The American Spectator

David Mathews| 4.2.09 @ 7:26AM

Of course, there isn't a population problem. No more than there was a Housing Bubble. Any similarities between graphs of the human population (expanding from 100 million to 9 billion in two thousand years) and graphs of housing prices are purely coincidental!

According to Eric-the-Deluded ...

"Through market innovations, not planning, we can expand our food stocks and other basic necessities to support a much greater population .... "

Blind faith in the market is similar to blind faith in God: stupid.

There are some resources which aren't so easily replaced by market forces. For example: food and water. Do you know what happens on a planet with 9 billion people when there isn't enough food for 8 billion? You are going to find out.

Just as the collapse of the housing bubble dropped housing prices back down toward the historical pre-bubble norm, the collapse of the human population bubble will drop the human population back to the pre-bubble norm.

What this means is that the human population will collapse not to the 5 billion range but rather instead to the 250 million range. In other words: Over 90% of the human population will die in the centuries ahead.

The end of human history is called the Apocalypse for a reason. But don't pray for God to save you from the Apocalypse. God isn't. There's no Heavenly home for any of you.

William Zeranski| 4.2.09 @ 9:15AM

To David Mathews

You’ve got a God hang up. But your use of the word ‘stupid’ is just so … neat! But is that the best argument you’ve got?

The whole Apocalypse thing is so Hollywood, so pop culture. You prattle on, but all you’ve got is scary fiction, a bunch of adolescent what ifs. You’re part of the problem, because you sound like a suicide that hasn’t happened yet.

You’re a just bogyman, a part of your own fictional argument. Now, go back to your closet.

JP| 4.2.09 @ 9:23AM

Taken from the a UN census, here are some birthrate numbers circa 2003:

UK: 1.7 children/couple
Germany: 1.87
Sweden: 1.8
Norway 1.8
Greece 1.1
Italy 1.1
Russian Federation 1.1
Spain 1.1
France 1.6
Japan 1.1
China estimated at 1.1
India 3.4
Yemen 5.5
Afghanistan 5.5
Algeria 4.5
Canada 1.5
Austrailia 1.8
USA 2.1

Africa is unknown, but the AIDS mortality is so high that that continent is seeing population decreases south of the Sahara.

South America averages about 3.5.

Out of all of the G20 nations only the US has birthrates at replacement levels (buth that also takes into account the illegals and half of the children born in the USA are illegitimate). Nations like Russia, Japan, Greece, Italy, and Spain are set to see thier populations halved every generation. Africa could very well see its population halved, and China's one child policy has created a demographic time bomb. Even India is seeing the rate of its growth slow from where it was 20 years ago.

The rate of global population growth has definitely slowed since the 1970s. The increased longevity of developing nations and the West have masked this trend. But the world has definitely grown older, with the exception of the Middle East and portions of East Asia.

In 15-20 years the glut of Boomers will have left this world or retired to thier gated villages and nursing homes. The world population will peak by 2040 and perhaps begin to decline thereafter.

This isn't the apocolyspe that DM paints, but simple demographic trends. The irony of this is that the decline is by that of choice - a first for humans. If trends continue, Europe will complete its transition away from a Christian Democratic continent. The only segment of the Europe's population that is growing is the Islamic one. China and Japan will face even more difficult problems as they will have tens and even hundreds of millions of elderly to care for, but have a much smaller group of younger workers. Most of the world's wealth is tied up in the ageing G20 nations. The future indeed is open ended.

John Mc.| 4.2.09 @ 9:24AM

David Mathews said: "In other words: Over 90% of the human population will die in the centuries ahead."

Simply brilliant. Given mortality and normal life expectencies, I would have thought that 100% of the world's population will die in the centeries ahead. So the assumption is that somehow there will be no abilty to repopulate the Earth? That's never been a problem after (or even during) large-scale cataclysmic events in the past. I guess it will be the 300-foot high wave that Al Gore's "global warming" (oh, that's right it's "climate change" now, sorry!) that will cause all of those deaths, right?

madjohn| 4.2.09 @ 9:27AM

David,

It's not blind faith in markets, you blithering idiot. It's more a faith in people's ability to solve the problems they face (especially when, as in truly free markets, they are not shackled by over-burdening taxation and regulation). Perhaps you lack this faith because you doubt your own ability.

You also exhibited a rather gross conceptual error. 100% of the human population will die in the centuries ahead. You didn't think you would survive, did you, David?

Jerry| 4.2.09 @ 9:56AM

WZ,
Don't feed the animals, they just jump on this comment section to briefly enlighten every 'God-deranged, right-wing, insane, stupid...idiot' in 'Wingnuttia', before running off to seethe about how W wrecked the world.
You may point out that their predictions reflect the same hysterical rantings of confused Malthusians, which failed to materialize (much like the 20 year-old+ predictions that if we didn't take DRASTIC ACTION immediately, the world's oceanic ecosystems would collapse in TEN YEARS, and other such alarmist tripe), but it will typically be met with such reasoned and astute responses as: "You're STUPID!" You may point out that if you do not even count advances in agricultural output, we could, by ourselves, feed an even larger world population if we stopped subsidizing farmers to NOT plant on their land, but it will probably answered with a diatribe about how we "deserve to die and dwindle in misery, since we elected a REPUBLICAN to the White House...STUPID!" You may even point out that most cases of mass starvation around the world are the direct result of tyrannical governments controlling/limiting food supplies (or re-directing it to vainglorious pursuits--see N. Korea), but you will likely be labeled a "STUPID religious robot!"
Malthus was foolish and wrong, Ehrlich was foolish and wrong, and the current ZPG people are foolish and wrong, as are their evil prescriptions to 'save' us; their abortion/euthenasia mindset is basically a life-hating, 'evolved' eugenic philosophy.
Don't feed the animals; they'll just fling poo and go away eventually.

owyheewine| 4.2.09 @ 10:18AM

Let's just kick up the growth rate of fossil fuel use, so that the global warming hockey stick can kick in and get that darn population explosion under control and we can get back to normal living.

Anastasia Mather| 4.2.09 @ 10:48AM

Why don't they go first?

Bram| 4.2.09 @ 10:52AM

I had to read Ehrlich's alarmist nonsense as a Freshman in 1984. Nothing he predicted came true.

If the UK wants to control it's population, all it needs to do is close the doors to immigration.

trapper| 4.2.09 @ 11:06AM

Environmentalists including Paul Erlich are nearly always wrong but liberals still listen to them, still respect them and their opinions, and still heed their counsel.
I guess that tells us all we need to know about environmentalists and liberals.

Eric Cartman| 4.2.09 @ 11:22AM

Dudes!

I can't believe it! I've been gone for only a few weeks and you let this fat hippy chick, David Mathews, to vomit stupid crap all over the board! Heed my warning, once you let one stupid, fat hippy chick on the board, other hippies will follow – dumb ass white guys with dreadlocks and Bob Marley hats. They will infest your neighborhoods. Then you know what you have? A music festival!

Listen, that stinky hippy, like all stinky hippies, only parrots what she was told in her freshman semester class in community college: Che Guevara for Dummies 101. Or worse, at the Rackham Social Science Graduate School at the University of Michigan. She gets her stipend from Gorge Soros or the DNC or Keith Olberturd’s dumpster to survive and pay for her granola cereal, trail mix, weed and Hippie Hippy Indian Water Buffalo Sandals! Then her and her ilk sit around their communal public housing tenement off State Street in Ann Arbor and infest discussion boards because they can’t get a job with their lousy degrees – not until Obama came along! Now they are on the verge of taking over!

