You are kind to respond just as you have. Hopefully, you will find a way to discuss scientific evidence that is apparently unforeseen and clearly unwelcome from two outstanding scientists, Russell P. Hopfenberg, Ph.D., and David I. Pimentel, Ph.D.

The nearly universal confusion and, perhaps, unwarranted degree of uncertainty regarding human population numbers and projections should cause alarm within the family of humanity because the unregulated increase of billions more human organisms on Earth could soon reach a point in time when billions of human beings inadvertently precipitate the mass extinction of global biodiversity, the irrevocable dissipation of resources and the irreversible degradation of Earth’s environment.

If it is all right to do so here, let’s look carefully how unusual it could be for there to be such high degrees of uncertainty about the dynamics of human population numbers in 2008. At least to me, this uncertainty could be a smokescreen. It may not be real.

To say that so gifted and intelligent a species as Homo sapiens cannot find an adequate, understandable way to simply and directly count and sensibly project counts of its own numbers is an insult to human intelligence.

Given the profound implications of global human population growth in our time, this failure of human thought, judgement and will is most unfortunate. It could also be dangerous to human and environmental health. Perhaps some sort of “blindness” can account for this failure to see what is happening, secondary to the colossal presence of the human species on Earth.

Human ingenuity sends people to the moon and launches probes to the far reaches of the solar system; human intelligence envisions the beginning of the Universe in the “Big Bang,” discovers thermodynamics, gravity and the general biological process of evolution; and recognizes Earth is round. The human genome is beginning to be deciphered; nanotechnology is being developed; and our planetary home is being overrun by the human species. Still, our “brightest and best” report to us, of all things, that the dynamics of human population numbers is unknowable! They tell us over and over again that human beings somehow defy the “laws” of nature in seemingly unknowable ways. They say that the global growth of human numbers opposes reason, common sense and scientific examination. That may not be so.

It appears somehow not quite right to keep reporting that human population dynamics is unknowable because this widely shared and consensually validated point of view could be untrue. It is precisely the failure to acknowledge unanticipated scientific evidence and communicate findings that is disappointing, and so very discouraging.

Preternatural thinking and contrived theorizing regarding the population dynamics of the human species have been accepted as good science……mainly for the sake of political convenience and economic expediency, I believe. Novel scientific evidence has been introduced for review that better explains what so many experts continue to describe as “unknowable.”

At least to me, it is a breach of a duty to science, and to humanity, for scientists with expertise to ignore peer-reviewed scientific evidence. With the future of life as we know it and the integrity of Earth’s body at risk, this behavior is unacceptable and cannot be allowed to prevail. Silence regarding the potential threats posed to humanity by the unbridled growth of absolute global human population numbers cannot be helpful, I suppose.

Bill, please do whatever you can to skillfully foster the most careful and rigorous examination of the evidence from Drs. Hopfenberg and Pimentel on human population dynamics and the human overpopulation of Earth.

Sincerely yours,

Steve

Someone else sent me the link to the same website a few weeks ago, and I am planning to distribute it to the list. As you know, this narrated slide show is a presentation based on the belief that population growth is the result of increasing food supply and that further increasing food supply will invariably further increase human numbers, despite the availability of family planning. I do not agree with the thesis entirely, since there are countries that have great wealth and more than enough food for all citizens, where people have been motivated to lower their fertility rate to such an extent that their populations are now declining in size. I think motivation holds the key to stabilizing human numbers in countries where high fertility rates prevail. Motivating small family size avoids the moral dilemma of allowing large numbers of people to starve to death while the planet is transitioning to stable population size.

Best wishes,
Bill

The link to the Hopfenberg narrative was inadvertently omitted in my earlier email. Please note the link, www.panearth.org .

Always,

Steve

Would you kindly provide your views of the research by Russell Hopfenberg, Ph.D., on human population dynamics and the human overpopulation of Earth? A narrated version of a special seminar that Russ Hopfenberg, Ph.D. delivered at Cornell University, entitled “World Food & Human Population Growth,” has been posted online. I would like to invite both of you, other PMC Advisory Board Members and the PMC community to view this 33 minute presentation at .

Comments from one and all are welcome.

Sincerely,

Steve

Steven Earl Salmony, Ph.D., M.P.A.
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/