Overpopulation
Last updated 2004-07-02 by Roedy
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"The growth in population is very much bound up with poverty, and in turn
poverty plunders the earth. When human groups are dying of hunger, they eat
everything: grass, insects, everything. They cut down the trees, they leave the
land dry and bare. All other concerns vanish. That's why in the next thirty
years the problems we call "environmental" will be the hardest that
humanity has to face."
~ Tenzin Gyatso, the fourteenth Dalai Lama
Introduction
Nearly all global problems are made worse by overpopulation.
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We have wars fighting over scarce resources and territory.
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We destroy the habitat of every other species, pushing them to extinction. In
India alone the population increases by 20 million every year. These people have
to live and farm somewhere. The increase won't stop until all the wildlands are
gone. Which do we really need more of on earth? humans or the other species?
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Dealing with the pollution of our industries and fecal waste is compounded by
overpopulation.
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Plagues thrive in overcrowded conditions.
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We are rapidly depleting our non-renewable energy reserves. Every person in the
developed world consumes 40 times as much as in the developing world. As the
huge populations of the developing world demand the fruits of development the
energy and resource needs will soar.
Yet we refuse to take any sort of action to limit our populations even though
our species has hit the planet like a plague of tent caterpillars. We consider
ourselves a rational species, but we foolishly overbreed in a race to turn our
paradise of earth to a hell. We have no more sense than tent caterpillars, We
are as much a slave to our gonads as any insect.
The Habit Of Overpopulating
Most animals don't need to concern themselves with overpopulation. Predators
take care of the problem. For predators, starvation handles it. On average only
two offspring survive to adulthood, even when an animal has millions of young.
Yet we humans have developed technology to strip the land bare and pile layer
upon layer of humanity, protected by vaccines. No matter how densely we pack
ourselves in, we still strive for ever higher populations out of an ancient
biological imperative. It shows up in our outdated religious beliefs. They still
push for maximal fecundity even though such fecundity is no longer appropriate.
People also have children for status reasons. They also have children to provide
for them in their old age. Social institutions refuse to adjust to the new
reality of overpopulation.
The American Excuse
Americans tell me that it is not their fault the world is overpopulated. The
fault lies in Asia and Africa where people have large families. Yet each
American consumes 11 times the resources of someone living in Asia or Africa.
Americans import these resources from all over the planet. Every American kid
counts as 11 kids in terms of burden on the planetary ecosystem. Not only do
Americans need to reverse their population growth, they must reduce their
ecological footprint. Each American woman has about 2.07 children, equivalent to
a family of 23 children in terms of drain on the ecosystem.
Action
We must change the archaic attitudes towards breeding. It must become socially
unacceptable. This is quite a revolution in our thinking. The urge to breed is
so strong it will prevail against almost any social pressure. There is no worry
about going too far. If we do, we can adjust. For example here are some
approaches that have been tried, not all of which are very palatable:
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We need massive research on birth control that is cheap to administer that works
by default. Both parties should need to do something active, (other than have
sex), to allow a pregnancy, e.g. take a pill.
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We must provide programs to ensure people are cared for in old age whether or
not they have children.
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We must get rid of all government subsidies that encourage people to have
children.
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We should provide large cash incentives for vasectomies and tubal ligations.
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We need new technology to attempt to support the huge populations with
sustainable clean energy and sustainable agriculture.
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We must start making rude jokes about people who have children. We must call
them breeders or other nastier epithets.
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We must discourage religions that encourage overpopulation by taking away their
tax breaks.
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We must encourage people to have homosexual relationships wherever possible.
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We should encourage people to keep small pets instead of children.
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We should continue the Bush approach to AIDS, namely actively encouraging it. We
should create some new plagues as well, ones better aimed at those who have
large numbers of children.
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We should foment wars to help kill off the young men.
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We should not intervene when crazed dictators such as Hitler, Idi Amin and Pol
Pot decimate their populations.
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We should relax the taboos against inter-species sex.
Not all these approaches are equally palatable. However, if we don't get serious
about the more palatable ones, we will be forced to use the less palatable ones
instead.
The USA
There are three ways to approach the population problem:
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reduce the birth rate.
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increase the death rate.
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increase the efficiency with which you can sustain a population with limited
resources.
"Depopulation should be the highest priority of foreign policy towards the
third world, because the US economy will require large and increasing amounts of
minerals from abroad, especially from less developed countries."
~ Henry Kissinger
America has focused almost exclusively on increasing the death rate. This is a
startling thing to say, but look at her actions, not the rhetoric.
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She interfered with condom education in Africa, which does work, and forced
religious-based abstinence education which has been proven to make the AIDS
epidemic worse.
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She is the stingiest country of all the western nations in terms of foreign aid.
Even the "greedy" Saudis are 50 times as generous.
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47% of the planet's military spending (i.e. spending on ways to kill people) is
done by America. Americans kill more people than all other nations combined.
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America backs corrupt political regimes who oppress their people in return for
access to natural resources.
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American sponsored immunization programs in Africa deliberately reused needles
without sterilisation. This spread all manner of diseases including AIDS.
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Americans are the most deliberately wasteful group of people on the planet when
it comes to resources. There whole culture and status system is built on
consumption and waste.
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America encourages ever higher birthrates by discouraging family planning,
contraceptives, condoms and abortion.
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America encourages every higher birthrates by destroying economic stability in
other countries exploiting workers and destroying unions. Impoverished people
have no social security other than a large family.
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