Overpopulation: The central issue no one will talk about

When Scientists Speak, Who Listens?

by Robert Walker, President, World Population Institute

Downloaded May 7, 2012 from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/rober...b_1471423.html

Scientists get no respect these days. When they speak, no one listens. It doesn't matter how many scientists are speaking, what they are saying, or what their qualifications are, they get a fraction of the media attention lavished on a reality TV star or an American Idol contestant. Three thousand scientists and experts, including a number of Nobel Laureates, joined together and issued a warning several weeks ago about the planet and possible "catastrophic consequences" for global civilization, but Kim Kardashian and her alleged marriage woes stole the headlines. The Royal Society, the world's oldest and most distinguished academy of science, late last month issued a report on how increasing population and rising consumption are imperiling the planet. Sir John Sulston, the Nobel Prize Laureate who chaired the working group,cautioned about a possible "downward vortex of economic, socio-political and environmental ills," but his warning got less press attention in the U.S. than Mitt Romney's dog.


If scientists get any media attention it's only because the science-deniers are ridiculing them. When the Royal Society produced its "Population and the Planet," report, the ink was not even dry before the critics were slashing away at it. A writer for The Economist declared, "On the whole it stinks." A self-described "global expert on the metal scandium," asserts in Forbes and The Telegraph, that it is "an appallingly bad report" and "a dismal failure." Really? Did anyone actually read the report, or look at the credentials of those who wrote it? Doubtful.


We live in the Era of Willful Ignorance. It is not only acceptable; it is fashionable to throw scientific caution to the wind. The Euro has more 'currency' than scientific warnings about climate change, food security, the oceans, or biodiversity loss. Any scientist venturing into the public realm, no matter how respected by his or her peers, is treated like an intellectual varmint by politicians, special interests, and arm-chair critics, who immediately open up with a volley of prefabricated rebuttals and personal attacks.


Because these rhetorical assaults are so successful, political leaders shy away from embracing scientific conclusions for fear that they will alienate uninformed voters, who easily make up a majority of the electorate. You can count on one hand the number of politicians taking a leadership role on climate change or any of the other environmental challenges facing the world. And God forbid that any elected official should suggest that the planet is in peril or that the economic growth engine as we have known it over the past century is not sustainable. Issues like food security, loss of biodiversity, and resource scarcity are politically taboo. Do a search of the Congressional Record and you will find that these issues are rarely, if ever, discussed.
History will not be kind to today's leaders. Decades from now, posterity will look back at what passes today for political discourse in this country and they will ask, "What planet were they living on?" They will marvel at how politicians could be so heedless of science and so neglectful of posterity.


The fault, of course, is not with our leaders, but with us. In a representative democracy we get the government we deserve. If we are more concerned about Kim Kardashian's marriage or Mitt Romney's dog than we are about the future of humanity, we can hardly blame our elected representatives for their lack of courage and foresight. As England's Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli said more than a century ago, "There go the people, and I must follow, for I am their leader."


I don't know how we translate scientific warnings into actionable awareness, but the key, I suspect, is making people understand that the future is now. A year ago, Jeremy Grantham, the co-founder of GMO, one of the largest investment management firms in the world, caused a stir in the financial community when he wrote a newsletter titled, "Time to wake up: Days of abundant resources and falling prices are over forever." Grantham's analysis suggests that the world is already experiencing the effects of resource scarcity, and that climate change and other factors could make life more difficult for current generations, not just posterity.
Grantham is highly respected in financial circles. If his analysis is correct, and there is every reason to believe it is, then people may begin to attach a higher degree of urgency to what scientists are telling us about the world. Let's hope so.

* * * * * * * *
Overpopulation is the most basic manifestation of what Ernest Becker called the Denial of Death. We humans have the capacity for self aware self consciousness which entails the knowledge of one's own mortality. Humans feel great anxiety about our mortality, but we suppress the knowledge rather than encounter it. From its position in the unconscious, the fear of death motivates behaviors that ultimately hasten our demise as a species. Overpopulation is the driver for pollution of the environment, machinification of the planet, extinction of non-human species, overfishing the oceans, and deforestation.

