Unless you just crawled out from under a rock yesterday (And having corresponded with some of you I have no doubt. ; ) you have probably heard the buzz regarding the Lizard guy Eric Pianka.
Or more specifically, some comments he made to the Texas Academy of Science. In his so-called doomsday speech (if like many non-science types you would like to take him out of context) he stated that Ebola would be an ideal way to deal with the vast overpopulation of the human species and how this would be a good thing for the rest of the Earth’s biomass.
If the professional community has lost its sense of moral outrage when one if their own openly calls for the slow and painful extermination of over 5 billion human beings, then it falls upon the amateur community to be the conscience of science.
If you choose to take his comments in context (I.E. not what it sounds like dim-bulb but what he actually meant,) it would go more like this.
(my words)
From an objective point of view, humanity is in the middle of a crisis. We don’t realize it yet but we as a species will be facing a period of rapid change, beginning with a devastating population crash. This crash (if we are fortunate) will take us down to about 10% of our current population. Our current strategy of unbridled growth and exploitation of resources guarantees that the crash will take place sooner or later. Exactly how the crash will take place is unknown but pathogens like airborne Ebola which kills in as little as two days might be a prime candidate.
How do we know that the crash will take place? Because it always does in any closed-biologic system. Note the terms “allways” and “any.”
“But here’s what’s gonna happen.”And after the human population collapses, there’s going to be a lot fewer of us. Food is going to be diminished. Pollution is going to go down, which will be good. But there’s not going to be much to recover from. Our descendants are going to curse us for the party we took, the party we had, and I really recommend Richard Heinberg’s book the Party is Over: Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Societies. This man has thought about these things deeply.”
Pianka also thinks that we should get to Mars, as soon as possible. “Send a one way spaceship loaded with people” he says. “Send along a complete Library of Congress on DVD so that when the Earth fizzles out at least some record of what happened will remain. We can only hope” Pianka says“That the pioneers on Mars won’t make the same mistakes.”
There are those who disagree with Dr. Pianka, to the point where someone actually reported him to Homeland Security after his presentation.
WTF?!!
Anyone who doesn’t agree with the tenets of this guys speech is a freaking bat-guano eating mouth-breather in my not-so humble opinion. That’¢s how strongly I feel about this. Overpopulation is bad freaking bad! We have too many kids, we use too much energy. We have big cars and inefficient appliances. We heat our homes in the winter and cool them in the summer. We drive huge gas guzzling behemoths. If you have a kid in the US or some other industrialized country you are automatically committing HUNDREDS of children in underdeveloped countries to a slow death by starvation. Each time you fill up your tank, someone dies.
Those are the facts. THINK!
Pianka’s just stating the obvious as known to anyone who has studied biological systems. And he’s being panned for that? Oh the idiot humanity!
The lion is not going to lie down with the lamb. The Bush family is not going to suddenly realize that they are self serving ignoramuses. Some alien is not going to take you to the land of milk and honey. You already live there! What the hell do you think the rest of the solar system is like?
You believe someone is going to save you? You lazy moronic dim-bulb fecal headed morons! This fellow is telling your real future you ass-hats! No stupid-freaky UFO is going to swoop down and save your stinky booties. No ascended master will change trees into breadfruit. Jesus isn’t going to save you, light being Phatha and Saint Germaine are going to laugh at you.
So is the Odd Emperor.
Odd:
Sorry. While I often agree with you, we are in serious disagreement over Dr. Pianka’s remarks. I know exactly what he is reported to have said (remarks consistent with others that he’s made), and while I certainly wouldn’t report him to the Department of Homeland Security, I believe he’s (a) off-base with his basic premise (overpopulation is a problem in Bangladesh – it is not in northern Alberta – regardless, there are perfectly reasonable ways of addressing the “problem”), and dangerously naive (putting the best spin on it) in his views.
Paul Kimball
Odd:
Geez… you’re starting to sound as pessimistic as a certain Mr. Lehmberg. 🙂
I don’t think things are nearly as bad as you and Pianka make out (and I think his comments go well beyond just commenting on what may happen) – humanity has a pretty good record of sorting these things out.
Of course, many would disagree with me on that count – such as you, and Mr. Lehmberg! Hahaha…
Who knows? Maybe 2012 will be our doom after all?
Until then, I’ll just keep plugging away.
Paul
Odd:
From Dr. Pianka:
“The reason China was able to turn the corner and is gonna become the new super power in the world is because they got a police state and they can force people to stop reproducing. That’s the only reason they were able to turn the corner.”
