FIRST POSTED NOVEMBER 14, 2008
In the middle of all the hoo-hah over Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand's childish phone calls on a late-night radio show, you may have missed a far more scandalous utterance that was made on BBC radio.
On 5 November, the upmarket Nightwaves on BBC Radio 3 aired a discussion about overpopulation between Dr Susan Blackmore (a neuroscientist) and Professor John Gray (of the London School of Economics).
Dr Blackmore said the "fundamental problem" facing the planet today is that "there are too many people". Professor Gray agreed. Then Dr Blackmore declared: "For the planet's sake, I hope we have bird flu or some other thing that will reduce the population, because otherwise we're doomed."
So, it's official: at the Beeb it is unacceptable to make crude jokes about having sex with someone's granddaughter, but it is perfectly OK to wish death upon large swathes of mankind.
Make a rude call to Andrew Sachs' answerphone and you will be accused of dragging the BBC's good name through the dirt. Spout misanthropic nonsense about the need for a speedily contagious disease to come and wipe out mankind and nobody will bat an eyelid.
At the Beeb it is perfectly OK to wish death upon large swathes of mankind
The disparity between the public reaction to Brandgate (wild) and the public reaction to what I think we should call 'Birdflugate' (non-existent) reveals a great deal about the warped morality of the cultural elite.
The reason why Dr Blackmore's remark received no coverage or complaints is because the herbal tea-drinking literati that listens to Radio 3 discussion programmes will secretly share her prejudices about overpopulation.
Malthusianism, the one-eyed belief that all of the Earth's problems are caused by over-breeding, is making a comeback in polite circles.
Following the discrediting of eugenics during the Second World War, Malthusians had been rather shamefaced about their beliefs. They continually invented new PC terms with which they might dress up their angst about "too many people".
In Africa in particular, measures to tackle overpopulation were promoted in the deceitful language of "choice" and "autonomy",
by charities keen to avoid being accused of pursuing that far uglier-sounding goal: population control.
More recently, however, Malthusians have become more strident. The poisonous notion that the speedily breeding masses are pushing the planet to breaking point has become a casual dinner-party prejudice.
Earlier this year Prince Phillip gave a TV interview in which he offered a pat explanation for the food price crisis: "Too many people." On the other side of the political spectrum, a republican columnist for theIndependent fretted about the "swelling billions" (that's people in the Third World ) who are pushing our planet to extinction.
Professor Gray has referred to humanity as a "plague". The novelist Lionel Shriver recognises that this is a "racially, religiously and ethnically sticky" issue but says "the threat of overpopulation is back and here to stay".
Dr Blackmore was
"The poisonous notion that the speedily breeding masses are pushing the planet to breaking point has become a casual dinner-party prejudice."
taking these increasingly common prejudices to their logical conclusion when she wished that bird flu would come and kill some of us off (the "swelling billions", preferably, rather than Radio 3 aficionados).
She follows in the tradition of Earth First!, the eco-group which in the early 1990s said that "just as the Plague contributed to the demise of feudalism, Aids has the potential to end industrialism".
More recently, the Optimum Population Trust, which counts Prince Charles's eco-adviser Jonathon Porritt among its directors, said that if we don't find a way to reduce human numbers then "it will be one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse that bumps us off".
Enough. If Ross and Brand's outburst showed that comedians have trouble censoring their inner adolescents, then these middle-class fantasies about human annihilation suggest the cultural elite cannot keep its misanthropy in check.
The neo-Malthusians are as wrong as every population alarmist in history has ever been. Like Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) and his followers, today's bird flu dreamers make the schoolboy error of treating population growth as the only variant, and everything else – food production, progress, human ingenuity – as fixed entities.
They are motivated by severe pessimism about humanity's ability to come up with solutions to its problems, and by the base idea that disease is the only thing that can sort us out. 
Comments
In the middle of all the hoo-hah over Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand's childish phone calls on a late-night radio show, you may have missed a far more scandalous utterance that was made on BBC radio.
On 5 November, the upmarket Nightwaves on BBC Radio 3 aired a discussion about overpopulation between Dr Susan Blackmore (a neuroscientist) and Professor John Gray (of the London School of Economics).
Dr Blackmore said the "fundamental problem" facing the planet today is that "there are too many people". Professor Gray agreed. Then Dr Blackmore declared: "For the planet's sake, I hope we have bird flu or some other thing that will reduce the population, because otherwise we're doomed."
So, it's official: at the Beeb it is unacceptable to make crude jokes about having sex with someone's granddaughter, but it is perfectly OK to wish death upon large swathes of mankind.
