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.
I'll take the bait:
This scientist is probably arguing for what is best for the PLANET, which means taking into account the needs of the creatures of this planet that aren't us. If he was asked to envision what's best for humanity, I'm sure he wouldn't argue for our decimation.
The guy is a friggin' nutcase, but seriously, why are you giving him more attention than he deserves?
No one else at the meeting got the same idea that Mims did. He was hearing things that were not said.
The rather savage attacks by mis-information on Dr. Pianka are uncalled for.
Pianka warned about what happens when populations grow uncontrolled. You who have never seen a massive die off may mock — but no one has ever suggested how any population could be made immune, and humans have suffered such calamity before. Look up the Kaibab Plateau disaster some time.
Ignorance of biology and ecology is matched only by ignorance of history. God save us, but Santayana was right.
When the coming virus is on the loose, and everyone's heading for the hills, he'll have the last laugh.
I mean, 6.5 BILLION human beings? Do you think we are exempt from biology?
Oh, yeah, that's right: christianists DO think we are exempt. I keep forgetting.
Well, has anyone estimated how many humans is bad for the environment? Overpopulation has NEVER been a real global problem, it's only a problem in a regional sense, where there is urban crowding. We haven't run out of land, not even close.
In fact, the UN has noted the dropping world fertility rate (I mean, half of Europe is dying off faster than it's having kids), and some experts estimate that, based on current trends, world population will peak somewhere out around 2040.
Of all the dire problems we have in the world, overpopulation doesn't seem to be of much significance. In local instances where there are political and resource problems, we may need to figure out what to do, but it's not because the earth is overburdened with people.
It's good that we think about this, but there's no reason to start killing children, or limiting the number of children people can have. We need to focus on real problems, like the environment, like political unrest, like helping the poor and poor countries. And population control is only a short term solution.
The point isn't that there's more land for humans, but rather, how much land-taking can our planet realistically survive? Whether or not you believe in global warming, and I'm just going to assume that you don't, it is pretty clear that increased levels of CO2 are bad for the environment. As humans take land, the Earth's ability to process CO2 falters. Hence, more humans on more land is bad for the Earth.
Now, there are numerous different ways to address these problems, and this guy's solutions probably don't matter. He's simply pointing out one possible solution.
Septeus7 – somehow managing to drag the debate down around here.
Well, this guy just seemed a little too gleeful about his doomsday scenarios, and viewing humanity as a virus and suggesting that the best thing for the planet is less humans, a lot less humans, shows our growing anti-life bias.
If you are worried about the greenhouse effect, I doubt that more humans breathing is the problem. If it is autos and industry, why not just support technology to get us off of co2 producing?
Again, I think overpopulation could be a problem, but does anyone have any models that predict how many humans is too many? Maybe we are a factor of 10000 away from even being close to "maximum capacity." Maybe that's 2000000 years in the future. By then, we will probably have evolved into something better anyway ;)
I have yet to see credible numbers that indicate that overpopulation is a problem. Again, it's the wrong diagnosis for what ails us. And it's anti-human, which is telling.
One question not asked here… What exactly does it mean to be GOOD for the environment?
Unless you believe in Young Earth (and, if you do, counting the Flood), the life on this planet has endured die-off after die-off. Even if you unleashed the world’s entire nuclear arsenal life would still exist on this planet
In short, we as people alter the “environment”. The only detrimental impact we can make on the Earth is to make it inhabitable to ourselves. That is the real danger here.
*that should have been UNinhabitable in the second to last statment :)