UT Professor Says Death Is Imminent

You are certainly entitled to your opionion as am I.  Let me ask you this, do we start sterilizing folks or maybe you could elect someone to start taking out whomever you believe should go first.

 

I believe the earth would do better with 90% less people, and the earth is going to reduce the population by this much if we continue doing what we do, but that doesn't mean I advocate it. I FEAR it, and I fear everyone's acting like its far away (Just like BF).  A preferrable solution: The earth would do very well with the current population is we quit some of our habits that are trashing the ecosystem and the things that make fertile ground for microbes that enjoy infecting and killing people.  WE HAVE ALREADY MADE THE CHOICE TO KILL 90% of the population at some point in the not too distant future.  That is Pianka's message. "This is gonna happen in your lifetime," he told his St. Edward's audience. "Do you wanna go there? We've already gone there. We waited too long."

BTW, still waiting for the "Statement of purpose on his website" for the "crank loon"!  Outlaw? Harp?  CV? Clue us in.

Emphasis mine in the article.

 

What nobody wants to hear, but everyone needs to know

Eric R. Pianka
I have two grandchildren and I want them to inherit a stable Earth. But I fear for them. Humans have overpopulated the Earth and in the process have created an ideal nutritional substrate on which bacteria and viruses (microbes) will grow and prosper. We are behaving like bacteria growing on an agar plate, flourishing until natural limits are reached or until another microbe colonizes and takes over, using them as their resource. In addition to our extremely high population density, we are social and mobile, exactly the conditions that favor growth and spread of pathogenic (disease-causing) microbes. I believe it is only a matter of time until microbes once again assert control over our population, since we are unwilling to control it ourselves. This idea has been espoused by ecologists for at least four decades and is nothing new. People just don't want to hear it.

Population crashes caused by disease have happened many times in the past. In the 1330s bubonic plague killed one third of the people in Europe's crowded cities. Smallpox and measles decimated Native Americans when Europeans transported them to the new world. HIV is a relatively new disease wreaking havoc in Africa and Asia. Another population crash is inevitable, but the next one will probably be world-wide.

People think unrealistically because they have lost touch with the natural world. Many people today do not really know where and how our food is produced, and on what our life support systems are based. As we continue paving over natural habitats, many think that we can disrupt and despoil the environment indefinitely. We have already taken half of this planet's land surface. Per capita shares of all the things that really matter (air, food, soil, and water) are continuously falling. Our economic system is based on the principle of a chain letter: growth, growth, and more growth. Such runaway growth only expands a bubble that cannot be sustained in a finite world. We are running out of virtually everything from oil, food and land to clean air and water.

Some politicians, economists, and corporations want us to believe that technology will come to our rescue. But we have a false sense of security if we think that science can respond quickly enough to minimize threats from emerging diseases. Microbes have such short lifecycles that they can evolve exceedingly fast, much faster than we can respond to them. Many bacteria have evolved resistance to most antibiotics, and viruses are resistant to just about anything. Defense always lags behind offense. So far, modern humans have just been lucky. A reactive approach to problems isn't enough, we also need to be proactive and anticipate problems before they become too severe to keep them from getting out of control.Many people believe that Earth and all its resources exist solely for human benefit and consumption, this is anthropocentrism. We should allow the millions of other denizens of this Earth some space to live -- they evolved here just as we did and have a right to this planet, too.

I do not bear any ill will toward humanity. However, I am convinced that the world WOULD clearly be much better off without so many of us. Simply stopping the destruction of rainforests would help mediate some current planetary ills, including the release of previously unknown pathogens. The ancient Chinese curse "may you live in interesting times" comes to mind -- we are living in one of the most interesting times humans have ever experienced. For example, consider the manifold effects of global warming. We need to make a transition to a sustainable world. If we don't, nature is going to do it for us in ways of her own choosing. By definition, these ways will not be ours and they won't be much fun. Think about that.

If you don't believe me, read Richard Heinberg's "The Party's Over," Sean Nee's one page commentary "The great chain of being" in Nature (2005, vol.435:page 429), and Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel."