Despite how keenly aware Homo sapiens are of the potential overpopulation of other species, they don’t seem to think the same laws of nature apply to them. If any other large mammal added a staggering 200,000 to their population each day, humans would be in a panic to control their numbers—by any means possible.
But while humans are surging well past 7 billion, they act like the laws of carrying capacity and finite resources don’t apply to them. I wouldn’t want to be around when nature brings the hammer down and finds humans in contempt. It ain’t gonna be pretty…
By sheer coincidence, I just read the following passage from Rudyard Kipling’s 1893 classic, The Jungle Book. Clearly the monkeys (the Bandar-log) represent humans in Kipling’s story as they “danced about and sang their foolish songs,” ignorant of the consequences of their actions and describing themselves thusly, “We are great. We are free. We are wonderful. We are the most wonderful people in all the jungle! We all say so, and so it must be true.”
Sound familiar, humans?
As Paul Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb, pointed out, “Whatever your cause, it will be a lost cause without population control.”
That sentiment was echoed by an outspoken Facebook friend, Stephanie Theisen, “EVERYTHING that is wrong today stems from human OVERPOPULATION. This is a subject that MUST be faced. Immediate child bearing restrictions have to be implemented, like decades ago. The Earth is full of destructive, greedy, narcissistic humans, we are not miracles, we are a virulent cancer.”
Exposing the Big Game 
Well said !
Thanks
I second that!
Bravo. Bravo.
Thank you, thank you.
Spot on
Thanks
WELL—-I guess it’s time to pull up the lawn chair, make a barrel of margaritas, and just enjoy!’
Truer word were never spoken. We’re racing to the bottom, using up the world’s resources to support the ever increasing billions. Habitat loss, the greatest threat to wildlife and wild places, is a runaway train, yet people blindly continue to procreate. What will it take for us to wake up? The next great plague, the coming water shortages, when water will be more precious then gold? For all our so called intelligence, we are blind to the reality of overpopulation.
Thank you for your great comments!
Reblogged this on Howling For Justice and commented:
Truer word were never spoken. We’re racing to the bottom, using up the world’s resources to support the ever increasing billions. Habitat loss, the greatest threat to wildlife and wild places, is a runaway train, yet people blindly continue to procreate. What will it take for us to wake up? The next great plague, the coming water shortages, when water will be more precious then gold? For all our so called intelligence, we are blind to the reality of overpopulation.
Pingback: Your Cause is Lost Without Population Control | GarryRogers Nature Conservation
Apparently individuals are not taking this fact personally. They probably recognize the threats presented by overpopulation but this inevitable law of nature does not apply to them it seems. The Chinese are right here. Population control. Harsh as it may be the States need to take the upper hand (let’s keep the Feds out of this one).
Population control is no longer popular. We, as humans are assholes. The corporations have taken over (thank the Supreme Court), and we are done for . They’re clearly is nothing we can do to change this steamrolling glacier–speaking out?? What a joke. Anyone with suggestions? We do nothing but trek into the muck of degeneration and powerlessness.
Excellent point! We humans are the ONLY species that can crush a Spirit of other Humans and all animals. We are revolting.
John H Fremlin wrote a rather tongue-in-cheek analysis of the possible human population of the world. It becomes a matter of physics, not moral values or ethics, not culture, not biology or genetics: physics. There a few laws that are impossible to break, and we will lose if we try. Experience is the best teacher–if you can afford the tuition. We cannot afford this lesson Physics will teach us.
http://www.clay.smith.name/Population.doc
This is so great! I love research to support argumentation and what you have given us here is top notch
Thank you, glad it helps.
Learning the hard way could earn the species a post-humus Darwin Award
[Two posts, as two URLs seem to flag for moderation]
A second article from a half-lifetime ago explains the problem that we have with shared resources. Hunters assure us that deer and elk are tasty and healthy. But 470 Million North Americans cannot all hunt for very long. Then we have the “I’m unimportant, so my dripping faucet doesn’t matter” group. But here’s a better explanation of the shared resources problems.
