Matt Beasley wrote:
Smaller human populations are neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for biodiversity conservation
https://overpopulation-project.com/smaller-human-populations-are-neither-a-necessary-nor-sufficient-condition-for-biodiversity-conservation
-------------------
Steve Hawkins commented, Feb 14, 2023 at 8:30 pm:
It’s kind of a moot point now anyway. The low lying areas where most people are concentrated, and the best land for growing is, are going to be under water soon, whatever they do now.
I was amazed, recently, when a seemingly educated carer of mine was grieving over the lives lost to the Turkey earthquakes, but when I tried to explain about their cause, and why so many people were living in dangerous places, I found that he had never
heard of continental drift and never thought about how mountains are made. He had never heard of massed extinction events, or even of geological periods of millions of years, let alone billions! He did not know that world population had nearly quadrupled
in one lifetime or that there were eight billion competing for vanishing land and resources now. He did not know that sea level was rising, and was visibly shocked when I showed him this video! He showed me his own video of his baby daughter enjoying her
first afternoon sat out in the sunshine.
This is a young man who has travelled the world much more than I have, and has worked in high tech environments in ultra modern cities, but he really didn’t have a clue about how the world works, or of any of the dangers it is in.
So: what chance of explaining this to the uneducated masses, who want nothing more than to have their own happy children enjoying their first day in the sunshine?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CurmnLKikyI
-------------
Edith Crowther commented, Feb 15, 2023 at 9:45 am:
These prestigious articles and publications have become superfluous in recent years – because events have overtaken them. Also, it has become obvious in many cases (e.g. medical journals), that much of the research is undertaken in order to obtain
funding, which knocks out any non-profitable topics even before their inception. Profit lies in prolonging human life, not curtailing it, so long as welfare dependency does not eat into government revenues and make governments reluctant to endorse
privately-funded science.
These journals and their contributors are still locked in the post-Enlightenment liberal worldview, where Progress is linear and the only way is up and Growth is limitless and Motion is perpetual. Meantime millions of illiterate people know what happens
when your population goes from 21.5 million in 1950 to 84.5 million in 2020 (Turkey, not counting huge Diaspora), or 3.5 million in 1950 to 17.5 million in 2020 (Syria, not counting huge Diaspora). Everything non-artificial starts to run out –
including Water. Then ethnic hatred, civil war, and even war, arrive. But even so, human numbers do not shrink much.
Ask the millions pouring across the border between North and South America, or between Africa and Europe, or between Asia and anywhere, to say truthfully why they are forced to flee. They know why, in their heart of hearts. They blame civil war, or gang
warfare, or lack of jobs, or drought, but they know perfectly well what the ultimate cause of all these things is. They can’t say so, but at least they know. It strikes me that many academics not only can’t say it, they don’t even know it – they
operate in a cocoon, even though they travel the world constantly in pursuit of Knowledge at considerable cost to governments and funding corporations. Eventually, the physical realities of Overshoot will overtake these happy academics and they will
change their tune. Until then, there is little point in contradicting them.
One day too, Overpopulation realists will lose the spar they cling to – contraception and the liberation of women – which they imagine will bring about the necessary reduction in human population, in a controlled and civilized manner which will
enable Progress to continue (though at a slower rate), or at least stay steady and not decline. But here again, it makes little difference when or if those claiming that plummeting Total Fertility Rates BY CHOICE are the answer. Because soon the fact
that they are not the answer will become all too apparent. Not unless they are caused by uncontrolled and unchosen near-total sterility of humans (including men) caused by pollution. We know that DBCP has caused sterility in male banana growers in Latin
America, the Caribbean and Africa (and in men at plants manufacturing it) – but other chemicals causing male sterility are not so dramatically effective, though they do have an effect.
It is useless trying to convince activist groups trying to reduce human numbers in a nice kind way that something rather nasty and uncivilized is going to have to do this, in the end. And it is equally useless trying to convince those who are convinced
that Malthus was wrong that Malthus was right.
One would have to be like King Canute who was obliged to show his courtiers that he was not all-powerful by actually sitting amidst the incoming tide. Even then, I bet quite a few were not convinced.
--
--
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)