Garrett Hardin on population: Delusions 5, 6, and 7

    The Saunterer’s posts on July 13, 2009, and July 15, 2009, gave Delusions 1, 2, 3 and 4. Now from the same source - Garrett Hardin’s article “Ten Charming Delusions About Population” (The American Biology Teacher, February, 1975, pages 102-103) come Delusions 5, 6, and 7:
    5. Birth control is population control. India put an end to government sponsorship of birth control two years ago because she had been disillusioned. During two decades of public financing of birth control programs the rate of India’s population growth doubled. The program was a “success” - a Pyrrhic success. A poor country can’t afford many successes like that. Perfect birth control enables parents to have exactly the number of children they want. But the “average parent” wants too many children for the good of the country, so birth control is not population control. Planned parenthood programs are good; they’re just not good enough. Something else is needed. Our problem is to find - and accept - that “something else.”
    6. Nobody ever dies of overpopulation. If a country is so crowded that families have to live on dangerous flood plains, when the flood comes and people die by the thousands, the river is blamed. We never blame overpopulation for deaths by disease or civil disorder, though it is one of many causes, acting jointly. We mention only the causes we are willing to face. We cannot face overpopulation.
    7. There’s an energy shortage now. Nonsense. There’s no shortage of energy - there’s a “longage” of people. More exactly, this is a relative matter. Energy is short relative to population; population is long relative to energy. We haven’t the courage to face the possibility of bringing the two into balance by diminishing population, so we complain about the “shortage” of energy. The same principle applies to all so-called shortages.
    For a brief biography of Garrett Hardin, click here. For images of and relating to Garrett Hardin, click here.
    In the Saunterer’s next post: Delusions 9 and 10.