Do we need population reduction?

[alloneword]

A small population of ravenous beasties once found themselves in Paradise. The climate was just right; the environment was loaded with food and drink, and everything was just perfect. They therefore increased and multiplied and subdued their living garden, but, what with all that being fruitful, eventually there were so many of them that food was becoming scarce and they were being poisoned by their accumulated waste products (whatever eats also excretes) and suffered a die-off.


The brew was decanted into barrels and pronounced excellent.

(with love from Ed Iglehart).

Good point, erosoplier, about the bankers - without the mechanism of usury hardwiring into the system a predication on 'growth', we wouldn't need to turn exponentially increasing amounts of natural resources into garbage in order to stand still - not that we are standing still, although within a system where we are attempting to pay off the principal plus interest from only the principal, since that is all that has ever been 'created', any system which is merely 'sustainable' has by definition 'failed', since it is not 'growing'.

[brownzeroed]

Capacity is a tough thing to gauge. It's hard to predict were subsistence-tech will be some hundred years from publication. The Ancient Greeks, I think, would probably be the first recorded example, in the west, taking a crack at this one. They were way off the mark and ultimately brought the word infanticide into our vernacular - due to a few miscalculation and the ensuing hysteria.
It again came into fashion around the late 18th century with Robert Thomas Malthus (origin of the word "Malthusian") who claimed the World would reach its limit in the year 1920. Historically, the big problem with this argument, as DE alluded to, is the fact that there is invariably a race, class, or political motive behind these movements (especially from Malthus on).
The fact is, this country, alone, could feed the entire planet 12 times over but unfortunately we live in a world-system that refuses to make that sacrifice. But I will backpedal a little. The balance of subsistence and the stability of our ecological system should be examined. But the way things stand, this issue could be worked out right now, if we just made a few personal sacrifices.
From the outset of agrarian communities to the cusp of the industrial revolution, the ruling class was more than happy to have an excess wealth of unskilled labor. Now they're looking to weed the herd. Seeing as though they no longer need them. Just some food for thought.

[wintler2]

Nice discussion.

I'd love to see birth control available to any woman on the planet who wants it. ..

Thats the big solution we haven't tried yet, in fact are doing less of than we used to, my PM Howard and US pres Bush both cut aid funding for family planning. Should be avail to all men too of course, how and why should be taught in every school on the planet, what about serious incentives for a hysterectomy/vasectomy after 1 child, more if foster or adopt instead, there are endless things we could do, if we weren't ruled by psychopaths and our own weaknesses.

While a small percentage has a vast excess, it's not just wrong to call hunger and starvation a problem of carrying capacity, it's downright evil.

True, but does calling it evil get us any closer to solving the problem than the last million times its been done? or is it just silencing? Peoples numbers AND level of consumption AND consumption distribution decide 'standard of living' and consequent environmental impacts, to call someone focused on just one factor evil when you're doing the same is silly.

.. So tell ya what, in addition to maintaining our current birth rate, we'll limit immigration drastically. That'll be our contribution.
This is the exact logic used in U.S. zero population growth groups.

Sounds like typically cynical politics, you're right to grill them for leaving out the consumption factor - tell them if they want to stop immigration (legal & illegal) they'll have to stop stealing the immigrants natural wealth (eg. agricultural production of central&south america bought via free-trade-at-gunpoint). Oh, and repatriate wealth equivalent to a century's worth of exploitation, then maybe can call it quits. Requiring media to show the extent of urban and rural poverty in US would go a long way to stemming the influx too.

I have no problem with efforts to better redistribute wealth, its just in no way the whole story. I think you're stuck in a loop DE, having a cliched leftist reaction against the paradigm-busting new information of overshoot. I wont claim to know how many humans the biosphere can sustainably support, but do think its less than current. Am curious what number Dreams End guesstimates?

[chiggerbit]

...the industrial revolution, the ruling class was more than happy to have an excess wealth of unskilled labor. Now they're looking to weed the herd. Seeing as though they no longer need them.

I disagree there, bz. The ruling class has been very ..quietly..welcoming of the illegal Mexican immigrants, whose wages keep down inflation, and also which in turn keeps the local blue collar worker wages in line. And look at all the outsourcing to places like India. All the nut cases who rant about one world government should more appropriately call it one world economy, which is going to happen, whether we like it or not. Artificial national boundaries aren't going to stop it. Water always seeks one level, which is why the oceans are huge and the lakes are small. It just takes time....and erosion and evaporization. Same for the one world economy. The problem is, how much economy is there going to be to go around, to be shared, as the population increases?

