by Susan Brinkmann
Staff Writer
(May 21, 2008) The U.S. Census Bureau reports that the world’s 6,666,666,666th person was born on May 10, an occasion that set off another round of doomsaying about the world’s population and the birth of the “Devil’s Son.”
One organization, Overpopulation.net, claims that we have “passed our sustainability” and blames recklessly breeding humans for the problem. According to their website, we are responsible for the downfall of the species, because we “have yet to recognize the alarming facts that for the last 16 years we have passed the sustainable food limits that Earth can product relative to population.”
The Sierra Club is also calling for a redoubling of efforts to promote population control. “If we are to achieve a more sustainable future,” says its Global Population and Environment overview, “addressing the root causes of environmental degradation– including over-consumption of natural resources, poverty, and population growth – is paramount.”
However, the Population Research Institute (PRI) of Front Royal, Virginia, an organization dedicated to reversing the trends brought about by the myth of overpopulation, has a much different view of the landmark birth.
“Over six billion of anything is a mind-boggling number, and not just for the numerically challenged,” says PRI president Steven Mosher in his newly published book, Population Control – Real Costs, Illusory Benefits. “Few people have the independence of mind to grasp what this number truly represents: A great victory over early death won by advances in health, nutrition and longevity.”
Why should we not celebrate the fact that human beings have stopped “dying like flies,” Mosher asks. Contrary to the claims of the population control movement, the numbers show that “the world’s population will never double again. In fact . . . it is already close to its apogee.”
The fear of annihilation at the hands of unstoppable population growth is an outdated scientific parlor tale, he said, and one that is based in racisim, eugenics, mathematical incompetence and demographic ignorance. Pillars of the over-population craze such as Paul Ehrlich, the author of the 1968 book, The Population Bomb, which is believed to have kicked off the modern population control frenzy, have long ago been discredited.
PRI also points out that while the United Nations is usually at the forefront of radical population control measures promoting a host of contraception, abortion and sterilization programs worldwide, it’s own numbers show that the world’s population growth has been skidding to a halt.
“Like an arrow shot into the air, the world’s population will soon peak, and then plummet downward at an ever-increasing rate,” writes the PRI in a recent press release. “Many countries have already fallen below replacement-rate fertility, with more to follow.”
PRI says we should celebrate the birth of human babies while there are still human babies being born. “PRI celebrates the birth of this milestone baby, and encourages people and governments to look at human beings as resources to be cherished, not liabilities to be destroyed.”
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Look inside the minds of the people who shaped the modern belief in human life as a commodity rather than a gift. See “Architects of the Culture of Death” by Donald DeMarco, Ph.D.
