Cal
Thomas (Making holidays
politically correct - Dec 7) seems depressed because of the changes he sees
in the world. Although depression can have a rational basis, and what he writes
is certainly true enough, I submit that Cal Thomas’ reasons for being down
pale in comparison to the real driver. Many religious people like Thomas, and
his counterparts from Salt Lake City, Rome and elsewhere tend towards blindness
when it comes to the much larger global threat, that of human overpopulation.
The
biggest reason I feel depressed like Thomas is that there appears to be no real
hope that humanity can forestall the four horsemen. Why is there no hope?
Because smart, influential people like Thomas and his fellow conservative,
Walter Williams, cannot see the wall of unsustainable exponentiation bearing
down on us. Instead, Williams and others write such demagogic nonsense about
overpopulation as can be found at http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/williams022499.asp.
The
world wails about AIDS, which will infect and kill millions of people in the
next few years, but fails to see the tidal wave of people coming to break the
ecosystem's back. They fail to heed the warnings apparent in such
population-driven yet disparate trends as fisheries depletion, hunger, conflict,
energy consumption, air pollution, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, and so
on.
When
these folks assert, as Williams does, that there “is absolutely no
relationship between high populations, disaster and poverty,” it makes me want
to scream. But screaming is fruitless because there is no hope that
overly-self-assured yet influential people such as these will see the
catastrophe that confronts us.
Thirty
five years ago, in what should have been a seminal paper, “The Tragedy of The
Commons(1)”, Garrett Hardin pointed out that the “population problem has no
technical solution; it requires a fundamental extension in morality.” This
shows no sign of happening. Orthodoxy reigns, and the only way out is via the
horsemen, or via Hardin having been wrong about a technical solution. A
technical solution helped forestall the spectre of Paul Ehrlich’s
much-maligned “The Population Bomb,” but what technical advance can be
applied now?
In
this day and age, the Pope notwithstanding, the greatest possible expression of
love for the child you dream of may be to not conceive.
(1)http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/162/3859/1243