Too Many People?: Has the “Population Bomb” Exploded Yet?
In 1968, biologist Paul Ehrlich published the book – The Population Bomb – which became a wake-up call to the world that there were just too many people on the planet; and if something wasn’t done about it soon, there would be grave consequences. Indeed, almost 45 years later, the world is enduring perhaps the most serious ecological breakdown in human history. Famine, climate change, poverty, starvation, ever-increasing pollution… and species are going extinct at 1,000 times their natural pace due to human activity, with 35 to 40 species vanishing each day.
Was Ehrlich right then?
In the April/May 2009 issue of Free Inquiry – a flagship magazine of the humanist/skeptic/science advocacy think tank, The Center for Inquiry – the editors published a new essay by Erlich along with three others on the topic of overpopulation. Only one of the four articles disagreed with Erlich’s opinion that we are at the brink of disaster.
Indeed, it seems counterintuitive to argue that 7 billion humans in every corner of the planet isn’t a serious problem, but is overpopulation the actual cause for our ecological crises? Is disease, poverty, water and food shortages, pollution, and climate change ultimately a result of what some cynics call a cancer on the face of the Earth… Us? Or is something else going on here?
We will address these questions and concerns with special guest Ian Angus as we ask, are there too many people? Angus is editor of Climate and Capitalism, an online journal focusing on capitalism, climate change, and the ecosocialist alternative. His previous books include The Global Fight for Climate Justice, and his new book is Too Many People?: Population, Immigration, and the Environmental Crises.
I’m listening to Ian Angus on your Too Many People episode. I heard him say the “tar” sands being mined in Alberta is the size of Florida. Florida is 69,795 sq mi. If you GoogleEarth the mining operations around Fort McMurray the total area is about 340 sq mi. This is 0.4% the size of Florida. It is half the size of Lake Okeechobee in Florida.
Also from Wikipedia
Oil sands, tar sands or more technically bituminous sands, are a type of unconventional petroleum deposit. The sands contain naturally occurring mixtures of sand, clay, water, and a dense and extremely viscous form of petroleum technically referred to as bitumen (or colloquially tar due to its similar appearance, odour and colour)
It is not in rock.
Please publish corrections.
Thanks
As a Canadian, perhaps I can be forgiven for naming the wrong state in a live interview? If so, I will forgive Steve Lange for only mentioning the area that is now being mined, which is a tiny fraction of the area that is subject to exploitation in the coming decade.
The Alberta Tar Sands lie beneath 4.3 million hectares of boreal forest — That’s 16,000 square miles. That’s an area twice as big as New Jersey, which is the comparison I usually offer.
If Steve prefers, I will now say: The tar sands are more than 23 times as large as Lake Okeechobee.
As for his second nitpick — a geologist might not describe tar sand as rock, but to a lay person it is as solid as … well, rock. If you were hit by a piece of it, you wouldn’t know the difference.