By Kay Kiser, author of Saving Africa From Lies That Kill: How Myths about the Environment and Overpopulation are Destroying Third World Countries, Book 2 of the Modern Mythology Series
Originally Posted May 20, 2019 on blog www.savingafricafromliesthatkill.com
Who says the world is overpopulated? And what does that mean anyway? Hunger? Crowding? Environmental harm? For over 200 years we’ve been told that the world is overpopulated. But is it? Check this out.
In 1798, Thomas Malthus thought the world was overpopulated when world population was under one billion. In his book, An Essay on the Principles of Population, he advocated not supporting the poor and controlling the population. He was wrong.
When world population was about 1.3 billion, Charles Darwin, who’s Theory of Evolution was based on Malthus’ book, thought the struggle for survival would cause the extinction of underdeveloped cultures by developed peoples. He was wrong.
Francis Galton, creator of Eugenics, the so-called science of improving the human race, thought the African races were so inferior genetically that Chinese should be settled in Africa to drive the Negro races to extinction and replace them[1]. He was wrong.
Around 1920 when the population was about 1.9 billion, Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood and a prominent eugenicist, believed we needed to get rid of “human weeds,” including dark skinned people from Southern Europe, Africa and India as well as the mentally or physically impaired. She advocated for sterilization, birth control, and abortion. She was wrong.
In the 1930s when world population was about 2 billion, Adolf Hitler believed the world was overpopulated and sought to gain “Lebensraum” (living room) by invading other countries and exterminating “inferior” people, including Jews and Gypsies. By doing so he sought to create a super race of Arian Germans. He was wrong.
In 1966 when the world population was 3.3 billion, to control population, under President Johnson, US AID began requiring population control quotas as a condition for receiving foreign aid. Mass sterilization camps were set up in poor countries using equipment supplied by the UN and US. He was wrong.
Meanwhile, in the 1960s the Green Revolution of higher yield, more disease resistant and more nutritious varieties, increased crop yields by orders of magnitude, making it possible to feed the world without sacrificing forests and other pristine wilderness areas.
When The Population Bomb was published in 1968 by Paul Ehrlich, world population was about 3.7 billion. He believed the world was overpopulated and required drastic action to reduce the population in order to prevent mass starvation and collapse of the society. He was wrong.
In 1972, after nearly 30 years of controlling disease carrying insects, DDT was banned by the EPA in spite of overwhelming evidence refuting claims of harm[2]; the ban was based more on political fears of growing populations in developing countries than on real science or perceived harm. Before the ban DDT eliminated Malaria in the developed world. Developing countries were threatened with loss of foreign aid if they did not discontinue DDT use. Most did, but India did not comply.
Today the world population is about 7.5 billion. USAID, UNFPA, (UN Fund for Population Activities), UNESCO (UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), WHO, World Bank, International Planned Parenthood, Population Council, Marie Stopes and other groups continue the Overpopulation Myth with abortion, sterilization, IUD implantation and birth control activities in poor countries around the world. They are still wrong.
So, is the world overpopulated? Not by any measure. Let’s look at what we mean by overpopulated.
Do we have enough food for everyone? Yes. Thanks to modern agricultural techniques and high yield crops there is more than enough for at least 11 billion people without any increase in acres cultivated. Advancing technology will probably multiply the yield still further as it has in the past. Myths against modern pesticides, herbicides, modern agricultural techniques and biotech crop enhancements (aka GMO) are used to keep poor countries on subsistence agriculture, which results in deforestation to replace depleted fields.
Is the food distributed fairly? No. Other than disasters and wars, hunger has more to do with local politics than with food supplies. Corrupt governments, propped up by government to government foreign aid, which the poor rarely see, are incentivized to help with international population control schemes, but not to build infrastructure, attract investment and help to raise the standard of living of their own rural poor. As long as the people are kept poor, the aid money keeps coming, so corrupt governments have little or no incentive to improve conditions for their people. Foreign aid should be replaced by foreign and domestic investment in infrastructure with accountability.
Is there enough room for all the people? Compared to the land area of the earth, the population is very small. For perspective, if all the people in the world were placed in an area the size of Texas, each person would have almost 93 square meters. A family of four would have 372 square meters. That’s about 4000 square feet, enough for a 2000 square foot house and a yard or garden. This thought experiment puts population in perspective with the size of the earth. No one is suggesting we actually do this, except for the loony left who are grasping at straws to defeat this argument against the overpopulation myth.
Global average population is 55 people per square kilometer of land area, excluding Antarctica. That’s 17.96 acres per family of four. In 2016, over 54% of the population lived in cities, which cover only 2.7% of the land. That means that 46% of the population is rural and lives on 97.3% of the land area. That calculates to 26 people /km2 in rural areas or 38 acres per family of four. Yes, I know that large areas are uninhabitable. Even if we assumed 50% uninhabitable, that’s still a lot of land per person. The fact that only 10% of the land is actually inhabited doesn’t change the picture. There is still a lot of land out there to accommodate and feed a larger population. All this doesn’t even count the 71% of the earth’s surface that is water, which is a food source and a highway between markets.