Overpopulation is such a charged issue that politicians will not address it. The Catholic church has made overpopulation a cornerstone of its dogma, and the church attacks any attempt to limit population through birth control. Fundamentalists and their spokespersons on the Republican Right prevent the dissemination of birth control in Africa with the result that overpopulation has increased the wars fought for control of land to till and famine is widespread. The Tea Party and other right-wingers pass laws to ban abortion and to prevent sex education in schools motivated by their own unconscious death anxiety. Commentators vilify the Chinese for their attempts to limit population in a country with over a billion citizens. The unconscious death anxiety is so powerful that leaders avoid it for fear of being attacked by the Right.

All the effects of overpopulation will increase exponentially as the population increases at an exponential rate. We just passed 7 billion. By 2050 there will be at least 9 billion and maybe 15 billion humans on the planet, and that will exceed Earth's carrying capacity. Jared Diamond's book "Collapse" traced the rise and fall of several societies and civilizations including the Anasazi, the Mayans, and the Easter Islanders. Even he avoids highlighting the central role of overpopulation in each case of a society's collapse, yet the data he presents clearly demonstrate the fact. It is not puzzling that the Right is also attacking education, because a truly educated citizenry would recognize the role of overpopulation and take action to limit it, but that would mean confronting our denial of death. Unless we raise our death anxiety to consciousness, we are doomed as a species.

Star Man

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Posted in reply to the post by Star Man:

We live in the Era of Willful Ignorance.

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what was the previous era, and when did it end?

I think it was Socrates who was first quoted saying "kids these days.... get off my damn lawn" or something like that.

Thank you, Star Man! I think Robert Walker is right on the mark in his description of the various ways the world avoids confronting or even bringing up for discussion the ticking time bomb of human overpopulation. I particularly appreciate his speculation that the subconscious fear of death is a root cause or the root cause of the failure of humans as a whole to confront this issue. One would think that the awareness of mortality, an awareness that seems to be unique to the mental capacity of homo sapiens, would cause people to be open-hearted, compassionate, and focused on living as fully as possible every moment. They would avoid behavior such as warfare, mutual persecution, sexual repression, and other behaviors that create unnecessary suffering and misery. They would look ahead and say, hey, we'd better find a humane way to avoid the population explosion rising to the point where our very existence as a species is threatened!

Thankfully, this does happen to some extent, but I think that what happens even more is that the human race shrinks away from the terrifying realization of mortality by surrounding its consciousness with a comforting padding of rigid cultural attitudes and practices, including religion with its clampdown on the disruptive and scary wildness of sexual energy, and its invariable belief in immortality. Psychologically, we live in little culturally constructed rooms in our heads, a world of "normalcy," rather than facing the staggering mystery of the cosmos, life, and death. On the one hand, this is comforting, but on the other hand it is deeply frustrating. It creates anger and leads to counterproductive and even downright suicidal beliefs, behaviors, and actions.

Back to the point at hand, we have now arrived at a place in history where we at last have the technological capacity to limit reproduction, without taking on the futile task of limiting the human sexual drive. Yet--with the
exception of China, which deals with the problem in a very draconian manner--we are facing this peculiar reluctance to put the population explosion at the forefront of discussion and action. We humans think we are so smart, but ironically we may turn out to be the species that--through technological self-pollution and suicidal overpopulation--turns out to create its own extinction!

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Posted in reply to the post by Star Man:

When Scientists Speak, Who Listens?

by Robert Walker, President, World Population Institute

Downloaded May 7, 2012 from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/rober...b_1471423.html

Scientists get no respect these days. When they speak, no one listens. It doesn't matter how many scientists are speaking, what they are saying, or what their qualifications are, they get a fraction of the media attention lavished on a reality TV star or an American Idol contestant. Three thousand scientists and experts, including a number of Nobel Laureates, joined together and issued a warning several weeks ago about the planet and possible "catastrophic consequences" for global civilization, but Kim Kardashian and her alleged marriage woes stole the headlines. The Royal Society, the world's oldest and most distinguished academy of science, late last month issued a report on how increasing population and rising consumption are imperiling the planet. Sir John Sulston, the Nobel Prize Laureate who chaired the working group,cautioned about a possible "downward vortex of economic, socio-political and environmental ills," but his warning got less press attention in the U.S. than Mitt Romney's dog.


