as one who walked around for 31 years with a POTENTIALLY FATAL AUTO-IMMUNE DISEASE that doctors, including the Cleveland Clinic, couldn’t bother to even LOOK FOR, I’m cynical about medicine AND believe medicine is better at promoting how great it is than actually delivering.
Also, NUTRITION–from better agriculture and food delivery–far more than medicine, has brought a low infant mortality rate, though, sadly, every evidence, especially in today’s Africa, shows that trend is reversing quickly, tragically.
And it’s a surprise to no one who understands exponential growth and its dangers when things become less-than-optimum, and with drought, too much rain and climate change, that is absolutely what we face. And the further over CARRYING CAPACITY we–whether black, white or whatever race–are, the more brutal will be the consequences.
I don’t even believe this letter writer deserves a response. The person, who I call ‘media indoctrinated’ and who seems to number among those whom Dr. Karen Shragg described in the latest NPG FORUM paper, THE VERDICT IS IN: TO BE ANTI-GRWOTH IS TO BE PROHUMANITY, has apparently accepted propaganda and indoctrination well.
She describes the point to which we have devolved–as I submitted in my on NPG paper, “Why population REALLY disappeared from the news and became politically incorrect,” or due to the “reality” media have created in our nation since deregulation. DUE TO CHANGES IN COMMUNICATIONS LAWS media have transitioned to 6 MEGAMONOPOLIES effectively conspiring together rather than competing. Media are now ALLOWED (for the first time) to use BIG MEDIA–not just here, but throughout the world–to indoctrinated, propagandize (To Wall Street’s agenda), to divide us through half-truths and “disinformation,” and to impose wholesale NEWS BLACKOUTS!
That media (I believe) those now allowed for the first time to control media have taken us from a nation that sanctioned and protected ALL views and ALL information–You know? FREEDOM OF SPEECH!–to a 1984 Orwellian reality where, as this letter writer seems to believe, it is his/her obligation to attack, vilify, label (Gasp! From the P.C. crowd who is supposed to hate labeling!) and to use every tool available to him/her to silence other than what Orwell called “Rightthink.”
As I have said from the beginning, such people don’t want to WIN the argument; they want to ensure it simply doesn’t happen, and indeed, many people fearing the ‘racist’ label have remained silent on so many things.
While I do hope others will rebut (rebuke?), at the risk of labeling, this nitwit, II have more constructive things to do TO GET MY OWN MESSAGE OUT than to deal with someone so emersed in a media-driven woke agenda that all who do not think as he/she thinks must be vilified. That individual, in my view, just deserves our pity–though a CONSTRUCTIVE (perhaps not for publication) to the editors asking why they allow this level of discourse, might be useful.
Thanks, and thanks for the mention of the NPG (Negative Population Growth, Inc.) forum. I had not heard of this organization. Their website says they are “a national nonprofit membership organization. It was founded in 1972 to educate the American public and political leaders about the devastating effects of overpopulation on our environment, resources and standard of living. We believe that our nation is already vastly overpopulated in terms of the long-range carrying capacity of its resources and environment.”
There is a fascinating bio of the late lamented founder, Donald W. Mann, on the site.
https://npg.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Don-Mann-Bio-2019.pdf
Talk about unsung heroes! Whilst fundamentally mainstream, in the Navy in World War II and then a salesman and realtor, Mann felt impelled to study Philosophy and French and started to really think hard about the world his children were to inherit. “Mann felt that Zero Population Growth, founded in 1968, wasn’t going far enough to address his concerns. Isaac Asimov was on record with studies advising that no more than 100 million people could live in America without causing irreparable damage to our natural ecosystems. Keeping to that number–less than a third of the country’s current population size–would protect our rivers, aquifers and wilderness areas, that in turn provide the space for people to live in harmony with nature, without crowding out the many species that live among us. …. When asked about the climate change movement, Mann says, “It’s odd that people don’t want to recognize that population is the central issue here. In a small world with limits, endless growth is not possible. That’s the answer but it’s pretty hard for people to accept that. I would tell today’s Wesleyan students, as well as everyone else, that population growth is the most important issue you can address.”
Strangely, Edith, I first heard of NPG when it was first founded, way back in the 1970s, when one could talk about carrying capacity and not be labeled as a racist. Of note, their founder, at about 100 years old, Donald Mann, just recently died, with him working on his passion right up to the end!
