I have a question about the World Health Organization and their policy on world population growth. Every time I discuss population growth and solutions with other people, I meet the same argument over and over again, which goes approximately like this: “The WHO estimates the population growth to rise to around 12 billion people and then stabilize there in 2050-60. (The numbers flux a bit.)

This is “proof” that family planning works, the problem is under control, and all talk about collapse is just silly cultism.” Well, they are right.

The WHO really DO think the world population will stabilize at 12 billion. They probably have heaps of scientific reports to prove this right, and a crowd of experts that assure us of this fact, and therefore there is no cause for alarm. The collapse of mankind will NOT come.

My question is, therefore, What is your view on the WHO policy on population growth, and what do you answer when you get hit over your head with all that expert-talk?

The WHO projection would make perfect sense if the REST of the earth’s living community remained stable. Unfortunately, it is NOT remaining stable. In order to sustain a human population of 6 billion humans the rest of the living community is losing upwards of 200 species a day—70,000 species a year.

It is well recognized that we are in a period of mass extinction, for which the vastness of the human population is directly responsible. This fact alone assures us that a human population of 6 billion is not sustainable; the living community (of which we are a part) simply cannot indefinitely sustain a loss of 200 species a day. As our population grows, the number of extinctions will increase, probably geometrically.

At a human population of 12 billion, the number of extinctions might be a thousand a day or ten thousand a day. The fact that OUR population might be stable at 12 billion would not mean that the REST of the living community would be stable—and our survival depends absolutely on its survival.

The “experts” you speak of are still possessed of the ancient (and biologically ridiculous) idea that humanity is a species that is separate from the rest of the living community—and can live independently of that community.

ID: 672
posted:
updated: 18 Dec 2003