If scientists get any media attention it's only because the science-deniers are ridiculing them. When the Royal Society produced its "Population and the Planet," report, the ink was not even dry before the critics were slashing away at it. A writer for The Economist declared, "On the whole it stinks." A self-described "global expert on the metal scandium," asserts in Forbes and The Telegraph, that it is "an appallingly bad report" and "a dismal failure." Really? Did anyone actually read the report, or look at the credentials of those who wrote it? Doubtful.


We live in the Era of Willful Ignorance. It is not only acceptable; it is fashionable to throw scientific caution to the wind. The Euro has more 'currency' than scientific warnings about climate change, food security, the oceans, or biodiversity loss. Any scientist venturing into the public realm, no matter how respected by his or her peers, is treated like an intellectual varmint by politicians, special interests, and arm-chair critics, who immediately open up with a volley of prefabricated rebuttals and personal attacks.


Because these rhetorical assaults are so successful, political leaders shy away from embracing scientific conclusions for fear that they will alienate uninformed voters, who easily make up a majority of the electorate. You can count on one hand the number of politicians taking a leadership role on climate change or any of the other environmental challenges facing the world. And God forbid that any elected official should suggest that the planet is in peril or that the economic growth engine as we have known it over the past century is not sustainable. Issues like food security, loss of biodiversity, and resource scarcity are politically taboo. Do a search of the Congressional Record and you will find that these issues are rarely, if ever, discussed.
History will not be kind to today's leaders. Decades from now, posterity will look back at what passes today for political discourse in this country and they will ask, "What planet were they living on?" They will marvel at how politicians could be so heedless of science and so neglectful of posterity.


The fault, of course, is not with our leaders, but with us. In a representative democracy we get the government we deserve. If we are more concerned about Kim Kardashian's marriage or Mitt Romney's dog than we are about the future of humanity, we can hardly blame our elected representatives for their lack of courage and foresight. As England's Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli said more than a century ago, "There go the people, and I must follow, for I am their leader."


I don't know how we translate scientific warnings into actionable awareness, but the key, I suspect, is making people understand that the future is now. A year ago, Jeremy Grantham, the co-founder of GMO, one of the largest investment management firms in the world, caused a stir in the financial community when he wrote a newsletter titled, "Time to wake up: Days of abundant resources and falling prices are over forever." Grantham's analysis suggests that the world is already experiencing the effects of resource scarcity, and that climate change and other factors could make life more difficult for current generations, not just posterity.
Grantham is highly respected in financial circles. If his analysis is correct, and there is every reason to believe it is, then people may begin to attach a higher degree of urgency to what scientists are telling us about the world. Let's hope so.

* * * * * * * *
Overpopulation is the most basic manifestation of what Ernest Becker called the Denial of Death. We humans have the capacity for self aware self consciousness which entails the knowledge of one's own mortality. Humans feel great anxiety about our mortality, but we suppress the knowledge rather than encounter it. From its position in the unconscious, the fear of death motivates behaviors that ultimately hasten our demise as a species. Overpopulation is the driver for pollution of the environment, machinification of the planet, extinction of non-human species, overfishing the oceans, and deforestation.

Overpopulation is such a charged issue that politicians will not address it. The Catholic church has made overpopulation a cornerstone of its dogma, and the church attacks any attempt to limit population through birth control. Fundamentalists and their spokespersons on the Republican Right prevent the dissemination of birth control in Africa with the result that overpopulation has increased the wars fought for control of land to till and famine is widespread. The Tea Party and other right-wingers pass laws to ban abortion and to prevent sex education in schools motivated by their own unconscious death anxiety. Commentators vilify the Chinese for their attempts to limit population in a country with over a billion citizens. The unconscious death anxiety is so powerful that leaders avoid it for fear of being attacked by the Right.

All the effects of overpopulation will increase exponentially as the population increases at an exponential rate. We just passed 7 billion. By 2050 there will be at least 9 billion and maybe 15 billion humans on the planet, and that will exceed Earth's carrying capacity. Jared Diamond's book "Collapse" traced the rise and fall of several societies and civilizations including the Anasazi, the Mayans, and the Easter Islanders. Even he avoids highlighting the central role of overpopulation in each case of a society's collapse, yet the data he presents clearly demonstrate the fact. It is not puzzling that the Right is also attacking education, because a truly educated citizenry would recognize the role of overpopulation and take action to limit it, but that would mean confronting our denial of death. Unless we raise our death anxiety to consciousness, we are doomed as a species.

