Commentary
THE NEED FOR A REDUCED RATE OF HUMAN POPULATION GROWTH
By Tracy W.
David Attenborough's recent comments advocating reduced human population growth have ignited fury in the media.
Personal accusations against him are flying all over the place.
I don't know David Attenborough, so I'm NOT defending him personally.
I don't agree with his advocacy for letting people starve. That is inhumane
However, something must be done to limit future human reproduction. People can't continue to have six or ten children, as it is often the case in other countries (children as old age security or demonstration of manhood) - or to bring more babies into the world in situations of scarcity. They must be helped to manage with only one or two offspring at the most.
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Regarding the notion of human population growth, however, these are the facts, from a strictly scientific point of view:
The human population has been growing at an UNSUSTAINABLE RATE.
In only a century or so of advanced technology we have accelerated the devastation and poisoning of forests, oceans, air and land. Many species have disappeared and too many are on their way to extinction - because of us.
Our consumption and technology are a threat to ALL LIFE on Earth.
With only two nuclear superpowers - the USA and the USSR - we came to the brink of Armageddon. Current nuclear proliferation means that any country, group, or individual, can access nuclear technology to wreak havoc on other living things.
And we don't even need to resort to warfare. The recent accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan - a real life-killing machine - is spewing tons of radioactive waste into the ocean.
High technology is too dangerous a toy in the hands of human beings. We overestimate our intellectual capacity to handle it.
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High technology is too dangerous a toy in the hands of human beings. We overestimate our intellectual capacity to handle it.
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The idea that poor and non-Western people are somehow less destructive is a myth. They too wreck the environment.
Give the emerging world population more disposable income - and off they go pillaging the resources of the planet. Morally speaking, they are no better than anyone else.
Indigenous populations in the Americas, Australia, and other places hunted megafauna to extinction.
When humans came to the American continent about 10,000 years ago, they found a richness of large animals - and so they proceeded to kill, kill, kill.
They didn't know better, you think? They had to survive somehow? Sure, but why are we still doing it? Take the case of the massive killing of sharks, whose fins are commercialized but the rest of the animal is thrown back into the ocean to suffer and die. How long can we keep treating animals like that?
And there are so many other instances of killing living creatures to extinction for irrational reasons. Tigers and rhinos are being killed because their parts are believed to have healing powers. Elephants are massacred because their ivory is used for ornaments. Ornaments!
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We just don't have the moral credibility to defend our reckless population growth. We are indeed, a plague.
How can we criticize the notion of limited population growth, when we - the developed countries and emerging nations alike - think nothing of engaging in war against other human beings and killing indiscriminately - in the name of a political philosophy, religion, territory, race, whatever.
Every living thing occupies a niche in the big web of life. Except humans.
Everything serves a purpose, even the most humble of creatures. Except humans.
An evolutionary cerebral quirk allowed us to develop technology, elevating us to the top of the food chain.
As a consequence of that we have managed to overpower or destroy just about every living species - except microbes. Ironically, microbes are winning the war and may eventually act as Earth's mechanism to wipe out human's parasitic presence.
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Critics of population control can't have it both ways. They can advocate for unlimited population growth everywhere - whatever the cost - or they can protect the planet and a sustainable way of life. They can't do both.
The West managed to slow down population growth. That is not the case in other parts of the world.
The West managed to slow down population growth. That is not the case in other parts of the world.
Those who are apoplectic at the idea of population control in less developed countries are often the first to complain when Asians and Africans come to our shores as refugees or immigrants.
Those who rise in outrage at the idea of population control should pay more attention to other factors that are already reducing population through war, corruption, environmental pollution, disease, and religious strife.
There has been much self-righteous uproar recently about over a thousand Syrians killed by chemical weapons.
However, there is hardly a murmur against the government of Japan - and our own governments - for their inaction in mitigating the ever more dire situation in Fukushima.
For all we know, that accident combined with Japan's abysmally incompetent managing of the situation, may result in the radioactive poisoning of the oceans for thousands, even millions of years to come.
For all we know, that accident combined with Japan's abysmally incompetent managing of the situation, may result in the radioactive poisoning of the oceans for thousands, even millions of years to come.
Where's the world's outrage?
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References
Attenborough's comments -
Sample of frenzied media outrage -
Information on Fukushima -
Prehistoric man's destruction of megafauna -
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/9162107/Human-hunting-caused-extinction-of-megafauna.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_extinction_event
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/9162107/Human-hunting-caused-extinction-of-megafauna.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_extinction_event
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