In the late 1960s through the 1970s, there was a panic that the Earth’s population, if not controlled, would lead to mass food shortages, water shortages, death, wars and the end of civilization as it existed. But much like the “global cooling” movement during the same period, it was proven to be horribly, horribly wrong.
The book “The Population Bomb,” published in 1968, warned that by the 1980s there would be massive upheaval and starvation because of overpopulation.
The 80s came and went, and even though the Earth’s population has nearly doubled, from 4 billion in 1974 to 7 billion now, humans have managed to survive.
But, as is often the case with the climate change movement, everything old is new again. Not even the faces change. John Holdren was once a prominent global cooling cautioner. Now, he touts the dangers of global warming while working as President Obama’s science advisor.
Newsweek, which, in 1975, warned the world of “global cooling,” and an impending ice age, is back with a new warning – the planet’s population is growing so fast, and is so unsustainable, that even a major pandemic or war won’t be enough to save us from the coming disaster to the environment overpopulation will cause.
The piece, entitled “Even a Pandemic Wouldn’t Create a 'Sustainable' Population, Study Says,” starts off with the popular environmental mantra of science – where not proof but majority vote wins out. The first paragraph reads:
Environmental scientists generally agree that the growth rate of the world’s human population and its current rate of consumption are unsustainable. For that reason, many researchers and policy-makers have called for family planning and birth control to slow growth in various countries.
The cure? Population control, naturally. Their example? China.
Again, in the very next paragraph, Newsweek writes:
A good example is China’s one-child policy. Beginning in 1979, families in China were largely limited to a single child. That policy was extremely controversial and helped lead to a gender imbalance in Chinese society, but it also helped avert 400 million births.
China didn’t “avert 400 million births,” it performed 400 million forced abortions. And the “gender imbalance” so casually referenced there wasn’t “helped” along by this policy, it was the direct result of it. Girls are aborted routinely in China because families want boys.
So why this concern about the world’s population? Gaia, naturally.
A new study Newsweek is touting claims Mother Earth simply can’t handle more people, even though reducing the population still won’t serve as a “quick fix” for the scourge that is humans, they say.
So what did they study? Well, in one scenario “the researchers tested what would happen if 2 billion people died over the course of a five-year period in the mid-21st century, for example by a war or pandemic.” Sadly, the researchers estimated the world’s population still would increase to 8.5 billion by the end of the century. Plagues and wars, it would seem, aren’t what they used to be.
So what’s the ideal population for the Earth-firsters? Well:
Several other studies suggest that a world population of between 1 billion and 2 billion “might ensure that all individuals [live] prosperous lives, assuming limited change in per capita consumption and land/materials use.” If humans reduced fertility rates to one child per woman on average by 2100, there could be as few as 2 billion people by 2153, they calculated.
Still, even that won’t be enough. It seems that before 2153, even if we eliminate billions of people through whatever means in the meantime, “climate change and biodiversity loss are likely to cause ‘unacceptable’ losses to the environment, humans and the Earth’s many ecosystems.”
So what should people do? Hell, live it up – the planet is already doomed! Idle your SUV in the driveway while pouring lead paint on baby seals – what do have to lose?
Or maybe, just maybe, you put the lid on the paint cans, leave the seals alone and use your SUV to drive to the polls and vote against the party that embraces, supports and even profits from this insanity. Just a thought.
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