Is Overpopulation causing Climate Change? No. As a part of the biosphere, even with technology the human race is a small contributor to the total carbon and carbon dioxide gas, and is exceeded by orders of magnitude by land and sea vertebrate animals, and even more extremely by insects and other invertebrates, both in numbers and total mass. One estimate claims there are 300 pounds of insects for every human pound, or 1.4 billion insects per person. With almost 2 million different species described so far and possibly many more un-described, estimates vary widely, even for human populations, especially in poor countries. Corrupt governments may over estimate numbers and under report economic conditions to receive more foreign aid dollars.
Is the environment being harmed by too many people? No. Poverty, including subsistence farming, not population, causes environmental harm and deforestation. Modern agriculture and higher yield crop varieties can end deforestation and provide surplus crops to sell. Roads, electricity, clean water and disease control can provide a healthy workforce and energy to attract investors and run industry. Historically, improved infrastructure and opportunity also stabilize populations and reduce family size. By keeping the poor in poverty, environmentalists actually are doing more harm to the environment. Raising standards of living means people will be able to care for their environment.
Many developed countries have bought into the overpopulation myth to the point that their birth rates are below replacement value. Japan, which reached one of the lowest global birth rates of 1.4 in 2014, has started paying people to have children because of the looming demographic catastrophe of too few people to work and support the elderly who cannot work. Some of the highest density areas of the world are the richest. Look at Shanghai. It is not only the most populated city in the world, 24 million, with an average population density of 2050/km2 (3854/km2 urban) but is one of the most prosperous.
Rural poor areas in developing countries are underpopulated. With diseases from insects and contaminated water taking a high toll and attrition from migration into cities by the young and healthy, there are not enough healthy people to build infrastructure and markets and raise the standard of living of the rural poor. They already have population control by disease and poverty. They certainly don’t need birth control, sterilization and abortion.
Is the planet overpopulated? No. By all measures of overpopulation, the earth is far from capacity to support its people. Since overpopulation advocates have been scaring us for 200 years, why should be believe what they keep saying? Quit worrying about an assumed problem that has yet to materialize. The real problem is with the population control advocates, the abortionists, the sterilizers and the international governmental and nongovernmental organizations that keep paying these organizations for killing off the hope of the future while keeping people in extreme poverty: poor, sick, isolated, ignorant and controlled. Free market solutions are the answer, not money given to prop up corrupt government officials, which the poor rarely see.
The rural poor in developing countries need disease control, electricity and roads to end isolation. They need Employment, Education, Investment, Infrastructure and Disease Control to join the 21st century. It is possible and you can help.
How can you help? Get involved through charities, investments and campaigning against policies that hurt and oppress the poor. Be an advocate for economic development and against population control.
Posted 5/20/2019 by Kay Kiser on blog www.savingafricafromliesthatkill.com
[1] Galton, Francis. “Africa for the Chinese.” The London Times. June 5, 1873
[2] J. Gordon Edwards, “DDT: A Case Study in Scientific Fraud,” Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Volume 9, Number 3, Fall 2004. See this report at http://www.jpands.org/vol9no3/edwards.pdf
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Thank you for this article which summarize the principles and reality of human demography. The green activists of WWF are accused, in a dutch television program (2019/05/17), of supporting forced sterelization programs on populations near National Parks in Africa and in India. See, herre (in french) : https://www.atlantico.fr/pepite/3572687/l-association-wwf-accusee-de-soutenir-des-programmes-de-sterilisation-forcee-aux-abords-de-parcs-nationaux-en-afrique-et-en-inde
Hitler not dead ?
Thank you for the link French geographer.
The greatest threat to humanity (and ecology) is the Malthusian and Eugenics movement which were indeed behind the Nazi and has long time ago infiltrated the UN, WWF, the World Bank, etc., the Obama administration (with John Holdren, Paul Ralph Ehrlich’s disciple), and is pushing all those climate and population scams in order to achieve its insane agenda :
– massive population impoverishment (especially the Third World) and if needed, reduction, to solve a non existent problem and many corrupt leaders are their allies to accomplish this sordid task.
Ehrlich was Holdren’s PHD supervisor. Small world, eh?
Excellent job.. A “must read” for the political fence sitters..
The problem with arguing a given place is overpopulated is that the starving countries have the confounding problem of corrupt and/or socialist governments. So is it the overpopulation, or the government?