Star Man

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The corporate powers of the world want more customers to buy their crap. The religions want more "souls" to subscribe to their particular version of superstitious nonsense (and donate to their tax-free coffers). The governments of the world want more subjects for their regimes to provide more tax dollars and cheap labor. Don't expect help dealing with the population problem from these major institutions. As long as a nation's success is measured by GDP growth, which is really a measure of resource depletion, environmental pollution, habitat loss, etc., there won't be much impetus to limit population growth. Implementing the GPI (Genuine Progress Indicator) in place of GDP would go a long way to moving the emphasis from growth to sustainability and reduce the economic "need" for more people.

Latino Births Deliver New Political Power And Battles In Texas

Posted: 05/14/2012 7:43 am Updated: 05/14/2012 9:49 am
by Janell Ross


Downloaded May 14, 2012 from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/...n_1511886.html

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For the first time in the state's history, a quarter of all Texas congressional races will be held in specially designed districts where Latino voters make up the majority. That’s a figure that is in direct proportion to its share of eligible Texas voters who are Latino. And that’s a situation that would not have been possible without women like Cruz, who have been giving birth to new Texans. In the 10 years from 2000 to 2010, Texas added about 529,000 new people, including newborns and new arrivals, with about 65 percent of them being Latino. And all that new population growth helped Texas gain four new congressional seats -- more than any other state.
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"It’s really simple: Latinas are having children, and now Texas will have a bigger voice in the House. That’s the way representative democracy works.”

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What’s happening in Texas is of national interest because while the specifics might vary, the general demographic trend does not: Across America the Latino birth rate is poised to deliver more political power to Hispanics than many Americans may anticipate.


Of the nearly 530,000 people added to Texas’ population from 2000 to 2010, Latinos like Cruz's two children accounted for 65 percent of that growth, said demographer Steve Murdock, who led the U.S. Census Bureau from 2007 to 2009.
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“It’s not. It’s a national phenomenon.”


Every month, more of Texas’ disproportionately young Latino population turns 18, or voting age. Nationwide about 50,000 Latinos reach this marker each month, according to federal data.
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In more than 200 neighborhoods and communities in El Paso County, known as colonias, some residents do not have running water or reliable electricity. But as a candidate, Gonzalez is spending long days and some nights, with her 10 siblings and her parents to call voters and knock on doors to get out the vote -- and win herself a seat in the process. If she prevails, Gonzalez will become the first Latina to represent District 75 and the first out lesbian in the Texas House. She plans to dedicate herself to delivering basic infrastructure and services and expanding state funding for education.


Regardless of who wins in District 75, few would dispute that the Latino baby boom has led to redistricting and therefore increased political power.

* * * * * * * *
I have redacted this article which appeared today on Huffington Post. Who will dare speak truth to the overpopulaters no matter what their ethnicity? What politician will address the issue of overpopulation and vanishing resources? Can we have an income tax that penalizes families for having more than two children? We ought to be teaching birth control in the schools, but we are not. Here is one bloc of voters that are reproducing their way into dominance. Let's notice together how poorly overpopulation has worked in Mexico. Overpopulation is the force behind the illegal immigration of thousands and thousands of Hispanics from Latin America to the U.S. Big Ag in the U.S. wanted these workers to labor cheaply. Now they are here and are bringing their relatives. They are also bringing crime. Los Zetas exist in the U.S. All of the drug cartels have U.S. operations. Right here in Sonoma and Mendocino Counties we had drug wars last summer in which men with Mexican surnames were murdered on marijuana plantations. Those are drug wars, people, right here in California. They result when there are too many people fighting for too few jobs.

There are four points on which to address the problem: education, deportation of illegals, creation of more jobs, and decreasing the birth rate for all citizens. The paralysis in all levels of government and the motivation by politicians to get elected by pandering to the newly emerging Hispanic voting bloc will prevent effective action from being taken. Exponential growth of population will overwhelm the feeble growth rate of human awareness. We are truly Homo imprudens, the people who could not see the consequences of their actions.