Very soon, I warn you, Obama will mandate that we all buy our vegetables at a local co-op, and that is where you will find David Mathews and other fat hippy chicks! At places with names like The Chairman’s Little Red Book Community Co-op They will run the place – they will have to, since their boyfriends can’t hold down any jobs because they are too busy smoking pot and trying to finish the first chapter of their Eco Manifesto, “The Trees Are Crying!” (Can’t you understand, Babe! The world needs to hear what I have to say! This will be the male hippies’ plea to the females of the tribe! If you hear it, shoot the poor bastard – he’s too far gone at that point.)

I warn you here and now! Shun the fat hippie chick named David Mathews – and any other of her breed that may post here. The live on the blood and money of others! If you must see what your board will look like if you persist in letting this scum rest here, Google Detroit! See?! See what they bring! She must be captured, de-pierced, hosed down and scrubbed with a big soapy brush, forced to get a real job and ditch her hippy boyfriend! If she resists?! Well, I can only say that my services are expensive. I have only used the Hippy Driller once and many died. But I am willing to be hired again for this important mission. Damn you, hippies! I though I was out! But you always drag me back in!

Sadly, many innocent hippies will die along with the deranged, leftist community organizers. Those innocent souls who have been rendered harmless by years of Grateful Dead and Fish concerts and balloons of laughing gas and smoke tents. You will see their pathetic lives in what remains on ther bodies – bottles of patchouli oil, pot seeds in a plastic pill container, unused food stamps, old, unused rubbers (they had dreams, once) and underwear made from hemp (parts of them smoked). Both funny and pathetic, true - but the innocent always die in war.

So be warned! Banish the hippies from your midst or they will eat your seed corn; sleep in your garage; rummage through your rubbish; beg for change; fall asleep stoned behind the fertilizer spreader and smell up your garbage can area.

God Speed, posters. May you squash the stinky hippies before they skitter under the floorboards and infest your walls and drains. If you need me, you know where to find me – Eric Cartmen.

William Zeranski| 4.2.09 @ 11:25AM

Jerry

“Don't feed the animals; they'll just fling poo and go away eventually.”

Yes, that is true, but on a slow day there's an entertainment value here.

Dustoff| 4.2.09 @ 11:32AM

owyheewine
global warming hockey stick can kick in and get that darn population explosion.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++

You do know that the (hockey stick idea) was dis-proven years ago.

Jerry| 4.2.09 @ 11:34AM

Eric,
Glad to know you're living in my backyard...though now I'll need to be more discerning about gunning the throttle on my 15-pax van every time somebody crosses the street while I'm driving on the pot-holed streets of Ann Arbor. I guess it's still safe to aim for the tatoo'd, pierced, long-haired 'individualists'!

Big Leo| 4.2.09 @ 11:37AM

William Zeranski made an excellent point. The population of much of the world, including the part we and most of the wealthy nations live in is approaching stasis or even declining. The population problem seems to be fixing itself. This comes as a terrible disappointment to DM, who was looking forward to grubbing for roots and berries with the other hunter gatherers, but as we mature we learn to accept the diminution of our childish dreams. One surefire preventative of famine is a free press; no democracy has ever experienced a killing famine. The famines we see in our times are because of political reasons in unfree states.

One key is bringing more of the Third World into relative prosperity. The wealthier a country is, the closer its birth rate comes to replacement levels or even decline.

Eric Cartman| 4.2.09 @ 12:13PM

Jerry,
Please, don't worry about me - I move like a cat. The hippies need to be dispensed with now! If you hit me, it is the price we must pay to rid ourselves of douche bag hippies! So I say to you, floor it! Drive like a drunken Buckeye after the game! Take no prisoners!

Eric

Stan Redmond| 4.2.09 @ 12:29PM

David Matthew's postings are a window in to Obama's core beliefs unhidden from the teleprompter without the flowery rhetoric. He also represents the beliefs of so many of Obama's blind faith followers. That is what is so scary.

Who is to decide there are too many people? Who decides to kill the undesireables? How is it that we manage to feed the people here? How is it that we have longer healthier lives with this "bomb" supposedly exploding around us?

Eric Cartman| 4.2.09 @ 12:33PM

Jerry,

I must go for a while. Tell all to be vigilant, though. Fight the fat hippy chick known as David Mathews and her offspring. Watch for her – listen for her muffin-top jiggling over her jeans. Smell for her when you think its safe – she may be right behind you. The faint odor of sandalwood and BO will be your warning! Ready to call you one of the five things she continues to repeat over and over in her deranged postings, she will spring into action. She is attempting to kill you with boredom, Jerry! Don’t let her! Tell all the good people her evil plan of stupidity and dullness fueled by pot and tofu! Be careful, Jerry! Damn hippies! Just when I think it’s safe, they wake up and attempt to think. All they can do is repeat old Commie clichés! Put as many of them out of their misery as you can, Jerry! It’s the right thing to do. I will be back-
Eric

David Mathews| 4.2.09 @ 1:04PM

Hello William Zeranski,

* "The whole Apocalypse thing is so Hollywood, so pop culture. You prattle on, but all you’ve got is scary fiction, a bunch of adolescent what ifs. You’re part of the problem, because you sound like a suicide that hasn’t happened yet. "

Of course, the human population can continue expanding forever without any negative consequences!

Of course, back before 9/11 everyone imagined that the airline hijacking problem was solved!

I visited the library and there was a book there which was titled, "DOW 100,000" and another titled "DOW 36,000" and both of these books claimed that the economy would continue expanding forever and that the bubble would never pop.

Of course, before World War II the Europeans and Americans both preferred to imagine that the Hitler problem would solve itself without anything so messy as a war.

Of course, of course, of course ... according to futurists in the 1960's we'd have a base on the moon and astronauts would have explored Mars by now.

Remember when the Space Shuttle was promised to be so cheap & efficiently that they'd launch virtually every week?

Delusions about the future, especially optimistic delusions, are common throughout history. Unfortunately it takes a tragedy for these delusions to die.

The delusion that the human population will continue increasing forever will end in a tragedy. Billions of humans will die and global technological civilization will end.

Pray to God for the Rapture ... in vain, of course!

Appleby| 4.2.09 @ 1:04PM

I was at university in 1968 when Ehrlich's book came out -- at about the same time the Birth Control Pill made its appearance in daily prescriptive use, followed closely by Womens' Liberation (that is, women began to realize that we could no longer be forced by society to marry and beget, drop out of school and support degree-earning husbands who would then dump us and the kids for a trophy wife). In point of fact, Women became Liberated during World War II when they discovered that Yes, We Can (to coin a phrase) support ourselves in the same work and way as men could ... and the Pill made it possible for us to decide not only when, but whether to have children. The birth rate declined precipitously just as Ehrlich was hitting his stride.

The really big mistake hippie liberals make is their assumption that tomorrow will be exactly like today -- that nothing will be built, designed, changed or improved between now and then, and that relationships between people will always be founded on exactly the same model as was established just outside the Garden of Eden.

For all you history-challenged DMs out there, ask yourself if the job you are working in now actually existed when you started high school and people were asking you "what you want to be when you grow up." Or if you are female, ask yourself if the job you are doing now was open to women (or "girls" as we were known back then) when you started high school. Personally I was told in Grade 5 that girls could only be nurses, teachers, nuns, Mommies or, if they were really stupid, secretaries, and if we did not marry by age 25, our lives were pretty much over. Imagine if I had lived my life believing that model would last forever.