When taken in context of other remarks he made, it sounds like he is advocating forced population control. Now that sounds awfully “New World Order-ish” to me! It certainly cuts against the very essence of democracy.
The truth is that the First World isn’t the problem – in fact, our problem is that our population (especially in Europe) is not growing enough to sustain the standard of living much longer, especially after the baby boom generation starts retiring en masse and drawing government pension benefits.
The Third World is the problem, and that’s one that can be better solved by education, making birth control available, and so forth, all things that should be a pre-condition of any further foeign aid they receive from the West.
Paul
The transcript is at
http://www.pearceyreport.com/archives/2006/04/transcript_dr_d.php It’s very consistent with some of his other statements.
That’s fine, most people in the west think that way. Overpopulation is mostly a problem in the developing world. It’s difficult for me to comprehend and I’ve been to many of those kinds of places, (not Bangladesh per say but several heavily overpopulated second and third world countries.
The problem is one of energy budgeting. We can not feed six billion people without petrochemicals. And yet in the “developed” world we burn food up in our expensive toys just because we can.We are throwing our future away just to move our dead carcasses around.
But Pianka is not addressing a problem, he’s making a prediction. One I’e heard echoed many times form many people in the scientific community. It’s too late (in my opinion) to be reasonable about it. The only thing we can do at this point is hang on and hope these terrible events don’t happen in our lifetime.
The strange thing about that China comment? They haven’t turned the corner despite draconian methods. Here Pianka is dead wrong IMO. Perhaps this is new-world order like but democracy has no place in a lifeboat and until we (collectively) start taking the population issue seriously, it’s just going to get worse.
We have a single chance here and that’s learning to live in environments off of the Earth. If we can do that then, I feel the first-world excesses have an excuse. Otherwise, people will sit around the open hearth and curse us. I know that this already happens.
The 2012 thing is nothing but a bunch of piffle. It’s poorly understood archeology. Now, I’m not an archeologist and I don’t claim to have first hand knowledge of this but you know what? Neither do the 2012 proponents. To the derision and laughter of real people who work in that field. Just like Zacaria Stichin and his 12th planet claptrap.
(Boy! can I hear the love coming from all those Stichin worshipers out there.) 😉
Great suffering and most barragrugous ZOT… …we agree on something! You might consider re-evaluating your position, Mr. Pettingill. With regard to Mr. Kimball? The neo-rational perceive a reality the over-privileged protected can never know.
alienview@adelphia.net
http://www.AlienView.net
AVG Blog — http://alienviewgroup.blogspot.com/
Odd:
I think China has indeed turned the corner, which is a different thing than saying that they’ve arrived at their destination.
My problem with China is not where they’re headed (economic prosperity being an important precursor to a free and democratic society), but the method they’ve chosen to get there.
Always good to agree to disagree with someone capable of reasoned discourse.
Paul
Paul
Odd:
I should add that we DO agree about the need to get “off planet” – it’s time for us to start the process of exploration, and eventual colonization, of our solar system.
Paul
Why thanks Mr. Lehmberg, I appreciate that.
But no, my assessment of a person is not based on their beliefs (despite what R. Lee may have told you.) I respect beliefs even as I sometime mock them. I assess people in the only way I can, by what they say and how they say it. By how they propagate their beliefs and how they deal with other points of view. I can’t dislike a person just because they look at things differently than me.
Because, we don’t exist in a vacuum, we are not gods residing inside our skulls. Reality doesn’t bend for us other than by our own works, good or bad. Our beliefs are immaterial things just like our ideas. Only by thrusting them through the physical realm (by art, film or writing for example) do we make our ideas more real.
So anyway, thanks for your suggestion! But, I think how we deal with disagreement and conflict shows an awful lot about who we are and what we are made of. Not what we believe.
The thing about China, 1.3 billion, around a 60% population growth rate is they are trying to achieve parity with the US (around 300 million and a 90% population growth rate.) This would be an unmitigated disaster for the world energy budget. We use 20 million bbl/ oil per day as apposed to their 6. Can you imagine that county having a similar number of autos per capita as the US. It boggles the mind!
But they are repressive and this is going to cause them big problems as their population becomes better educated. That old curse, “may you live in interesting times†ironically comes to mind.
Regarding the space travel bit, it is imperative that we learn to live off planet. For no other reason than the Earth is not going to stay like it is today. Climates will change, they always have. Earth’s been changing all along, we just never really noticed. (the dinosaurs did.) 😉