July, 1998

Contents:

Responsibility and Foresight

Other Perspectives

Compassion

Alternative Solutions

Lives Dedicated to the Future

Thought in Action

References

Editorial:

Our most valuable resource are human brains and their creativity. It is therefore recommended (e.g. by Julian Simon and others) that population growth on earth should be encouraged. Increasing interaction of minds with one another would lead to innovations that would help us to solve present problems and augment the quality of our lives.

Most thinkers and scientists, however, object to this kind of reasoning. Our earth is finite, they argue, our natural resources are finite, and an indefinite increase of our population density cannot but decrease living standards and reduce thinking to a desperate chase for short-term advantages at the expense of sustainable solutions.

To encourage informed decision-making, the population problem will be treated in this issue from different perspectives: environmentalist, compassionate, innovation-producing, and others.

A Review of

For instance, with very simple calculations they refute a statement made in 1994 by a well-known futurist (Julian Simon) that "We now have in our hands -- in our libraries really -- the technology to feed, clothe, and supply energy to an ever growing population for the next 7 billion years."* If population growth were to continue as in 1994, they say, it would take only 774 years to reach a point where human beings would have to share a single square meter of ice-free ground -- a definite impossibility already, though 7 billion years lie still far in the future (P.66).

But perhaps Julian Simon's reasoning is not limited to our small planet. In 7 billion years human beings may have found ways to populate the entire universe. Nor will they remain restricted to growing food, fishing, are raising livestock. Sophisticated methods will have been invented to manufacture the most nourishing and healthy nutrients for everyone. Most importantly -- and that will be by far the greatest difficulty -- envy, resentment, and mutual hatred will have been conquered, and more mature ways than wars will be used to resolve conflicts.

Simon's argument that human beings are our most valuable resource is well founded. Even the Ehrlichs admit that "virtually all human individuals have enormous potential, and as soon as there are hundreds or thousands of them together, the appearance of genius of one sort or another is almost assured." But they draw attention to the fact that in a population of tens of millions, it is not the lack of brains which is the limiting element, but the environment in which these brains develop and operate. "Having more people today is not the solution for creating more geniuses. Creating environments in which the inherent talents of people now disadvantaged...can be fully expressed is." (Pp.88/89)

Thus, optimum rather than maximum population size on earth would produce the greatest number of geniuses. Once matters get out of control, innovations allowing exit from the downward spiral of increasing population growth, despair, and damaging grasps for short-term survival needs, cannot anymore be conceived. (See Keyfitz.) Moreover, we must never forget the value that lies in the beauty of our Earth to the uniqueness of which our brains have become adapted, and in the solitude needed to generate our most valuable emotions and thoughts. Not the number of geniuses in our population, but the mental space to contemplate, absorb, and digest their contributions, will determine our quality of life.

Space colonization may overcome the density problem, but its promoters rarely take the delicate and unique nature of our biosphere into account. "Life," the Ehrlichs point out, "was able to leave the oceans and colonize land some 450 million years ago, only after a sufficiently protective ozone layer had been formed as oxygen accumulated in the atmosphere from the activities of photosynthetic organisms in the oceans. The land surface had previously been bathed in lethal ultraviolet radiation." (P.142)

To play with such a safety-device would be highly irresponsible. And yet, the authors document throughout the 250 pages of their main text frequent statements such as that of America's top talk show host (Rush Limbaugh), "Despite the hysterics of some pseudo-scientists, there is no reason to believe in global warming"* (P.199)

Limbaugh's confidence is grounded not in science, but in his belief in Creation; his solution to environmental cleanup is "unfettered free enterprise."

Yes, the Ehrlichs have made mistakes too by making predictions that were unduly alarming, and by losing a bet with Julian Simon. They admit their mistakes and now take more care. But they retained their courage and are fighting against a backlash that would erase all thoroughly documented warnings of scientists the world over.