Here in Kanukistan we are hoping global warming will get here soon, as we do not want to risk frostbite camping out on the May Long Weekend at Mosport, the way we usually do. Global what?

David Mathews| 4.2.09 @ 1:08PM

Hello JP,

* "This isn't the apocolyspe that DM paints, but simple demographic trends. "

Those demographics means something but they don't mean much. For example, if you are driving towards a cliff slowing down isn't going to save your life. You have to stop.

In this case, humankind's population growth has vastly exceeded the planet's carrying capacity. Nature has extremely effective techniques to resolve such an imbalance and they operate without mercy until the job is accomplished.

90% of the human population will be lost in the centuries ahead. This is a once-in-a-planet's history type event and it will constitute the terminal phase of the history of the Homo sapiens.

Ultimately, the Homo sapiens go extinct like all the other primate species before us.

David Mathews| 4.2.09 @ 1:12PM

Hello John,

* "Simply brilliant. Given mortality and normal life expectencies, I would have thought that 100% of the world's population will die in the centeries ahead."

God, conservatives are so very stupid ...

Of course, John, every human dies. The 90% figure represents the difference between the human population at the bubble's apex and the human population after the population bubble has burst.

* "So the assumption is that somehow there will be no abilty to repopulate the Earth?"

The Earth in the centuries ahead will become extremely inhospitable to primates, especially primates who rely upon technology and nonrenewable resources in order to maintain its existence.

In other words: The human population won't recover. Humankind will enter its terminal phase and this leads ultimately to extinction.

* "That's never been a problem after (or even during) large-scale cataclysmic events in the past. I guess it will be the 300-foot high wave that Al Gore's "global warming" (oh, that's right it's "climate change" now, sorry!) that will cause all of those deaths, right? "

Spoken like a true conservative scientific illiterate.

Undoubtedly the oceans are going to rise and in doing so they will deprive humankind of our prime habitation and agricultural zones and also of our vital fresh water supplies.

Humankind's future is bleak. Extinction ahead.

David Mathews| 4.2.09 @ 1:15PM

Hello madjohn,

* "It's not blind faith in markets, you blithering idiot. It's more a faith in people's ability to solve the problems they face (especially when, as in truly free markets, they are not shackled by over-burdening taxation and regulation). Perhaps you lack this faith because you doubt your own ability. "

Humankind's ability to solve problems isn't infinitely effective. Capitalism, science and technology hasn't rendered humans into little gods.

There are some problems which the Homo sapiens have never solved and will never solve. For example, there is no effective substitute for fresh water. Ask Australia.

* "You also exhibited a rather gross conceptual error. 100% of the human population will die in the centuries ahead. You didn't think you would survive, did you, David? "

Again, the sheer depth of conservative ignorance is on display. We're talking about the human population not human mortality. Of course, every human will die.

Just as it is equally certain that all species will go extinct. Tool-making primate species have a long history of going extinct. The Homo sapiens certainly will go extinct.

David Mathews| 4.2.09 @ 1:20PM

Hello Jerry,

* "You may point out that their predictions reflect the same hysterical rantings of confused Malthusians, which failed to materialize (much like the 20 year-old+ predictions that if we didn't take DRASTIC ACTION immediately, the world's oceanic ecosystems would collapse in TEN YEARS, and other such alarmist tripe) ... "

Tragedies of this sort are always regarded as impossible until they actually happen, see the World Trade Center, September 11, 2001.

Conservatives should heed these warnings, too ... your Bibles contain numerous prophecies of horrors afflicting humankind at the end of civilization. These prophecies are sweetened with a gentle fairy tale of eternal life in Heaven but nonetheless the Bible isn't at all optimistic about humankind's future.

* "Malthus was foolish and wrong, Ehrlich was foolish and wrong, and the current ZPG people are foolish and wrong, as are their evil prescriptions to 'save' us; their abortion/euthenasia mindset is basically a life-hating, 'evolved' eugenic philosophy. "

Either the Homo sapiens begin display wisdom and self-restraint or the Homo sapiens go extinct. Nature doesn't engage in bailouts for foolish primate species. Nor, for that matter, does God.

David Mathews| 4.2.09 @ 1:21PM

Hello owyheewine,

* "Let's just kick up the growth rate of fossil fuel use, so that the global warming hockey stick can kick in and get that darn population explosion under control and we can get back to normal living. "

The Homo sapiens are certainly working full-time at self-extermination and our species has succeeded, too.

There is life after the Homo sapiens just as life continued after the dinosaurs went extinct.

David Mathews| 4.2.09 @ 1:23PM

Hello trapper,

* "Environmentalists including Paul Erlich are nearly always wrong but liberals still listen to them, still respect them and their opinions, and still heed their counsel. "

Of course, considering the degree of scientific illiteracy and general ignorance among conservatives it is easy to understand why you might make such a wildly inaccurate claim.

Conservatives love living in the toxic sewer of their own pollution and they don't care about consequences so long as they fall upon someone else.

Poor Australia, though. Poor, poor Australia.

David Mathews| 4.2.09 @ 1:30PM

Hello Big Leo,

* "The population of much of the world, including the part we and most of the wealthy nations live in is approaching stasis or even declining. The population problem seems to be fixing itself. This comes as a terrible disappointment to DM, who was looking forward to grubbing for roots and berries with the other hunter gatherers, but as we mature we learn to accept the diminution of our childish dreams."

This is silly. The population problem isn't solved by any measure. Conservatives who speak in the above manner are displaying the same sort of wisdom as that displayed by the person who jumps off a 100 story building and declares, as he passes the 50th floor, "No problem yet!"

* "One surefire preventative of famine is a free press; no democracy has ever experienced a killing famine. The famines we see in our times are because of political reasons in unfree states."

You are speaking in an ignorant manner. There are big differences between a world in which there are 6.7 billion people and a world in which there are, say, 9 billion. Things which seemed impossible will become normal and the horrors described in St. John's Revelation will become routine.

No one in New Orleans imagined that a hurricane would flood the city and drown two thousand people. Although the warning was repeated numerous times in the decades preceding Hurricane Katrina the threat was always easily dismissed.

* "One key is bringing more of the Third World into relative prosperity. The wealthier a country is, the closer its birth rate comes to replacement levels or even decline. "

Yeah ... we're going to have 9 billion wealthy people on the planet! Conservatives are nothing if not perpetually delusional.

David Mathews| 4.2.09 @ 1:36PM

Hello Stan,

* "David Matthew's postings are a window in to Obama's core beliefs unhidden from the teleprompter without the flowery rhetoric. He also represents the beliefs of so many of Obama's blind faith followers. That is what is so scary. "

Bitter conservative talk radio prattle. Conservatives spend so much time crying they must cry all the time!

* "Who is to decide there are too many people?"

Nature does.

* " Who decides to kill the undesireables?"

Nature does.

* "How is it that we manage to feed the people here?"

We're well fed in America but there are billions of humans who aren't so well fed and who survive on a daily basis without the certainty that they will live to see another day.

* "How is it that we have longer healthier lives with this "bomb" supposedly exploding around us? "

For the same reason it seemed for a while like everyone gambling with real estate would become millionaires. There were books and television programs and airheads on CNBC affirming on a daily basis that the real estate bubble would keep on going forever.

Delusions of this sort die hard. The collapsing of the real estate bubble killed the global economy. The collapsing of the human population bubble will kill global technological civilization and ultimately drive the Homo sapiens extinct like all those animals that have already gone extinct.

There's no glorious future for the humans either on the Earth or in the Universe or in Heaven. Primate species go extinct.