Click to access Tragedy%20of%20the%20Commons.pdf
IN Idaho both the state and federal government is engaged in farming Elk. Ignoring the fact that elk live in riparian and other areas in which secondary forest succession is occurring, and KNOWINGLY falsely attribute the reduction in elk numbers in the Lolo area of Clearwater National Forest to the Wolf, for the benefit of ignorant gun hunters who seek unending numbers of elk for their own and for their hunting clients’ satisfaction, are killing the wolf off.
The wolf has finally been scientifically shown to benefit prey, forest succession, erosion prevention and other valuable ecosystem services. Their effect on elk has largely been behavioral, rather than additive population limitation.
Since elk are so tasty and healthy, developing them as domestic animals requires some deforestation, and the usual killing off all organisms which even appear to compete with humans for their tasty, healthy body parts.
This is called farming, and the massive human excess of the Earth is already using near 1/2 of all habitable/exploitable land and photosynthesis for its sole growth (all present economic pressure is for continued growth of this exploitation).
I dispute that the Earth is a farm for humans, although I am not in the majority.
Psychological and anthropological study shows that grave ills occur to saturated and oversaturated human populations. The medical industry is eagerly promoting this unhealthy growth, to the extent that agricultural and medical practices are severely disrupting physiological processes in many organsims, including our own.
In spite of christian, mormons, or other deluded religionists, life is not in any way about maximising human procreation or proliferation, although Idaho Fish and Game gains ITS growth (about 1/2 of its revenues are from sport killing) through promoting exactly this domestication of any species which promotes that growth.
I invite all gun hunters to take a bullet with no hope of medical attention or physical care (no wolf has hands to bind up other’s, or own, wounds), so they may experience life’s processes and human psychopathy themselves, directly.
Excellent article. However with religious belief, we are faced with the ludicrous idea that
human beings should increase without limit.
Time to change those beliefs.
It’s hard to develop a culture of respect when we are in a culture which prizes arrogation of any possible resource for symbolic social status.
The cracks in the system are our innate capacity to recognize any organism or feature with which we are familiar, and develop emotional attachment to it or them.
That statement is a reiteration of: we only can love that which we know. We value anything in relation to our own lives – if we regard another as preventing our profit, which means gain in social status, we tend to desire the absence of that particular other.
A nonhierarchical society is necessary to more openly accept that others have equal value. I don’t know if it’s sufficient, because the lines are so blurred: Quite nonhierarchical societies inhabited North America and other places, but when exposed to technology (whether horse, cloth, iron, or guns) our kind easily evaluates that difficulties can be decreased through adoption of the tech.
Evolution is not a case of progress, but of adaptation, and so, how can reduction in social differences be accomplished, at least in evaluating self-willed Nature as just tools for ease or gain?
When visiting Latin America, I found that estimates of my social and personal value were involved with almost the first question I was informally asked: Do you have children?
The question may have to do with a natural impulse, one to discover if my personal intrahuman values were the same as the questioner’s.
Could they feel that they communicated on a basis of similar values?
In short: Could they trust me?
Beliefs are intricately interwoven. If we could take a lesson from the Wolf, we might notice that symbolic verbal interaction – our singular social characteristic – should remain contextual, and useful language might better not be clouded by symbols: communication is most important when it concerns NOW.
Without constantly inhabiting the present (rather than our imagined constructs) beliefs are more immobile, immutable. Only a life in the present helps us discover and change as quickly as necessary to thrive as living individuals.
Consciously starting there, we each might find ways to affect our culture and our weighing of values.
😆
It’s always funny to read my thoughts written by somebody else! I’ve made this picture a while back! The legend says:
“The only thing that changed was… The stones… The rock is still the same”
We, Portuguese, use the term “rock” to refer a person with no ability to evolve or learn from observation and/or experience…
I, myself, have taken the Conscience decision not to reproduce! I’m now 40 years old and I’ve made this decision when I was 26/27!
Observing them the society where I lived, and the overall Civilization I concluded that this is not a good, wealthy environment to bring a new person to!
We are experiencing very low levels of Consciousness and Ethics… Most of the human animals are not aware of the daily destruction of our life support systems.