But let me emphasize, and that is much of the wy of my work for NPG, they focus on U.S. population growth!
That works why my belief system because of my understanding that it is U.S. population that–far more than Pakistan, South Africa, or India–impacts GLOBAL environmental problems, particularly climate. Since, as defined by an NPG paper by Ed Rubinstein, we have the highest PER-CAPITA carbon emissions of roughly 18 metric tons per capita, while China’s is roughly 8 per capita, and India’s (I’m winging it here.) under 2 per-capita. (I call this our “per capita problem!”)
So, do the math: We are the world’s 3rd most populated nation BEHIND ONLY CHINA AND INDIA, with a population currently at about 334 million TIMES that whopping 18 metric-tons PER-CAPITA, meaning that, despite media hype, on a PER-CAPITA EMISSIONS BASIS, we are, substantively–due to POPULATION AND OUR ‘PER CAPITAS’–EQUAL TO CHINA as a global climate villain.
But that is deftly NEVER reported by Big 6 Media as they instead headline (endlessly) that population isn’t a U.S. problem due to our falling birthrate, which is pure media manure!
Obviously, these carbon figures, point to many causes, but as one who has installed solar, tried to do with less, HAD ONLY ONE CHILD, etc., I have nonetheless come to understand that through we rich folks SHOULD LEARN TO DO WITH LESS, I have seen little willingness by most of us to do that–certainly not in the ways, such as going back to, basically, a 1950s lifestyle–in ways sufficient to work.
But then, that’s something else our corrupt media won’t focus on, that our very economic system is predicated on ENDLESS GROWTH and ENDLESS INCREASED CONSUMPTION, not on any of the real changes requisite to saving the planet.
Regarding a response to the Green’s letter, my comment is that the writer who takes such preposterous positions (omit a discussion of human population density, substitute “overconsumption” as the threat, and deny the effects of population on wildlife) deserves contempt and derision. Something along the line of: “Only a truly Woke dweller of the Ivory Towers could ever actually produce such drivel. For those of us who do the hard work of living in the real world, our own eyes are not lying to us and we cannot unsee that population density does indeed cause (directly and indirectly) loss of biodiversity and wildlife well-being.”
You so nailed it! And I stand as those no longer interested in even TRYING to respond to what is a POLITICAL narrative, NOT A SCIENTIFIC one. It is drivel, and I submit editors are prejudiced toward publishing such drivel, while they are also prone to SUPPRESSING the “racist” comments of those who try another narrative.
I understand and share your frustration Kathleene. But politics involves arguing with people we disagree with, and trying to convince our fellow citizens that addressing population is part of moving forward. A certain amount of abuse is inherent in the process, I think. Of course, here as elsewhere, less is better!
At first sight, Dr Cafaro, although well meant a taddy patronising, you are right. But, with respect, you are off track here. Because the politics you refer to, including of course the 3 other pillars of doom: finance, religion and media (+drugs) are compromised beyond belief today, by their own doing, and need to be ‘decommisioned’ asap. The forum you alluded to stil exists, but in a far less ideal for(u)m than you seem to realise, or perhaps chose not to mention. Like any other democratic forum, things go south if the majority of the participants would score below 90 (they’re aiming for 80 remember), you’re fucked (no wokey asteriks here). SO, people’s frustration is rooted in a far deeper structural nightmare than what otherwise might authorise a fatherly tap on the wrist.
Academic hijacked thinking (and heavily lobbied action -or equally expertly lobbied lack thereof) got us here, it will not get us out. So, patience. No judgement (any more) and allow people, preferably non-academics, to come up with NEW thinking. And the clock… is ticking.
Unfortunately you will just have to go through it line by line. I recommend doing a short article for submission to the journal, with links back to another main article on TOP. The journal article better pitched at passing readers, the fuller TOP article then there just for the more interested.
The editor seems a bit out of his depth but some of the readers of the journal might be much more reachable. Don’t despair.
My first reaction to the letter by Green et al. is it’s an appallingly poor response to the carefully argued article by Cafaro et al. If it were written by a first year university student, I would grade it as a fail for completely neglecting to address the issues raised. However, on reflection I might add that it helps explain why so many of our young people are coming out of schools less educated than when they went in. Edward C. Hartman, author, “The Population Fix, Breaking America’s Addiction To Population Growth.”
