Radical reformers - advocates of population reduction
By Lee Penn
Summary:
Some prominent reformers and ecologists - Jacques Yves Cousteau, Ted Turner, Paul
Ehrlich, Rosemary Radford Ruether, Robert Muller, and other trendy folk - believe that the
world population needs to radically decrease. Some say there should be 2 billion people on
earth - or fewer, a steep decrease from the current 6 billion population. Ted Turner
proposes to reach the goal via a global, "voluntary" one-child policy for the
next 80-100 years; others do not specify how they would achieve their goal of depopulating
the earth.
Conditions of use:
This story is an extract from a book-length manuscript by me titled "False Dawn,
Real Darkness: the Millennial Delusions of the United Religions and the New Age
Movement." You may re-distribute this story by hard copy or electronically, and you
may abridge or quote from this story - IF you give credit to Lee Penn as the author, and
IF you include - in the body or as a footnote - the following statement:
"Excerpted from "The United Religions Initiative: Foundations for a World
Religion" (Part 2), to be published in the fall of 1999 by the Journal of the
Spiritual Counterfeits Project. You may order the complete story from the Journal, or
subscribe to the Journal, by calling (510) 540-0300, or by writing to the Spiritual
Counterfeits Project, Post Office Box 4308, Berkeley, CA 94704, or by visiting the SCP web
site, http://www.scp-inc.org/."
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The sponsors of the Earth Charter call for "fundamental economic, social, and
cultural changes," and wish to rectify the "anthropocentric emphasis" of
the 1992 Declaration on the environment produced by the UN at Rio de Janeiro." The
Millennium Institute says that the new millennium "must be the moment when humans
interchange bad and good, unreal and real, and set themselves and Earth on a new
course." Bishop Swing, the founder of the United Religions Initiative (URI), told the
1997 summit meeting of the URI that "a spirit of colossal energy is being born in the
loins of earth."
Back in 1888, Robert Louis Stevenson forecast the agenda of utopians such as these. In
"The Four Reformers," he wrote:
"Four reformers met under a bramble bush. They were all agreed the world must be
changed. 'We must abolish property,' said one. 'We must abolish marriage,' said the
second. 'We must abolish God,' said the third. 'I wish we could abolish work,' said the
fourth. 'Do not let us get beyond practical politics,' said the first. 'The first thing is
reduce men to a common level.' 'The first thing,' said the second, 'is to give freedom to
the sexes.' 'The first thing,' said the third, 'is to find out how to do it.' 'The first
step,' said the first, 'is to abolish the Bible.' 'The first thing,' said the second, 'is
to abolish the laws,' 'The first thing,' said the third, 'is to abolish mankind'."
(1125)
"Abolish mankind" ... a true case of reductio ad absurdum, right? Wrong.
Jacques-Yves Cousteau
Jacques-Yves Cousteau wanted to go part of the way toward abolishing mankind. In a
November 1991 interview with The UNESCO Courier, he said:
[In response to an interviewer's question, "Some snakes, mosquitoes, and other
animal species pose threats or dangers for humankind. Can they be eliminated like viruses
that cause certain diseases?," Cousteau said:] "Getting rid of viruses is an
admirable idea, but it raises enormous problems. In the first 1,400 years of the Christian
era, population numbers were virtually stationary. Through epidemics, nature compensated
for excess births by excess deaths. I talked about this problem with the director of the
Egyptian Academy of Sciences. He told me that scientists were appalled to think that by
the year 2080 the population of Egypt might reach 250 million. What should we do to
eliminate suffering and disease? It's a wonderful idea but perhaps not altogether a
beneficial one in the long run. If we try to implement it we may jeopardize the future of
our species. It's terrible to have to say this. World population must be stabilized and to
do that we must eliminate 350,000 people per day. This is so horrible to contemplate that
we shouldn't even say it. But the general situation in which we are involved is
lamentable." (1126)
"We must eliminate 350,000 people per day." That works out to 127,750,000
people per year, and 1.27 billion people over 10 years.