Many also have foreigners sending them ‘free’ food, which undercuts the local farmers and puts them out of business. Thereby ensuring more starvation in future.
it is the apportionment of resources. There is no greater illustration of the corrupt nature of power than to point to the fact that the very form of government where everything is supposed to be apportioned equally, socialism, is without a single example of equal distribution of resources. The Government bureaucrats live opulent lives and the masses hunt dog for survival. And to your point, Tom, the only problem with the population numbers is that they are dwindling due to starvation, disease and exposure.
And to all the whatabouter, no the Nordic countries are not economically socialist. They practice free market principles which grows the pie, creating jobs and wealth.
Rhodesia under a capitalist government was the bread basket of Africa. Zimbabwe, under a socialist/communist government is a basket case that can’t even feed it’s own people.
You mean Cecil Rhodes’ plantation?
Ah yes, bonbon and his all Englishmen are evil schtick.
“The Population Bomb” by Paul Ehrlich in 1968 is the keystone of the alarmism we are suffering through now. Attempts to defuse the population bomb failed, so instead of reducing the number of people, they switched tactics to reducing the effect of each person. They failed at that too, but they have not given up yet. Just wait until they try the Pol Pot solution.
The earth can support more population, but I’m not for that. It is too crowded in some localities.
For more photos, google everest photo traffic jam
That people voluntarily choose to squeeze themselves into cities is not evidence that there is over crowding. Even in the crowded cities.
So the only overcrowding is in concentration camps. Sounds about right. ?
When you speak you think of America or movies.
We miss the reality of the dangerous population explosion that is occurring in Africa as there are no movies about real Africa.
There are millions of people living in shack cities along roads and around African cities whose names we might of heard but would never visit.
Imagine a day without power in any major US city.
Take an overland holiday in real Africa.
Imagine massive shack cities without electricity and modern infrastructure.
https://qz.com/africa/1447621/africa-electrification-rate-slowest-globally/
Access to electricity is growing rapidly around the world—except in Africa
India, Bangladesh and Indonesia have all been success stories achieving electrification rates higher than 80% despite their vast
…As such, the population without access to electricity still stands at the big 600 million number.
The contrast of crawling electrification and booming population will likely remain prominent in coming decades given projected population growth on the continent.
https://qz.com/africa/1016790/more-than-half-of-the-worlds-population-growth-will-be-in-africa-by-2050/
More than half of the world’s population growth will be in Africa by 2050
Africa will account for the highest population spurt with an additional 1.3 billion people on the continent, a new UN population report shows.
Much of Africa’s population boom will come from Nigeria, currently the world’s 7th most populous country. By 2050, the report predicts, Nigeria will become the world’s third largest country by population,
Rapid population growth occurs in poorly governed, underdeveloped countries. Almost all developed high tech countries are facing population decline except for people moving in from other countries. Bring Africa up with better government, education, technology, and resulting wealth would slow and eventually stop population growth, with a far better life for all. The resulting main problem may then be too much population decline and aging population.
If we don’t do it, the Chinese will.
My father worked a couple a years in Tanzania, running the government owned railway engine repair shop, my daughter did volunteer work in Malawi, and another relative did volunteer work in a Lagos (largest city in Nigeria) children’s hospital so I have information which is not available in any news.
News agencies no longer cover Africa.
Africa does not have law and order and infrastructure which is required to industrialize.
The local people are scared of the police. Law and order exponentially decreases if you move outside of the core of any of the cities. It is dangerous to travel at night.
There are no safe or serviceable roads from city to city.
Aid has not worked.
Someone needs to come in invited, backed up with force, to set up city states (safe large regions with electricity and infrastructure).
A city state has a police force, electrical utility, hospitals, schools, maintenance department, road repair, and so on.
All the city state departments need to run by external companies using a many local people as possible.
In other words, you agree that the problem is corruption, not population.
Hi Mark,
There are two problems. African chaos that is institutionalized after decades and decades.
I believe there is a maximum population density. The maximum is greater for advanced countries like China.
I would not want to live in India or China. I believe those countries have reached the absolute limit of population density.
Africa currently has a population of 1.2 billion people. In 2050 based on current population growth Africa will have 2.5 billion people.
This is an interesting video that explains the danger of steady say 3% increases in terms of time to double.
Africa is very big. Much bigger than yout think it is. It is bigger than China, India, US, and EU combined. It has plenty of space for more people:
http://geog.ucsb.edu/img/news/2013/true%20size%20of%20africa.jpg
I was hopping the link would display the map here. It shows the outline of Africa containing the maps of China, India, US & EU. Please check it out. It is a great graphic.
The example quoted to me a few years ago was that every living person could be given a quarter-acre of land in Australia leaving the whole of the rest of the planet for food, industry and anything else we might want it for. More generous than a few square metres of Texas!
The UN estimates that the world population will peak at ~11 billion shortly after mid-century and will start to decline around 2100. Already there are some researchers projecting that by 2200 some regions will not have enough people for them to remain viable.
Of course if we want the world population to stabilise and the birth rate to decline we could stop keeping poor countries poor by barring access to the cheap reliable energy that would do more than anything to put an end to that poverty. Or is that too simple?