Thanks and I look forward to reading this, because the title inspires me – it must surely help to begin from the supposition that it is a form of addiction to which most of us are susceptible – and thus most of us need help too avoid becoming addicted, which can happen indirectly as even those with few or no offspring rely on labour from high TFR nations (both direct and indirect reliance).
It is right for people of the north to be self critical of their consumption, and of their legacies of colonialist practices of theft, exploitation, enslavement and enclosure, that have devastated societies of the global south. If people of the south want to be self critical of their population, they are entitled to, but people of the north who discuss the populations of people of the south do so at the risk of being criticized, as this letter demonstrates, largely correctly. (Who in this conversation introduced the idea of eugenics?) Any such discussions ought always be framed in the context of the numbers*consumption equation, with abundant humility for the neoliberal policies of the north that promote consumption, debt, and destructive development in the south. While the people of the south deserve and are likely to want help reducing their numbers, those whose mission it is to help them must repeat for everyone to hear, over and over, as I do when I write on these subjects, “We are opposed to the violation of human rights to achieve these goals. We seek to provide aid, and are adamantly opposed to any coercive or manipulative policy.”
All of this said, consumption matters and population matters, and given the rates of consumption in the north, we ought to be talking about our population much more.
Humility, curiosity and generosity would serve us much better than arguments over the best approach to these problems.
Also, The powerless and exploited always have the right to point out the errors of the powerful who exploit them. The powerful have no right to criticize the powerless. Their entire right and duty is to apologize and offer, without obligation, any aid that could be meaningful.
This does not make sense – and neither does your previous effort. There are probably more desperately poor people as a percentage of each nation’s population in the Developed World than in the Developing World, especially in the USA. And most of them have been there for generations, it is not just new arrivals (who are often starting from scratch – but how come so many longstanding citizens are plunging below “scratch” daily? – a long story, not unconnected with overpopulation in the Developed World and available biocapacity per capita).
Stephen, your view is just as simplistic and damaging as the previous distinction into superior and inferior races was. We’ve flipped the table but kept this unproductive line of reasoning.
As I argue in another comment here, the assumption that all “powerful” rich exploiters live in the “North” and all powerless poor victims live in the South is simplistic and in light of recent developments outright wrong. First of all, North and South, East and West are generalisations that should be used with extreme caution and obviously do not reflect reality as you can see by looking at a world map. Secondly, poor people migrate to rich countries, overconsumers in Europe or North America campaign and act to reduce consumption and redistribute resources, GDPs grow and decline… Also, if you look at the real world, some of the poorest countries have insane levels of inequality. Look, just to mention a couple examples off the top of my head, at Indian tycoons, Latin American elites, native Arabs vs immigrants in oil-rich countries, even North Korea, where people are often on the verge of starving, has a ruling family with yachts and obscene luxury… all this while some people in “the North” live on the streets.
Yes, some countries do have higher standards of living than others, but the picture is very complicated. Also those same countries mostly have at least 10% immigrant populations from poor countries; the more people are born in poor countries, more will migrate to consume more elsewhere. If we want a more equal world, we need to tackle consumption and population at the same time.
Bless you Jamie Goheen (third post) and all others above who see through this tired chamber of commerce-funded “academic” drivel, even hinting at this very late date at eugenics, racism. This belongs with the “smart growth” proponents overlooking that without curbing overpopulation, we’re only turning the entire nation into Queens, NY. Already, we’ve logging, drilling, mining “access” roads in “our” national parks to serve those whose business model so weak it demands evermore mall fodder and cheap labor. Every nation with declining birthrate enjoys higher GNP per capita.
At present rates of destruction, the South American rain forest, what Dr. Helen Caldicott rightly calls “the lungs of the earth,” will be all but Amazon dot gone by 2035, most mammals not raised for human consumption or companionship extinct by century’s end.
Instead of bucking the consumer-driven media’s blackout on overpopulation, hacks like Green serve the wheezing business community by hurling aspersions at those of us struggling uphill and against the wind to save this wee planet collapsing from the weight of 8 billion people regardless ethnicity, a planet so small the towers of major suspension bridges out of parallel to reflect the earth’s curvature.