Star Man

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Posted in reply to the post by Star Man:

Latino Births Deliver New Political Power And Battles In Texas

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you do realize how racist, or at best ethnocentric (we've got ours) that sounds, right?

It's important to acknowledge and deal with the context. Just professing nothing but the best motives, innocent of the implications (preserving priviledge for the classes that already have "got theirs") isn't enough. Fortunately or unfortunately, no single issue, no matter how important, can be dealt with as if it had no conflicts with other goals.

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Posted in reply to the post by podfish:

you do realize how racist, or at best ethnocentric (we've got ours) that sounds, right?

It's important to acknowledge and deal with the context. Just professing nothing but the best motives, innocent of the implications (preserving priviledge for the classes that already have "got theirs") isn't enough. Fortunately or unfortunately, no single issue, no matter how important, can be dealt with as if it had no conflicts with other goals.

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I was hoping for Homosapienscentric. Apparently the sapiens part is escaping you. I am well aware that the facts will sound racist to someone, yet these are still facts. To paraphrase Gandhi, "A baby for a baby leaves the whole world hungy." The issue of racism will have to be dealt with if we are to survive as a species. Limiting the population of all will not favor the "ours" you seem to be referring to (I think you probably mean Caucasians.). Right now Caucasians are a minority world-wide. Global population is 0.21 South Asian, 0.25 East Asian, 0.16 White, 0.15 Black, 0.08 Central/South American, 0.09 Southeast Asian, 0.08 Middle Eastern. In the U.S. 84.7% were White in 2010 and 16.0% were Hispanic. By 2050 projections are that there will be 439 million people here (up from 310 million in 2010), and 46.3% will be White and 30.2% will be Hispanic.

The point of my post was that there are too many people all together, not that there were too many Blacks or Hispanics, or Whites. The issue Podfish is to see this as a problem for human beings as a species, not as a reproductive contest between one race and another. Obviously it is going to be very difficult to talk about this if the supposedly more educated and aware segment of our society, i.e., readers of WaccoBB and commentators thereon, go immediately to the race card without stopping to consider if there might really be too many people here.

Star Man

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Posted in reply to the post by Star Man:

I was hoping for Homosapienscentric. Apparently the sapiens part is escaping you. I am well aware that the facts will sound racist to someone, yet these are still facts. ...
The point of my post was that there are too many people all together, ... Obviously it is going to be very difficult to talk about this if the supposedly more educated and aware segment of our society, i.e., readers of WaccoBB and commentators thereon, go immediately to the race card without stopping to consider if there might really be too many people here.
Star Man

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exactly. It is very difficult; it takes great care to express ideas like this exactly because otherwise you can find yourself using the same language as those with far less noble motives. And just saying your motives are noble isn't adequate. This is a topic with a very ugly history, especially in this country with the population you used as an example. When you're pushing for a public movement that will impact this population, it behooves you to show a little sensitivity to that history. Thus my comments about context, which apparently escaped you.

clearly you understand the resource depletion problem as to many people rather than overconsumption? demographic data has demonstrated for years that legal and economic freedom for women drops the birth rate to below replacement levels in a generation or two. this is happening right now in latin america and in imigrants here from there. it is happening rapidly in india and developed muslim countries. population predictions have consistently been to high all across the world including right here in sonoma county. without immigration the population of the us would be stable and soon declining. the main threat to human sustainability in the world is increasing resource consumption, especially in asia.

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Posted in reply to the post by Star Man:

I was hoping for Homosapienscentric. Apparently the sapiens part is escaping you. I am well aware that the facts will sound racist to someone, yet these are still facts. To paraphrase Gandhi, "A baby for a baby leaves the whole world hungy." The issue of racism will have to be dealt with if we are to survive as a species. Limiting the population of all will not favor the "ours" you seem to be referring to (I think you probably mean Caucasians.). Right now Caucasians are a minority world-wide. Global population is 0.21 South Asian, 0.25 East Asian, 0.16 White, 0.15 Black, 0.08 Central/South American, 0.09 Southeast Asian, 0.08 Middle Eastern. In the U.S. 84.7% were White in 2010 and 16.0% were Hispanic. By 2050 projections are that there will be 439 million people here (up from 310 million in 2010), and 46.3% will be White and 30.2% will be Hispanic.

