Who’s afraid of billions of people?
Brendan O’Neill - 9 July 2009
It is UN World Population Day on Saturday 11 July, when various United Nations bodies will try to convince us that population growth is the cause of much of the planet’s economic and environmental crises. Here, we publish an edited version of a speech given by spiked editor Brendan O’Neill in London on 3 July, in which he argued against all attempts to curb human numbers.
Today, I want to argue that there should be absolutely no limits on population growth and no attempt whatsoever to cajole, coerce or convince people into having fewer children. I hope that in my lifetime the human population on Earth will reach the tens of billions, and it will not be a problem if, in the future, it rises to hundreds of billions.
The reason I say this is because our attitudes to the population level fundamentally reflect our attitudes to human ingenuity. The population debate is frequently dressed up in demographic and scientific clothing, but really it is a political issue, reflecting different political attitudes. Where you stand on population today tells us a lot about where you stand on the idea of progress, of civilisation, and of humanity itself.
Tags: UN
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July 13th, 2009 at 7:20 pm
But this is a bad idea, the more people the less space, the more war, less food, less things to do, LINE UPS which are already too long. Why Brendan would you want 10 billion people plus? do you think it will save the planet? why if you sit down and the population of china walks past you the line will never end? because there are too many people in the world. Alex Jones (infowars.com) says the rich people want to kill 80per cent of us in END GAME>
why would you be a fan of more people why Brandoan?
July 19th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
Brendan has obviously never been to Sub-Saharan Africa, where i live. If he had been, he would have witnessed first-hand that the idea of promoting population growth would be an extremely bad idea. Here in South Africa, the current unemployment rate is ~24% and the number of people living in poverty is ~57%. Pre 1994, before the ANC took power, the unemployment rate was ~40%. Does that mean in the last 15 years ~40% of the unemployed found work? No. Post 1994, the (goverment) institution responsible for compiling these statistics decided to no longer include people into the
umemployment statistic who had simpy given up looking for work. In other words, statistics can be manipulated to paint whatever portrait of reality you want. More people means more unemployment. More unemployment means more tax for the employed to subsidise the umemployed. He then uses the argument that we don’t put enough faith in human ingenuity or industry. Industry isn’t going to mass produce food or goods for people or nations that can’t afford it. It’s simple economics. Supply is only driven by demand when demand leads to profit.