[brownzeroed]

Chiggerbit:

I disagree there, bz. The ruling class has been very ..quietly..welcoming of the illegal Mexican immigrants, whose wages keep down inflation, and also which in turn keeps the local blue collar worker wages in line.

Your right. You caught me taking a little poetic license. I'm a hack writer, at heart.

All the nut cases who rant about one world government should more appropriately call it one world economy, which is going to happen, whether we like it or not. Artificial national boundaries aren't going to stop it.

I completely agree. You call it a one world economy. I call it an Economic Oligarchy. Pretty much the same thing. I believe their motive is to destroy any notion of oversight, whatsoever.

And I have my suspicians that "they", themselves, are pushing the "One World Goverment" hysteria view. And just to clarify, I use the word "they" sparingly. I see it more as a loose confederation on an "as needed" basis. Not a permanent, monolithic entity. And not beyond reproach.
The age old M.O. of power goes like this: Fear your neighbor but fear me most.

[Crow]

I am more aware than most people on the topic of genocide, having studied the topic seriously and formally for several years. It's the last thing that I was advocating in my original post.

Redistribution of food (and wealth) would be wonderful. Universal access to birth control and sex education would be helpful.

These things, as well as ethical measures to control over-population, are the last things that are on the policy table right now. Our leadership is focused on the short-term and the unsustainable, and mostly their own personal profit. We are being run by gangsters, I think Cornell West calls them.

As far as "numbers," I don't have them. I have heard that the planet can easily sustain 1 billion of us. Creative, kind ways to reach this number are certainly out there, but it would probably require a sea change in human consciousness that most people aren't ready for.

[brownzeroed]

I am more aware than most people on the topic of genocide, having studied the topic seriously and formally for several years. It's the last thing that I was advocating in my original post.

I don't think anyone read that you were. I think someone on the RI board advocating genocide would be seriously lost.
I think this is a good discussion to have.

These things, as well as ethical measures to control over-population, are the last things that are on the policy table right now. Our leadership is focused on the short-term and the unsustainable, and mostly their own personal profit. We are being run by gangsters, I think Cornell West calls them.

There's the rub. It would also be safe to keep an eye on some of the organizations advocating population control because a few do have some creepy motives. Like the folks who put up the granite monument in Georgia, to name one.

[Attack Ships on Fire]

Forgive me if I come across too much like a bastard but this is a conversation between a bunch of first world people and those that are probably in middle to above wage brackets. We're talking about reducing the world's population to what some of believe is a sustainable level and we're really not too much in a position to offer much except our opinion...and you know what they say about everyone having an opinion and an asshole.

If you add together the majority of the population of the first world, North America (330 million), Europe (730 million) and Australia (20 million) [ forgive me peoples of South America...] you get around 1, 1.1 billion or so. According to a figure I pulled off a website, just before the turn of the century there were 4.8 billion people living in what is designated "developing countries". 790 million people are considered "chronically undernoughished" and the majority live in the Pacific and Asia. 2.6 billion lack basic santation. 1 billion of the world's 2.2 billion children live in poverty. I could go on spouting figures but you probably get the idea.

I have no arguement that we (the first world citizens of Earth) are wasteful. We throw away more drinking water daily than the third world citizens have access to just to drink. We consume 80% of the world's resources. We buy useless bling. Nevertheless, we are also starting to experience negative population growth; less of us are having the 2.2 kids than a generation ago. Maybe that's due to some kind of unconscious psyche response to working as drones to pay down our mortgages and being more selfish in the time that we want to spend on ourselves versus raising children. But I also know that the people in the third world don't have the luxury to buy a new iPhone or decide whether to go out to eat Indian or Greek food for dinner. They have more kids because illness and disease claim more childrens' lives there due to lack of infrastructure, health care, food and water resources, etc. They also need more kids to do the labor that they need done just to susist, and from what I've learned that's why families living on farms 100 years ago had big families too.

Take a look at North American society on the whole and then ask anyone living in poverty in the third world if they wanted to live like that. What do you think their answer would be? Regardless of what kind of secret forces we all talk about pulling the strings of the planet *we* have it easy.

If the first world's population is stalling and we have the best technology, education and infrastructure on the planet, doesn't it stand to reason that if we lift the third world up to our standards that maybe there won't be a population doomsday reached but a balancing effect? Improved farming techniques, water distribution, education, technology and all of the rest of the luxuries that we enjoy might lift the third world into a utopia -- because as much as we like to bitch about it (and yeah, things can be better), our daily lives are utopian to the half of the planet that lives in poverty.