I always enjoy giving the most update example of our way of acting: The use of Facebook as an internet tool to spread messages of “sustainability” and “green practices”…
Facebook it’s just a redundant tool that cause a massive destruction of ecosystem’s due to it’s enormous needs for energy (data-centers).
The use of just one internet tool does the work! Why the need to use wordpress+facebook+twitter+google+youtube+vimeo+linkedIn+Tumblr+path+digg+reddit+etc
all these tools consume terawatts of energy which comes with an overwhelming destruction of ecosystem’s… No way to get away from this reality!
Why not just a writing tool like “wordpess” and a video tool like “vimeo”? Because people are unconscious!
We are paying the price for our lack of Intelligence, Consciousness and Ethics
Best Regards
Beijinhos e Abraços e Festinhas
😎
The animals are paying a much heavier price
We are all animals! We all pay the price…
Of course I understand what you mean… And that’s the reality!
The facebook example I gave fits quite well on the price the non-human animals are paying!
😎
While making sport of killing was common among children in most societies we know of (for reasons that competition was and is a child’s game, unworthy of continuance, once one finds their strengths and assets within a community), most traditional societies recognised that they were and are forever subject to the wider community of life.
The problem of trade being used for advantage rather than for relationship, is another, related problem of the culture which brings you human solipsism. Such misplaced cognition as the world being a “resource” for social advantage requires that we ignore the lives of Others, ignore or even as many hunters have plainly shown, experiencing glee at the pain, loss, suffering they inflict.
There is no place for kill sport on the face of Earth.
I learned this before adolescence, whether of fishing or hunting. Even though I was raised largely in this psychopathic culture. I fail to understand why it seems that so few do learn this, as it must be our nature to recognise relationship and the universality of the experience of pain and loss.
I live in close association with a wolf, who has shown his necessary carnivorous heritage, and do not judge this other species by my own feelings. Each Other species has their inalienable right to exist, WITHOUT humans exerting moral judgment, and the use of such fictional excuses to kill those which do not seem to benefit one’s economic status, does not excuse the murder of species which actually create diverse and resilient ecosystems through taking the excess young, which Darwin noted is a necessary capacity of all species.
The key word is excess, meaning that if our species prevents excess offspring from being taken, it is automatically then out of balance with life itself. We are now become unfamiliar with the death of our own kind, and take outrageous steps to revenge it wherever it happens. In this, too, we are temporarily out of proper balance.
I have rescued 2 Wolves in my life from a Dog Pound. These were full blooded Timber Wolves and it is legal to keep Wolves as pets where I reside. These were both males and clearly Omegas in the Pack. I have never shared living space with kinder more gentle animals than those Wolves. They had been ‘domesticated’ and by that I mean they are housebroken. Their desire to ‘Den’ was there, their avoidance of ‘new; people was there, and the one thing neither of them did was go after my little Basenji or my cat. The dog imprinted on the first Wolf as she was a puppy when I brought her home. She considers herself a Lupine and that is because the Basenji (the naturally barkless dog, but they are sighthounds) is the dog most closely related to the Wolf.
I hate that people demonize these animals. Wolves do NOT kill for fun and they avoid being near humans at all costs. It makes me very angry to know that the Wolves are tortured by traps and gut shots and the hunters know they are alive but leave them do die a slow and agonizing death. I have been fighting for the Wolves for years. I did not go looking for my Wolves, they presented themselves via someone who knows me and is aware that I rescue Horses. They thought I may be interested in rescuing these Wolves who were on Death Row in the Dog Pound. I did so without hesitation.
They lived to be 16 years old and I still miss them.
Since a wolf fought his rescuers for two years to bond with me, I learned somethings I feel very important.
I think it was a Heiltsuk medicine man that said:” the wolf only shows himself when he has something to tell you.”
Although even yesterday I responded to a woman who wanted to know where she could “get” one “for herself”, with cautions that humans diminish the lives of wolves and should not seek to possess one (-you cannot possess another life, just as in a marriage, unless you give more than you can, you will be engaging in abuse). A few who rescue and treat wolves in this overly human-dominated and occupied world, are the bearers of great understanding and also responsibility.
At times when he was younger, this Wolf also fought for any beings at all bonded with him in his eyes. I have noticed that they very consciously expect similar evaluation and loyalty of those to whom they bond.