David Mathews| 4.2.09 @ 1:42PM

Hello Appleby,

* "The really big mistake hippie liberals make is their assumption that tomorrow will be exactly like today -- that nothing will be built, designed, changed or improved between now and then, and that relationships between people will always be founded on exactly the same model as was established just outside the Garden of Eden. "

This is about the stupidest and most delusional comment in the discussion today. It is the conservatives who are insisting that nothing will ever change, that things can only get better, and that the human population can continue expanding forever.

The liberals realize that these things must end. Humankind has a choice to end them voluntarily through wisdom and self-restraint or Nature will end them using her most unmercifully effective tools.

Nature doesn't care if another primate species goes extinct. The Homo sapiens aren't essential in any sense.

* "For all you history-challenged DMs out there, ask yourself if the job you are working in now actually existed when you started high school and people were asking you "what you want to be when you grow up." "

An irrelevant point if there ever was one. History is a lot older than the last several decades. The Earth is 4.5 billion years old. Human civilization has existed in various forms for about 12,000 years.

The curst of the Earth is littered with extinct civilizations and extinct species. History tells us that all those things which can end will eventually end.

* "Here in Kanukistan we are hoping global warming will get here soon, as we do not want to risk frostbite camping out on the May Long Weekend at Mosport, the way we usually do. Global what? "

Again, the sheer depth of scientific illiteracy among conservatives is stunning. It is easy to understand why such an ignorant and delusional animal as the Homo sapiens could drive itself extinct by its own foolishness, destructiveness and willingness to sacrifice the planet's health for the sake of easily squandered weatlth.

JP| 4.2.09 @ 1:46PM

Leo,
Your remarks about a free press and famine are correct. One of the ways Europe learnt to deal with the effects of the LIA was the creation of commodity markets. Even despotic Kings and reactionary aristocratic landlords saw the value of matching demand with supply with an efficient system of brokerage. As areas of Europe began to adopt free commodity markets (the UK, Flanders, Benelux, and northern Germany), farmers began to accelerate crop diversivication based on cost and demand. Of course, this also created the first market bubble(The famous Tulip Bubble), as well as the first examples of short selling. Overall, European farmers realized that it was information that mattered as much as thier farm skills.

sestamibi| 4.2.09 @ 1:49PM

David, are you doing all your lying on company time?

David Mathews| 4.2.09 @ 1:52PM

Hello JP,

* "Your remarks about a free press and famine are correct. One of the ways Europe learnt to deal with the effects of the LIA was the creation of commodity markets. Even despotic Kings and reactionary aristocratic landlords saw the value of matching demand with supply with an efficient system of brokerage. "

Of course, there are some commodities which aren't so easily transported or replaced. Australia's got a massive water problem which consist of Nature depriving that continent of its former allotment of rain.

The market isn't going to generate any rain and there is no effective technique of transporting fresh water to satisfy the thirst of millions of people in a drought-stricken isolated land.

There are also other commodities which are not so easily replaced. Consider, for example, what happens on a planet of 9 billion people when there is only food enough for 8 billion.

David Mathews| 4.2.09 @ 1:53PM

Hello sesta,

* "David, are you doing all your lying on company time? "

I own all of my own time and I don't spend any time lying.

JP| 4.2.09 @ 2:04PM

"The liberals realize that these things must end. Humankind has a choice to end them voluntarily through wisdom and self-restraint or Nature will end them using her most unmercifully effective tools. "

DM, the first thing to go in the apocolyptic world of your demented mind is liberalism. Liberals would be the first casulties. In you scenario, where 90% of the human dies, and Man returns to some kind of Rousseauian State of Nature, things like tolerance, democracy, and mutliculturalism would be gone. If the past is any road map, the world would descend into a barbaric place where death, fear, and brutality reign supreme. Also, you don't find many athieists in these kind of societies. As a matter of fact, the kind of societies that would emerge would be religious, warlike, brutal, and agarian. Two thousand years of learning and culture would disappear, as what happened after the fall of Rome.

Leftism since its creation 120 years ago, has always lived off the carcass of Capitalists and Conservatives. Almost all Progressives institutions are funded by Captialists and the money they've made. Even Soros earned his money shortselling the Pound Sterling.

So Dave, keep to your fantasies. For your sake, hope they do not come true. What would you do without the Internet?

David Mathews| 4.2.09 @ 2:19PM

Hello JP,

* "DM, the first thing to go in the apocolyptic world of your demented mind is liberalism. Liberals would be the first casulties. In you scenario, where 90% of the human dies, and Man returns to some kind of Rousseauian State of Nature, things like tolerance, democracy, and mutliculturalism would be gone. "

Undoubtedly such a world would constitute a utopia for conservatives! Consider that ... racism, bigotry, xenophobia and perpetual warfare! Republicans would consider such a world "heaven" and they would thank God for the freedom to spill blood for the sake of land, resources and religion all over again.

* "If the past is any road map, the world would descend into a barbaric place where death, fear, and brutality reign supreme. "

The world is already a barbaric place where death and fear and brutality reign supreme. You happen to live in a secure little bubble, billions of humans aren't so fortunate.

* "Also, you don't find many athieists in these kind of societies. As a matter of fact, the kind of societies that would emerge would be religious, warlike, brutal, and agarian. "

You are describing the Republican party circa 2009, aren't you? The Deep South party of Christian fundamentalism, racism, bigotry, xenophobia and perpetual warfare.

I can see why Republicans are looking forward to the collapse of civilization. It will bring them back to the good old days in which they could engage in whatever violence suited their purposes without any fear of the consequences.

Unfortunately the future isn't going to turn out as your wish. The collapse of the population leads to the extinction of the Homo sapiens for a reason.

* "Two thousand years of learning and culture would disappear, as what happened after the fall of Rome. "

We agree on this absolutely. Undoubtedly all of the knowledge gained over the last several centuries will be lost in the centuries ahead. For example, knowledge of quantum mechanics won't mean much once technological civilization has ended.

All these things will be forgotten. There's already a precedent as you mentioned ... Europe after the collapse of Rome.

* "Leftism since its creation 120 years ago, has always lived off the carcass of Capitalists and Conservatives. Almost all Progressives institutions are funded by Captialists and the money they've made. Even Soros earned his money shortselling the Pound Sterling. "

Capitalism is dead.

* "So Dave, keep to your fantasies. For your sake, hope they do not come true. What would you do without the Internet? "

There was life before the Internet and there is life after the Internet. But what will you do when trucks stop delivering food to your neighborhood? Life without food is considerably more problematic than life without the internet.

William Zeranski| 4.2.09 @ 2:24PM

David Mathews wrote:

“Of course, the human population can continue expanding forever without any negative consequences!”

We live in an ever-expanding universe, with infinite space and resources, so your attempt at sarcasm is actually a correct statement.

No one said life didn’t offer surprises, good or bad; that includes the arrival of Hitler on the scene. No one has heard from Nazi Germany in 60 years, so that’s a problem solve. The cesspool known as the USSR is gone too.

I never cared for the shuttle program. I didn’t think it won’t work and I was right. No, we’re not on Mars but we’ve go to unheard depths in the oceans. That’s pretty good.

Again, the universe is infinite. There’s nothing stopping the human race, except unimaginative dead enders.

Oregonian| 4.2.09 @ 2:29PM

To the AS blog administrators:

How about a 3 blog limit on individual contributions? If you can't express yourself clearly in 3 blogs, your 15 minutes of fame are over!!

