Taking the Population Message On the Road

I've been back on the road again this year giving population presentations. It's always a thrill and honor to get in front of an audience and talk about the most important issue facing humankind.

In late April I was involved in a Green-Pink Party. The main emphasis was to raise funds for fistula, but I also had the opportunity to talk about population, and the need for complete gender equality and women's rights and empowerment. [Shown with me are girls from two Emory University groups that put the event together. The guy at right is a Planned Parenthood field organizer.]

On July 9 we held a Green Sex Party in Atlanta. The purpose of this event was to provide an opportunity for networking and mutual cooperation with women's groups and environmental groups. We had a jar of green condoms, a special green cocktail, and lots of literature to give away. I had the honor of giving the Sierra Club's PowerPoint presentation on population growth. [Shown are fellow members of our Sierra Club team, which organized the event. A very special thanks to Sam for her outstanding organizing.]

On July 18 I spoke at the Atlanta Freethought Fellowship. I really appreciated the curious and inquisitive audience, who asked a lot of questions and provided some great input into the program. It was a great Sunday afternoon! [Shown are two leaders from the Atlanta Freethought group.]

Favorite Quotes

Population growth is the 800 lb Gorilla in the room constantly being ignored. It's clear that continual expansion of humanity is the real reason for a perpetually growing economy. Now that energy costs are rising and economic growth is slowing, look at how the economy has reacted. America and other industrialized nations are going to have a real problem with a subsistence-level economy.
— Fred Kaluza, posted on WarSocialism discussion list

There will continue to be ultra-conservatives who detest the idea that women have control over their own bodies; there will always be those narrow-minded traditionalists who hide behind their "love" for the unborn, despite the fact that they oppose all government support for children already born.
— Cynthia Tucker, Atlanta Journal-Constitution editorial page editor

The idea that population growth guarantees a better life - financially or otherwise - is a myth that only those who sell diapers, baby carriages and the like have any right to believe
— Author Unknown

Al Qaeda was handed a way to achieve its agenda on a platter and so speeded up the process. But the real issue is us. We are a bad weather animal and during the Pleistocene we evolved into a desert ape that manipulates its environment to survive and flourish. Over the 10 millennium since we have become better and better at it. We are the natural destroyers of ecosystems; it's our heritage and our destiny. We have developed religions that support our behavior and now we have developed enough technology to give us the power of God. Power without wisdom is pure evil and wisdom has come slowly to a few but so far the species doesn't listen. Can we be saved? I think so, but we will probably wipe out much of what's beautiful about the Earth before enough people believe strongly enough and make the change. Our job is to spread wisdom and fight conservative thinking on every issue. We need to be clever and patient, the spread of knowledge and public opinion are more important than winning each battle. Being a purist just makes us look foolish, we must turn the minds of humanity and that can't be done without seeing the world as it really is.

— Snaildarter



There are already enough memes that have bled virally into the minds of the human race as it is. Many believe that the world belongs by right to Man to do with as he wishes. Countless believe that global warming is either a myth, or a reality that will be fixed by merely buying the right kind of lightbulbs and carpooling ... that continued growth is business as usual and still the best way to go for humankind. Our goal at The Stumbling Block is to make accessible the resources sharing the truth. That there is no truth in our religions that justifies the worldly havoc we have caused. That the world is not ours to ruin. That we were not made to rule it. And that we are but slightly more advanced monkeys who have no more special place on this earth than worms and cockroaches. Share what you see. Pass them on. Fill the world with truth.

— PaganBear



The late Edward Abbey is one of the great environmental writers of all time. I'm sharing a few of his quotes because I love his writings.

The tragedy of modern war is that the young men die fighting each other - instead of their real enemies back home in the capitals.

The missionaries go forth to Christianize the savages - as if the savages weren't dangerous enough already.

Society is like a stew. If you don't stir it up every once in a while then a layer of scum floats to the top.

Love implies anger. The man who is angered by nothing cares about nothing.

Power is always dangerous. Power attracts the worst and corrupts the best.

Abolition of a woman's right to abortion, when and if she wants it, amounts to compulsory maternity: a form of rape by the State.

When a man's best friend is his dog, that dog has a problem.

The only thing worse than a knee-jerk liberal is a knee-pad conservative.

