While idly reviewing the postings of the last few days and the really enjoyable give-and-take that has resulted on a broad range of topics, I suddenly discovered that way down in the 14th comment on my Royally Flush, our nonpareil kibitzer Tlaloc has referred to something that I thought had long since been laid to rest.
The population crisis! OMG!!! I feel like aliens have abducted me and flashed me back into the 1970s.
What's next, bell bottoms?
Dude, the current crisis is the population shortage in industrialized countries as our societies fail to replace ourselves. Ben Wattenberg was the first to write a book about this a few years ago, but by now recognition of this serious turn of events is well-nigh universal. Perhaps we should chip in for Tlaloc and buy him a see-a-nigh dog.
20 comments:
No, what's next is mention of the coming ice age courtesy of global cooling. That one was big in the 70's, too.
On the population crisis, I once read we could still fit everyone in the entire planet in Texas with each person living in a tidy bungalow. May be spurious, but when's the last time anybody cared about that in the comments section?!!!!!
Silly Hunter.
There are no bungalows in Texas.
Hunter Baker did not say the U.S. population is going down, only that there is no overpopulation crisis in the industrialized countries. He is correct.
Nearly all industrialized nations do in fact have birth rates below replacement level, and some at well below that level. Their populations are held steady at this point by immigration. But even that will not be enough, and populations in nearly all of Europe will begin declining by the end of this decade.
The U.S. has been pretty much the sole exception to this trend, because of the relatively high immigration it allows. The increase in U.S. population in recent years has been caused by immigration plus high birth rates of post-1965 immigrants. The native American population (in the TR sense) is reproducing at below-replacement levels and has been doing so for quite some time. With increasing affluence, the birth rates of post-1965 immigrants will soon begin to fall as well. U.S. population should top out at about 350 million at the most, around 2040, and then start decreasing, and very quickly.
The world population will reach a peak of about 8 billion at around 2050 and then begin declining, at an increasingly rapid rate. That is an easily supportable population, even at increasing rates of affluence. That should be good news to everyone, but those who wish they could control everything find it very uncomfortable to admit.
There is no population crisis, either in the U.S. or in the world as a whole. There are only economic growth problems caused almost exclusively by governments.
And it's interesting that while you continue your complaint about global warming, you refuse to admit that a New Ice Age was the big panic just a couple of decades ago. Hunter baker is right to point that out.
Some news for you: the global temperature is about to start decreasing. Just wait and see--ocean temperature cycles predict this.
Of course, instead of being happy about this good news, the global warming crowd will first deny it and then move on to some other fictional crisis as their pretext for more government control over our lives.
If you are looking for the specific citations from books and scientific journals in the 1970s about the desperate danger of global cooling...
...may I recommend All The Trouble In The World by P.J. O'Rourke, a delightfully witty and intelligent book. He has an excellent chapter on global warming that includes those sources.
Tlaloc wrote, "Let me guess there's also no global warming. Lets set out the facts, okay? There is a large group very invested in keeping things as they are, they lied their asses off about global warming in order to keep anyone from messing with their profitable little game. Those same people lied their asses off about the population crisis. And you fall for it." Those aren't facts. They're assertions. So here's an alternative assertion, which happens to be the truth. The real schemers and liars in this case are the rats who make money claiming there is long-term global warming being caused by human activity--and that includes big corporations who know they can adjust to whatever the governments decide to force on the people. But mostly it's government and NGO leftists who want to rule every aspect of our lives, right down to what what cars we should be allowed to buy and what we can spray on our hair. Read Bjorn Lomborg's book The Skeptical Environmentalist, and Michael Crichton's State of Fear. They will provide tons of further citations. But you won't read them, of course. They're right, and you're wrong, and you don't want to be bothered with facts. The same is true of your lies about overpopulation. You just want to boss everybody. You're the one who's abusing science, and you do it in the service of government oppression of individual freedom. You keep calling yourself an anarchist but you're just another statist.
Tlaloc, don't you understand? There are millions of dollars to be made as a college professor writing made-up studies! Just follow the money!
Yes, Tlaloc, just repeat your assertions louder and more angrily and they'll become true. You're a joke.
Keep raving, Tlaloc—people are sure to believe you eventually.
Interesting that you ignore all the opposing evidence and then claim that everyone agrees with you. Freud had a name for that.
I see that this discussion has become entirely repetitive, so I am going to ask Tlaloc and Anonymous to leave the field and let this one rest.
Thank you.
Sorry, I've no time for it just now. Have to make a living.
I'll weigh in. I tend to believe that we'll see our energy problems resolved as they have been throughout human history. Once a particular form of fuel becomes too expensive (read scarce), then we'll move to something more cheap and plentiful. Confidence in our ability to do so is warranted. We haven't made the move yet because oil is still really, really cheap.
As far as global warming goes, I have to agree with Anonymous that there is strong evidence that human ability to affect the climate is not as potent as we've been led to believe. It is also difficult to swallow global warming after global ice was so recently in vogue.
I am also skeptical because many of the people in the global warming camp are basically disappointed communists. Central command and control didn't give way to anything like paradise and they resent the tremendously better track record of freedom and capitalistic innovation. Emphasizing environmentalist alarmism is another way to confront and contain hated capitalism.
I love Soylent Green. The movie, not the food product.
I am also skeptical because many of the people in the global warming camp are basically disappointed communists.
Well, based on that standard, we should really be ignoring the neoconservative crowd. I mean, Kristol is a self-avowed disappointed Trotskyite, so, to carry your logic forward...
And then we can ignore David Horowitz too! Thank God!
Oh, someone mentioned Michael Crichton's book earlier: It's been repeatedly slammed by the scientific community for poor research: quotes out of context, using non-peer-reviewed studies, etc.
Well it is fiction.
Fiction indeed. Using Crichton's "work" to refute global warming is like using Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" as a reference in your theology dissertation as proof that Jesus was boinking Mary Magdalene.
I have to disagree with you there. The references in Crichton's book are very good.
Reading the sources he cited.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH! SOYLENT GREEN IS MADE OF PEOPLE! OHMIGOD WE'VE BEEN EATING PEOPLE!!!!
I couldn't contain myself any longer. Once Soylent Green came up, it had to be shouted from the fingertips.
Hunter, the food was bad but the furniture was good.
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