The REAL problem

Al Gore is a great guy who certainly means well, but he has completely missed the point on global warming. The real problem, the elephant in the living room, is world overpopulation. There's not too much CO2 production per person, there are too many people. This relates to all the so-called problems the world faces, such as an adequate food supply, adequate clean water, adequate energy, etc., etc. There's not a shortage of anything. There are too many people. For more than a millenium, the world's total human population was roughly 500 million, within a factor of 2 or 3. Although humans reproduced like rabbits, or bacteria, there was always something that kept our population in check. We had infectious diseases like tuberculosis, the plague, cholera, smallpox, etc. There were wars, natural disasters, famines. These things have been tamed, and now our reproduction is going unchecked. We now have about 14 times 500 million people on Earth. We are in experimental, unprecedented territory.

There's a very simple way to reduce CO2 production by 90%, and that is to decrease human population by 90%. It will take a while, but the long-term benefit will be permanent if we can maintain the lower population. It is truly amazing that everyone just blithely goes along trying to figure out ways to solve all the problems created by a major oversupply of humans, when the obvious solution is to decrease the number of humans.

Part of the problem is that people have been brainwashed into believing that growth is good. If the economy, profits, population, number of buildings, etc. don't all grow, somehow the world will come to an end. Well, actually, growth is bad. Imagine how much nicer Los Angeles would be if it had not been allowed to grow ruinously. If we allow population to grow without limit, at some point there will only be standing room on the planet. I think all can agree we don't want that, so the question isn't whether to stop growth, but when. I believe we should have stopped it a while ago, and at this point, we actually need to go backward, at least in terms of population.

So I say to Al Gore, if humans are causing global warming, it's because there are too many of them. To not recognize this as the real problem is to miss the whole point. The most conservation-helpful thing that anyone can do, which dwarfs any other thing such as using energy-saving light bulbs or driving a Prius into insignificance, is to have even one less children. Thomas Malthus was absolutely correct, though ahead of his time, and we are indeed headed for Malthusian doom, with starvation and war our future. Global warming will seem like a minor nuisance in comparison. We have found the enemy, and it is us.