If there's a population culling that will take place on the planet by and large the first world doesn't have as much to be worried about as the third world nations do. If a superbug broke out globally do you think it will be America or India that has more deaths per capita? If a tsunami like the one that happened in Indonesia took place on the west coast of North America don't you think that the death toll would be considerably less because of the advantages we have been living with?

Don't get me wrong; this is an interesting disussion but I can't help but think that the big picture is being neglected and it's being viewed through North American goggles.

And if you buy into that theory that the secret cabal wants to reduce the world's population by 2/3rds don't you think that they would get rid of the people that can't be good little consumers for the stuff they're hawking?

[slow_dazzle]

There is no question that a discussion on carrying capacity is necessary but, like most debates on resource issues, the viewpoint being forwarded is that of the wealthy consumer (a word I detest) nations. Population reduction for us is not necssarily a big issue because we tend to have a system that looks after the elderly, at least in varying degrees depending upon one's country of residence. That's rarely the case in Third World Countries.

Any debate on something so important as population capacity must, therefore, engage everyone and, in particular, discuss resource distribution. Otherwise, we will unwittingly perpetuate the western arrogance of speaking for everyone when we are only speaking from our own perspective of the world. I doubt if anyone who posts on RI would fall into that trap. I am less convinced that a wider debate on population reduction would pay even scant regard to the needs of the less well off.

A debate on carrying capacity is needed, not least because nature will do it for us if we don't. It will only be a debate though if everyone is invited to participate and everyone's perspective is considered. We don't have everyone's perspective so if we are going to talk carrying capacity/population numbers we should have the humility to simply point out that a debate is needed; we don't have the information necessary to carry on that debate in a way that allows a consensus view to be formed.

Once we have listened to everyone's opinions and considered their needs we can start to formulate a viewpoint. Unless that happens all that we will be doing is carrying on the cultural imperialism we often unwittingly mistake for a consensus view.

[Sepka]

Any debate on something so important as population capacity must, therefore, engage everyone

You'll never have that. A third-world subsistence farmer doesn't have the time to spend debating long-range population policy. He's busy trying to stave off starvation. You'll end up with his interests being represented either by third-world governments or by NGOs. Both survive as institutions by keeping their clients dependent upon them. Both are guaranteed to suggest solutions favourable to them, and not necessarily congruent to the will of their clients.

[Gouda]

There are many fantastic proposals out there, if we'd only give them a chance!

Yes Men Strike Oil: Civil Disobedients Make Modest Flesh-to-Fuel Proposal

And the classic:

[url=http://www.uoregon.edu/~rbear/modest.html]A MODEST PROPOSAL...
...FOR PREVENTING THE CHILDREN OF POOR PEOPLE IN IRELAND FROM BEING A BURDEN TO THEIR PARENTS OR COUNTRY,
AND FOR MAKING THEM BENEFICIAL TO THE PUBLIC
[/url]

[Stephen Morgan]

I don't like population reduction. I think we need an increase in population. One reason is that if the genocidal maniacs openly took over again I'd be a target, even though I'm blonde. No money, no life. Even the Nazis were more civilised.

Ain't you heard of the starving millions
Ain't you heard of conraception
Do you really wanna go with the sterilization
Take control of the population boom
It's in your living room
Keep a generation gap
Try wearing a cap
-- "Too Much, Too Young", the Specials

I've got an old book by Gordon Rattray Taylor, it's called the Doomsday Book, it's not just about population, though. It predicts that one day tobacco will be regarded as being as dangerous as asbestos, which will soon be banned. His population estimate, based on his observation that all previous estimates were too low, was 7 billion, followed by the end of the world and a trmendous drop in population, by 2000. Not quite right. He points out that overcrowding has been shown to cause sudden death in deer, death by stress. It turns rats violent, and incidentally homosexual and promiscuous. On the whole overcrowding causes a very large increase in violent crime amongst rodents. In short, the answer is to remedy our town-planning practices to give people more room.

[Hammer of Los]

[bitter sarcasm]Overpopulation? Don't worry kids, Henry Kissinger, Prince Philip, The Club of Rome et al have it all well in hand. AIDS was a good start. If complete immune system collapse doesnt kill people, then the "cures" will. And of course, you don't even have to have any sort of acquired immune deficiency at all to be diagnosed HIV positive! Its also a great advert for contraception too! And another beautiful thing about it is that it is far more lethal to black africans than to other ethnic groups! How's that for killing several (black)birds with one stone?[/bitter sarcasm]

Ethnically targetted bioweapons are real. The South African truth and reconciliation hearings revealed that sordid little fact.