Ted Turner
Ted Turner, one of the co-chairs of the State of the World Forum, is more patient than
Cousteau is. He will allow 80 to 100 years to reduce the population of the Earth from 6
billion to 2 billion. In an interview with E Magazine, an environmentalist publication,
Turner explained:
"The simplest answer is that the world's population should be about two billion,
and we've got about six billion now. I haven't done the actuarial tables, but if every
woman in the world voluntarily stepped up and said, 'I'll only have one child,' and if we
did that for the next 80 to 100 years, that would reduce the kind of suffering we're
having. ... We could have 10 billion people living below the poverty line, or we could
have two billion people living well, and having color TVs and an automobile. The planet
can support that number of people, and that's the way it was in 1930. You didn't have the
global warming problem then, or all these problems that have occurred since the population
has built up. And how you get there is very complicated. It's going to take a lot of
education and improvements in health care. Personally, I think the population should be
closer to when we had indigenous populations, back before the advent of farming. Fifteen
thousand years ago, there was somewhere between 40 and 100 million people. But [population
researchers] Paul and Anne Ehrlich have convinced me that if we're going to have a modern
infrastructure, with commercial airlines and interstate highways around the world, we're
going to need about two billion people to support it." (1127)
Paul Ehrlich
Paul Ehrlich, the Stanford University population biologist who achieved fame by writing
The Population Bomb in the late 1960s, agrees with Ted Turner that the Earth's population
should decrease to 2 billion. On June 20, 1999, the San Francisco Chronicle reported:
" 'We're at 6 billion people on the Earth,' said Paul Ehrlich, Bing Professor of
Population Studies at Stanford University, who was awarded the prestigious Blue Planet
prize last week. 'And that's roughly three times what the planet should have. About 2
billion is optimal.' " (1128)
Ernest Callenbach
Ernest Callenbach, author of Ecotopia and other best-selling environmentalist books,
recently published Ecology: A Pocket Guide. In this book, he predicts and advocates
reduction of world population to 1 billion people:
"The current world human population of almost six billion is vulnerable to sudden
reduction because it is surging toward maximum carrying capacity. Rough estimates suggest
that about one billion people, using renewable energy and other technologies that reduce
ecological impacts, could survive sustainably on Earth at a level of consumption close to
that of modern industrial peoples." (1129)
"The movement called Deep Ecology emphasizes spiritual or religious awareness as a
guide for our relationships to the living world. ... Supporters of Deep Ecology have laid
down these principles as a platform for their movement: ... * That civilization could
continue to flourish during the substantial decrease of the human population that is
needed to reduce our ecological impacts, with an improvement in 'life quality' rather than
increasing levels of consumption." (1130)
"There are simply too many consumption-minded people for the carrying capacity of
the planet. It seems likely that in the next several decades, one way or another, their
combined impacts will bring breakdowns in food production, health protection, and social
order. Ironically, disruptions and possibly collapses of corporate production would bring
about a reduction in world human population - and thus lower impacts too." (1131)
"A sustainable future would also require a steady or declining rather than growing
human population, much smaller than today's unless the average level of consumption were
far lower." (1132)
"In the long run, nature will enforce the basic rules of sustainability; she does
not accept excuses." (1133)
The University of California Press, not the Unabomber Press, published these
misanthropic sentiments.
Rosemary Radford Ruether
The eco-feminist theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether has a similarly low view of
humanity. Like Callenbach, she favors "Deep Ecology," saying, "the
flourishing of human life and cultures is compatible with a substantial decrease of the
human population. The flourishing of non-human life requires such a decrease." (1134)
She also said, "The world of nature, plants and animals existed billions of years
before we came on the scene. Nature dies not need us to rule over it, but runs itself very
well and better without humans. We are the parasites on the food chain of life, consuming
more and more, and putting too little back to restore and maintain the life system that
supports us." (1135)
Ruether told those who attended a May 1998 conference that "We need to seek the
most compassionate way of weeding out people.":
" 'To allow unrestrained fertility is not pro-life' she said. "A good
gardener weeds and thins his seedlings to allow the proper amount of room for the plants
to grow properly. We need to seek the most compassionate way of weeding out people. Our
current pro-life movement is really killing people through disease and poverty,' she said.
In place of the pro-life movement we need to develop the 'spirituality of recycling,'
proposed Ruether, 'a spirituality that includes ourselves in the renewal of earth and
self. We need to compost ourselves'." (1136)
Repeating what she had previously written in "Ecofeminism," Ruether also told
the conference:
" 'Nature does not need us to rule over it. We are parasites,' she asserted,
'utterly dependent upon the rest of the food chain. Nature would be much better off
without us.' " (1137)
A few months later, Ruether said how many people must go onto the compost heap. She
told those who attended a national conference of Call To Action, a dissident Catholic
organization, that "We must return to the population level of 1930." (1138) She
agrees with Ted Turner on this point; maybe they consulted the same environmental avatar.
Ruether's reference to "weeding out people" finds an echo among the
Theosophists. Share International, a Los Angeles-based Theosophist sect devoted to a
soon-to-appear Maitreya, the "Christ" of the New Age, reports this teaching from
"Christ":
"My Teaching goes forth. Simple it is, but remember, My friends, it embodies the
Plan of God. Where the Plan takes root no weeds shall grow." (1139)
A disciple explains this message:
"So now let us realize that we are in the harvest time of the Piscean Age - the
last days of that 2,100 year period. If we have eyes to see we will realize that the
harvest of all the 'wheat' grown during that old age is happening all around us. And we
can also see the other side of the parable - prophecy being fulfilled before our eyes. For
the process of the burning up of the weeds which have grown so furiously has indeed begun.
We might add that the fire of burning is getting hotter all the time! How reassuring it is
to be told on such high authority that, in this New Age, where God's Plan takes root 'no
weeds shall grow.' ... The key phrase in all this is: 'Where the Plan takes root.' This
indicates that it will be an ongoing process, not an overnight happening." (1140)
Robert Muller
Robert Muller, a prominent United Religions Initiative supporter and a former Assistant
Secretary-General of the UN, gives an imprimatur to efforts to reduce human population,
and credits UN activities for preventing the birth of 2.2 billion people:
"Idea 1024 ~ 30 April 1997 I am surprised that no one has as yet thought of
creating a Pro-Earth, Humanity-challenging Organization which would put itself in the
shoes of our Mother Earth and rejoice whenever humans diminish in numbers or consume less.
