You Call That Environmentalism? I Call It Anti-HumanBy Joshua Krause Not so fast there Captain Planet! Havent you heard? Humanity is a cancer on the Earth, and if you really want to save mother nature, you wont be having any kids. Capisce! Im kidding of course, but Im sure youve heard that argument before, right? Its become a bit of a meme among some environmentalists. They think that by virtue of being human, youre automatically a source of pain and pollution for the planet, without exception. They fall just short of suggesting that you kill yourself for the planet, rather than presenting some sensible ideas for making the world a better place. I stumbled upon this frankly anti-human opinion recently when I read an article posted on elitedaily.com (which advertise itself as the voice of Generation Y). Its titled Why Science Says Having Kids May Be A Bad Idea. The author starts by criticizing our culture for promoting procreation, and then goes through some of the pitfalls of child rearing, such as stress and financial expenses. She then goes through some of the main talking points that are often used by environmentalists to argue against human procreation. Lets see how well these talking points hold up in reality, shall we? 1. Hunger Within the past two years, around one in every eight people in the world were estimated to be victims of chronic hunger. Thats 842 million people who go hungry around the world. Most parts of the planet are not suitable for growing crops or producing food and available arable soil is becoming increasingly difficult to find. I hate to break it to you, but the number of people in the world who are going hungry is decreasing dramatically. Despite the current population growth, only 795 million people go hungry on a regular basis now. Thats still pretty bad, but 25 years ago it was over 991 million people. Even though providing enough food for humanity is becoming more challenging, so far weve been able to meet that challenge and then some. 2. Lack of water Perhaps an issue more troublesome than hunger is the lack of water resources available on earth. About 2.5 percent of all the planets water is freshwater, with less than one percent (~0.007 percent) accessible for immediate human use. Its true that were seeing some pretty severe water shortages all over the Earth right now. But part of the problem isnt our doing. We dont have much say over whether or not we have a drought. As for the other part of the problem, I guess some humans can be pretty wasteful with their water, but we tend to use up whatever is available, and we cut back when there isnt enough. When there is a shortage, its often due to the wastefulness of governments, who distribute the water without considering supply and demand. The only point Ill concede here, is that much of the water depletion on Earth is caused by pollution and unsustainable agricultural practices. But maybe we should put our big brains together to solve the problem (which we humans are pretty good at right?), rather than thinning the population. 3. Global warming Unless you are part of the surprisingly large group of people who think global warming is a myth (its not), you know how dangerous this is. Temperatures are rising as more people release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels. Simple and seemingly harmless actions like driving a car, operating a gas stove or turning on an oil lamp burn fossil fuels and further threaten the environment. Its true, the percentage of the atmosphere that consists of carbon dioxide has been going up for decades and, yes, carbon dioxide does influence the temperature of the planet. But, on the other hand, there hasnt been any global warming for over 18 years now, despite the fact that Co2 levels have continued to rise. Are you really prepared to say that the human race is causing the planet to warm? 4. Pollution This one is pretty self-explanatory. More people, more pollution. From tossing cigarette butts on the street, to throwing out (non-recyclable) plastics, to dumping garbage in the ocean, pollution will always be more intense the more people there are contributing to it. Except that not everybody throws their crap on the ground, or doesnt recycle, or buys tons of Chinese-built garbage that theyll never need. How about you teach your kids to act like responsible adults instead of avoiding parenthood (or maybe you should avoid parenthood. You dont sound like youre up to the task.) In any case, our trash isnt as big of a problem as you might think. If you put all of the landfills in America together, you would wind up with a site that is only 10 square miles in size (which was the largest estimate I could find). Even if we had another billion kids tomorrow, it wouldnt be an insurmountable issue. 5. Space Space is also a concern. Take New York City, for example. More than 8.3 million people are crowded into a place that only covers a little over 300 square miles. By ignoring the damage caused by urban sprawl when an overpopulated urban area seeps into surrounding neighborhoods (e.g. New Jersey, Westchester, Long Island and other suburbs) the citys environment takes a beating from the enormous amount of people squeezed into the space. I guess you got me there. It is possible that, at some point, we could run out of space. In all likelihood, however, thats not going to happen. The global population is expected to stabilize at some point in the 21st century, and then fall. The reason why is quite simple. While the population is still increasing, the rate at which its increasing, is actually going down. Heck, most developed countries are struggling to have enough kids to sustain themselves. Their native-born populations are dropping like a rock. Developing countries will soon follow. And thats a problem that most environmentalists dont acknowledge. We dont have an overpopulation problem. Were on the cusp of a global demographic collapse, and falling fertility rates are not helping. People arent having as many kids as they used to, and its not being caused by the musings of their friendly neighborhood environmentalist. But even if that werent the case, so what? The reason why there are so many people living today is because of our technological prowess. If we all lived like our nomadic ancestors, we would have ran out of space several millennia ago. If we were still using medieval technologies, we would have never reached our current population. The population will only grow to the extent that our technologies will increase the carrying capacity of the planet, so there is no need to force people to stop procreating. Coincidentally, that is exactly what this anti-human notion often leads to. As I near the end of my post, the population has reached 7,145,579,198. It is too late to reset that number, but we can still stop it from climbing even higher. Although Chinas one-child policy is a forceful way to combat overpopulation, the country is on the right track, and we should follow its example. Better yet, we should stop having children entirely if we want to keep the planet alive and well. I guess humans cant decide for themselves how many kids theyre capable of supporting, by gauging their income and the limitations of their environment. No, apparently were just a bunch of rats that will breed uncontrollably until we starve ourselves to death; and despite being the most innovative and intelligent species on Earth, were incapable of increasing our numbers without killing the planet. I guess well just have to give up our freedoms to a life-hating tyrannical regime, and off ourselves for carbon credits. Give me a break. Joshua Krause is a reporter, writer and researcher at The Daily Sheeple, where this article first appeared. He was born and raised in the Bay Area and is a freelance writer and author. You can follow Joshuas reports at Facebook or on his personal Twitter. Joshuas website is Strange Danger. Our controllers have been indoctrinating us into a construct that is wrought with lack, scarcity and shortages. Truth is; there is more than enough abundance of everything, for everyone. I truly believe that we will live to see a shift in this reality, as we come together and realize the biggest lie of all: that we are separate. From each other, from Source. We have help, more every day. It doesnt take a rocket scientist to understand the world around us. Joshua Krauss made some very good points. Humans per se are not the cause of the problems but our governments greed and allowing multi-national corporations to rape and pillage around the world are the greatest threat to humanity. The PTB want to keep all of humanity enslaved and controlled. The PTB keep talking population reduction because they do not have the man power under their control to keep the masses from rebelling against their austerity programs. The manipulation and control has been going on for thousands of years. As long as the progressives write the textbooks our educational system will continue to deteriorate. The media is bought and paid for by the governments. More people need to wake up and realize how they are being used and abused by government. Great post, Frances. the name of the originating post is a giveaway:-) Wow. You should write an autobiographical piece and publish it as A LIFE DECEIVED. Good stuff. Weve all been deceived beyond our current understanding. 