You speak from stereotype, not from any knowledge.
There is no population explosion in Africa, and Africa could easily feed it’s population and many, many more, if it weren’t for the corrupt governments it is inflicted with.
Your claims are complete and utter BS, and I must wonder why you insist on believing them despite the evidence against you.
Africa has been under depopulation policies since the jolly old British Empire. See Cecil Rhodes Round Table well documented statements. Today the IMF, WB carry on the colonial death warrant.
Now China has another policy entirely – win-win, and African nations notice the difference.
China is on-board to refill Lake Chad with the Transaqua Project that the IMF refused for decades to fund.
http://canadianpatriot.org/cecil-rhodes-the-roundtable-movement-and-eugenics/
Writing apologetics for Cecil Rhodes is a quaint pastime, I would say, what?
Yes I know, as far as you are concerned, the English invented evil.
Funny how pointing to facts, is now considered apologetics.
MarkW
I have worked in 20 African countries and have at least some first hand knowledge of the continent. The population doubling time is lowest in the NE and the drop in babies per woman is in strongly correlated with wealth. Poor people have far more children that wealthy people. Everywhere.
The biggest single issue is the great disparity in wealth. Extremes of wealth and poverty, however caused, should draw our attention first. It leads to civil war eventually. Yes, corruption is a contributing factor, but that is more curable than the disparity. Nigeria and Tanzania both have examples of resolving corruption in short order. South Africa provides an example of the very rapid spread of top to bottom corruption in large part driven by the extremes of wealth and poverty and the stresses it creates. The latter (extremes) is the hard part. New economic models are needed, and classical socialism isn’t one of them (because it doesn’t work).
I think the USA is crowded enough thank you very much. Some negative population growth would be welcome. Much of the land now growing food in the US is watered from aquifers that are declining. What will happen when the water runs out? What if winter snows are reduced? Much water for irrigation in the west comes from those snows.
No place in the US has too few people. Land is expensive NOW.
This video will PROVE that we are overcrowded:
Nostradamas III
Thanks for posting this. I believe he had an article on this in Geotimes back in the 1970s.
Land is expensive in and around cities. We aren’t over crowded, far, far from it.
MarkW
As I said elsewhere, overpopulation is in the eye of the beholder. I’m older than you and during my lifetime I have seen the population of the US more than double. During that time I have observed degradation of the environment that I find alarming. At the same time I have observed government becoming more intrusive into my freedom to go places and do things that formerly were not a problem. As an example, about a decade ago, a friend and I were detained and lectured by NPS rangers for gold panning without a permit in a National Recreation Area (NRA) located within the confines of Trinity National Forest. A nearby NRA administered by the US Corps of Engineers does not have similar restrictions. There was no notice of the permit requirement and the restrictions were so unreasonable that it would have been almost impossible to find any gold! On opening day of deer hunting season in National Forests near major metropolitan centers, there are cars parked along the access roads for miles, sometime making it hard to find a parking place. BLM areas that I used to collect minerals in, now not only have restrictions about when you can enter and how long you can stay, but also you have to pay an entry fee.
If you have grown up with the present conditions, you don’t miss what you haven’t known. However, those of us who grew up enjoying the freedom of going anywhere we wanted on Public Land are not happy with the restrictions imposed on us. My subjective experience is that we are already overpopulated and the government actions are a reaction to it.
CTM and Kay Kiser, good points in the report as far as it went, however there is one omission in the “over population” problem. There have been several studies just released showing the most advanced countries in the world are undergoing an IQ decline. The effect appears to be due to increased fertility in lower IQ segments of the population, and is exacerbated by higher IQ segments of the population having fewer offspring, but of increasing IQ. This leads to two consequences: 1. the lower IQ population is susceptible to manipulation by unscrupulous persons (I’m thinking politicians here), and 2. a classic haves and have-nots division increases and socialism sounds attractive. I personally am willing to help any person survive and thrive, but this problem is real and I have no idea what the solution is. Climate Change? We better solve this problem before the next glacial cycle starts, because you can feed everyone in a warm environment but not when it’s cold.
This is not a new thought by any means. All of the names above held this true as well. It’s bull.
It might not be true but just proclaiming it so is meaningless. Do you know of evidence that the average IQ isn’t declining? Do you have evidence that economic and social disparities are not increasing? Do you have evidence that, if there are actually some of these conditions, the cause if something else? Without really good evidence, a bias against something is no different that an bias for something . If is just your expression of what you want to believe.
Just as a comment, arguments that IQ scores are somehow meaningless or useless or whatever are not relevant to the questions asked here. IQ is often poorly understood. Tests were developed as a predictor of academic success. Some people with high IQs have attitudes, or neurosis, or other conditions, that lead them to refuse the effort for such success but in general, IQ scores are a good predictor of ability at what they were intended to measure, regardless of how useless they might be for some other purposes.
