Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Cut world population and redistribute resources, expert urges (Says Stanford Prof. Paul Ehrlich)
The Guardian ^ | 04/26/2012 | John Vidal

Posted on 04/26/2012 12:06:28 PM PDT by SeekAndFind

The world's most renowned population analyst has called for a massive reduction in the number of humans and for natural resources to be redistributed from the rich to the poor.

Paul Ehrlich, Bing professor of population studies at Stanford University in California and author of the best-selling Population Bomb book in 1968, goes much further than the Royal Society in London which this morning said that physical numbers were as important as the amount of natural resources consumed.

The optimum population of Earth – enough to guarantee the minimal physical ingredients of a decent life to everyone – was 1.5 to 2 billion people rather than the 7 billion who are alive today or the 9 billion expected in 2050, said Ehrlich in an interview with the Guardian.

"How many you support depends on lifestyles. We came up with 1.5 to 2 billion because you can have big active cities and wilderness. If you want a battery chicken world where everyone has minimum space and food and everyone is kept just about alive you might be able to support in the long term about 4 or 5 billion people. But you already have 7 billion. So we have to humanely and as rapidly as possible move to population shrinkage."

(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: lifehate; overpopulation; paulehrlich; population; populationcontrol; redistribution
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-58 next last

1 posted on 04/26/2012 12:06:35 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

Before we can do this, shouldn’t we be led to elect leaders who would put policies in place to effect this?

Oh wait, I guess we did.


2 posted on 04/26/2012 12:07:54 PM PDT by C210N (Go Newt!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

Didn’t this egghead predict we’d all be dead by now?


3 posted on 04/26/2012 12:08:13 PM PDT by Huskrrrr
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

Id start with all those here that can’t support themselves all welfare recipients and people on the government teat report for extermination


4 posted on 04/26/2012 12:10:14 PM PDT by al baby (Hi Mom)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

It sounds like the old Nazi is advocating genocide. I think we’ve already dealt with that back in the 30s and 40s.


5 posted on 04/26/2012 12:11:37 PM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (It's time for the 47% to start paying their "fair share" of income taxes.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

.
The Stockpile Song

Take the flag down from the place
where it led the human race.
Run up U.N. white and blue.
That’s what your “leaders” want to do.
They don’t seem to understand
we are a patriotic band.
So spread the word across the land
and stockpile weapons while you can.

Public schools were first to go.
They’re run by leftists as you know.
So school your children safe at home
far from the propaganda zone.
For they don’t want to understand
we are a family loving band.
So spread the word around the land
and stockpile knowledge while you can.

Stage and screen and on T.V.
they’re mocking God in all we see.
They may close your church some day
but they can’t stop us when we pray.
For they refuse to understand
we are a Jesus loving band.
So spread the word across the land
and stockpile Bibles while you can.

Somewhere there near your hometown
professor’s robe or judge’s gown,
there is a leftist who must go.
So lock and load and let them know.
For time will come they’ll understand
we are a patriotic band.
So spread the word across the land
and stockpile weapons while you can.


6 posted on 04/26/2012 12:13:23 PM PDT by Touch Not the Cat (Where is the light? Wonder if it's weeping somewhere...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

If he really believes what he’s saying, he’d set a good example by snuffing himself first.


7 posted on 04/26/2012 12:13:36 PM PDT by bopdowah ("Unlike King Midas, whatever the Gubmint touches sure don't turn to Gold!')
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Touch Not the Cat

Wow! Great ditty! A keeper!


8 posted on 04/26/2012 12:15:43 PM PDT by bopdowah ("Unlike King Midas, whatever the Gubmint touches sure don't turn to Gold!')
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

Wonder what value house this “intellectual” lives in? And how much is his retirement account(s)?

I bet it’s high enough that he could easily subdivide it and offer rent-free to the poor . . . or sell it and “redistribute” the proceeds.

Allowing for his little one room place, of course along with minimal subsistence. After all that’s what he wants for the rest of us poor slobs.


9 posted on 04/26/2012 12:15:43 PM PDT by A_Former_Democrat
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind
"Most of the predictions [in Population Bomb] have proved correct. At that time I wrote about climate change. We did not know then if it was warming or cooling.

Does this turdball have any idea how little credibility he has? Are people actually BUYING this sh*t???

