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The Eternal Return of Overpopulation - Getting the cause of high fertility backwards.
Reason ^ | October 19, 2010 | Ronald Bailey

Posted on 10/19/2010 6:43:41 PM PDT by neverdem

Overpopulation panic is back. Concerns about a world too full of “filthy human children” motivated eco-terrorist James Lee when he held employees of the Discovery Channel hostage at gunpoint in September. But the deranged Lee is far from alone when it comes to worrying about overpopulation. The May-June cover of the progressive magazine Mother Jones asked, “Who’s to Blame for the Population Crisis?” British journalist Matthew Parris wrote an op-ed in September in the London Times asserting, “If you want to save the planet, stop breeding.” Parris further coyly suggested that we study “China’s example, for lessons good and bad.”

But on World Population Day in July, British journalist Fred Pearce argued that “population is not the problem.” Pearce’s relatively sanguine article at the environmentalist website Grist provoked Robert Walker, former head of the anti-gun group Handgun Control and now executive vice-president of the Population Institute, to respond at the same site with an article titled “Of course population is still a problem.”

Walker asks Pearce what he evidently thinks are deep questions: “Looking ahead, Fred, will these countries [with anticipated population growth in Africa and Asia] be able to feed themselves? Will they have enough safe drinking water? Will their lands be deforested or their rivers polluted? Will their maternal mortality rates and infant mortality rates remain unacceptably high? Will they be caught in a demographic poverty trap? Will they become failed states? If you have good answers to these questions, please let me know.”

Let’s take a stab at providing good answers to Walker’s questions.

Will the world be able to feed itself in 2050? As it happens, the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B (Biological Sciences) devoted its September 27 issue to analyzing the issue of global food security through 2050. One of the specially...

(Excerpt) Read more at reason.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 201005; 201006; 201007; 201009; banglist; cultureofdeath; deathcultivation; econuts; ecoterrorism; fertility; handguncontrol; health; jameslee; lifehate; overpopulation; peoplehate; population; populationcontrol; science; terrorism; worldpopulationday; zpg
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1 posted on 10/19/2010 6:43:48 PM PDT by neverdem
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To: neverdem

Personally I like kids.


2 posted on 10/19/2010 6:44:51 PM PDT by nkycincinnatikid
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To: neverdem

Obama’s fault.


3 posted on 10/19/2010 6:48:17 PM PDT by Brilliant
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To: neverdem
This might be all fine and dandy until all of us childless get to middle age and retirement. Then who's going to take care of us? Death panels? Oh, wait.
4 posted on 10/19/2010 6:50:16 PM PDT by LiberConservative
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To: neverdem
The population control freaks would never consider sterilizing themselves and their children to help in the cause they want to sterilize other people and control other people.
5 posted on 10/19/2010 6:50:51 PM PDT by guitarplayer1953 (Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to GOD! Thomas Jefferson)
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To: neverdem

Lets say we give all 6 billion people on the planet 1,000 square feet each, did you realize that they all would fit very easily into the state of Texas (with over 1,300 billion square feet left over!).


6 posted on 10/19/2010 6:51:00 PM PDT by reegs
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To: neverdem

Thanks to our immigration policies, America will not have a population program. We will add another 130 million over the next 40 years. We will be approaching half a billion people by 2060.


7 posted on 10/19/2010 6:51:13 PM PDT by kabar
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To: neverdem
The solution is to simply do a little DNA adjustment and install whatever genes there are that create the condition called "indeterminant infertility".

That regularly produces offspring of which1/2 are infertile.

It's part of the reason some of the Sa'ami tribes have such low populations. Even Charles Darwin (and his first cousin bride) suffered from the condition with 1/2 their numerous children infertile.

There may be other groups with the problem so we should be able to find the genes. Using a virus to transport them to everyone on Earth, within a generation population growth would stop dead in its tracks!

8 posted on 10/19/2010 6:55:05 PM PDT by muawiyah ("GIT OUT THE WAY" The Republicans are coming)
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To: neverdem

Liberals love animals and trees...but they hate people.


9 posted on 10/19/2010 6:55:07 PM PDT by Eric Blair 2084 (Beware of the Socialist Government-Academia Grant Junkie-Rich "non-profit"-Liberal Media Complex)
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To: neverdem

I often ask my Leftist sister if she is a proponent of the Voluntary Human Extinction Program. She doesn’t appreciate it.


10 posted on 10/19/2010 6:55:14 PM PDT by originalbuckeye
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To: guitarplayer1953

I was not surprised that an anti-gunner would gravitate to over to this cause. It reveals a lot about the real reason why they want us disarmed. No concern about human life here, but lots of concern about resistance to their agenda.


11 posted on 10/19/2010 6:57:06 PM PDT by coydog (Time to feed the pigs!)
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To: reegs

>> Lets say we give all 6 billion people on the planet 1,000 square feet each, did you realize that they all would fit very easily into the state of Texas

DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!

Too damn many Yankees here already. :-)


12 posted on 10/19/2010 6:59:03 PM PDT by Nervous Tick (Trust in God, but row away from the rocks!)
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To: coydog
BINGO! GIVE THE PERSON A PRIZE!
13 posted on 10/19/2010 6:59:46 PM PDT by guitarplayer1953 (Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to GOD! Thomas Jefferson)
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To: neverdem
End reproduction and all you have is a pristine dead planet. Plants need our CO2 and we need their oxygen. Biology 101, folks.

These insane eco people are beyond the beyond - and dangerous. Why don't we tell them that their alien predecessors were the ones who killed Mars? Worth a try.

14 posted on 10/19/2010 7:00:11 PM PDT by Lauren BaRecall
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To: guitarplayer1953

I disagree.

With apologies to FReepers who are strict creationists Darwin was right about this one.

Libs either

A. abort their own kids and take themselves out of the gene pool or
B. Bugger each other with no offspring possible

it’s much easier when the garbage takes itself out.


15 posted on 10/19/2010 7:02:38 PM PDT by Eric Blair 2084 (Beware of the Socialist Government-Academia Grant Junkie-Rich "non-profit"-Liberal Media Complex)
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To: neverdem

Robert Walker, former head of the anti-gun group Handgun Control and now executive vice-president of the Population Institute,”

The world would be a much better place if all the control freaks like Robert Walker didn’t have so much free time on their hands.


16 posted on 10/19/2010 7:02:52 PM PDT by bereanway
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To: coydog

>> I was not surprised that an anti-gunner would gravitate to over to this cause

At first I was thinking it was yet another example of liberal cognitive dissonance — it would seem that someone concerned about overpopulation would WANT to spread weapons around.

But I see your point. The liberal elite want to disarm and control us so they can kill us off in their own way, at their leisure — that’s their real agenda.


17 posted on 10/19/2010 7:02:54 PM PDT by Nervous Tick (Trust in God, but row away from the rocks!)
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To: neverdem

If we stop putting food in the gas tank and start building nuclear power plants we can curb pollution and increase the food supply.


18 posted on 10/19/2010 7:03:11 PM PDT by GeronL (http://libertyfic.proboards.com <--- My Fiction/ Science Fiction Board)
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To: Eric Blair 2084
then let the strong survive. I do believe that if they can not take care of themselves then they need to do something about it. I do not believe it is any of my business to exterminate them to lower the population like some have spoken of doing getting the humans down to around 500 million.
19 posted on 10/19/2010 7:06:48 PM PDT by guitarplayer1953 (Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to GOD! Thomas Jefferson)
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To: GeronL

Prohibiting the reproduction of Socialism and Communism would insure Food Security.


20 posted on 10/19/2010 7:07:40 PM PDT by Lauren BaRecall
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