Those that are proposing radical solutions, are reqyured to prove that the crisis they are using to justify their Orwellian schemes actually exist.
It is incumbent upon them to show that IQ rates are declining and that this is being caused by genetic causes and not social ones.
As to the whines about economic disparity, that is 100%+ caused by government intervention in the economy. Those with government connections prosper, everyone else suffers.
Maybe the posts here are the proof that IQ really is declining?
Just joking. I think. Now where did I put my IQ? Somewhere near my keys? Where are my keys?
It’s an iPad app. Not sure if its on Android…
Ron Long
Much like climate change, unless you want to play God, leave it alone. What will happen, will happen.
Unfortunately there are way to many humans who are convinced of their own ability to play god.
They seek the power to forcibly perfect humanity, even if humanity doesn’t want to be perfected.
That’s the Fabian Society in brief.
Poor does not equate to low IQ.
No, but low IQ often equates to being poor.
…and voting for Socialists. ;p
~¿~
More often, it is ignorance, not stupidity.
Ron Long: “1. the lower IQ population is susceptible to manipulation by unscrupulous persons (I’m thinking politicians here)”
What does that say about the US and their stupidity? Throw the media manipulation and we are a very low IQ country by that standard.
How many of you commentators searched for these new reports, read them, and considered their findings before commenting? Science starts with data, not beliefs or feelings. I actually read these reports and am alarmed by them. Having said that, I remain committed to helping anyone, and am serious about the climate implications.
Another compensating factor is that the world population’s diet has generally improved radically over the last 50years and well, or better-nourished humans tend to have improved brain functions.
Leftist ideology is overpopulated.
Spot on. I Caught on to this Progressive Elite One World Governance ploy after reading the cautionary tales of Aldous Huxley and George Orwell. By the Time Ehrlich published his Population Bomb it was easy for those paying attention, to see right through their big stage magic act socialist ploy aka Corporatism. Eisenhower warned of it by calling it the military industrial complex. They are the 1% or the 1% that control 90% of the wealth
They bought the crookedest Politicians, got control of education k-12 and the institutions of higher indoctrin…aahhh learning and bought the best big government, media messaging money can buy: The NY Times and commercial News Rooms. Voila the Public never saw what hit em.
Man Made Global Warming is a means to strip the great unwashed of their quality of life, drive up their cost of living and justify population controls, especially in poorer neighbohoods and 3rd world countries and it is dressed up like a hobgoblin so the people will voluntarily reduce their Quality of life in exchange for salvation.
“They bought the crookedest Politicians, got control of education k-12 and the institutions of higher indoctrin…aahhh learning and bought the best big government, media messaging money can buy: The NY Times and commercial News Rooms. Voila the Public never saw what hit em.” +1 That’s how we ended up where we are in a nut shell. The only thing left out is the useful idiots with all the money that are paying for this debacle. I try to understand why they are doing it but can only come up with the theory they believe they are actually pulling the strings and will be the leaders when the One World Government comes about. Or at least that’s what they’re led to believe.
If anything, the rate of population growth is slowing too fast. In most countries, the total fertility rate (average number of children per woman) is at or below replacement (about 2.1).
The population in most countries is aging rapidly, which creates a host of problems, not least of which is markedly slower economic growth.
We’re it not for Africa, the future would be grim indeed.
I believe eventually, I have no idea when though, population will start to really boom again and birth rates will go up. It will likely take at least a few generations.
You ha e absolutely no evidence or rationale to back up that have you?
Neither do you.
There’s far more evidence to the contrary. Studies show that the young are having less sex, and fewer are marrying, or are doing so later in life. Technology seems on the edge of developing realist sex robots that would make human relations even less likely.
I agree with you, but evolution always finds a way, though it may take a long time.
Should mention that population growth is attenuating ~9B peak pop shortly after mid century. Keeping people poor may ironically cause overshhot to 10B with this declining as prosperity finally overtakes them.
10 billion seems unlikely at this point. Once the peak is reached, it’s going down by about 75% over the next 100 years. China and the US will be just about even by 2100, at around 500 million.
Population crash is the real deal dystopian future.
While the points of the article are all nominally correct, the conclusion is quite limp, as in liberal imperial.
“How can you help? Get involved through charities, investments and campaigning against policies that hurt and oppress the poor. Be an advocate for economic development and against population control.”
That’s exactly the kind of thing the globalists want to see pushed.
It is quite another thing entirely to take on exactly why all along the timeline they were wrong.
The key underlying assumption of all the wrong-ers and most of their so-called skeptics is the insane belief that humans are a kind of animal species.
As long as that is not faced squarely, everyone will be complicit in genocide.