David Mathews| 4.2.09 @ 2:35PM

Hello William,

* "We live in an ever-expanding universe, with infinite space and resources, so your attempt at sarcasm is actually a correct statement. "

What an absurd statement. The Universe is extremely cold, extremely harsh and lacking in the resouces which render the Earth hospitable to human life.

In addition, humans have only reached the moon, briefly, and they have never returned.

Therefore offering the Universe as a contrary point to the argument regarding limits is sort of like offering a cup of ocean watrer to the dehydratic sailor on a life raft in the middle of the ocean.

There's plenty of water in the ocean but none of its is good to drink.

* "No one said life didn’t offer surprises, good or bad; that includes the arrival of Hitler on the scene. No one has heard from Nazi Germany in 60 years, so that’s a problem solve. The cesspool known as the USSR is gone too. "

Yes, and the United States of America is poised to collapse in a dramatic and eternal manner. That's an event which was long predicted and soon to become accomplished.

You are living in a dying nation and a dying civilization. I'm astonished that you don't sense all of these things passing away. You probably do ... I suspect that at some level you know that this world is ending. The conscious mind might delude itself but the subconscious isn't so easily deceived.

* "I never cared for the shuttle program. I didn’t think it won’t work and I was right. No, we’re not on Mars but we’ve go to unheard depths in the oceans. That’s pretty good. "

Once the Shuttle is finished that is, essentially, the end of American space exploration. Exploration of the deepest part of the ocean ended a long time ago (concurrently with the Apollo program, remarkably).

* "Again, the universe is infinite. There’s nothing stopping the human race, except unimaginative dead enders. "

Nature stops the human race and Nature stops the human race in the most effective manner possible: extinction. Ask the dinosaurs and the neanderthals.

Jerry| 4.2.09 @ 2:37PM

DM,
A terrorist attack is a far cry from cataclysmic demographic and/or environmental collapse, apples & oranges my friend. You may as well have said that electing an African American to the Presidency was unprecedented...until it happened. Perhaps it's just my typical 'conservative scientific illiteracy' speaking!
If the Bible's so much bunk, then why bother lending it the weight of your scientifically literate intellect?
I'll pray for your conversion, brother Dave. You keep flinging poo & I'll depart the keyboard to watch one of my eight children play sports at school--God has blessed me immeasurably!

David Mathews| 4.2.09 @ 2:37PM

Hello Oregonian,

* "How about a 3 blog limit on individual contributions? If you can't express yourself clearly in 3 blogs, your 15 minutes of fame are over!! "

Evidently the conservatives don't read books otherwise they would know that some ideas are complicated enough to merit more than a single sentence.

Of course, Rush Limbaugh blabbers incoherently for hours a day and he's said the same dumb things for decades .... it is easy to understand why conservatives might imagine that a sentence or two could effectively cover a topic!

David Mathews| 4.2.09 @ 2:42PM

Hello Jerry,

* "A terrorist attack is a far cry from cataclysmic demographic and/or environmental collapse, apples & oranges my friend. You may as well have said that electing an African American to the Presidency was unprecedented...until it happened. Perhaps it's just my typical 'conservative scientific illiteracy' speaking! "

Eh ... the entire point was that unexpected, unpredictable things can happen and they often do happen. Of course, there's a big difference between a terrorist act and the human population collapse ... but these differences are trivial to the point under discussion.

* "If the Bible's so much bunk, then why bother lending it the weight of your scientifically literate intellect? "

Lots of people have lent their intellect to studying the Bible. This is the reason why it is possible to know that the Bible is bunk. Ancient myths are a poor substitute for reality.

* "I'll pray for your conversion, brother Dave. You keep flinging poo & I'll depart the keyboard to watch one of my eight children play sports at school--God has blessed me immeasurably! "

Eight children ... undoubtedly God has blessed you but it is unlikely that God will bless your children. They are going to inherit a toxic, depleted sewer of a planet from you just as they are going to inherit a bankrupt, insolvent, collapsed nation from you.

They will know both impoverishment and deprivement. They will witness the human population collapse with their own eyes.

God won't rescue them from the Apocalypse, either. There's no Rapture and no Heavan in their future. They will suffer with everyone else.

David Mathews| 4.2.09 @ 2:53PM

Seems like the truth is driving the conservatives insane (again) ...

* "I'd like to point out that in my job as an ACORN pamphleteer ... "

Conservatives might as well wear tinfoil hats all of the time!

Glenn Beck ... please save us from the black helicopters! Rush Limbaugh ... please save us from the ufos!

Conservatives simply aren't equipped to handle reality, science or the truth. So you spend your time deluding your own self and lying to each other as you wait for God to send your souls to eternal life in Heaven.

Stan Marsh| 4.2.09 @ 3:11PM

Cartman! Quit bothering the hippies! They’re lame. You were supposed to come by with your Mission Impossible action set! How else am I supposed to get my hundred bucks back from that Tin Geitner asshole? Can’t you see that the hippies like David Mathews and her skanky friends are a waste of time? They’re useless. Get over here so we can get my money back!

William Zeranski| 4.2.09 @ 3:21PM

David Mathews

“The Universe is extremely cold, extremely harsh and lacking in the resouces which render the Earth hospitable to human life.”

Some would say that about L.A, but the real point is your wrong. The universe is an environment which presents a challenge to live in. Strip down and live naked in the Northwest you’ll find that that location is “extremely harsh and lacking in the resouces’ too.”

You personify things to easily. The universe can’t be ‘harsh.’ You only see it as harsh. I see opportunity. Maybe your nation is dying. Mine is not.

*You are living in a dying nation and a dying civilization. I'm astonished that you don't sense all of these things passing away. You probably do ... I suspect that at some level you know that this world is ending. The conscious mind might delude itself but the subconscious isn't so easily deceived.

I suspect your civilization is dead, because your life in stasis and now entropy has taken over. You don’t thrive, because you have already surrendered and have become a dead ender. You suffer from projection was well.

Oh, deep space exploration continued with the Voyager program in 1977. The Apollo program ended in 1975. So you’re incorrect.

*Nature stops the human race and Nature stops the human race in the most effective manner possible: extinction. Ask the dinosaurs and the neanderthals.

Nature doesn’t do anything. Like your ‘harsh’ universe, nature is what it is. But again, avoid personification. Did you have a lot of stuff animals when you were younger?

Eric Cartman| 4.2.09 @ 3:27PM

Dude! Can’t you see that’s where your hundred bucks is going? Obama and Geitner are taking it and giving it to the useless, stinking hippies! Hippies don’t have jobs! They sit around all day posting stupid crap on discussion boards while that Geitner asshole pays them to do it. You don’t think there’s just one fat hippy chick posting all this crap, do ya? It’s a nest of stinky ass hippies paid by Obama and the DNC to post garbage and they use your hundred bucks to pay ‘em! That’s how the stinky hippies pay for their tofu, recycled toilet paper and hemp underwear! And where there is one hippy, there is a nest. You didn’t believe me before and look what happened! So cool it, Stan. I’ll be there in a while! Hippies must die or be banished to France! Or Canada!

David Mathews| 4.2.09 @ 3:34PM

Hello William,

* "Some would say that about L.A, but the real point is your wrong. The universe is an environment which presents a challenge to live in. Strip down and live naked in the Northwest you’ll find that that location is “extremely harsh and lacking in the resouces’ too.”

Come on, man. Don't be silly. There's a rather significant difference between places on the Earth's surface and everywhere else. You can tell quite easily because no matter how harsh an environment is on the Earth it is filled with life by Nature.

Space, on the other hand, is a sterile lifeless environment for a reason.