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P.Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb, is professor of Population Studies and of biological sciences and past president of the American Institute of Biological Sciences. A. Ehrlich is a senior research associate in biological sciences. Both work at Stanford University and are fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

A review of

One chapter, entitled "A Competitive Economy in a Fragile Ecology," describes how, as resources are depleted and the prices and profits for scarce commodities rise, the market provides a bonus for exploitation. "This is the kind of interaction between the social and biological system," the author explains, "that, if allowed to persist, ends with the destruction of both." (P.46)

What can be done? -- Keyfitz suggests that the United States take the lead in developing technologies with the most urgent needs of exhausted countries in mind, such as biotech production of plants that can use seawater, improved birth control devices, etc. Interest in the welfare of the entire planet must come to dominate short-term economic interests. This may include taxes on gasoline and other measures to reduce our own overconsumption. Further, Keyfitz proposes that the developed countries transfer "massive aid" (about 1% of their GNP) to the less developed countries to enable them to avoid further land depletion and pollution. He envisions arrangements in which polluters would pay heavy fines and responsible development would be rewarded.

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Nathan Keyfitz, leader of the Population Program of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria, since 1984, is also professor of sociology and demography, emeritus, at Harvard University and lectures throughout the world.

OTHER PERSPECTIVES

Imprinting of care and concern  Nothing can replace the imprinting of care and concern that occurs in large families in which sharing, cooperation, and acceptance of chores, are taken for granted as self-evident parts of growing up, or even as sources of pride and joy -- provided the family is headed by good and responsible parents. In comparison, single children or those raised with only one sibling nearly always turn out to be more selfish, demanding, and inconsiderate during their entire lifetime. 

Even the kindergarten experience is only a second best; mostly, it occurs too late for imprinting to take place, and in addition even the best teachers cannot counteract the influence of doting parents, who are often outraged with attempts to instill a sense of fairness into a self-centered child. -- Nothing can replace a daily 24-hour setting of examples and instilment of self-worth with the help of tasks that fulfill a real need.

There are several ways out of this problem. Neurologist and Nobel Laureate Professor Sperry suggested to bring children up together with their cousins to ingrain mutual concern from the earliest age onward. The well known futurist and social activist Robert Theobald promotes his idea that anyone who has no inclination to bring up children should remain childless, while persons with special gifts and aptitudes for child raising should be allowed to have large families. Having myself been brought up in a wonderful large family that was the source of my life's ideals, I consider Theobald's idea not only the most beautiful one, but also the one promising most success.

However, there are notable exceptions; considerate persons have grown up in small families, and egoistic monsters in large ones. At the root of the problem, and of more importance than anything else, are parental attitudes.

The cost-benefit issue.

Family planning could bring more benefits to more people at less cost than any other simple technology now available to the human race.            

Director General of UNICEF

Excerpts from publications by Digby J. McLaren, Past-President of the Royal Society of Canada:

Costing ecosystem values is equivalent to costing your own blood supply -- without it, you don't exist, which makes it invaluable. (Pp.60/61)

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The efficiency of birth control in economic terms is well demonstrated by a Mexican example. Between 1972 and 1984, $165 million was spent to provide 800,000 women with contraceptive supplies, thereby averting 3,6 million births and 363,000 abortions, and saving $1.4 billion that would have been spent on maternal and infant care. Developing countries that encourage family planning may be the first to experience rapid and widespread social and economic advances. (P.62) -- (Population and the Utopian Myth, 1993)

The most difficult step. It was Rushworth Kidder who pointed out that the most difficult step is not agreement in principle on a global value, but acting on it in practice.

(Comment in connection with his global values research, which was published in the FUTURIST, 1994.)

The world's scientific community is now pointing out that we have only one Earth and that our global society is now running a vast and dangerous experiment on it. If the experiment goes wrong, there will be no way to rerun it.