Yup, the four horsemen of the apocalypse are just at a canter right now - they will soon be breaking into a gallop.



See, I said elsewhere that I am well aware the sky is indeed falling...

[slow_dazzle]

under the current regime. This does not invalidate the concept of engaging everyone as far as possible so we that don't make the mistake of presuming what WE think is good for others IS actually what they would LIKE. The reason poor people' opinions are subordinated to the aims of NGO's et al is simply a recognition that the system isn't working; it doesn't nullify the concept of engagement at all levels.

And why is it the poor farmers are too busy struggling for a subsistence wage? Well we know the answer to that question. It's because they get ripped off by the rich nations and, belatedly, a Fair Trade system has emerged in recognition of that undeniable fact, with the key word being "fair" which is the opposite of "unfair". For example, there is a documentary on coffee production called "Black Gold" which is well worth viewing to get an insight into the issues.

I suppose it is the same at all levels wherever there is a power structure. I see it over here when local farmers get ripped off by the big supermarkets. That's why I try to shop locally whenever possible. I use the same philosophy for white goods as well, by paying a little extra so my small town store gets the profit and not some faceless board of Directors.

Sorry if I sound self righteous Sepka but we must be the change we seek. If we all started to buy local we would be doing something that has economic benefits, strengthens community and reduces energy consumption by not moving produce long distances every day.

I've strayed off the OP so one last comment - the solution to many of our problems is to relocalise.

[Hammer of Los]

I would also like to direct your attention to a well-researched and carefully written article from author Richard Moore, whose website can be found at http://cyberjournal.org/. I will quote a short extract from the piece, which is entitled, "Apocalypse Now and the Brave New World," but the article is well worth reading in full;

Genocide

“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.”
–Attributed to Henry Kissinger, “National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests”, April 24, 1974

A search on Google reveals hundreds of hits citing the above quotation. However, on downloading and reading the memo, NSSM 200, I was unable to find that particular passage. Perhaps the quote is a hoax, or perhaps it was deleted before the memo was declassified and made public. I’ve nonetheless featured the alleged quote, because genuine or not it serves as a very good summary of what NSSM 200 is actually about, if you read between the lines. Here, for example, is a passage that does appear in the full NSSM 200 document:

“All readers are urged to read the detailed main body of the report which is presented in full in Appendix Two. This will give the reader a better appreciation of the gravity of this new threat to U.S. and global security and the actions the many departments of our government felt were necessary in order to address this grave new threat – a threat greater than nuclear war.”

Let’s review some of the developments ‘on the ground’, that show how this foreign policy priority is being implemented. In his book, “The Globalization of Poverty”, economics insider Michel Chossudovsky describes how IMF policies intentionally devastate third world economies, leading in Africa to massive famine and genocidal civil wars. The recently announced plans for “third-world debt forgiveness” are a sham: what they are really about is reimbursing the banks for their uncollectible loans to the third world. These reimbursements will then be subtracted from foreign aid budgets, so that the third world will actually be worse off than before the “forgiveness” program. And in order to ‘benefit’ from this ‘forgiveness’ program, the third-world nations must agree to still further, extremely harmful, IMF privatization programs. The genocidal civil wars we read about in Africa are partly a result of this intentional impoverishment program, partly a result of arms sales to African warlords, and partly the result of covert CIA operations. The West’s counter-productive responses to the AIDS epidemic, and the massive use of depleted uranium munitions by U.S. and British forces in former Yugoslavia and Iraq also contribute to depopulation, both among the local populations and among the Western cannon-fodder troops.

Within the context of peak oil, and from the perspective of our callous banking elite, it is easy to understand why a sharp decrease in world population would be highly desirable. I’ve seen several reports that a target of “80% reduction by 2020" has been adopted in elite circles, but I haven’t been able to track down that particular claim to any reliable source. Nonetheless, such a program would certainly change the parameters of the peak oil phenomenon, and pave the way for constructing some kind of new, post-Apocalyptic system. In any case, based on what they say and what they do, I think it is impossible to escape the conclusion that population reduction, a euphemism for genocide, is indeed a primary elite priority.

The link for the full article is; http://www.williambowles.info/guests/20 ... lypse.html

Pretty scary stuff huh?