🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3k7ron$9vg_001@simi.rain.org>, noah@rain.org says...
->
->In article <D5Gpru.ML4@sactoh0.uucp>,
->   kberry@sactoh0.uucp (Kim A. Berry) wrote:
->>Anne Ehrlich will be the featured speaker at the Californian's for
->>Population Stabilization (CAPS) Annual Dinner. The dinner is open
->>to the public on Friday March 31st at the Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza
->>in Burlingame.
->>
->>Anne Ehrlich will share her unique insights on the local and global
->>effects of overpopulation. She has co-authored ten books on
->>biology, ecology, and population, including "The Population
->>Explosion."
->>
->>A private wine and cheese reception at 6:00 p.m. will be followed
->>by dinner from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. Dinner cost is $35, or $50
->>including the 6pm reception. Dinner choice is Chicken or
->>Vegetarian.
->>
->>RSVP deadline is March 21st. Contact Derek DeNardo of CAPS at 800-
->>786-4726 or caps@quiknet.com
->> 
->
->I thought she and her husband had been drummed out of the scientific
->community for their so-called research.  Does anyone still believe
->either of them as having anything relevant to say about population?
->Other than Planned Parenthood or some abortionist/contraception
->company they can't have any serious funding, do they?

Matt,

I think they do.  Here is a clip for your pleasure:

THE POPULATION EXPLOSION by Paul and Anne Ehrlich (1990)
Published by Simon and Schuster  Tel. 212-698-7000

OVERPOPULATION
Having considered some of the ways that humanity is destroying its
inheritance, we can look more closely at the concept of
"overpopulation."  All too often, overpopulation is thought of simply
as crowding: too many people in a given area, too high a population
density.  For instance, the deputy editor in chief of Forbes magazine
pointed out recently, in connection with a plea for more population
growth in the United States:  "If all the people from China and India
lived in the continental U.S. (excluding Alaska), this country would
still have a smaller population density than England, Holland, or
Belgium." *31

The appropriate response is "So what?"  Density is generally
irrelevant to questions of overpopulation.  For instance, if brute
density were the criterion, one would have to conclude that Africa is
"underpopulated," because it has only 55 people per square mile,
while Europe (excluding the USSR) has 261 and Japan 857. *32  A more
sophisticated measure would take into consideration the amount of
Africa not covered by desert or "impenetrable" forest. *33  This more
habitable portion is just a little over half the continent's area,
giving an effective population density of 117 per square mile. That's
still only about a fifth of that in the United Kingdom.  Even by
2020, Africa's effective density is projected to grow to only about
that of France today (266), and few people would consider France
excessively crowded or overpopulated.

When people think of crowded countries, they usually contemplate
places like the Netherlands (1,031 per square mile), Taiwan (1,604),
or Hong Kong (14,218).  Even those don't necessarily signal
overpopulation -- after all, the Dutch seem to be thriving, and
doesn't Hong Kong have a booming economy and fancy hotels?  In short,
if density were the standard of overpopulation, few nations (and
certainly not Earth itself) would be likely to be considered
overpopulated in the near future.  The error, we repeat, lies in
trying to define overpopulation in terms of density; it has long been
recognized that density per se means very little. *34

The key to understanding overpopulation is not population density but
the numbers of people in an area relative to its resources and the
capacity of the environment to sustain human activities; that is, to
the area's carrying capacity.  When is an area overpopulated?  When
its population can't be maintained without rapidly depleting
nonrenewable resources (or converting renewable resources into
nonrenewable ones) and without degrading the capacity of the
environment to support the population.  In short, if the long-term
carrying capacity of an area is clearly being degraded by its current
human occupants, that area is overpopulated. *35

By this standard, the entire planet and virtually every nation is
already vastly overpopulated.  Africa is overpopulated now because,
among other indications, its soils and forests are rapidly being
depleted -- and that implies that its carrying capacity for human
beings will be lower in the future than it is now.  The United States
is overpopulated because it is depleting its soil and water resources
and contributing mightily to the destruction of global environmental
systems.  Europe, Japan, the Soviet Union, and other rich nations are
overpopulated because of their massive contributions to the carbon
dioxide buildup in the atmosphere, among many other reasons.

Almost all the rich nations are overpopulated because they are
rapidly drawing down stocks of resources around the world.  They
don't live solely on the land in their own nations.  Like the
profligate son of our earlier analogy, they are spending their
capital with no thought for the future.

It is especially ironic that Forbes considered the Netherlands not to
be overpopulated.  This is such a common error that it has been known
for two decades as the "Netherlands Fallacy." *36  The Netherlands
can support 1,031 people per square mile only because the rest of the
world does not.  In 1984-86, the Netherlands imported almost 4
million tons of cereals, 130,000 tons of oils, and 480,000 tons of
pulses (peas, beans, lentils). It took some of these relatively
inexpensive imports and used them to boost their production of
expensive exports -- 330,000 tons of milk and 1.2 million tons of
meat. The-Netherlands also extracted about a half-million tons of
fishes from the sea during this period, and imported more in the form
of fish meal. *37

The Netherlands is also a major importer of minerals, bringing in
virtually all the iron, antimony, bauxite, copper, tin, etc., that it
requires.  Most of its fresh water is "imported" from upstream
nations via the Rhine River.  The Dutch built their wealth using
imported energy.  Then, in the 1970s, the discovery of a large gas
field in the northern part of the nation allowed the Netherlands
temporarily to export as gas roughly the equivalent in energy of the
petroleum it continued to import.  But when the gas fields (which
represent about twenty years' worth of Dutch energy consumption at
current rates) are exhausted, Holland will once again depend heavily
on the rest of the world for fossil fuels or uranium. *38

In short, the people of the Netherlands didn't build their prosperity
on the bounty of the Netherlands, and are not living on it now.
Before World War II, they drew raw materials from their colonies;
today they still depend on the resources of much of the world. Saying
that the Netherlands is thriving with a density of 1,031 people per
square mile simply ignores that those 1,031 Dutch people far exceed
the carrying capacity of that square mile.

This "carrying-capacity" definition of overpopulation is the one used
in this book. *39  It is important to understand that under this
definition a condition of overpopulation might be corrected with no
change in the number of people.  For instance, the impact of today's
665 million Africans on their resources and environment theoretically
might be reduced to the point where the continent would no longer be
overpopulated.  To see whether this would be possible, population
growth would have to be stopped, appropriate assistance given to
peasant farmers, and certain other important reforms instituted.
Similarly, dramatic changes in American lifestyle might suffice to
end overpopulation in the United States without a large population
reduction.

But, for now and the foreseeable future, Africa and the United States
will remain overpopulated -- and will probably become even more so.
To say they are not because, if people changed their ways,
overpopulation might be eliminated is simply wrong -- overpopulation
is defined by the animals that occupy the turf, behaving as they
naturally behave, not by a hypothetical group that might be
substituted for them. [p.p. 37-40]

-- 
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  The real questions are:  What is the name of the political theory
   that allows "artificial people" (corporations) to kill "natural
    people" (your kids) in order to make profit (larger numbers)?
  And does this political theory derive its philosophical premise
   from the teachings of our beloved John Locke or George Orwell?
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