The Over-Population Myth

Stop Over-population?

by Bob Enyart, KGOV.com

Six people just survived the sinking of an ocean vessel. They are afloat in a lifeboat with only enough water for five. On board are a doctor, a carpenter, a nurse, a blind elderly woman, a sailor, and a counselor.

Millions of public school students given this scenario are then asked, "Who should be thrown overboard?" Environmentalists designed this exercise to teach public school students to solve problems by "eliminating" excess people.

Jacques Cousteau said, "to stabilize the world population we must eliminate 350,000 people per day. It is a horrible thing to say," he admitted, "but it's just as bad not to say it." This Hitlerian sentiment, published in UNESCO Courier in November 1991, is not rare among envirochondriacs.

Britain's Prince Philip, president of the Worldwide Fund for Nature, is quoted by The New American's Robert Lee, Sept. 5, 1994 saying that he would like to be reincarnated as a "killer virus to lower human population levels." Prince HIVlip, perhaps?

How does anyone know there is only enough water for five? Utterly discredited, yet an authority to liberals, is Population Bomb author Paul Ehrlich, who has apparently not had a single prediction come true. America, he declared: would have widespread food rationing by the late 70s, would be "literally dying of thirst" by 1984, and would have 65 million famine deaths in the 80s.

Jack Fish, Brighton, Colorado public school teacher, school board member and local columnist insisted on KGOV.com's Bob Enyart Live that the reason for Somalia's famine was their over-population:

Enyart: What is Somalia's population?

Fish: I'm not sure.

Enyart: I'm not asking for an exact number, just to the nearest million.

Fish: I don't know.

Enyart: Well, then, if they are over populated, what is their population density per square mile?

Fish: I don't know.

Somalia's density is 29 people per square mile according to The 1994 World Almanac. Apocalyptic doomsayers, these enviro­chondriacs flatly invent their facts. Somalia is under-populated, which often does produce famine. Compare Somalia's population density to countries in Western Europe. As a rule of thumb, countries with greater population density have higher standards of living, literacy rates, and life expectancies. The following numbers indicate the people per square mile for:

Nice Places Lousy Places (people per square mile)

Austria 243 Angola 18

Belgium 848 Bolivia 17

Denmark 310 Botswana 5

England 613 Ctrl. Afr. Rep. 12

France 259 Chad 10

Germany 583 Congo 17

Ireland 129 Laos 48

Israel 605 Liberia 64

Italy 497 Libya 6

Japan 830 Mozambique 50

Luxembourg 400 Namibia 4

Netherlands 958 Niger 16

Poland 317 Panama 84

Rhode Is. 848 Paraguay 31

Spain 200 Peru 45

Switzerland 428 Russia 22

Athens 30,237 Sudan 29

Boston 8,172 Somalia 29

Paris 20,185 Uruguay 45

Rome 43,949 Venezuela 58

San Fran. 9,315 Zaire 43

Sydney 10,460 Zambia 30

Toronto 20,420 Zimbabwe 73

Countries with lower population densities generally have lower standards of living. Notice the scarcity of human beings in the poor nations. Whereas some of the most beautiful places on earth, and certainly the most prosperous and desirable, have tremendously dense populations. Naples, Italy has 48,032 people per square mile and Madrid, Spain has 68,385 ppsm!

In the Far East, Japan, at 830 people per square mile, has a much higher standard of living than countries liberals argue are over-populated such as China, at 315 and India at 700. Taiwan has one of the highest standards of living in the East, with 1,503 people per square mile, with five times the density as those of much lower prosperity on the mainland.

People are assets, not liabilities. Socialists and communists, however, since they must provide for so many helpless dependents, see people as consumers, rather than the producers most are. A few hundred years ago, famine was rampant in North America. Today, with a nearly thousand-fold increase in population, we not only feed ourselves but much of the left-wing world.

If the world's five-billion-plus people went to Colorado for a day, they could fit easily into one speck on the map of Colorado, the 404 square miles of Rocky Mountain National Park. They would not have to squeeze together like sardines, but could stand comfortably. The world's population would double before spilling over into the nearest town.

The sky is falling only in the chicken little minds of the over-population purveyor. Rather than a full house or a crowded lifeboat, an orbiting alien would view our world as nearly empty, as airline passengers can attest. Paul Ehrlich publicly bet a conservative economist that during the 1980s, natural resources would grow more scarce. Ehrlich chose five minerals to monitor. In 1990, losing the bet, Ehrlich made his wife sign the check, which amounted to over $500. The resources he was sure would become more scarce and therefore more expensive, in reality sold at reduced prices due to their greater availability world-wide.

Even the end-of-the-world prophets admit there is no global food shortage. Famine, like that in the former Soviet Union and in Somalia, results from false ideas, harmful religions and interventionist governments, not from too many people.

The Agricultural Economic Institute at Oxford University has estimated that, with current technology, the world could feed 100 billion people, while it is home to less than one-tenth that number, according to Robert Lee. Rapid progress in agri- and aqua-culture make it impossible to determine the upper limit of our future food supply.

Who do you throw overboard? The sailor, the doctor, the nurse? "No, the old woman is already sick," countless students have decided, "it's her time to go anyway." Planned Parenthood's founder and longtime president Margaret Sanger wrote that the handicapped, including the "blind, deaf, dumb, mute and epileptics," were the "dead weight of human waste." See her Pivot of Civilization, page 112, available through most public libraries.

With that anti-handicapped attitude from Planned Parenthood's founder, it is not surprising that they support killing handicapped unborn children, since they are only "human waste." It is not surprising that Planned Parenthood still gives out awards in Sanger's name.

When people decide that others are better off dead "for their own sake," it is not a far jump to Jacques Cousteau saying they are better off "eliminated" for the good of all. Whatever happened to one-for-all and all-for-one?

Historically, the over-population myth encouraged the brutal slaughter of the French Revolution. Greek philosophers feared the overcrowding of their ancient world. And even further back in time, the Babylonian and Assyrian accounts of the great flood held that, "the gods led by Enlil, agreed to cleanse the earth of an over-populated humanity."

Those who want ultimate control over others have long wielded the over-population myth. Yet 2,800 years ago wise Solomon knew that, "In the multitude of people is the king's honor, but in the lack of people is the destruction of the prince" (Proverbs 14:28).

Bob Enyart PO Box 583 Arvada CO 80001

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