From: robert@slipknot.rain.com (Robert Reed)
Subject: Re: Overpopulation and other leftist myths
Reply-To: robert@slipknot.rain.com.UUCP (Robert Reed)
Organization: Home Animation Ltd.
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 01:05:36 GMT

In article <BxyExr.4I1@lincoln.technet.sg> ipser@solomon.technet.sg (Ed Ipser) writes:
|There is no overpopulation problem.

Excuse me.  This shows a heavy slant towards ideology, not a grasp of the
facts.

|People are nowhere starving as a result of overpopulation. On the
|contrary, increasing population is the key commerce and human
|advancement, generally.

This is patently wrong.  The most glaring counter to this fantasy is the
sitation in Somalia, which began with the global drought the world has been
experiencing over the last three or four years.  The ability of the land to
support food requirements of its population failed, which fits the definition
of overpopulation.  Historically, the migration of the poor to cities is a
classic symptom of rural overpopulation; the poor go to the population
centers to look for work because the land can no longer support them.

|Arguments concerning the alleged population problem usually center
|around the myth of finite resources. Nothing could be further from the
|truth. As Juliam Simon as amply demonstrated, every resource of
|signifance, from metals to food stuffs, has decreased in price over
|the last century. And, of course, when you consider other sources of
|human wealth such as knowledge and skill, the finite resources argument
|crumbles even further.

I haven't heard the arguments of Juliam Simon, but it's easy to skew any
economic analysis by ignoring external factors.  For example, while the price
of food has fallen over the last hundred years, the technology and
non-renewable resources consumed, from vehicle fuels to agrichemicals, have
skyrocketed, and are plainly unsupportable.  Just between 1970 and 1990, the
total use of fertilizers in the world rose from 70 million to 145 million
metric tons per year.  The major source of agrichemicals is petroleum, and it
clearly is a limited resource.

Further, while it is true that world food production has been rapidly
increasing over the last hundred years, so has the population.  If you look at
per capita regional food production over the last thirty years, the only region
that has significant and steady growth is Western Europe.  In all other
regions, the curves are flat or descending (e.g., Africa), and in our beloved
North America, both real and per capita food production have declined from a
peak in 1985.

More examples: the mother-lodes of North American gold reserves are gone, and
now we get heavy promotion of cyanide heap leach mining, a process which
extracts minute quantities of gold from low grade ores and in typical
operations produce large ponds of leachate which is highly toxic to local
wildlife.  We've exhausted our easy to retrieve resources of oil, and
oil-shale, a popular term just a few years ago, has gotten a bit dusty because
of the volumes of water required in its processing, and we have domestic oil
companies grasping at straws like ANWR.

The examples of reaching resource limits are legion: consider the dying
anadromous fish runs of the west coast, or the timber crisis resulting from the
wholesale collapse of ecosystems in the Pacific northwest.  Or the moratorium
on cod fishing in the Grand Banks.  Or the severe restrictions on whaling
imposed by the IWC.  Or the dying of Appalachian forests due to the acid rains
generated in combustion based power plants.

|Of course, those who push the population problem usually have an
|agenda which requires it. For example, many leftists are weded [sic] to
|the idea of controlling population because it is a convenient
|bridge to controlling people, generally.

I suppose that is one way of looking at it, placing the cart before the horse.
I am mainly concerned about my own well-being because I recognize that the
population problem exists.  It's only then that I naturally begin to look for
solutions, and the obvious one is to reduce the population.  Convincing people
is the most obvious way to do that, so education is the first priority in my
book.  But I've asked myself, which is worse: reducing population through
restrictions on having children, or letting nature do it through famine,
pestilence and war?

|Do your part for the human race. Have as many kids as you can afford.
|Teach them to acquire and defend wealth through peaceful commerce with
|their fellow man.

In the face of such obvious challenges to the thin veil of gasses that defines
our ecosystem, this policy is plainly myopic and irresponsible.  We need
pragmatism, not ideology.
________________________________________________________________________________
Robert Reed			Home Animation Ltd.		503-656-8414
robert@slipknot.rain.com	5686 First Court, West Linn, OR 97068

What a waste it is to lose one's mind, or not to have a mind is being very
wasteful.  How true that is.
--Dan Quayle, addressing the United Negro College Fund, May 1989
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