The point of my post was that there are too many people all together, not that there were too many Blacks or Hispanics, or Whites. The issue Podfish is to see this as a problem for human beings as a species, not as a reproductive contest between one race and another. Obviously it is going to be very difficult to talk about this if the supposedly more educated and aware segment of our society, i.e., readers of WaccoBB and commentators thereon, go immediately to the race card without stopping to consider if there might really be too many people here.

Star Man

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Desmond Hatchett: Man With 30 Kids Requests Child-Support Break

Downloaded May 21, 2012 from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/...ef=mostpopular

A 33-year-old Knoxville, Tenn. man with 30 children appeared in court this week to ask the state for child-support help, Memphis news station WREG reported Wednesday.

Desmond Hatchett has fathered 30 children -- which is believed to be the record in Knox county, according to the Los Angeles Times -- with 11 different women. His youngest children are toddlers and his oldest is 14.
Hatchett reportedly asked the court to give him a break on his payments, claiming that he's struggling to make ends meet with his minimum-wage job. Currently, the state requires him to divide 50 percent of his earnings among the 11 women, some of whom receive as little as $1.49 a month, WREG reports.
How did Hatchett come to father so many children? “I had four kids in the same year. Twice," he told Volunteer TV in 2009. He also told a local news station that year that he was "done" having kids (he had only 21 at the time).
Hatchett isn't the only serial father to make headlines. NFL player Antonio Cromartie, 28, famously fathered 10 children by eight women in six states.


Notre Dame, Catholic Groups Suing Obama Administration Over Birth Control Mandate

Downloaded May 21, 2012 from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/...n_1533147.html

NEW YORK -- Roman Catholic dioceses, schools and other groups sued the Obama administration Monday in eight states and the District of Columbia over a federal mandate that most employers provide workers free birth control as part of their health insurance. . . . .


The Health and Human Services Department adopted the rule to improve health care for women. Last year, an advisory panel from the Institute of Medicine, which advises the federal government, recommended including birth control on the list of covered services, partly because it promotes maternal and child health by allowing women to space their pregnancies.


However, many faith leaders from across religious traditions protested, saying the mandate violates religious freedom. The original rule includes a religious exemption that allows houses of worship to opt-out, but keeps the requirement in place for religiously affiliated charities.

* * * * * * *
These two articles demonstrate egregious overpopulation. Mr. Hatchett and Mr. Cromartie apparently are playing "baby's momma drama." Here is how Urban Dictionary defines Baby Momma Drama:

"A situation that happens in a single mothers life when she realizes:

1.) That she was looking for the wrong things in a man to begin with.

2.) The same game he used to knock her up with he's using on someone else who is just as fine or finer than you.

3.) Lack of child support plus one screaming child equals one pissed-off mom.

4.) That a nice car, long-hard dick and money does not make the perfect man.

5.) That she should sew up her vagina and hope "Mr. Right" is a single parent like she is.

6.) She can't party and change daipers at the same time. "

How is it "religious freedom" to overpopulate the planet? The Catholics say they don't want to impose their religious beliefs on others, but by denying birth control information in the schools and denying abortions to the women who bore Hatchett's and Cromartie's children they are in fact imposing their religious beliefs on others. The Catholic church is in denial about the consequences of their opposition to birth control. Who will take care of the 30 children Mr. Hatchett fathered? A single mother has great difficulty providing the healthy emotional environment children need to mature and to become acceptable and productive members of society. I am well aware that America's overpopulation is caused more by the third and fourth child of middle-class parents, not by the 30th child of a scum bag like Mr. Hatchett. Overpopulation affects everyone. Research suggests that most of Mr. Hatchett's 30 children will end up using drugs, committing crimes, incarcerated, and doing Baby Mama Drama on other women who haven't been educated about their right to reproductive choice. Overpopulation costs society resources. Overpopulation could be addressed before it happens by providing birth control and reproductive information in schools. Sadly the fundies and Catholics and Tea Partiers are trying to deal with it by denying benefits to single mothers.

Star Man