* "You personify things to easily. The universe can’t be ‘harsh.’ You only see it as harsh. I see opportunity. Maybe your nation is dying. Mine is not. "

Saying that the Universe is harsh doesn't require personification. It is just as easy as saying falling off a cliff is harsh. In other words: Life is nearly impossibe or impossible under those circumstances.

And ... yes ... your nation is dying. Right now.

* "I suspect your civilization is dead, because your life in stasis and now entropy has taken over. You don’t thrive, because you have already surrendered and have become a dead ender. You suffer from projection was well. "

Have you asked the Romans, the Spanish, the British and the Soviets why their empires didn't last forever? Each and all of these people lived in empires which promised to endure until the end of time ... yet they all ended.

The United States of America isn't an immortal, eternal nation. You are living in a dying nation. You might delude yourself otherwise for as long as you wish but reality will eventually reach even the deluded.

* "Oh, deep space exploration continued with the Voyager program in 1977. The Apollo program ended in 1975. So you’re incorrect. "

There's a difference between dead robots exploring space and live humans exploring space. Humans reached the moon and that was it and we stopped walking on the moon decades ago.

There's nothing in space for humankind. Space is the sort of place in which a primate would die. Space isn't at all hospitable with the survival of a primate.

* "Nature doesn’t do anything. Like your ‘harsh’ universe, nature is what it is. But again, avoid personification. Did you have a lot of stuff animals when you were younger? "

Nature does everything. The Homo sapiens, on the other hand, are here today and gone forever tomorrow.

Humankind's future is bleak for a reason. Humans are easily deluded into non-reality thought processes. This is the reason why a species that has dominated the Earth for only a handful of centuries imagines that it can dominate the Earth forever. That delusion will die in a horrendous manner.

Joseph Hertzlinger| 4.2.09 @ 3:40PM

The problem with overpopulation predictions is that they assume that humans are animals. Animal populations often show a boom-and-bust pattern caused by overshoot. If humans are animals we must beware of overshoot, which means we must be concerned about overpopulation long before there is any real evidence of it.

On the other hand, ecologically speaking humans are plants. (Plants rarely have overshoot problems.) When there are more of a species of animal there is less of what that animal eats. When there are more of a species of plant, the resources the plant needs either increase (soil) or stay the same (sunlight).

The only resources that humans treat the way animals do are fossil fuels and wild fish. Both of those should be obsolete soon.

Tree huggers have a point (but not the one they think they're making).

As for the real-estate and stock-market declines, such declines have been temporary in the past.

Joseph Hertzlinger| 4.2.09 @ 3:46PM

The current condition of the United States resembles the Roman Republic in the time of Marius. If the United States adheres to the same schedule as the Roman Empire, it will be five hundred years before Washington is sacked.

Sit down and wait.

David Mathews| 4.2.09 @ 3:52PM

Hello Joseph,

* "The problem with overpopulation predictions is that they assume that humans are animals. "

Humans are animals. Of course. Humans are primates. Our ancestors looked like monkeys and rats.

* "Animal populations often show a boom-and-bust pattern caused by overshoot. If humans are animals we must beware of overshoot, which means we must be concerned about overpopulation long before there is any real evidence of it. "

Humans are in overshoot. Humans have been in overshoot for a very long time. Humans who imagine otherwise are delusional.

* "On the other hand, ecologically speaking humans are plants. (Plants rarely have overshoot problems.) When there are more of a species of animal there is less of what that animal eats. When there are more of a species of plant, the resources the plant needs either increase (soil) or stay the same (sunlight). "

Oh God, I'm talking to a lunatic. Humans are plants? Okay.

* "The only resources that humans treat the way animals do are fossil fuels and wild fish. Both of those should be obsolete soon. "

Okay ...

* "As for the real-estate and stock-market declines, such declines have been temporary in the past. "

Conservatives are astonishingly delusional.

* "The current condition of the United States resembles the Roman Republic in the time of Marius. If the United States adheres to the same schedule as the Roman Empire, it will be five hundred years before Washington is sacked. "

Again, conservatives are nothing if not delusional. The correct analogy is the Soviet Union circa 1985.

William Zeranski| 4.2.09 @ 3:59PM

David Mathews

*Come on, man. Don't be silly. There's a rather significant difference between places on the Earth's surface and everywhere else. You can tell quite easily because no matter how harsh an environment is on the Earth it is filled with life by Nature.

Okay, take off your cloths, get a stone knife and head into the woods.

*And ... yes ... your nation is dying. Right now.

Projection again!

*The United States of America isn't an immortal, eternal nation. You are living in a dying nation. You might delude yourself otherwise for as long as you wish but reality will eventually reach even the deluded.

Immoral? I never said it was. “You are living in a dying nation” is a relative statement. Again, projection.

*There's a difference between dead robots exploring space and live humans exploring space. Humans reached the moon and that was it and we stopped walking on the moon decades ago.

You didn’t specify.

*There's nothing in space for humankind. Space is the sort of place in which a primate would die. Space isn't at all hospitable with the survival of a primate.

Space isn’t a “sort of place.” The planet exists in it. Of course there’s stuff in space for the human race—the Sun. The moon causes the tides for example. The surface of the Earth isn’t ‘hospitable’ either. People die out there all the time. Nature isn’t fuzzy and warm. Nature doesn’t care because it can’t. Again, get that stone knife.

*Nature does everything. The Homo sapiens, on the other hand, are here today and gone forever tomorrow.

*Humankind's future is bleak for a reason. Humans are easily deluded into non-reality thought processes. This is the reason why a species that has dominated the Earth for only a handful of centuries imagines that it can dominate the Earth forever. That delusion will die in a horrendous manner.

Nature doesn’t do anything. It just ‘is’ and nothing more. There is no tomorrow to ‘not’ be in. Tomorrow never shows up. Some people, probably like you, use datebooks to overcome/undermine/avoid existential fears.

You know this has been enjoyable. But I’ve got to go. Stay well.

Do widzenia

David Mathews| 4.2.09 @ 4:19PM

Hello William,

* "Okay, take off your cloths, get a stone knife and head into the woods. "

Humans lived in these environments without technology for thousands of years. Animals also live in these environments without clothes or technology.

Space is something completely different, though.

* "Immoral? I never said it was. “You are living in a dying nation” is a relative statement. Again, projection. "

So you concede that the United States is a nation which can die. We're making progress. Delusions die only by great effort.

* "You didn’t specify. "

If you confuse robots with humans it is easy to comprehend why you might delude yourself about humankind's future so easily.

* "Space isn’t a “sort of place.” The planet exists in it. Of course there’s stuff in space for the human race—the Sun. The moon causes the tides for example. The surface of the Earth isn’t ‘hospitable’ either. People die out there all the time. Nature isn’t fuzzy and warm. Nature doesn’t care because it can’t. Again, get that stone knife. "

Now you are babbling incoherently. You'll need to rewrite the above in order to explain your meaning.

* "Nature doesn’t do anything. It just ‘is’ and nothing more. There is no tomorrow to ‘not’ be in. Tomorrow never shows up. Some people, probably like you, use datebooks to overcome/undermine/avoid existential fears. "

Nature doesn't do anything? Tell that to the people of New Orleans!

AllanS| 4.2.09 @ 4:37PM

Two chicks are growing in their eggs.

One looks around and says "Arrraugh! I'm running out of room. Out of resources. If I keep growing, I'll die!"

So it stopped growing, and it died.

The other kept growing, and it hatched.