The key economic scientific principle involved is relative potential population density. This is linked to the energy flux density per capita, per hectare of any economy, including Brazil, or Nigeria. This is a unique discovery of one man, recently deceased, who got exactly the same treatment as meted out to Trump by the very same Mr. Mueller. He took on the strategic underlying policy of empire, that humans are cattle to be culled at a whim. Trump is taking on that policy – American troops are not cannon fodder for endless wars, nor are anyone else. Just reel at the absolute madness in D.C,. It is over exactly this issue.
So taking this on with charities or demo’s won’t cut it – it must be government policy from the get-go.
So do go after all representatives – none want to be complicit in genocide, but to blunder into it with our vote is intolerable!
Mankind’s economic science determines our relative potential population density – policies that force that down are genocidal. And the decarbonizers, de-nuclearizers know that full well.
Food production, of course with Borlaug’s real green revolution, is heavily dependent on energy.
Fusion has the energy flux density to guarantee a higher economic platform with a greater relative potential population density.
On fusion the solutions is so simple.
All they have to do is replicate the gravitational force of the Sun.
When and how?
Thermonuclear weapons , fusion with”high Z” if you know what that means, work quite well, without gravity. Fusion plasma focus also. Many other methods are being tried. So a Manhattan Project full crash program from top down is needed.
Reason? – survival.
This is not an academic Kant-Critique children’s point-scoring playground game! Grow up!
Economist Julian L. Simon took money off Paul Ehrlich in a bet, 1980 to 1990.
He examined all the big concerns of the 20th century: population, land, food, energy, pollution etc.
He came to the conclusion that population growth was historically a main driver of prosperity & progress: that more people meant more inventors, artisans, manufacturers, farmers & so on.
He makes his case more than convincingly, in my opinion.
It’s a hefty tome, but a joy to read.
He identified the fake news mainstream media back in 1998, way before I did, & he pinpointed human ingenuity as our best asset.
Book: The Ultimate Resource 2, by Julian Simon.
The perfect antidote for Malthusians.
J D.
I don’t think he quite got the concept of relative potential population density, a physical economic scientific principle.
He does have optimism, but science is more than that.
Available online sans images.
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/
Thank you. The book is very expensive in the bookstores. Need for reprint again.
try Alibris.com I find theyre good for out of print and other non fiction books I couldnt afford otherwise, and if your usa based i belive post is free. i pay around 18 aus for a hefty hardcover postage last yr
“Many developed countries have bought into the overpopulation myth to the point that their birth rates are below replacement value.”
This seems simplistic. From what I’ve read, there are many reasons birth rates are declining in the West. The Pill makes it relatively easy for parents to beget fewer children; machine labor reduces pressure on families to increase the number of hands in the household; government programs to provide for people in old age have had a similar effect; a philosophical shift toward hedonism and materialism makes the expense of children a larger factor in decisions on family size; loss of the belief in the sacredness of life has led to rampant abortion and denigration of offspring/parenting in general; etc.
The idea that “we’re having fewer children because the world is overpopulated” is probably a rationalization, except in some hardcore leftist households.
This lecture is quite entertaining as well as full of relevant information.
Very good essay.
Interesting things come to light when reviewing Malthusian concerns.
Some have derided the great man by referring to him as Parson Malthus. He was a brilliant intellectual that had a personal revelation that population growth would exceed the expansion of food supply. Given the culture of the day it was OK for him to suggest letting the lower-class population numbers decline.
With the horrendous Irish Famine of the 1840s, there were Malthusians in Whitehall (Brit bureaucracy) who knew that it was best to let as many as possible die. It would help the future.
Much the same happened with a severe famine in India in the 1890s.
Oddly enough, those that murdered the most people where not Malthusians.
The Communists were out to create the “Perfect Man”, which was constructive.
While this atrocity was not inspired by Malthus, Malthusians in every political party should be pleased.
My dear fellow, have a look here :
What the Malthusians Say
http://members.tripod.com/%7Eamerican_almanac/malthsay.htm
“We are bound in justice and honour formally to disdain the Right of the poor to support. “To this end, I should propose a regulation to be made, declaring that no child born from any marriage taking place after the expiration of a year from the date of the law, and no illegitimate child born two years from the same date, should ever be entitled to parish assistance…. “The infant is, comparatively speaking, of little value to society, as others will immediately supply its place.” –Thomas Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population
Interesting how the genocidalists scurry from their burrows!
We produce enough food to feed billion? Did you include the corn being wasted, um used for “gasahol”? I bet we could feed more than 11 billion.
Exactly – Obama’s bio-gas program literally ate into the relative potential population density.
its not that its overpopulated, its that there are too many aholes IN the population…..
commenters here should visit africa, india or even part of Europe and make up their own minds
They wont end up agreeing
I agree with you and F. Leghorn – but we are a minority on these pages.
Visiting a country is an excellent way to think you understand that country when in fact all you are doing is confirming your own prejudices.
