The Saunterer

Ben Zuckerman on why the world needs far fewer babies

    In a letter published in the journal Science (September 29, 2006), Ben Zuckerman objects to the message of a four-page article from a previous issue of Science (June 30, 2006). In his letter he says:

    The thrust of this four-page article is captured in the sentence “Population losses could bring a raft of negative economic consequences in the industrialized world, as well as greater stresses on social security and health care systems as the proportion of older citizens increases.”
    The word “environment” never once appears in the article. With the biosphere on the brink of multiple disasters or even catastrophe, how can Science . . . write so extensively about “baby deficits” without mentioning overpopulation in an environmental context? Our species is presently responsible for the worst mass extinction event of the past 65 million years. If recent reports of imminent and rapid destruction of the entire Amazon rainforest - due to activities like logging, burning, and agriculture accompanied by prolonged drought from anthropogenically induced climate change - turn out to be accurate, then our species may ultimately become responsible for the worst mass extinction in the entire history of life on Earth. Viewed in this light, a rapid and massive decline in human numbers due to a “baby deficit,” although perhaps accompanied by some short-term economic and social pain for some people, would be a blessing for millions of species on Earth, including our own.

    For Ben Zuckerman’s home page, click here. 

Peter Kropotkin on problems caused by industrial advances

    Writing in 1880, Peter Kropotkin saw troubling consequences of industrial advances:

You study recent industrial advances and you see that the seamstress has gained nothing, absolutely nothing, by the invention of the sewing machine; the laborer in the St. Gothard tunnel dies of ankylostoma, notwithstanding diamond drills; the mason and the day laborer are out of work just as before at the foot of the Giffard lifts. If you discuss social problems with the independent spirit that guided your technical work, you necessarily come to the conclusion that under the system of private-property and wage-slavery every new invention, far from increasing the well-being of the worker, only makes his slavery heavier, his labor more degrading, the period of slack work more frequent, the depressions sharper; and that the man who already has every pleasure for himself is the only one who profits by it. (Quoted from An Appeal to the Young, Peter Kropotkin, The Resistance Press, 1948.)

    At first Sauntering thought, these are problems of a bygone age. But on reflection, is today’s world entirely free of them? For a brief biography of Peter Kropotkin, click here.