PNMNM| 4.2.09 @ 4:47PM

A cursory examination of the birthrates and simple observation of the lifestyles of the more secular part of the world reveals that those, like DM, are apparently not the fittest according to their own Darwinian standards. The more traditional populations that hold on to their roots and religion are the only ones growing. The US is barely holding on. Truly, the meek will inherit the Earth and the godless Darwinists will go the way of their beliefs. Being among the fittest would seem to require religion.

David Mathews| 4.2.09 @ 5:00PM

Hello Allen,

* "Two chicks are growing in their eggs.

* "One looks around and says "Arrraugh! I'm running out of room. Out of resources. If I keep growing, I'll die!"

A more accurate analogy is that of a cancer cell in a body. The cancer cell keeps on growing and reproducing until its host dies ... and then it dies.

David Mathews| 4.2.09 @ 5:04PM

Hello PNMNM,

* "A cursory examination of the birthrates and simple observation of the lifestyles of the more secular part of the world reveals that those, like DM, are apparently not the fittest according to their own Darwinian standards. The more traditional populations that hold on to their roots and religion are the only ones growing."

Huh? The problem with growth is that it must inevitably end. The problem with the Human Population Bubble is that it must inevitably collapse. The problem with humans behaving like Nature's cancer is that our species must inevitably drive itself extinct.

Religion doesn't mean much to an extinct primate.

* " The US is barely holding on. Truly, the meek will inherit the Earth and the godless Darwinists will go the way of their beliefs. Being among the fittest would seem to require religion. "

If you judge fitness merely in terms of birthrate then you aren't scientifically literate enough to comprehend exactly what is happening on the Earth and the dreadful sort of impacts which must inevitably fall upon humankind.

Religion doesn't mean much when you are extinct.

JP| 4.2.09 @ 5:17PM

"If you judge fitness merely in terms of birthrate then you aren't scientifically literate enough to comprehend exactly what is happening on the Earth and the dreadful sort of impacts which must inevitably fall upon humankind.

Religion doesn't mean much when you are extinct"

DM, face it. You libs you failing to breed. Like all good Libs, your mortality bothers you to a point of distraction. Most Libs have few children, and fewer grandchildren than conservatives. Your apocolyptic fantasies are not based on science (in any event, you offer none in your posts), but on the terror of approaching death. You Boomers are frightened as well as angry. The world will continue well after you and I are gone, and the problem in the future will not be too many people, but too few people. You are angry because the future belongs to those who have lots of children, and as a consequence Liberals will be left out. Places like Boston, London, Moscow, and Tokyo will be quite lonely.

The future belongs to the Indians and Islamic people -they still have children.

DocJ| 4.2.09 @ 5:41PM

How many times does this Malthusian crap need to be discredited? Continue to repeat a lie long enough...something something...

Otis, my man!| 4.2.09 @ 5:59PM

Hey Dave! You funny guy!

Hans DelBrueck| 4.2.09 @ 9:39PM

I work for a government agency and occasionally we have someone come in who's sole purpose is to be disruptive and waste everyone's time. They may yell, use profanity, call names or declaim how the Consitution doesn't apply to them. After a reasonable hearing we have them removed. To continue the theme of this blog I believe it's obviously overpopulated with one person overusing and monopolizing the common resources. He continues to pollute and spew vitriol. I ask the web master to save environment of this blog. Please electronically and retroactively abort Mr. David Mathews. After all, his presence isn't sustainable and quality of life is suffering.

Big Leo| 4.2.09 @ 9:55PM

The population of much of the world, including the part we and most of the wealthy nations live in is approaching stasis or even declining. Europe, Japan, and Russia are particularly hard hit by the demographic bomb of population decline. The population problem seems to be fixing itself. World population will peak around 2040 and then decline very slowly. This comes as a terrible disappointment to DM, who was looking forward to grubbing for roots and berries with the other hunter gatherers, but as we mature we learn to accept the diminution of our childish dreams. One surefire preventative of famine is a free press; no democracy has ever experienced a killing famine. The famines we see in our times are because of political reasons in unfree states.

One key is bringing more of the Third World into relative prosperity. The wealthier a country is, the closer its birth rate comes to replacement levels or even decline.

I posted this before but it annoyed nuts-and-berries so much I thought I'd set the bait again.

Joseph Hertzlinger| 4.2.09 @ 11:04PM

One of the more amusing aspects of the supposedly more intellectual side of the political spectrum is their nearly brain-dead reaction to any argument they haven't heard before.

Another amusing aspect is the way the reality-based community isn't very evidence based. Dave Matthews idea of evidence is to point to the fact that disasters have sometimes happened and uses that to argue that a certain predicted disaster will happen. This is buttressed by his apparent belief that accusations of delusions trump actual evidence.

Big Leo| 4.2.09 @ 11:19PM

Hans Delbrueck,

If only we could put your magnificent brain in the Monster . . .

darwin| 4.2.09 @ 11:45PM

I believe in evolution. We will adapt or die out. I suspect it will be adaptation. In 200 years will we get to eat meat every day, maybe 3 times a day? Don't know, but if tofu and spinach is what we have, we will survive. Why do those on the left who swear by evolution not accept that adaptation is what allows us to persist??? Out of African savannahs, through European Ice Age, Nile flooding, living in the Kalihari or the outback. We will survive as a species as long as there isn't a planet killer out there.
Adapt or die. It is the motto for any species on this planet because change is the only constant.

wanumba| 4.3.09 @ 12:32AM

I lived in AFrica and I've lived in that Billion-stuffed Sub-continent India. Even had a stay in China. Only none of these continents was stuffed, unlike the image the media projects. Ever see the masses of humanity walking the jammed streets of Hong Kong? The overpopulation screechers love showing that. Walked those very same streets and was disoriented, Where were the teeming hordes? Oh! I'm not a telephoto lens on a camera which crams perspective, giving the viewer of the published photo or film the impression that Chinese and Indians and Africans just absolutely, suffocatingly, jam the streets.
The bald and despicable LYING about overpopulation world-wide is quickly exposed with a few trips abroad to see for oneself. And some people say they remember Paul Erhlich from the 1980s - I remember the GLOBAL COOLING ICE AGE hysteria from the late 1960s and that we would have food shortage riots by 1980. When they were proved wrong, wrong,wrong, wrong, Paul Erhlich and his crew just turned on a dime and cranked up GLOBAL WARMING. Instead of NYC under a 200 foot glacier, it'll be under 200 feet of water. All they had to do was switch "cooling" for "warming" and recycle the same doomsday text. Even tho' that's also crap, I like it! What has civilization always done with a local rise in water? Move further inland. Waaah! We'd have over two hundred years, no less. We have some time to pack our suitcases. More ocean-front property with palm trees. Warm temps mean MORE AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION, which means MORE FOOD for EVERYONE. And until the Earth's axis completely torques up and around so that the North Pole is at the equator, the pee-stream freezing terrifyingly supreme cold of the arctic will continue. No sun up there, for three solid months and little sun for three months more. Land of the endless night ring a bell? Besides, in the unlikely event that North and South Poles suddenly displace the equator, global warming will be the least of our problems. And since the North Pole ice cap is a big ice cube in water, it already is displacing its volume, which is why we never notice that it melts and refreezes every year. "The rivers run into the seas, but the sea never rises." More warmth, more evaporation, more clouds, means more rain, so stop telling everyone the nonsense that global warming will dry up the rivers. Warm air carries more water so there will be more humidity. Perfect growing conditions - rather like perfect conditions the dinosaurs had - even those giants couldn't eat all that vegetation. This is scientific FACT once taught in school by 5th grade, so what are they doing, rolling condoms on bananas instead of studying the water cycle? Got people claiming to be experts on food production who haven't the faintest clue as to how agriculture really works.
If Africa has too many kids running around, why not build more schools? Why is the "approved" answer always death? Since when?
Africans consider children to be wealth, so how culturally ethnocentric and neo-colonialist is it to push on to them Ivory Tower Ivy League Elitist, selfish, hegemonic concepts?

