Population Growth "Alarmism" as a Deep Political Control Device

[Greg Burnham]

A closely related issue: food for our expanding billions of people. Popular "Malthusian" concerns how many people the globe can sustain were put to rest by the fabled Green Revolution that flowered from the 1960s onward, bringing dramatic gains in new corn, wheat and rice varieties, huge new irrigation systems, synthetic fertilizers and pesticide use.

This is an interesting and confusing paragraph.The author seems to think we have pretty much put the Malthusian paradigm to rest.And,why the heck he conflates the green revolution of the sixties,with pesticides, non-organic fertilizers,and God forbid,Monsantos engineered seeds,is rather mind boggling.

Keith - agreed. Indeed, the entire article is a mess, with initiatives and concepts only half understood and often misinterpreted.

The position of America's Republican party is particularly badly represented.

Whilst the Republicans have pandered to their anti-abortion Christian base over international funding of abortion, the right has frequently facilitated extreme and dangerous population control methods, such as experimental chemical sterilization agents. Field use in the developing world of such dangerous techniques has often been achieved using right-wing foundations as cut-outs.

Indeed, it's highly likely that the Bush family - like many affluent WASP families - is essentially eugenicist in outlook.

I'm not sure what is more pathetic: the view that "Aryan DNA" is inherently superior or the view that "WASP DNA" is the path to global prosperity and enlightenment.

I agree. The article is very ambiguous over-all and the conclusion reached is not only poorly reasoned, but obscurely defined.

I appreciate the significance of your comments, Jan.

It's interesting to note that the vast majority of species inhabiting this planet (of which we are aware) refrain from killing their own kind. When an animal kills prey, for instance, others of the same species do not come and engage the "owner of the meal" in mortal combat over it. They may have a conflict, even a fight, but never to the death. As an example, many butt their heads together until one calls it a day and moves on. We see similar behavior from male animals competing for females in the wild. Many literally back up and slam their heads together until one says, "Take her..I have a headache now anyway..." and that's the end of it. But not humans. We will kill each other as though that meal that our fellow human being has earned the right to consume is the LAST opportunity to eat! We will kill for it.

Perhaps animals realize that there really is enough to go around. The lion knows that there is another wildebeest (or other source of protein) nearby--so he does not need to fight to the death with his own species. Has anyone ever known a person who found a single roach in a closet and, upon killing it, exclaimed: "I'm just so glad that was the only one"? Roaches do not come singularly...nor do sources of food. Not in 2011.

If the resources needed by humans are truly being tapped beyond sustainability, then perhaps it is just time for us to go extinct. That's the way it is for other species, why not us, too? The idea that we can somehow manage and preserve a Malthusian "unsustainable environment" by killing each other is simply absurd, in my view.

But, what if there are other choices? What if...?