It would give yearly prizes to people, events or institutions which achieve a reduction of
the human population or of the consumption of Earth resources. The first prize should go
to the United Nations which through its world population conferences and anti-population
work has prevented 2 billion 200 million more people from being born between 1952 and the
year 2000." (1141)
Robert Muller extols the cosmology of the Mayans. (1142) How far does his admiration
go? "The ancient Maya in Central America believed that earthquakes were the gods' way
of thinning out the population of humans when they became too numerous." (1143) Does
Muller, like the ancient Mayans and like Rosemary Radford Ruether, favor "thinning
out" the human population?
Matthew Fox
Matthew Fox, the apostle of the "Cosmic Christ," was willing to consider
going further than any of the others in weeding out excess population. In The Coming of
the Cosmic Christ, he said,
"It has been suggested that we call a United Species Conference - a conference far
more representative than the United Nations is - and put this one question to the ten
million representatives (one for each species): 'Should the human species be allowed to
continue on this planet?' The vote would most likely be 9,999,999 to 1 that we humans,
with our dualistic hatred of earth, of one another, and of our own existence, be banished
to some distant place in the galaxy so that Mother Earth could continue her birthing of
beauty, amazement, colors, and health." (1144)
Once again, the liberal death wish rears its head.
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Footnotes
NOTE: Internet document citations are based on research done between September 1997 and
August 1999. Web citations are accurate as of the time the Web page was printed, but some
documents may have been moved to a different Web site since then, or they may have been
removed entirely from the Web.
1125 Robert Louis Stevenson, "The Four Reformers," reprinted in The Portable
Conservative Reader, ed. Russell Kirk, Viking Penguin Inc., 1982, ISBN 0-14-015-095-1, p.
363
1126 Bahgat Elnadi and Adel Rifaat, "Interview With Jacques-Yves Cousteau,"
The UNESCO Courier, November 1991, p. 13
1127 Tracey C. Rembert, "Ted Turner: Billionaire, Media Mogul ... And
Environmentalist" (Interview), E Magazine, January/February 1999, Volume X, number 1,
p. 10
1128 Michael Taylor, "Visions of Tomorrow: Pros weigh in on looming problems
raised by Chronicle readers as they contemplate the coming century," San Francisco
Chronicle, June 20, 1999; Internet document, downloaded from http://www.sfgate.com, p. 3
1129 Ernest Callenbach, Ecology: A Pocket Guide, University of California Press, 1998,
ISBN 0-520-21463-3, p. 23
1130 Ernest Callenbach, Ecology: A Pocket Guide, University of California Press, 1998,
ISBN 0-520-21463-3, p. 36
1131 Ernest Callenbach, Ecology: A Pocket Guide, University of California Press, 1998,
ISBN 0-520-21463-3, p. 68
1132 Ernest Callenbach, Ecology: A Pocket Guide, University of California Press, 1998,
ISBN 0-520-21463-3, p. 114
1133 Ernest Callenbach, Ecology: A Pocket Guide, University of California Press, 1998,
ISBN 0-520-21463-3, p. 115
1134 Rosemary Radford Ruether, "Ecofeminism," Internet document,
http://au.spunk.org/library/pubs/openeye/sp000943.txt, p. 1
1135 Rosemary Radford Ruether, "Ecofeminism," Internet document,
http://au.spunk.org/library/pubs/openeye/sp000943.txt, p. 5
1136 Michael S. Rose, "Feminist Theologian Urges Religious To Find A Way To 'Weed
Out People'," The Wanderer, June 11, 1998, p. 1
1137 Michael S. Rose, "Feminist Theologian Urges Religious To Find A Way To 'Weed
Out People'," The Wanderer, June 11, 1998, p. 1
1138 Ann Sheridan, "CTA Conference Presents The Reality of Unreality," The
Wanderer, November 12, 1998, p. 1
1139 Share International, "No Weeds Shall Grow," Internet document,
http://www.shareintl.org/j26now.html, p. 1
1140 Share International, "No Weeds Shall Grow," Internet document,
http://www.shareintl.org/j26now.html, p. 1
1141 Robert Muller, 2000 Ideas And Dreams For A Better World, Idea 1024, 30 April 1997,
Internet document, http://www.lsw.org/ideas/RMideas.html
1142 Robert Muller, 2000 Ideas And Dreams For A Better World, Idea 1043, 16 May 1997,
Internet document, http://www.lsw.org/ideas/RMideas.html
1143 Walter A. Lyons, Ph.D., The Handy Weather Answer Book, Gale Research, 1997, ISBN
0-7876-1034-8, p. 253
1144 Matthew Fox, The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the
Birth of a Global Renaissance, Harper San Francisco, 1988, ISBN 0-06-062915-0, p. 15
