The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of BCNN1. Opinions expressed are solely those of the author(s).
In 1968, Stanford entomologist Paul Ehrlich published The Population Bomb, warning that the earth was overpopulated and that millions of people would starve to death. His doomsday warning did not come true. Starvation has occurred on much smaller scales, due largely to government mismanagement and corruption, not overpopulation.
Yet the myth of overpopulation persists. Ecologist Emma Olliff of the UK based group Population Matters recently said, “More of us is only going to make (the environment) worse.”[1] This kind of reasoning was famously cited by Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, who are choosing to have only two children because of global overpopulation.
At this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, famed primatologist Dr. Jane Goodall said that human population growth is responsible for most environmental problems.[2] Goodall stated, “All these (environmental) things we talk about wouldn’t be a problem if there was the size of the population that there was 500 years ago.” Apparently, Goodall pines for the good ol’ days when the average life expectancy was around 40 years of age and infant mortality was around 20%.
Human life is not the problem, and human death is not the solution. Since the publication of The Population Bomb, several books have debunked the myth of overpopulation, including The Myth of Over-Population (1969) R.J. Rushdoony, Fewer (2004) by Ben Wattenberg, and Population Control (2008) by Steven Mosher. Governments in Japan, Finland, Italy, and Australia (to name a few) are now paying people to have babies.[3]
Currently, no European country has a population replacement rate of 2.1 babies per woman.[4] Globally, many countries are below the replacement rate, including China (1.7), Brazil (1.7), Canada (1.5), Puerto Rico (1.1), Thailand (1.5), and Chile (1.7).[5]
In 1968, the fear was global starvation. In 2020, humans waste 1.6 billion tons of food at a cost of $1.2 trillion dollars annually.[6] In 1968 the fear was overpopulation. In 2020, under-populated towns and cities are paying people to move there.[7]
SOURCE: Christian Post, Adam Groza
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