Last year The Independent produced an extremely shaky article on overpopulation. It ended with the dreaded words…
By the time you have finished reading this column, an estimated 100 babies have been born in the world.
Won’t anyone think of the children? Ah...wait a minute...
For an equally backward vision of the world read this recent interview with Paul Ehrlich (not to be confused with the Nobel Prize winning Immunologist). Remember it was he who said in an interview with Peter Collier in 1970 that:
Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make, ... The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.
Surely the question is: when will overpopulation loonies cut back their own number?
Recently, the excellent Walter Williams has written a straightforward defence of an increasing population entitled The Ultimate Resource:
The greatest threat to mankind's prosperity is government. A recent example is Zimbabwe's increasing misery. Like our country, Zimbabwe had a flourishing agriculture sector, so much so it was called the breadbasket of southern Africa. Today, its people are on the brink of starvation as a result of its government. It's the same story in many countries -- government interference with mankind's natural tendency to engage in wealth-producing activities. Blaming poverty on overpopulation not only lets governments off the hook; it encourages the enactment of harmful policies.
Thus, to protect the resource, lets premorse the cause. Not people, government.