— Edward Abbey

The good Earth will simply die slowly by a thousand tiny cuts until nothing beautiful is left. The best we can do is limit our participation in its death and fight the human race as hard as we can to limit its impact on the Earth. When I say fight I mean using what ever effective means are available. Whether it is voting for Obama, or riding a bicycle to work, or telecommuting, or buying locally or fighting the Catholic church's birth control policy. I think the only hope is that people who participate in the system change their behavior and raise their children to try and live sustainably. Fringe people like "leavers" and environmentalist are only relevant when we can get the greater public to move more toward sustainable living.
— Snaildarter (a friend), October 12, 2008

To put this in context, you must remember that estimates of the long-term carrying capacity of Earth with relatively optimistic assumptions about consumption, technologies, and equity (A x T), are in the vicinity of two billion people. Today's population cannot be sustained on the "interest" generated by natural ecosystems, but is consuming its vast supply of natural capital — especially deep, rich agricultural soils, "fossil" groundwater, and biodiversity — accumulated over centuries to eons. In some places soils, which are generated on a time scale of centimeters per century are disappearing at rates of centimeters per year. Some aquifers are being depleted at dozens of times their recharge rates, and we have embarked on the greatest extinction episode in 65 million years.
— Paul Ehrlich, September 25, 1998

If you were born after 1960, you will probably die of violence, starvation or contagious disease. Although it's news to you, your generation is challenged with a technically-insoluble problem — a political problem — which will ultimately kill five out of six worldwide — or perhaps all. You cannot solve this problem because that carbon-based, selfish-gene rational computer on your neck isn't logical!
—Jay Hanson, February 20, 2007 (from the article "Thermo/Gene Collision"")

The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them.
— Einstein

Is there meaning to life? What are we for? What is man? The point I want to make now is that all attempts to answer that question before 1859 are worthless and that we are better off if we ignore them completely.
— George Gaylord Simpson, 1969 (it's a Darwin thing, maybe???)

One of the most widespread approaches to emerge is what might be called fit­ness teleology. Teleological explanations are found in Aristotle, and arguably constitute an evolved mode of interpretation built into the human mind. Hu­mans find explaining things in terms of the ends they lead to intuitive and often sufficient. Social science theories have regularly depended on explicitly or implicitly teleological think­ing. Economics, for example, explains choice behavior not in terms of its an­tecedent physical or computational causes but in terms of how the behavior serves utility maximization. Of course, the scientific revolution originated in Renaissance mechanics, and seeks ultimately to explain everything using forward physical causality — a very different explanatory system in which teleology is not admissible. Darwin outlined a physical pro­cess — natural selection — that produces biological outcomes that had once been attributed to natural teleological processes. Williams mounted a systematic critique of the myriad ways teleology had nonetheless im­plicitly infected evolutionary biology (where it persists in Darwinian disguises). ... Or­ganisms are adaptation executers, not fitness pursuers.

— Toby & Cosmides

Progressives, Liberals, and Conservatives

I am a big admirer of progressives like Teddy Roosevelt and Barry Goldwater. But what, exactly, is a progressive? My friend and colleague David provides a great definition below.

The point being is that I've found liberals who are just as dogmatic, righteous, and close-minded as conservatives. I would never buy into any pre-packaged dogma from either political party. Regardless of someone's political persuasion, if they can make a good case for something, I'll accept it. Both the Democrats and Republicans have things I like and dislike. But what I really like is the American two-party system — it is a beautiful thing. And though I define myself as a "Democratic sympathizer" and typically vote Democrat, there are a lot of things I admire about traditional Republican ideals. What I dislike most about the Republicans is that they've sold their soul to the corporations and religious zealots, who have formed a perverted alliance. What I do like is a good ol' moderate Republican, particularly one who is a social liberal and fiscal conservative.

Okay, my rule is to tie every post into the theme of this blog. So, the theme here is that both sides of the political spectrum need to have an open mind and be respectful of the other side. I've just run into some pious liberals recently, and believe me, they are as annoying as pious right-wingers.

Let's all just chill out, have a little thicker skin, and keep an open perspective. And please, leave your righteousness at the door. I'm SICK of all the self-righteousness that I've been seeing lately.

From my friend David:

Todd,

Ten years ago I would have explained it this way. A Liberal is someone who fully embraces programs and ideas from the Kennedy and Johnson years, with lots of government mandated or regulated programs, and who is a full supporter of the philosophy of New Deal concepts. Over the years, the folks on the right have demonized what a Liberal is, and have made it a four letter word. I also would have said that a Progressive is someone sympathetic to the objectives of those on the left (social justice, sustainable business, an end to lots of -isms, etc), but who disagrees with Liberals about the methods for achieving those ends. A Progressive is more likely to embrace market solutions to problems, consider the possibilities of school vouchers, and endorse local economic solutions before government programs.

I used to think the terms were different, but Liberals - in an effort to escape the negative associations that the right put on their politics - began calling themselves Progressives. From what I can tell of the national conversations these days, the terms are interchangeable, and mean more of what Liberal used to mean, and only a smattering of what I used to think Progressive meant.

That's my two cents.

David