Make a rude call to Andrew Sachs' answerphone and you will be accused of dragging the BBC's good name through the dirt. Spout misanthropic nonsense about the need for a speedily contagious disease to come and wipe out mankind and nobody will bat an eyelid.
At the Beeb it is perfectly OK to wish death upon large swathes of mankind
The disparity between the public reaction to Brandgate (wild) and the public reaction to what I think we should call 'Birdflugate' (non-existent) reveals a great deal about the warped morality of the cultural elite.
The reason why Dr Blackmore's remark received no coverage or complaints is because the herbal tea-drinking literati that listens to Radio 3 discussion programmes will secretly share her prejudices about overpopulation.
Malthusianism, the one-eyed belief that all of the Earth's problems are caused by over-breeding, is making a comeback in polite circles.
Following the discrediting of eugenics during the Second World War, Malthusians had been rather shamefaced about their beliefs. They continually invented new PC terms with which they might dress up their angst about "too many people".
In Africa in particular, measures to tackle overpopulation were promoted in the deceitful language of "choice" and "autonomy",
by charities keen to avoid being accused of pursuing that far uglier-sounding goal: population control.
More recently, however, Malthusians have become more strident. The poisonous notion that the speedily breeding masses are pushing the planet to breaking point has become a casual dinner-party prejudice.
Earlier this year Prince Phillip gave a TV interview in which he offered a pat explanation for the food price crisis: "Too many people." On the other side of the political spectrum, a republican columnist for theIndependent fretted about the "swelling billions" (that's people in the Third World ) who are pushing our planet to extinction.
Professor Gray has referred to humanity as a "plague". The novelist Lionel Shriver recognises that this is a "racially, religiously and ethnically sticky" issue but says "the threat of overpopulation is back and here to stay".
Dr Blackmore was
taking these increasingly common prejudices to their logical conclusion when she wished that bird flu would come and kill some of us off (the "swelling billions", preferably, rather than Radio 3 aficionados).
She follows in the tradition of Earth First!, the eco-group which in the early 1990s said that "just as the Plague contributed to the demise of feudalism, Aids has the potential to end industrialism".
More recently, the Optimum Population Trust, which counts Prince Charles's eco-adviser Jonathon Porritt among its directors, said that if we don't find a way to reduce human numbers then "it will be one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse that bumps us off".
Enough. If Ross and Brand's outburst showed that comedians have trouble censoring their inner adolescents, then these middle-class fantasies about human annihilation suggest the cultural elite cannot keep its misanthropy in check.
The neo-Malthusians are as wrong as every population alarmist in history has ever been. Like Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) and his followers, today's bird flu dreamers make the schoolboy error of treating population growth as the only variant, and everything else – food production, progress, human ingenuity – as fixed entities.
They are motivated by severe pessimism about humanity's ability to come up with solutions to its problems, and by the base idea that disease is the only thing that can sort us out.
Comments
NEWS RELEASE
February 18 2008UK “OVERPOPULATED” BY 70 PER CENT
If the UK had to provide for itself from its own resources, it could support a population of only 17 million – 43 million less than its latest official population figure* - according to new research by the Optimum Population Trust.
Even if the UK dramatically improved its sustainability with a 60 per cent cut in carbon emissions by 2050 - the target set by the present Government - UK “overpopulation” would grow from 43 to 50 million, the research shows. This is because projected population growth of 17 million**, taking the country’s population to 77 million by 2050, would cancel out the sustainability benefits of carbon savings.
The sustainability of human populations: How many people can live on Earth? ***, published today (Monday February 18), is based on a new analysis of biological capacity and ecological footprinting data. It suggests that in 2003, the last year for which comprehensive data are available, total world population was 6.3 billion but the sustainable figure was 5.1 billion. Global overpopulation was thus 1.2 billion.
However, as standards of living rise across the Earth and human footprints grow, the number of people the planet can support will diminish. The paper suggests that although the UN forecasts a world population rising to 9.2 billion by 2050, the Earth’s long-term sustainable population is in the 2-3 billion range.
For the UK, a sustainable population is estimated at between 17 and 27 million – less than half the current total and between a third and a fifth of the 85 million who will be living in the country in the last quarter of this century, according to the most recent Government projections**.
The size of the discrepancy between the UK’s actual population and the number of people it could support sustainably is a result of its affluence combined with a high population density, the paper says. The wealth and population density of the UK mean that its ecological footprint is 3.5 times greater than its biocapacity. If the whole world consumed and generated waste like the UK, it would require 3.5 (an additional 2.5) planets to sustain the human race.