Paul and Anne Ehrlich (P.216)

Physicists think that the existence of a highly technological civilization here on earth makes the existence of similar civilizations elsewhere highly probable. The real experts on life -- biologists -- find this view ludicrous, because they know how much plain luck is involved in evolution. Harvard paleontologist Stephen J. Gould has said that if the great experiment of life were rerun a million times over, chances are it would never again give rise to mammals, let alone mammals intelligent enough to invent television.

John Horgan

Whatever your cause, it's a lost cause if humanity doesn't solve its population problem.

Paul and Anne Ehrlich (P.215)

That population control is not only a matter of ecological necessity but also a matter of compassion is most clearly shown by Vernon's report of Margaret Sanger's fight for birth control during the beginning decades of this century. Deaths of children due to malnourishment and of women weakened by too many pregnancies or due to self-induced abortions were at that time still common -- as they are even now where safe birth control methods are unknown.

After describing the despair, suffering, and death of one of these women, Vernon relates how one young nurse, Margaret Sanger, was so deeply shaken by this experience -- which she knew was shared by millions of women the world over -- that she dedicated her life to find and promote safe ways to prevent unwanted births.

According to one of her biographers (Emily Taft Douglas) "when she started her crusade, in 1914, federal, state, and local laws were all arraigned against her. She was jailed eight times. The medical profession denounced her, the churches exorciated her, the press condemned her, and even liberal reformers shunned her. She entered the fight alone, a frail young women without much education, with no social or financial backing, with nothing but conviction."

That conviction was of such strength, however, that it sustained her intensity and energy for over forty years, during which she searched the world for safe birth control methods and battled laws against sex education simultaneously. Obedient only to her conscience, she finally gained some prominent supporters, and when she died in 1966, she knew that her struggles had ended with a victory of compassion.

Review of

Most invigorating is the author's perception of our period in history not as one of despair about depleting resources and increasing violence, but as a rare and great gift challenging us to be creative, to develop our dormant potentials, and to celebrate our conscious participation in further evolution. "Our humanhood is still incomplete. Conscious evolution embodies the great tradition of nature and of human aspiration. It is only now, however, that it has burst upon the scene as central to our survival." (P. 160)

In summary, Conscious Evolution is a prolific wellspring of valuable ideas, suggestions, and sources, each of them of such importance that it would merit a book of its own. Combined into a single volume, they provide an integrated and powerful incentive for action. -- The vision is vast, the confidence in our human potential contagious.

J'invite les hommes et les femmes de bonne volonté, où qu'ils soient, à se rejoindre et à s'associer...par-dessus lew clivages ethniques, religieux, sociaux, politiques ou d'intérêt économique, pour travailler aux programmes du siècle prochain à la lumière de la raison en vue du seul bien de l'espèce humaine et de la nature. Je les invite de se réunier et à délibérer des moyens humains et financiers pour concevoir et perfectionner les programmes d l'avenr, à convaincre le public et la décideurs.

(I am inviting men and women of good will, wherever they may be, to unite across ethnic, religious, social, political and economic-interest cleavages to work together on programs for the next century in the light of reason for the good of the entire human species and of nature. I am inviting them to come together and deliberate about human and financial means to conceive and perfect future-oriented programs, and to convince the public and the decision makers.)

Thierry Gaudin, Fondation 2100

Space colonization is frequently promoted as an alternative to population restriction on Earth. -- One of the most interesting of these plans is being proposed by the First Millennial Foundation, whose Executive Director is Richard Crews, M.D. (President of the Columbia Pacific University), and whose Advisory Board contains, among others, the well-known futurist Barbara Marx Hubbard 

The Foundation, which has nearly 400 members, many of them academics from various fields, resulted from ideas of a visionary Colorado engineer and scientist, Marshall Savage, described in his book The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps.

As a precursor to space colonization the author suggests the building of floating ocean colonies, on which "over the next several hundred years, over a billion people will come to live...mining [the ocean's] enormous latent energy resources (using ocean thermal energy conversion) and farming (using mariculture) the enormous wealth of organic nutrients that lie dormant in the ocean's depths."

