As The 6th Extinction Pends The World’s Humans Spend Their Way To Disaster!

By Donald A. Collins | 3 January 2023
Church and State

(Photo: Dreamstime.com)

As biologist Paul Ehrlich noted on CBS “60 Minutes” Sunday January 1, 2023, program, he and most of his colleagues see the planet heading for a massive decline in human habitability by 2070 if we keep killing our the flora and fauna at our present rate.

The COP conferences of 2010 and last year proved that the promises by the world’s nations made to curb global climate warming have not been fulfilled and seem unlikely to change.

Ehrlich and his wife Anne, also a senior scientist, have been preaching the overpopulation message since their 1968 book The Population Bomb got wide attention and criticism as being extreme in its views.

As Wikipedia tells us:

The Population Bomb is a 1968 book co-authored by Stanford University Professor emeritus Paul R. Ehrlich and Stanford senior researcher emeritus in conservation biology Anne Howland Ehrlich. It predicted worldwide famine due to overpopulation, as well as other major societal upheavals, and advocated immediate action to limit population growth. Fears of a “population explosion” existed in the mid-20th century baby boom years, but the book and its authors brought the idea to an even wider audience.

The book has been criticized since its publication for its alarmist tone, and in recent decades for its inaccurate predictions. The Ehrlichs stand by the book despite its flaws, stating in 2009 that “perhaps the most serious flaw in The Bomb was that it was much too optimistic about the future” and believe that it achieved their goals because “it alerted people to the importance of environmental issues and brought human numbers into the debate on the human future.”

As you can read above, while admitting the worldwide famine they predicted did not occur on schedule, Ehrlich just restated on 60 Minutes that their book underestimated the dangers humans are now in.

As noted above, he and many other scientists feel the time is near (maybe 2070?) when the life sustaining resources we now recklessly consume will have disastrous consequences for our species and most living things on Planet Earth!

Problem: Not enough of us seem to want to avoid committing suicide. Reasons are abundant but the syllogism with its three premises I find most operative says the following reasoning prevails, despite the Greta Thunberg’s and the Ehrlich’s factual evidence: The major premise, all of us are mortal, the minor premise, I am mortal, and the operative conclusion, why bother taking effective actions since I’ll be dead by then!

Lack of concern about children or grandchildren, country, or anything except the status quo of selfish indulgence by the rich and powerful seems likely to prevail despite the heroic efforts of too few of us to act against this tragedy. Have any of you been watching The Crown on Netflix with the Royals getting accolades from their constituents while Prince Harry and his wife Meghan are being attacked as complainers?

This same Sunday 60 Minute segment mentioned the too few examples of individual actions to save the rain forests or other precious resources, but again insufficient to save our present lives soon.

And as the quality of US leadership in our democracy declines, as proven by current blindness by too many of our national leaders, the incoming US Congress seems more focused on gaining transitory temporal power rather than dealing with issues that would sustain us. Are Hunter Biden’s alleged iniquities more important to pursue than seeing if we can find a way to refill Lake Mead or save the declining salmon runs in California? What important House committee assignments will McCarthy if elected Speaker be giving Marjorie Taylor Greene or other presumed leaders of her political persuasion?

Population growth and its lurking underlying effect never seems to get top billing on the action priority list of solving our planetary problems. Experts such as Ehrlich, Sir David Attenborough, the late E.O. Wilson and many others are consistently ignored, but the recent breakaway growth of humans from 4 billion in 1970 to 8 billion now and from 2 billion in 1931 when I was born tells why we are highly likely not going to take the necessary actions in time to avoid the long-predicted 6th extinction.

You may be pro-life and avidly siding with those Supreme Court religious ideologues who recently killed Roe/Casey and plan impeding contraceptive availability in the Court’s current term (by the way LBGTQ folks don’t have babies).

Apparently, the daily TV views of those poor masses worldwide now living under conditions we here in the US would find unthinkable doesn’t trigger recognition of why efforts to reduce human numbers must be the top curative task to save us from suicide. That is the ultimate prolife position, but one not embraced at present. I predict it could be shortly!!!

Former US Navy officer, banker and venture capitalist, Donald A. Collins, a free lance writer living in Washington, DC, has spent over 50 years working for women’s reproductive health as a board member and/or officer of numerous family planning organizations including Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Guttmacher Institute, Family Health International and Ipas. Yale under graduate, NYU MBA. He is the author of “From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013”, “Trump Becoming Macbeth: Will our democracy survive?”, “We Humans Overwhelm Our Earth: 11 or 2 Billion by 2100?”, “What Can Be Done Now to Save Habitable Life on Planet Earth?”, “Vote”, “Can Homo Sapiens Survive?” and “Will Choice and Democracy Win?”.

Earth currently experiencing a sixth mass extinction, according to scientists | 60 Minutes

Paul Ehrlich – The Population Bomb & Beyond

Sir David Attenborough on overpopulation

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