The poverty in places like Africa and India aren’t caused by over crowding, they are caused by bad government.
Poverty in both India and China was reduced dramatically as socialism/communism were abandoned.
Poverty in Africa grew by leaps and bounds as capitalism was abandoned.
Kenyan doctors recently found an anti-fertility antigen in all tested vaccines that were provided for a WHO-sponsored tetanus vaccination program that targeted young girls and women of childbearing age.
I have seen mention of that claim, but that it was spread by various Muslim radicals. Much the same claim was made in Pakistan and Nigeria, again by the usual suspects.
This time it was Catholic doctors who after becoming suspicious sent 6 samples to S Africa for testing. (I just read the date on the article and it wasn’t recently, but over 4 years ago)
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/a-mass-sterilization-exercise-kenyan-doctors-find-anti-fertility-agent-in-u
Oh? An alternative medicine and organic industry website? Either is about as credible as the mullahs.
It’s a Catholic-affiliated website, so I suspect it’s an accurate portrayal of what they say happened at a Catholic hospital in Kenya. It’s best to play the ball instead of the man. Here is a followup article. Apparently, the government took it seriously enough to order an independent inquiry.
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/kenyan-gvmt-launches-probe-into-claim-un-is-using-vaccines-for-mass-sterili
Radical rignt-to-lifers allied with anti-vaxxers this time. Conspiracy theory BS smells the same every time.
Are you a 911 Truther, too?
The opposition leader and former prime minister thinks it’s credible
https://www.nation.co.ke/news/Raila-joins-Catholic-Church-in-opposing-tetanus-vaccine/1056-4091820-11g3lhi/index.html
From the above article.
If 2 million girls were injected with an anti-fertility antigen five years ago (and how many in years since?), this should have shown up in birth rates. So, can we have the data on births in Kenya, say between 1998 and 2018 (to get an overview before v after), broken down by age group: under 20, 20-30 etc.
Without some hard evidence it is not credible – after all the six (only six were tested? How many others gave negative results?) alleged samples could have been tampered with.
Read the articles. A government inquiry conducted independent tests and tried to get the results altered.
Snopes has shown it’s a bullcrap claim duplicating one that made the rounds 20-30 years ago.
Snopes is for dopes. They did reveal,though, that the gov’t dis-accredited the lab that refused to alter the test results.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tetanus-vaccine-sterilization/
its simply HCG so the body sees an embryo as an enemy. first trialled in the phillipines.
and before you naysay it happened, ask why they only gave it to young girls and women of childbearing ages and in repeats of up to FIVE injections when the normal is one and a follow up in 10yrs or if you get a rusty or dirty wound
Why give it only to girls and women of child-bearing age? It is a tetanus vaccination, and aim is to protect the woman before she gets pregnant, and so also protect her babies before they are born (The protection is passed on in the womb).
Given this, it would be pointless vaccinating boys or men for this purpose. Of course, males should be vaccinated, but the program to vaccinate women was to reduce the number of deaths of new-borns due to tetanus acquired in childbirth in unsanitary conditions in villages.
“that Chinese should be settled in Africa”
Well, not quite, but we thought that nobody had seen it coming!
Overpopulation is the most evil lie because it justifies murder, poison-based agriculture and so many other atrocities. Like all the most devastating lies, it is a half-truth: we cannot reproduce like mindless beasts forever. But the world can hold more people than it has, so there is not need to panic.
Globull warming is the second most devastating lie because ti attacks carbon dioxide–the main input to photosynthesis, the basis of life.
AGW would seem worse because it attacks all living things, not just people. But both are death-orientations. Destroying population would harm the ecosphere as well–as was pointed out in this article.
We were told in the 1960s that we had to achieve Zero Population Growth to save the planet. Now we are told that since our population growth has slowed we need to import more third worlders to keep our economy growing and save our retirement plans.
I don’t like the loony left re-engineering our society via global warming scares or immigration. On the other hand, telling third worlders they can reproduce at will with no consequence and expecting them to be Milton Friedman’s is fantasy. What we will get is more of what europe is getting across the Mediterranean and we are getting on the southern border.
If we continue to import third worlders, we will have a third world country.
@Kevin Balch
Yes.
The Church father Tertullan wrote about 200AD:
“‘Everything has been visited, everything
known, evetything exploited. Now pleasant estates
obliterate the famous wilderness areas of the past.
Plowed fields have replaced forests, domesticated
animals have dispersed wild life. Beaches are
plowed, mountains smoothed and swamps drained….In truth, plague, famine, wars and
earthquakes must be regarded as a blessing to
civilization, since they prune away the luxuriant
growth of the human race”
So the idea goes way back!
It goes back to Babylon – see Enlil of the Gilgamesh.
And Rome was the wh*re of Babylon.
England = 50,000 square miles. 55 million people, land area of Earth, 28,000,000 square miles, of which about 50% is potentially “habitable”. Thus the Earth if it had English population density could have 14,000,000 *1,000,000 people or 14 Trillion people.