Big Leo| 4.3.09 @ 12:41AM

Wanumba,
Your science of climate and human ecology is on the mark. What amazes me about the greenhouse effect model is that apparently nobody who quotes it has any idea of how an actual greenhouse works. If it is pretty airtight you get a little increased CO2 from the plants which is immediately absorbed by greatly increased plant growth. You can't warm a greenhouse by pumping CO2 into it, no matter how airtight the greenhouse is. The warmth, either artificial or natural, increases the CO2 concentration, not the other way around.

Selvy| 4.3.09 @ 1:03AM

The population boom is set to go bust this century. That's the projection so if the alarmists will put a cork in it they'll have their wish...minus some draconian measure that they'd want to enact for 'our benefit'.

Polyester Mather | 4.3.09 @ 1:57AM

One wonders what will happen when wanumba & Big leo graduate from fifth grade , and apply their hard won reading skills to an undergraduate atmospheric science textbook ?

Might one blossom into the next Paul Ehrlich?

Angel| 4.3.09 @ 2:28AM

I hate abortion; a heartbreaking deal with the devil if there ever was one, and I have worked for years to help young women choose life. So, I find it particularly ironic that those most vehement about population control are damning themselves to extinction. We Conservatives are having many more children than liberals, and my one consolation is that azz-wipes like DM will decrease in numbers--maybe even cease to exist. Couldn't happen to a more deserving group of A-holes.

CH| 4.3.09 @ 2:30AM

Liberals are a cancer--we should cut them out before they kill all of us.

George Lord| 4.3.09 @ 5:54AM

Getting back to what Mr Heidenreich wrote in his article ...

Is there a "population panic"? Well, the current global population of ~6.7 billion is already well over reliable estimates of the maximum number that the earth can sustain, and estimates for mid-century are from 10 to 12 billion. Damage to the systems that keep us all alive, due to our living off environmental capital instead of income (e.g. running down fish stocks) is already visible everywhere and accelerating. I don't know about "panic", but I'm sure frightened.

The only population "solutions" Heidenreich mentions involve killing people off. No sane person is suggesting those, of course. What *is* being suggested is not to increase the death rate, but to decrease the birth rate. The preferred method is to increase the availability of knowledge about and means for contraception. This has been shown to work, non-coercively, in several places. Even in a country as religious as Iran. No intrusive government action is needed.

Were Ehrlich and Malthus wrong? Unfortunately, they seem merely to have been premature. Certainly when Malthus was alive (early 1700s), he had little idea of the scope of technological advance, or of the potential productivity of the planet. However, now we gave a good idea of both, and predictions of severe problems soon ahead are much more credible.

Will technology and the market make reducing population unnecessary? Of course, both of them are essential, and will be able to increase the availability of food and other resources. The problem is that the speed of their response may well be too slow. If there are further major famines, forest fires, droughts, etc., millions will die no matter what wonderful new crop varieties are in the pipline.

Worse, though, the increased resource use that such advances may make possible will actually bring forward the time when food and other resources (even fresh water) will simply be too expensive for large numbers of people to afford. That really will implement the increase in the death rate that Heidenreich mentioned. That strikes me as being a far-from-ideal solution, though.

Geo.

Stan redmond| 4.3.09 @ 11:28AM

WOW. Just wow.

Willey| 4.3.09 @ 11:57AM

Maybe no 'sane' person is suggesting killing people off as one part of population control policies, but plenty of insane people are. Who says liberals are sane?

Carbonicus| 4.3.09 @ 12:48PM

Dave, your rants are devoid of science and fact, as much as you like to portray us a obese religionists who know nothing about science.

Why don't you show us what you know about science and provide us with some facts, references?

Or don't, just continue your "I feel" missives that are devoid of fact and verifiable science. Cling to Ehrlich's, Holdren's and others of their ilk failed theories.

Dave, the birth rate is below the replacement rate in most developed countries. The countries with the best environmental conditions have the highest per capita income. CO2 is a blessing for the earth's productivity, not an evil disaster gas, and has been much higher than present over the millenia with nothing but the opposite of damage to the planet.

Go back to climatecrisis.org, you loser Kim Jong Il.

wanumba| 4.3.09 @ 1:32PM

Neo-Lysenkoists. A toxic meshing of radical politics and quack science. Send the real scientists to the Gulag in favor of politically connected hacks. This really did happen: real scientists died in prison, sent there by jealous hacks who took their jobs. Lysenko destroyed Soviet agriculture with his Communist Central Commitee-pleasing, science-be-damned- half-baked "agro-biology" theory. Global warming this year/ global cooling next year is based on politically-educated-to-ignorance- people not having the slightest ability to connect the well-established physics of water, evaporation, water vapor, water cycle and heat to real life. Thanks schools! In just three decades, we've educated people backwards two hundred years - no more. They knew more than that then.
But darn it! physics is "hard science" not like the easy cafeteria surface-skimming "environmental studies." Even have to take extra math - but that's WORK, and everyone knows schools are supposed to be FUN.
But the water cycle is so clear and so observable that even second graders can understand it.
Oh, but the rivers will dry up. On the water planet? Over 70% of the Earth is liquid, but it'll dry up. Uh, and go ... where, exactly? Water vapor is so massive a part of the atmosphere, no one knows how to quantify it into computer models ... so it isn't even factored in to the climate models favored by people who like to promote hysterics. Garbage in, garbage out. Part of the problem is people sit at their computers too much and don't go outside anymore. This is not an exaggeration.
It has been confirmed by researchers in the field that the Sahara Desert was green and lush during warmer periods of the Earth - much warmer than today. National Geo had a big article on it. I've seen proof of it with my own eyes. I have stood in the Sahara Desert and was shown by a couple of scientists a thick layer of peat about five feet under the sand. Peat - compressed vegetative matter, a lot of vegetative matter from a by-gone time, so much these scientists who showed it to me were studying the feasibility of mining it for the local population to use for cooking fuel. Why so lush? More rain, from increased evaporation. Cooler temps mean drier air! Every day on the weather report, "A line of showers is expected to move in tonight, with cooler drier air forcing out the warmer, moist air." Every single day we hear this.
You'd think the hysterics would be relieved by all this great, and verifiable news. But they clap their hands over their ears and go "hmmm-hmmm-hmmm I can't hear you." They sit in their rooms, draw the shades and say, "I don't see that."
Why? Still hell-bent on getting rid of a lot of very nice people around the world? How about spending some time on serious self-reflection to determine why these anti-people people encourage us all to think so little of our fellow men and women and children?

Michael L. Hauschild| 4.4.09 @ 6:40AM

I guess that actually being a Geographer will not pull much weight in this forum but: my humble perception of Malthusian theory has evolved in light of the spatial realities of diffusional dynamics. The starvation of the worlds population lies not in the ability to produce foodstuffs, it is the result of our infrastructures distributional capability. Plenty to eat, just no way to get it there.

CH| 4.4.09 @ 2:05PM

Corruption, too. Africa is rich in resources--there should be no starvation on that continent. It's the absolute corruption and cruelty of the leadership. Damn shame.

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