The eight steps to colonize the galaxy can be summarized as follows: (1) A land-based prototype sea colony. (2) A sea colony within a lagoon. (3) Colonies floating on the ocean. (4) Orbital colonies built and lifted by using energy gained from tapping the power of temperature differences in the ocean. (5) Transformation of covered lunar craters for habitation. (6) Transformation of the surface of Mars. (7) Growth of large-scale human civilizations throughout the solar system. (8) Extension of these civilizations throughout our galaxy.

The project will succeed only if started soon enough. "If we wait too long," Savage writes, "we will be swept into a world so poisoned by pollution, so overrun by masses of starving people, so stripped of surplus resources, that there will be no chance to ever leave this planet."

But finding an outlet for population overflow on Earth is not the Foundation's main intent. As Dr.Med R. Crews explained in a letter to the eminent Professor Ernst Mayr.* "One of the principles on which Marshall's work is based is what he calls our `cosmic mandate': As far as we know, humans are the only technologically intelligent form of life in the universe; although future scientific advances may provide evidence that humanity has technologically intelligent companions, at present we should consider that we have a `cosmic mandate' to spread the precious seed of life beyond our small planet."

It is self-evident that neither the `cosmic mandate' nor relief from population pressure on Earth can be achieved without financial support, which to find is presently one of the Foundation's most urgent tasks.

Anyone interested is invited to participate in the venture. Please contact: The First Millennial Foundation, P.O.Box 347, Rifle, CO 81650, USA. Phone/Fax: 970-625-5052; E-mail: bridge@millennial.org

Continuing information about the project may also be found by accessing the electronic (on-line) quarterly Distant Star (edited by Dr.Med. R. Crews).

The above information is based on the booklets Introducing the Millennial Project (which contains the introduction to M.T.Savages book and his answer to questions about the project) and Why The First Millennial Foundation is Needed (1997).

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*See Professor Ernst Mayr's work in the April 1998 issue of Humankind Advancing.

1997 Pearson Peace Medal Laureate
Dr. Hanna Newcombe, co-founder with her late husband of the Peace Research Institute of Dundas, Ont., Canada, will be the 19th recipient of the Pearson Peace Medal. Dr. Newcombe's lifetime dedication to peace research and education, her lengthy list of thoughtful and academic publications and her commitment to equal rights and justice for all humanity and to peaceful change through world law make her a worthy recipient of this award. She has constantly combined a commitment to global peace with social justice activism in her community.

At 75 years of age, she continues to edit both the Peace Research Abstracts Journal and Peace Research Reviews; and to share her insights with students at various levels within the educational spectrum. She has held executive positions in many organizations dealing with human and social rights, world governance and peace and justice. Her convictions as a Quaker have been translated into a lifetime of work in the cause of peace. -- In an interview on the eve of her award, Dr. Newcombe asked "How come everybody isn't working for peace or human rights or saving the environment or third world development? How can people become interested in marginal pursuits like their own careers? I don't understand that... We're not here for our own sake. We're here to move the world to a better place."

The above has been excerpted from the CANADIAN WORLD FEDERALIST. I wish to add that I knew Dr. Newcombe, who was my PhD-thesis advisor, as a wonderful person. The loss of many of her relatives in the holocaust led to the dedication of her life to a world without hatred -- testifying to a truly outstanding quality of character. Robert Theobald
was listed as the seventh most influential futurist in a list recently published by the Encyclopaedia of the Future. His latest book, Reworking Success, has been reviewed in the October 1997 issue of Humankind Advancing. The following quotes are from subsequent messages to his friends and co-workers.

March 1998: At the beginning of the century, the population of the world was 1.6 billion. It is now 5.6 billion. We have moved from an empty world to one which is already pressuring space and resources and will do so more severely even if the most hopeful assumptions about population growth are realized. And yet there are still powerful voices that refuse to support the need for reducing births as rapidly as possible.... The harsh truth, however, is that we shall exceed ecological limits at some point in the next century unless we move beyond an economic system which is only viable on the basis of materialism and maximum economic growth. And as we do not know where the real limits are, the only prudent course is to move as rapidly as possible to limit population, production, and wastes.