But since when did such desperate business dullards embrace science? They are in lock-step obeyance to a recent “president” who thought people “invented” asbestos, and wanted to drop nuclear bombs on hurricanes. A poll of 2,000 UN scientists in 2013 showed them agreeing that overpopulation by far our biggest problem, their words, “bigger than climate.” A poll of 11,000 scientists in the 11/5/19 Bloomberg News reported the same agreement.
It’s late in the game. Perhaps best policy is not to give Green & Company the least air or online time, focus on reaching the general public, let the Greens and other third-tier academics write stale papers for one another and the op/ed pages of the Wall Street Journal.
Worry less about “Green, et al,” and more about the fact that thanks to Ronald Reagan’s revocation of the FAIRNESS DOCTRINE and Bill Clinton’s eager passage of the 1996 Telecommunications Act the lion’s share of media GLOBALLY, is now owned by OLIGARCHS or OLIGARCH-CONTROL mega-media outlets: Disney, Comcast, Sony, Time-Warner, National Amusements, News Corp, although if memory serves, one of even those mega media fish has been eaten by the others, which means only 5 MEGA MEDIA FISH who, believe me (as a lifelong journalist from when media were honest) make damned sure if it’s “wrong” we don’t hear it, and that includes ANY DISCUSSION of POPULATION, OVERPOPULATION, CARRYING CAPACITY, SPECIES EXTINCTION or that POPULATION IS THE FIRST THING THAT SCIENCE IS TELLING US WE MUST ADDRESS TO ADDRESS ANY OF THOSE ISSUES.
Nothing, nothing worries me more than the fact that we now live on a planet where–though the communications technology is astounding–we fundamental receive only a FRACTION of the information we did pre-DEREGULATION and the CAPTURE of our media by the Big 6. PLEASE read my NPG paper, “Why population REALLY disappeared from the news…”, although let me hasten to add, I now have a much greater understanding of THE REAL AND GLOBAL implications of what media deregulation and other factors mean.
Anyone who believes we can get good SOLUTIONS as a oligarchy-dominated media make sure we (meaning most people) never get full revelation of the problem, is being naive.
Population growth in rich ecologically deficit countries results in corporate mediated land grabbing in order to appropriate the necessary foreign biocapacity (land, labour, energy, materials) to sustain this population growth, even at low material and energy consumption.
https://data.footprintnetwork.org/?_ga=2.28859900.115563970.1650107829-1338938494.1645981830#/
Thus a focus on overconsumption and a denial of overpopulation, especially in rich ecologically deficit countries, ” encourages eugenics by recommending the erasure, extermination, and extraction of socially marginalized peoples (see Zacharias, 2021)”.
Simultaneously, population denial, “perpetuates discriminatory practices toward historically marginalized communities (e.g., Original Nations or Indigenous groups) who live in areas of conservation concern (e.g., Ancestral Territories)”.
This is particularly the case regarding forced displacement in order that an overpopulated rich country with a pronounced ecological deficit can appropriate the necessary foreign biocapacity to sustain itself.
In ecological terms, an overpopulated rich country with an ecological deficit creates a positive feedback mechanism that reinforces ecocidal activity at global scales.
At a global scale, in order to sustain a global human population of nearly 8 billion people, everybody in the temperate zones of the globe would have to do without domestic and commercial heating.
Thus a sole focus on overconsumption and a denial of overpopulation is a form of eugenics whereby it is expected that millions of humans in the temperate zones of the world will freeze to death in order to placate the virtue signalling of a few anti science humanist radicals.
Country/region World
Ecological footprint per capita 2.75
Biocapacity per capita 1.63
Biocapacity deficit or reserve. -1.12
Population (millions) 7753
Total biocapacity deficit or reserve (gMha)
-10400
Population (millions) for biocapacity to equal ecological footprint* (gha/person)
2500
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_ecological_footprint
Woke babble, Steve, PURE WOKE BABBLE, or at least so cobweb-ridden that somewhere in there your message is lost. I have read your post 4 times and still grapple with what you’re TRYING TO SAY!
Steve, this is an extremely important argument, that space limitations prevented us from making in our “official” response. Overpopulated, wealthy countries impinge on poorer ones in just the ways you describe. As long as the world is grossly overpopulated, some groups will have to pay the price, and they will be, as always, those with less wealth and power.