To others who might seek to obtain wolves or wolf hybrids: Each act you do affects a brilliant life. Do not diminish that life with what you perceive as your needs. That life is as valid, and as tiggy98 may know, is as valuable as your own -perhaps in the light of what the medicine man knows, it is of greater value.
Do not desire to bond to a wolf. If one of those messengers come to you, it requires that you change your life to one of far, far greater respect for Another’s integrity.
Whether this happens to you or not, it might not be finally wise to shirk the responsibility when you hear the wolf, from near or far. For those who have bonded with wolves, that responsibility includes denying your own social cravings, or of giving up your prizing and participation in the human community you previously overvalued.
Just as OR-7 mingled with coyotes, a wolf can accept humans when habituated. Yet, would you stand without judgment or interference when it follows its way, making a kill within a few feet of you? Would you interfere when it botches a quick kill, and the other screams?
What are you doing should you attempt to prevent this?
What happens when other humans demand that the wolf should die for its natural actions?
Human language, discussion, philosophy, rhetoric, values, and most of all, their fears, have no place in the fulfillment of a wolf’s life.They were a Northern People for over 10 times as long as we have existed, we tropical omnivores, and are able to understand that we too are social and unpredictable to them.
There are yet humans who understand that we should not pursue domestication. I have rarely found dog “owners” with sufficient capacity to respect a wolf and its ways.
All I said is I rescued two Wolves from a dog pound. They were not taken at the same time and they had been domesticated by somebody other than myself. I understand the Wolves’ natural behaviors and they were able to ‘Den’ in my house as I gave them a Walkin Closet for that. They approached me and they accepted me and my dog and cat. It was a fluke that I found them and they were as happy as they could be and living with me was better than a cruel death. They had their dignity and they were fed a diet that was appropriate for them. So calm down.
The folks posting on this blog are amongst the most intelligent I have ever encountered. Thanks so much for posting with facts that are axiomatic rather than just emotion. We do need emotion as that gives us the capacity to sympathize with animals, however, that type of argument never prevails, ever. So many Animal Advocates are accused of using ’emotional argumentation’ when in fact we are not. The trouble is that the animal users and abusers are bereft of any type of emotion and are less intelligent due to that. Antonio DiMasio authored a book entitled ‘Descartes Error’. This guy is both a Neurologist and a Philosopher. Descartes said ‘I think, therefore I am’. DiMasio said his error is that he should have said ‘I feel therefore I am.’ We have tried every argument and have proved them to be valid, however, at the end of the day, money rules.
All information, in all the animals with which you have ever dealt, is processed emotionally. Their memories, their assessment skills, and much more, are mediated emotionally. Human processes do not differ from this.
Damasio might interest voza0db above, as they are of Portuguese descent.
Damasio’s popular works are a bit thickly philosophical for me personally, but his grounding in neuroscience might hopefully lead others to explore that area.
Those who do might find that what is commonly called “intelligence” is a characteristic tied to sensory inputs.
The wolf both hears twice the frequency of humans, and smells, and interprets chemical signals with even greater range and differentiation than do we.
His eyes have a focal point differently shaped and have a horizontally wider band than do we.
He sees, hears, smells so utterly differently than do we, that we cannot well imagine his mental constructs.
Complete in his world, comfortable when we are subject to frostbite and hypothermia, even when clad, needing only his wisdom, and his fur, with a body temperature naturally almost right on the heat of muscle at its most efficient, the wolf is home here, on most of his continent.
He protects his vision preferentially, preferring what one people call the night sun – the moon, and later winter with its tree-cracking cold, as the time to thrive, when all others suffer or sleep.
The Wolf is Other, far from the range of human understanding or argument.
The only reason there is dispute about the fate which some would impose upon a single wolf, is the presence of the gun.
Without that, there would be no political or exploitative dispute.
A few of you have seen a disappearing wild animal for a few moments. This is analogue to how much a gun user knows of any other life. The wolf does not have such an unsophisticated view, but evaluates individuals, both of his own kind, and of others – knowledge has purposes, not all of which are known to humans.
Reblogged this on Exposing the Big Game.