3/15/98: Contrary to what is generally believed, facing reality frees up energy. Hiding from it increases fear and depression.

4/1/98: [Instead of either the] traditional top-down authority model [or] that of flat systems, where everybody is equally competent [we need] in Riane Eisler's term, ... partnership approaches. This means that we are constantly in tension between two choices. On the one hand, each of us has the skills in certain areas to make good decisions. We also know that if we choose this route, people will not learn to stretch themselves. On the other hand, while we are aware that we need to let others try out their wings, certain choices are so critical that one's superior knowledge needs to be applied in order to avoid catastrophic failures.

1) -- The Institute for Ethical Leadership is designed to instill a dedication, or, as Geraldine Schwartz calls it, a "sustained initiative" to "move to higher ground." Educational contributions of the Institute will include facilitating a "development of anticipatory thinking in leaders," i.e. the realization that "one of the most important responsibilities of the leader is to shift the focus from short-term profit to long-term sustainability." -- Population growth is acknowledged as "the most difficult" ... "of global pressures entirely new in the experience of human civilization."

2) -- Future Unlimited is the title of an international futures conference on the theme "Making Room for Millennium Achievements." This Global Congress, which will be part of the year 2000 celebrations, is planned to become a world class international event with speakers and participants from many countries. Discussion groups around common interests (business, government, public service, science, education, health, etc.), integrated through interlocking keynote addresses, will focus on a common global future. People from the local community will participate, and resulting principles will be published and promoted.

Please contact: Desmond Berghofer, PhD, 209-1628 West 1st Avenue, Vancouver, BC, Canada, V6J 1G1; Phone: (604) 734-2544

The New Environment Association, situated in Syracuse, New York, is a meeting place of persons learning and cooperating to create a better future. Its newsletter, The New Environment Bulletin, is edited by H. Schwarzlander, 270 Fenway Drive, Syracuse, N.Y., 13224, USA.

ALTERNATIVES For Simple Living is a non-profit organization that equips people of faith to challenge consumerism, live justly, and celebrate responsively. "Throughout our 24-year history, we have led the movement to live more simply and faithfully. We have developed many resources, organized an annual Christmas Campaign,* held the Best and Worst Christmas Gift Contest, led numerous workshops, and reached countless people with the message of simple responsible living. By becoming a member, you can help us challenge the way our consumer society continues to usurp our holy days and to exploit people and the environment." -- Please contact: Alternatives, P.O.Box 2857, Sioux City, IA 51106, U.S.A. -- Phone: 712-274-8875.

*Quoted from their Christmas-pamphlet. The organization is also concerned with other celebrations, such as weddings, etc.

That thought came into focus after reading a recent letter from one of my subscribers, James A. Herbert, 7748 Zimmerman Road, Hamburg, NY 14075, U.S.A., who criticized my discussion of Weiner's The Beak of the Finch (in the January 1998 issue) on the ground that I had described the early morning raiders of still half-closed cactus blossoms as "greedy" birds, who destroyed the future resources for everyone on the island by discarding the stamens covering their food source. The matter is not one of greed, he explained, but of population density.

"Those stronger, more innovative, early birds probably developed their skill as a result of a population explosion that forced them out and away from the more succulent leaves by other finches. It was not necessarily their innate greed or callous attitude toward their fellow finch, it was the limitations set by their environment that led to the demise of the cactus. "Paradise" wasn't destroyed by these particular finches. Those early morning raiders weren't doing anything worse than the rest of the finches. They were merely exercising their instinct to survive and reproduce."

Inventiveness, thus, may reduce the survival of a species, including that of the inventors, rather than furthering it. It is not a rare exception that short-term survival stands in the way of long-term survival.