To live sustainably, the current UK population of 60 million would have to reduce its average individual footprint by more than 70 per cent. This would mean Britons living a lifestyle similar to citizens of countries such as China, Paraguay, Algeria, Botswana and the Dominican Republic.
Even a zero-carbon Britain would have a maximum sustainable population of 40 million if it refused to change its lifestyle and its non-carbon footprint therefore remained unaltered. “In reality,” the paper argues, “a ‘zero-carbon’ UK could never reach sustainability without population reduction: the lifestyle reductions demanded would be too great.”
The world was living within its ecological means until the 1980s, when it went into overshoot, the study says. Population growth is now the main cause of increasing overshoot, which will be running at almost 100 per cent by 2050: humanity will then be using up, annually, the equivalent of nearly two Earths. Currently, overshoot is 25 per cent, which means humanity requires one and a quarter Earths for its needs.
The paper argues that the strain placed on the global ecosystem by such demands means that the UN’s forecasts of a world population of over nine billion by 2050 are unlikely to be realised. Instead, resource wars and starvation “threaten the worst population crash in the history of humankind.”
It adds: “There is an urgent need for national strategies on sustainable population not only in the UK but in all countries. Politicians need to demonstrate courage and leadership on this issue: they must persuade their nations to accept the necessity of smaller families and provide the means for people to reduce their family size.”
The study’s author, Dr. Martin Desvaux, an ecological researcher, said: “There has been much discussion recently of overcrowding in the UK and whether there is an ideal number that the country could support. This study is an attempt to put a figure on that, based on the best biocapacity and ecological footprint research available. It shows how far the UK is from genuine sustainability and what a fundamental role human numbers play in the whole survival equation.”
Valerie Stevens, OPT chair, added: “Politicians from all parties have been showing more awareness of population issues over the last year or two and we hope this study will contribute to their thinking. Taken with the latest national population figures, published last October, it demonstrates the extent of the UK’s overpopulation and the threat this poses to our environment and quality of life. It also shows how desperately we need a national population policy.”
NOTES:
*The population of the UK was 60.6 million in mid-2006, according to figures published last August by the Office for National Statistics.
**ONS principal projections, October 2007.
***Summary available online athttp://www.optimumpopulation.org/HowManyPeople.Summary.pdf.
The full report can be viewed at http://www.optimumpopulation.org/HowManyPeople.pdf.
Posts
O.K, here's a possible third opinion-Yes there are too many people in the world-people everywhere are faced with a free-market economy that keeps them poor. The only option to preserve them in their old age is to have as many children as possible to keep them safe. How about the haves making sure the have-nots have security and don't have to breed so much? Let's spread the gravy round, make the world a bit better, then we wont have people praying for epidemics.
Posted by Ian Onions at 10:25am on November 14, 2008
One does not have to be an elitist to understand the strain on resources. I agree with Ian, sometimes the only comfort/ respite the 'have nots' have, is to reproduce. The 'Haves' can only build their walls so high.....
Posted by jvporter@gmail.com at 12:04pm on November 14, 2008
Why does O'Neill equate a recognition that there are too many humans to prejudice? It's self evident there are too many of us; we already farm practically all land suitable for food growing, we are constantly told only GM will produce enough food in the future, we have predictions on the likely human population in the future, thousands of other species have been wiped out from loss of habitat to humans, and we have burned so much fossil carbon deposits that the world is now dangerously overheating, but O'Neill trots out his ill-considered PC attitudes regardless, including the same old slurs about eugenics. Every few years famine strikes again in Africa, and it's always the babies and small children who suffer, does anyone seriously think that uncontrolled birth rates have nothing to do with this? Perhaps O'Neill is happy with this 'natural birth control', but better surely to use a less lethal method which doesn't result in children starving to death? As cities build higher and higher, as the homeless multiply and as millions are born, live and die on the streets in many countries, I really can't see why anyone would deny that our success with medicine along with increased food production, have removed what was once a natural check on population growth. As people in developed countries generally have less children, it is clearly in the third world where the explosion continues to take place. As always, it is the poor who pay the price, and it will be in the teeming cities of the third world where deadly diseases will take hold. If O'Neill thinks we can just go on as before without a care, he's delusional. Discussing population, food supply, famine, and sustainability on radio is in no sense analogous to two foul-mouthed yobs making obscene phone calls.
