Posted on 07/25/2006 5:12:58 PM PDT by SJackson
MELLEN - "There are too many people in the world. It's not sustainable." That is what the chairman of the Backwoods Anti-Social Social Club said.
We were sitting in a little bar working on hamburgers thick enough to make the cholesterol count jump just by looking at them. The chairman was saying something he wished he had said at a recent conference on sustainability, but he's not the type to stand up in front of a crowd. He likes to work the edges and lead from behind, so to speak.
Not being the religious sort, he has never been admonished to go forth and multiply like fish. He's actually more concerned about the fish in Lake Superior and their sustainability than humankind's dominion over every living thing. Or about the forests of the north, which he views as under siege by interests that want to log the best and sell the rest for subdivisions. That will do no good for his beloved bears and bobcats and wolves.
From the chairman's worldview, religious leaders who trot about telling people in Third World countries to have more kids are committing heinous crimes. Same goes for politicians who ignore the issue of world population and its strain on limited and finite resources. The politicians run from this issue, he says, and the environmental and conservation leaders of the day dance around it.
Of course they do. But when the club meets up here, it's always on the table. The chairman has been greatly influenced by the likes of the late Gaylord Nelson, who said world population growth was a central environmental issue and was roundly criticized for doing so, even by many of his friends.
Nelson took on immigration when he raised the issue of population. Immigration will be on the front burner in this fall's election, but don't expect any of the politicians who rail about it to address the root causes of immigration problems as did Nelson. Like the fact that Mexico's population doubled between 1970 and 2000, which may account for why 9 million Mexican citizens today reside in other countries. That won't be a political issue in America, and those politicians who do bring up immigration will be more interested in focusing on its symptoms for their own gain.
One reason that world population isn't even on the radar for most people is that the numbers are huge, hard to grasp and subject to manipulation. On the one hand, world birth rates have leveled off somewhat, so the experts say.
On the other hand, the Earth's population reached 6.5 billion people earlier this year, and the figure continues to grow at rates never before seen.
Perhaps the most telling statistic: About one-fifth of all humans who have lived at any time in the last 6,000 years are currently alive. And by some estimates, about one in three of living human beings is 20 or younger, meaning, well, that's obvious.
A few experts are willing to speak up. Earlier this year, Professor Chris Rapley, director of the British Antarctic Survey, and Professor John Guillebaud, an expert on world climate change, vented some frustration at the fact that bringing up the issue of overpopulation is politically incorrect.
The scientists said dealing with the burgeoning human population of the planet was vital if real progress is at all possible on problems like global warming.
"It is the elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about," Professor Guillebaud said in an article for the BBC Web site. "Unless we reduce the human population humanely through family planning, nature will do it for us through violence, epidemics or starvation."
Professor Rapley noted in the same article that this year an extra 76 million people would be added to the 6.5 billion already living on Earth. By the middle of the century, the United Nations estimates, the world population is likely to increase to more than 9 billion. The extra resources needed to sustain this growth in population would put immense strains on the planet's life support system even if pollution emissions per head could be dramatically reduced, he said.
"So if we believe that the size of the human 'footprint' is a serious problem and there is much evidence for this then a rational view would be that along with a raft of measures to reduce the footprint per person, the issue of population management must be addressed."
Back in Mellen, the chairman just shakes his head at numbers like these. It seems out of place to be talking about this issue in one of the least populous regions of Wisconsin, but he doesn't see it that way.
Our conversations range widely, but the chairman always works them back to the subject of too many people. When he says "it's not sustainable," he laughs, but there's no joy in his eyes.
It might be humor.
Man the escape starships!
I've heard that you could fit every person into the state of Texas.
With this crowd, and its appearance in Capital Times, it's anything but.
It is quite humorous that environmentalists still speak about the threat of overpopulation, when they should be worried about the precise *opposite* in Western countries and Japan-- namely, *underpopulation* as birth rates plummet dramatically below the minimum 2.1 births/woman replacement rate.
It is at least fortunate that *somewhere* populations are growing-- guaranteeing a steady immigrant stream to the West in order to furnish the manpower to support economies that would otherwise cave in on themselves.
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Pestilence.
That works best.
(Go Israel, Go! Slap 'Em Down Hezbullies.)
Were fixing to lose a Billion muslims, will that help? ;-)
Yes, humor. They can humor us by offing themselves. I mean, hey, they say there's too many people on the Earth. The one sure thing they can do, that is completely in their control, right now, would be to die.
I wonder if the author is one of those, "The world is too crowded..." nuts, who likes to write his columns on his laptop computer while sitting outside in has backyard.
While my children or I might be among those claimed, those who survive will be among the most physically capable of repopulating a healthy race. A person eventually has to die from something besides loneliness.
Total lie.
I should be starving, instead I'm a little overweight.
Thanks to the government.
"I've heard that you could fit every person into the state of Texas."
And we seem to be well on our way to accomplishing that feat.
pcottraux: I've heard that you could fit every person into the state of Texas.Normal4me : Were fixing to lose a Billion muslims, will that help? ;-)
Great idea, we'll send them to Texas and build a fence!
I wouldn't wish that on Texas, maybe we'll build the fence anyway.
My point being that the world is really overpopulated, but that many places on earth are, moreso than the available resources can sustain.
is = isn't.
Pardon the typo.
F that! We have 12 million hardworkers here already here illegally that can build that wall.......from THEIR side! ;-)
If this guy thinks the world is over-populated, he should kill himself. For the children!
Won't somebody think about the children!!!!!!!
Or we can put the Dems back in power, they'll cut and run, then we'll cower, and eventually the Mohammaden's will take over and kill all the infidels. That works too.
Yep.
We're DOOMED!!!
I hate the word "sustainable." Big time!!
Soylent Green comes to mind.
Don't worry. Civilized humans will never see this day. Muslims will kill them off before they have to endure living on a planet that is becoming uninhabitable.
You got me thinking, so I did the math:
Please note that I did some minor rounding, but the numbers are solid.
You CAN fit them all in Texas if Ray "Chocolate City" Nagin will remember to park the buses on high ground.
"Bottom Line, Texas could hold 45 TIMES the entire population of the world."
Yeah but the lines at the bathrooms would be horrendous.
Malthus Lives!
With room to swing a cat?
I've considered that. World wide war, massive unemployment, cities in flames......Think I'll stick with what is working now. ;-)
"Overpopulation of Earth will make it unsustainable"
Ah yes, Leftist manufactured crisis #37- The Population Bomb (oooo, ahhh), first incarnation circa 1971.
Let me go find my vintage, powder-blue 3" platform shoes. I'll slip into them to get into the right frame of mind to read the rest of this recycled chicken little horse$hit.
The population of the entire world will fit in the state of Texas, with 300 sq. ft. allocated per person.
I love Texas, but I'm not coming.
Now how much per person.
Rush Limbaugh, paraphrased from something like 1992: it's not too many people, it's too many bad people running things.
60 Senate seats and a few more seats in the House would suit my myopic, nationalist eyes just fine.
Yeah, but where would they all take a poop? :^)
Well, you know the old saying: sh*t rolls downhill.
This old saw again.
I just drove from California to Maryland last week and I can tell you from personal experience that the U.S. has lots of room to grow...
Lemmings know how to take care of the problem of over population as well as every other species on this big ball of mud. If Humans over populate the planet the planet will deal with it. The extinction of a species is a natural phenomena that occurs on the planet Earth. Get used to it.
"Soylent Green"-- that should help!
Naturally, no need to send out invitations.
The Earth is fine. It will be around eons after we're gone.
Fixed it.
Sure you could, but we don't want 'em.
No offense.
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