Phil? Come on! Space! This is the internet, and while I may strongly disagree with some posts, we get enough CENSORSHIP from Big 6 and WOKE media. Please! NOT HERE!
Agreed Kathleene.
Not here. Or anywhere else. What happened to the Philly Sound?
And perhaps not the worst, but a highly influencal censor is the current, well mannered -if not patronizing- civilized scientific discours, impotent enough to be unable to enforce correct common sense resolutions, a discours sadly completely corrupted by decade long undisputed Obama-fuelled woke “we can do it” (=destroy) infiltration and massive academic prostitution to secure tenures, earned or not.
Very interesting – you seem to suggest that far from combatting “eugenicists”, Green et al are (inadvertently) encouraging it. This is not just thinking outside the box but jumping up and down on the box and flattening it!
Which in this case, might well be what is needed as things can get bogged down in value judgments, bias, and other extraneous factors. It is certainly a good jumping-off point to begin with Global Ecological Footprints stats. They are broad-brush – but present a much better general starting-off then point than what most people start off from.
I must put in the word for the Global Footprint Network’s stats for each Nation’s individual Biocapacity and Ecological Debt or Credit. This sweeps away an equally broad – but massively wrong – perception that it is only Developed “First World” Nations which are in Ecological Debt.
As a Sierra Club bumper sticker put it–before they went after those concerned about population–to shut us up: THE U.S.: THE WORLD’S MOST OVERPOPULATED NATION, with Carl Pope, then executive director, coming up with that motto because we all knew that First World nations–especially ones like ours with a GHASTLY HIGH POPULATION and our high consumption ARE THE PROBLEM!
Well said mr Scott. That info needs to get out. Let me add a few things here.
Even though the notion ‘overpopulation’ is in fact quite biased, and therefore not really appropiate as a scientific tool. But ok, we’ll get that right eventually (behaviour, development, rather than numbers) unless of course, eventually there’s no longer any need for it. Nevertheless, today, the numbers are staggering and very real of course, a reality which has been shouting into our faces since, say, the 1800’s. In Italy, (bless them for picking up the Renaissance), it seems, they know what is worse than being audibly challenged -deafness for the the rest of the world other than North America.
However, equally real and even more acute right now is the imminent collapse of the criminal corporate warmongersystem you so eloquently chastize, a system that increasingly abused and successfully enslaved humanity for so long (about 7000 years). They did that so well, that even today most people do not realise they are slaves, living in a prison with walls made of air, courtesy fb et al.
Now. Today, Sept 30th 2022, the money presses running on empty, debts MUST be paid without delay. It should become clear that no matter how massive nazi operated moneylaundering ‘machines’ in the world – the final blow to the last one of these to its final destruction currently succesfully “being administered” in Ukrain (Azov, Mariupol) – can save the Biden administration’s driven Usa Inc (indeed: NOT a country, and incidentally: “we” the People, indeed, NOT us for sure) from bankrupcy, including EU, Nato, Vatican and more.
Much more..
And do “they” know it. “They” will desparately throw their currently quickly diminishing weight around, like punishing Japan with Fukushima for not doing their bidding, the recent North Stream Line 1&2 attacks and accuse the Russians for it (who could just as well simply shut down the line closing their valves).
So let’s fasten our seatbelts folks, take care for each other and sit this one out, because we’re in for a lot of Bang for our last skinny Buck, witnessing the final collapse of the Four Pillars of Doom: money, politics (as we know it), religion and media (+drugs).
There is still hope for our planet.
Hear, hear.
Why is my comment still “awaiting moderation” while newer ones have been posted? I’m a strong ally. But if political correctness infects this organization, I will broadcast that to thousands in my global network. This includes the developer of The Ecological Footprint, and a co-founder of Greenpeace, plus dozens in this field in academia, NGOs, and media.
Just a technical problem Steven. Sometimes my posts are delayed, as well.
I have an essay on GCC and Overpopulation. I would like to share with you all.
Strange. My posts appear immediately, and as a journalist who want all to DEFEND MY RIGHT TO HEAR ALL VIEWS, that concerns me. I tend to think you’re facing some sort of a technical problem, as I pretty much manage to piss everyone off at some point, but I still get posted. By the way, I write for Negative Population Growth. Hope you’ll boot up and read some of their FORUM papers.