what has chicken little got to do with garrett hardin?
"A major focus of his career, and one to which he returned repeatedly, was the issue of human overpopulation."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrett_Hardin
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I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you're a John Holdrin fan as well.
my college class held its 30th reunion two years ago. my degree is in marine science and i remember hardin's writing to be much less alarmist and seemingly more soundly based on ecological principles than people like ehrlich.
never even heard of john holdrin.
I think that it has been pretty soundly debunked that the planet is in any way overpopulated, or that the food supply isn't able to keep up with it.
There was a time when folks like hardin and ehrlich had a certain amount of cache... but no longer.
Holdren is an interesting, if wacky, case. He is the advisor to President Obama. Here is some background.
"Holdren's radicalism dates back to the late 1960s. In 1969 Holdren wrote that it was imperative to convince society and its leaders that there is no alternative but the cessation of our irresponsible, all-demanding, and all-consuming population growth.
That same year, he and (the now largely discredited) professor of population studies Paul Ehrlich jointly predicted: If
population control measures are not initiated immediately and effectively, all the technology man can bring to bear will not fend off the misery to come. In 1971 Holdren and Ehrlich warned that some form of ecocatastrophe, if not thermonuclear war, seems almost certain to overtake us before the end of the century.
Viewing capitalism as an economic system that is inherently harmful to the natural environment, Holdren and Ehrlich in 1973 called for a massive campaign
to de-develop the United States and other Western nations in order to conserve energy and facilitate growth in underdeveloped countries."
'Science Czar' John P. Holdren's disturbing beliefs about America, capitalism and humanity
"Obama's Science Czar Wrote Book Advocating Forced Abortions, Sterilizing Americans By Poisoning Our Drinking Water "
Ehrlich, Paul R., Anne H. Ehrlich and John P. Holdren; Ecoscience:*... - White House
"He is also one of the main engineers of the Eugenics operation going on right now. A book he authored in 1977 advocates for extreme totalitarian measures to control the population. In this book he wrote that: Women could be forced to abort their pregnancies, whether they wanted to or not. The population at large could be sterilized by infertility drugs intentionally put into the nation's drinking water or in food. Single mothers and teen mothers should have their babies seized from them against their will and given away to other couples to raise. People who "contribute to social deterioration" (i.e. undesirables) "can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility" -- in other words, be compelled to have abortions or be sterilized. A transnational "Planetary Regime" should assume control of the global economy and also dictate the most intimate details of Americans' lives -- using an armed international police force."
"Holdren claimed that, "if the population control measures are not initiated immediately, and effectively, all the technology man can bring to bear will not fend off the misery to come."[10] In 1973 Holdren encouraged a decline in fertility to well below replacement in the United States, because "210 million now is too many and 280 million in 2040 is likely to be much too many"[11]. Currently, the U.S. population is 306,924,000[12]. In 1977 he co-authored (with Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich) Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment,[13] which discussed the possible role of a wide range of solutions to overpopulation, from voluntary family planning at one extreme, to a "planetary regime" of enforced population control at the other extreme."
John Holdren - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Does being spectacularly wrong about a major issue in your field of expertise hurt your chances of becoming the presidential science advisor? Apparently not, judging by reports from DotEarth and ScienceInsider that Barack Obama will name John P. Holdren as his science advisor on Saturday. [UPDATE: Mr. Obama did indeed pick Dr. Holdren.] "
"In 1980 Dr. Holdren helped select five metals chrome, copper, nickel, tin and tungsten and joined Dr. Ehrlich and Dr. Harte in betting $1,000 that those metals would be more expensive ten years later. They turned out to be wrong on all five metals, and had to pay up when the bet came due in 1990. "
"Dr. Holdrens resistance to dissenting views was also on display earlier this year in an article asserting that climate skeptics are dangerous. (You can read about the response to that article at DotEarth.)"
Flawed Science Advice for Obama? - TierneyLab Blog - NYTimes.com