Posted by Peter Simmons at 12:27pm on November 14, 2008
I am disheartened by the reasoning that it is somehow more outrageous and elitist to "wish death" on large portions of mankind than it is to be outraged over some old pervert having sex with his grandaughter. (Yes: that was mentioned in this article/opinion piece.) Both of these degraded thought processes will lead to depravity and misery if not kept in check by reason, and dare I say wisdom. Wisdom is given by the Lord, and if you would humble yourselves and pray, He will heal your land (and has the capacity to make it bigger, fill it with more resources, etc.). But I doubt people will turn to Him. Instead, they will rely on their own degraded "reasoning."
Posted by Carrie Boyer at 6:36pm on November 14, 2008
The above 3 comments are beyond contradiction, have a look at Peter Russell's World Clock" on the internet - read the facts: world net population increasing by nearly 69 million a year. I am now 85 yrs old and pop. has doubled in my lifetime. No one wants to wish for a plague to wipe out the underclass (of which I am a member) but the sooner we become responsible for breeding there will be pleas for feeding. It is possible that Mr Brendan O'Neill is encouraged to write this sort of article by his own religious beliefs?
Posted by Eric Gamble at 8:28pm on November 14, 2008
I cannot understand why anyone should find the BBC at fault for the serious truths spoken by contributors. Gratuitous offense by frivolous clowns and bad language should be strongly condemned.
Posted by Peter at 7:53am on November 15, 2008
Actually Carrie Boyer, you seem somewhat confused. There was and is nothing either in this article or in comments about it or in the issues discussed which was about 'some old pervert having sex with his granddaughter' if that's what you think, then you are clearly delusional, which is born out by your further ramblings about some lord who is going to 'make the land bigger and fill it with more resources'. Clearly you find reasoning a bit difficult, which is presumably why you prefers to leave it to your imaginary 'lord' to do. Oh dear.
Posted by Peter Simmons at 3:08pm on November 25, 2008
There are too many people already. The resources of the Earth are finite, it can only carry so many people. If left unchecked we will consume and destroy eco-systems to the point where they will not recover. It's simple science and maths Brendan and of far greater importance than the Ross/Brand debate. Big problems require big solutions but we don't need to resort to germ warfare or eugenics, just simple education is the key. The debate on overpopulation is hotting up and it needs to. As with the climate-change debate it is always useful to have a sacrificial junk-scientist like you Brendan, to galvanize the opinions of people who know better.
Posted by John Lilley at 3:10pm on December 23, 2008
NEWS RELEASE
March 19 2008POPULATION GROWTH SHOULD BE TREATED AS NATIONAL SECURITY RISK
The Government’s national security strategy recognises many of the new environmental symptoms of global insecurity but ignores their root cause, the Optimum Population Trust said today (Wednesday, March 19).
Commenting on the strategy, disclosed today by the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, David Nicholson-Lord, OPT research associate, said: “Talking about threats to national security without highlighting the growth in human numbers is a bit like staging Hamlet without the prince. Population growth is one of the major forces behind global environmental insecurity, whether it’s the direct effect on issues such as climate change and food, water and energy shortages, or the creation of large cohorts of discontented young people in developing countries, which provide fertile breeding grounds for terrorism.
“The Government’s explicit recognition that environmental instability can be a potent source of conflict is welcome and long overdue. But while the strategy recognises some of the symptoms of this, such as climate change and competition for natural resources, it seriously downplays a root cause. It’s an extraordinary omission, but unfortunately all too typical of the population myopia which currently affects much mainstream political thinking about the environment.”
UN figures show that world population is projected to grow by 40 per cent, from 6.7 billion today to 9.2 billion in 2050. The UK’s population is also forecast to grow by 40 per cent over the next seven decades, from 61 million today to over 85 million by 2081, according to the latest principal projection from the Office for National Statistics, published last October.
David Nicholson-Lord added: “Both globally and nationally, the population projections are alarming and will clearly put extreme pressure on life-support systems. Fortunately, more and more experts are highlighting the crucial role of human numbers in environmental problems, not least the recent rise in food prices. A sensible and far-sighted national security strategy would include not only recognition of the role human numbers play in environmental instability but doing far more to restrain them.
“While the report briefly mentions population growth in its discussion of global security challenges, it completely omits it from its proposals for action by the UK. The Government should clearly identify population growth on its security risk register to be published later this year and should formulate proposals to combat it. Ignoring population - or, worse, letting the UK population spiral out of control, as this Government has done in recent years - will make Britain increasingly vulnerable to resource problems as the 21st century unfolds and is a recipe for future insecurity.”
Tel: 07976-370 221 email: info@optimumpopulation.org