...democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience
and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people into the world,
the value of life not only declines, it disappears. It doesn't matter if someone
dies. The more people there are, the less one individual matters. |
is the greater danger - nuclear warfare or the population explosion? The latter
absolutely! To bring about nuclear war, someone has to DO something; someone has
to press a button. To bring about destruction by overcrowding, mass starvation,
anarchy, the destruction of our most cherished values-there is no need to do anything.
We need only do nothing except what comes naturally - and breed. And how easy
it is to do nothing."
of controlling the environment for the benefit of the population, maybe we should
control the population to ensure the survival of our environment.
you think of any problem in any area of human endeavor on any scale, from microscopic
to global, whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way aided, assisted,
or advanced by further increases in population, locally, nationally, or globally?"
-- Dr. Albert A. Bartlett, Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of Colorado;
World Population Balance Board of Advisors
growth' destroys the environment. 'Dumb growth' destroys the environment. The
only difference is that 'smart growth' does it with good taste. It's like booking
passage on the Titanic. Whether you go first-class or steerage, the result is
--Dr. Albert A. Bartlett, Emeritus Professor of Physics, University
of Colorado; World Population Balance Board of Advisors
point of population stabilization is to reduce or minimize misery."
Bengston, founding board member, World Population Balance
We must alert and organise the world's people to pressure world leaders to take
specific steps to solve the two root causes of our environmental crises - exploding
population growth and wasteful consumption of irreplaceable resources. Overconsumption
and overpopulation underlie every environmental problem we face today.
Each person we add now disproportionately impacts
on the environment and life-support systems of the
then, there are only two kinds of solutions to the population
problem. One is a "birth rate solution," in which we find
ways to lower the birth rate. The other is a "death rate
solution," in which ways to raise the death rate - war,
famine, pestilence - find us.
Ehrlich The Population Bomb
the last 200 years the population of our planet has grown
exponentially, at a rate of 1.9% per year. If it continued
at this rate, with the population doubling every 40 years,
by 2600 we would all be standing literally shoulder to shoulder.
-- Prof Stephen Hawking
hungry world cannot be fed until and unless the growth of
its resources and the growth of its population come into
balance. Each man and woman--and each nation--must make
decisions of conscience and policy in the face of this great
-- Lyndon Baines Johnson
it was necessary that the people should multiply and
be fruitful if the race was to survive. But now to preserve
the race it is necessary that people hold back the power
plagues of the dark ages or contemporary diseases we
do not understand, the modern plague of overpopulation
is soluble by means we have discovered and with resources
we posses. What is lacking is not sufficient knowledge
of the solution but universal consciousness of the gravity
of the problem and education of the billions who are
Luther King, Jr
and women aren't going to be motivated to practice any
form of birth control until they know that most of the
children they do bear will survive! As it is now, the
only way poor people can provide for their old age is
to have several children who will care for them . .
. and the only way they can be sure of having enough
living offspring is to have many, many births. People
must be sure that they can meet their own basic security
needs, and that the children they bear will have a reasonable
chance to survive, before birth control can be considered
a realistic option. Only then, when people have freedom
from famine, can conscientious efforts to teach and
encourage family planning be successful.
becomes of the surplus of human life? It is either,
1st. destroyed by infanticide, as among the Chinese
and Lacedemonians; or 2d. it is stifled or starved,
as among other nations whose population is commensurate
to its food; or 3d. it is consumed by wars and endemic
diseases; or 4th. it overflows, by emigration, to places
where a surplus of food is attainable."
Madison, 1791, U.S. President
when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio.
-- Thomas Robert Malthus
must stabilize population. This will be possible only if
all nations recognize that it requires improved social and
economic conditions, and the adoption of effective, voluntary
the family is small, whatever little they have they are
able to share. There is peace."
--Philip Njuguna, pastor, Nairobi, Kenya
a species learns to control its own population, or something
like disease, famine, war, will take care of the issue."
-- Chuck Palahniuk
motherhood becomes the fruit of a deep yearning, not
the result of ignorance or accident, its children
will become the foundation of a new race.
the world is to save any part of its resources for the future,
it must reduce not only consumption but the number of consumers."
-- B.F. Skinner
have been God-like in our planned breeding of our domesticated
plants and animals, but we have been rabbit-like in our
unplanned breeding of ourselves.
-- Arnold Joseph Toynbee
is not prudent to rely on science and technology alone to
solve problems created by rapid population growth, wasteful
resource consumption and harmful human practices."
--U.S. National Academy of Sciences and Royal Society of
London, joint statement
key probem facing humanity in the coming century is how
to bring a better quality of life -- for 8 billion or more
people -- without wrecking the environment entirely in the
-- Edward O. Wilson, scientist, Pulitzer prize winning author
and father of biodiversity
resulting from unrestrained population growth put demands
on the natural world that can overwhelm any efforts to achieve
a sustainable future. If we are to halt the destruction
of our environment, we must accept limits to that growth."
--World Scientists' Warning to Humanity, signed by 1600
senior scientists from 70 countries, including 102 Nobel