10 posted on 04/26/2012 12:15:53 PM PDT by ScottinVA (Virgil Goode 2012.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

Put a bullet in your head, Paul, and then I might be impressed with your commitment on this issue.


11 posted on 04/26/2012 12:17:00 PM PDT by dfwgator (Don't wake up in a roadside ditch. Get rid of Romney.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind
So we have to humanely and as rapidly as possible move to population shrinkage."

And the measures to be undertaken to achieve that end would be...?

12 posted on 04/26/2012 12:19:24 PM PDT by ScottinVA (Virgil Goode 2012.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

“We came up with 1.5 to 2 billion because you can have big active cities and wilderness”

If you look at Agenda 21 and how they plan to make Living Zones and Wilderness Zones don’t think for 1 second that these people are not serious.

Mel


13 posted on 04/26/2012 12:19:36 PM PDT by melsec (Once a Jolly Swagman camped by a Billabong....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: A_Former_Democrat

A little history will help us remember who Paul Ehrlich is....

Julian L. Simon and Paul Ehrlich entered in a famous wager in 1980, betting on a mutually agreed-upon measure of resource scarcity over the decade leading up to 1990. Simon had Ehrlich choose five commodity metals. Copper, chromium, nickel, tin, and tungsten were chosen and Simon bet that their prices would decrease, while Ehrlich bet they would increase. Ehrlich ultimately lost the bet, and all five commodities that were selected as the basis for the wager continued to trend downward during the wager period.

In 1968, Ehrlich published The Population Bomb, which argued that mankind was facing a demographic catastrophe with the rate of population growth quickly outstripping growth in the supply of food and resources. Simon was highly skeptical of such claims, so proposed a wager, telling Ehrlich to select any raw material he wanted and select “any date more than a year away,” and Simon would bet that the commodity’s price on that date would be lower than what it was at the time of the wager.

Ehrlich and his colleagues (including John Holdren, later an advisor to President Barack Obama for Science and Technology) picked five metals that they thought would undergo big price increases: chromium, copper, nickel, tin, and tungsten. Then, on paper, they bought $200 worth of each, for a total bet of $1,000, using the prices on September 29, 1980, as an index. They designated September 29, 1990, 10 years hence, as the payoff date. If the inflation-adjusted prices of the various metals rose in the interim, Simon would pay Ehrlich the combined difference. If the prices fell, Ehrlich et al. would pay Simon.

Between 1980 and 1990, the world’s population grew by more than 800 million, the largest increase in one decade in all of history. But by September 1990, the price of each of Ehrlich’s selected metals had fallen. Chromium, which had sold for $3.90 a pound in 1980, was down to $3.70 in 1990. Tin, which was $8.72 a pound in 1980, was down to $3.88 a decade later.

As a result, in October 1990, Paul Ehrlich mailed Julian Simon a check for $576.07 to settle the wager in Simon’s favor.

Julian Simon died in 1998 ( He and Ehrlich are the same age ). But Paul Ehrlich is still alive (now 80 years old ) to annoy us.


14 posted on 04/26/2012 12:20:08 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

Export all libs to the Middle East, Zimbabwe or Cuba


15 posted on 04/26/2012 12:21:34 PM PDT by Paladin2
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Huskrrrr
Not only are we dead but India and China were collapsed into chaos forty years ago. We "triaged" them and isolated them from the rest of the world so their teeming hordes wouldn't over run the "developed" world.

Yup, them Stanford perfessers sure do know their stuff.

16 posted on 04/26/2012 12:25:11 PM PDT by hinckley buzzard
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

How wrong do you have to be before someone considers you an expert?


17 posted on 04/26/2012 12:28:04 PM PDT by Antoninus (Sorry, gone rogue.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: FlingWingFlyer

He should start in China and leave the rest of us alone.


18 posted on 04/26/2012 12:34:52 PM PDT by x_plus_one (Jihad is an institution inherent to the Islamic system itself; a permanent religious obligation)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

I thought Paul Ehrlich had died. How old is he? 120?


19 posted on 04/26/2012 12:43:01 PM PDT by WashingtonSource
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind
The only way I was able to survive the great starvation of the 1980s was by eating remaindered copies of the Population Bomb.
20 posted on 04/26/2012 12:46:17 PM PDT by KarlInOhio (You only have three billion heartbeats in a lifetime.How many does the government claim as its own?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-58 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson