One of my least favorite liberal canards is the old "population problem" argument, that argues that we have too many people, and not enough resources. In line with this, ecofanatics like to talk of the human race as a "virus" on the earth. Their low view of humanity is probably reflective of how poorly and selfishly we use our resources, but rarely has anyone seriously talked about getting rid of large portions of humanity in sane company.
Except now for maybe Erik Pianka, who was recently honored by The Texas Academy of Science. Pianka argues that what would be best for the planet would be a worldwide pandemic that kills of maybe 90% of humanity.
"[Disease] will control the scourge of humanity," Pianka said, according to the Seguin Gazette. "We’re looking forward to a huge collapse."
A fellow scientist, Forrest Mims, of the Environmental Science Section of the Texas Academy of Science, remarked about Pianka, saying
"He recommended airborne Ebola as an ideal killing virus," Mims said. "He showed slides of the Four Horsemen of the apocalypse and human skulls. He joked about requiring universal sterilization. It reminded me of a futuristic science fiction movie with a crazed scientist planning the death of humanity."
The Center for Science and Culture article goes on to discuss this, including this snippet:
It’s no coincidence that those who accept a materialistic/anti-design view of life’s origin (like Pianka) also typically buy into a zero-sum-game view of human activity and economic growth. These philosophical materialists have left out of their equation the role of creativity.
Decade after decade has seen predictions about how mass starvation, plague, and apocalyptic, global ecological disaster, caused by population and consumption growth, are just around the corner. That these predictions have again and again proven false (as we’ve passed one population milestone after another) hasn’t deterred the doomsayers in the least. They keep returning to their zero-sum charts, showing the population curving upward, consumption rising even faster, and then extrapolating from that to ruin and disaster.
Exactly. Without technology and insight, we may have depleted our resources, but with them, we have succeeded, and the real current problems are mostly economic and political. But these liberal whackos (not to be confused with regular liberals ;) miss the forest for the trees – like usual, they mean well, but their root cause analysis and solutions are way off the mark – wrong, wrongheaded, impractical, and often just plain silly. But this one borders on alarming.