We currently have 0.05% of the maximum theoretical population.
Britain is not self-sufficient in food, in spite of good rainfall and soils. It exports some food, but imports much more so has a big trade deficit in food. So there might be a problem if the earth had the same population density everywhere, especially in those countries where agriculture is more limited due to climate, soils, lack of water.
The maximum theoretical possible population may be OK space-wise – we could all have our acre of so, but we might not have much to eat.
Suggest you recalculate your numbers.
I have my doubts.
I am not a Malthusian by any degree, and would be the first to refute hysterical alarmist claims — but I think that people would be happier if there would not be so many of them, and that birth control pills and other changes of lifestyle will eventually shrink the population to a more reasonable size.
Who needs so many people, anuway? People who suffer just because they are born, people who don’t know what to do with themselves, people who kill themselves in so many different ways, starting with drugs and ending with blowing themselves and others up?
Also, I think that, in a long run, Darwin was right.
Evolution takes time. It has all the time in the world.
Dear fellow, you speak as a true Malthusian :
What the Malthusians Say
http://members.tripod.com/%7Eamerican_almanac/malthsay.htm
“We are bound in justice and honour formally to disdain the Right of the poor to support. “To this end, I should propose a regulation to be made, declaring that no child born from any marriage taking place after the expiration of a year from the date of the law, and no illegitimate child born two years from the same date, should ever be entitled to parish assistance…. “The infant is, comparatively speaking, of little value to society, as others will immediately supply its place.” –Thomas Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population
Darwin and eugenics should be required reading.
“We are bound in justice and honour formally to disdain the Right of the poor to support” — I didn’t sat anything remotely resembling this statement. Darwin’s theiry of evolution reflects reality, it has to do with the natural selection but has nothing to do with the policy of artificial government-coordinated eugenics, which I would be first to protest against.
Do you want to deny evolution, or somehow to stop natural selection? Good luck trying.
“Some of the highest density areas of the world are the richest. Look at Shanghai. It is not only the most populated city in the world, 24 million, with an average population density of 2050/km2 (3854/km2 urban) but is one of the most prosperous.”
Some of the highest density areas of the world are the poorest. The 10 most dense cities are:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/lists/most-overcrowded-cities-in-the-world/
1. Dhaka, Bangladesh. Population: 16,235,000. Density: 114,300 per square mile
2. Hyderabad, Pakistan. Population: 2,990,000. Density: 106,800 per square mile
3. Vijayawada, India. Population: 1,775,000. Density: 80,700 per square mile
4. Chittagong, Bangladesh. Population: 3,250,000. Density: 75,600 per square mile
5. Mumbai, India. Population: 22,885,000. Density: 67,300 per square mile
6. Hong Kong. Population: 7,280,000. Density: 66,200 per square mile
7. Aligarh, India. Population: 1,050,000. Density: 65,600 per square mile
8. Macau. Population: 655,000. Density: 65,500 per square mile
9. Hama, Syria. Population: 1,300,000. Density: 65,000 per square mile
10. Mogadishu, Somolia. Population: 2,265,000. Density: 64,700 per square mile
Guinness World Records says the Mong Kok district in Hong Kong has the highest population density in the world, with 130,000 in one square kilometre.
The place which holds the all time record no longer exists. “Kowloon Walled City” in Hong Kong. Estimates were that between 33,000 and 50,000 people lived in that city block, 210 by 120 metres (690 by 390 ft), 2.6-hectare (6.24 acre, 0.010 sq mi). The 33,000 number puts it at 1,255,000 inhabitants per square kilometre (3,250,000/sq mi). More of that amazing story here:
https://www.businessinsider.com/kowloon-walled-city-photos-2015-2
Conclusion, population and population density are not necessarily either good or bad. People will adapt to whatever they have to to survive. Some will thrive, some will not.
But the preferences, given the choice, for most of us would neither be overcrowding nor underpopulation.
Shanghai and the other high population density cities don’t grow their own food. That would be difficult with a population density of 2050/km2 (3854/km2) . What is the area of land required to grow the food to support 24 million people in Shanghai? Add that to the area of the city, then divide by 24 Million plus the number of people on the farmland, and it will give a more realistic figure for the population density.
“Density” is not the economic factor, rather relative potential population density.
Relative to an economic platform – infrastructure, energy flux density, agro-industrial progress.
If the relative potential falls, expect mass genocide.
It is critical to engage the energy flux density of fusion for exactly this reason. and spread its use throughout economies.
People are doing some of the effort but it is being actively opposed by Malthusians of all stripes.
Rich cities? How about Singapore? Crazy rich. You can watch the movie Crazy Rich Asians, or you can read the books of the same name by Kevin Kwan. Outrageous but fun. Makes Al Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio look like pikers.