I just recently read an article in last’s Sunday’s Express News regarding how a UT Austin zoology professor believes there will soon be a world wide human population crash . What has gotten him the most attention has been his striking quotes, one being the following:
“I actually think the world will be much better off when only 10 percent of us are left.”
People really got fired up with this and he received many negative criticisms and has even been reported to the FBI as a terror threat.
Here’s the thing, people freak out with quotations like this. But he is a zoology professor at one of the best universities in the world. I think he knows what he is talking about. He is not a random person off the street making crazy remarks with no data to back his logic up.
Dr. Pianka is not trying to be politically correct. And although he has been asked to not mix philosophy with science when commenting on this subject, he says it’s virtually impossible.
According to Dr. Pianka, humans are overpopulating the Earth and we are drifting further and further away from nature. The death rate will soon exceed the birth rate and eventually, a tidal will hit us hard, and civilizations will fall apart.
Sound crazy? I wouldn’t say so. It makes perfect sense. Dr. Pianka has done extensive research and is extremely credible. I don’t know why people think he is crazy. I mean look around. Where has our rain forest gone? Why are species disappearing? Do you know what’s in that burger? Is it meat, cheese, veggies and bread? Unless you went to kill the cow yourself, pasteurize the cheese and grow your veggies, you do not really know. Hmm, not to know what you are feeding your body, kind of scary. But you don’t think about it. I mean, yes, we all try to be healthy and maybe organic, but living in a society we do today, it is difficult to truly go back to nature.
Humans are in control and we are not using that control to our advantage. Rather than respecting nature and using it as a resource, we damage it and come up create harmful chemicals to preserve the little nature we have. But it is stabbing us in the back.
But if you change your ways, will it help?
Dr. Pianka doesn’t seem to think so. Although, he does drive a Prius, he doesn’t seem to think we can do anything to help. It’s too late. Someone will buy a Prius and the next person will buy a Hummer. We will recycle paper while someone is cutting down a tree. Its a continuous cycle that becomes worse as our population grows. That’s not to say that you should not do your part to protect and preserve your environment, that’s just your choice.
One point Dr. Pianka makes, that I strongly agree with, is that we should tax individuals for having children rather than assisting them with funds. So many people take advantage of the system, but that is another topic.
Check out Dr. Pianka’s site:
http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~varanus/eric.html”>http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~varanus/eric.html