Adherence to fairness is often demanded on the grounds that the rich and powerful will elicit the wrath of the poor and disadvantaged. That argument is not a good one. The powerful don't have to fear the weak. They can subject them easily, either by crude physical means or sophisticated psychological ones. -- The enemy the powerful have to fear is a far more dangerous one: it is the mentality that guarantees their success -- their own mentality. The elevation of lack of compassion and concern to admirable qualities has the same effect as the finches' breaking of the cactus blossom stamens -- the destruction of the basis upon which their survival depends.

In his Sustainable Society Action Project Newsletter of Oct. 1997, E.B.Cohen noted that, according to the fossil record, "the sabre-tooth cat has evolved about five or six times, in all sizes from a domestic cat up to a tiger size, and has gone extinct just as often. What does this mean for humans? The sabre tooth cat was a most effective hunting machine -- and destroyed its own ecological niche by being too successful....Only humans have the brain power to foresee the possible catastrophic failure latent in too great success."

REFERENCES

	Barbara Marx Hubbard -- see: Hubbard, B. Marx
	Ehrlich, Paul R. and Anne H. Ehrlich -- Betrayal of Science and Reason. Washington, D.C.: Island Press (Shearwater Books). 1996.
	ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF THE FUTURE -- New York: Macmillan Library Reference USA. 1996.
	First Millennial Foundation -- Introducing the Millennial Project and Why The First Millennial Foundation Is Needed. Compiled anonymously for The First Millennial Foundation, PO Box 347, Rifle, CO 81650, U.S.A. 1997.
	Gaudin, T. -- as quoted by Prof. J.C.Léonide, Villa Les Selves, Chemin de la Reboule, Le Broussan, 83330, Evenos, France, in a report about the Project D'Association Planetaire des Scientifiques et Penseurs Evolutionnistes a Long Terme. 1996.
	Horgan, J. -- End of the Road. TIME, Special issue: The New Age of Discovery, (Winter 1997/98), pp. 130-133.
	Hubbard, B. Marx -- Conscious Evolution: Awakening the Power of our Social Potential. New World Library, 14 Pamaron Way, Novata, CA 94949, U.S.A. 1998.
	Keyfitz, N. -- Population Growth Can Prevent the Development That Would Slow Population Growth. In Preserving the Global Environment. J.Tuchman Mathews (Ed.), pp.39-77. New York: Norton. 1991.
	Kidder, R. -- Comment on his research on global values, published in The FUTURIST, July-August 1994, pp. 8-13.
	Limbaugh, R. -- The Way Things Ought to Be. New York: Pocket Books. 1992.
	McLaren, D.J. and B.J. Skinner (Eds.) -- Resources and World Development [Introduction]. New York: Wiley. 1987.
	McLaren, D.J. -- Population and the Utopian Myth. Ecodecision. June 1993, pp. 59-63.
	Myers, N. and J. Simon -- Scarcity or Abundance: A Debate on the Environment. New York: W.W.Norton, 1994. (P.65)
	Newcombe, H. -- 1997 Pearson Peace Medal Laureate. Canadian World Federalist, March 1998, P.10.
	Sanger, M. -- See Vernon, T.S.
	Savage, M.T. -- The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in 8 Easy Steps. Boston: Little, Brown & Co. 1994.
	Simon, J. -- see: Myers, N. and J. Simon.
	Sperry, R.W. -- The Impact and Promise of the Cognitive Revolution. American Psychologist, 48(3), 1993, pp. 878-885.
	Theobald, R. -- East 202 Rockwood Blvd.#1, Spokane, WA 99202, U.S.A. Messages to his friends and co-workers. 1998.
	UNICEF (Director General) -- as quoted in Betrayal of Science and Reason by Paul and Anne Ehrlich. (Op.cit.)
	Vernon, T.S. -- Margaret Sanger's Uphill Battle. Humanist in Canada. Autumn 1997, pp. 24-25.
	World Scientist's Warning to Humanity, 1992. (P.4). -- Union of Concerned Scientists. 26 Church Street. Cambridge, MA 02238, U.S.A.