In an NPR piece yesterday, Bill Chappell noted that “the war between Israel and Hamas is being fought, in part, through disinformation and competing claims.”
Wise words at the close of the letter. Life is a gift. This planet is a gift, and both are unfathomably rich and fortunate. We endure floods, droughts, earthquakes, etc. and an array of infectious and congenital diseases, and yet, over all, this planet is paradise. Why is so much of our history and our present as a species devoted to making it a hell?
Because, our species is very destructive to itself and every living thing. Evolution either went too far or not far enough. It should have stopped with the monkeys or evolved into meditators.
I have always loved hawks. I love how they circle overhead when I hike, almost like they can feel my presence. I love their sound way up in the sky.
I was recently at my cabin window which overlooks my pond when I saw the hawk that has long lived around that pond suddenly appear from nowhere and ram into the ground. I pulled out my binoculars and watched.
The hawk was holding a small chipmunk who had probably been out sending his mating call right before he was caught.
While the Chipmunk struggled in my binoculars, the hawk bent his head down and started eating him.
I put my binoculars away and tried to get the image out of my mind, which, one week later, I have successfully done.
So, I don't, necessarily, think we are much different as a species than other species EXCEPT that we just breed way too successfully and the death rate among humans is WAY too low and now our population is about a million times larger than it should be. I blame vaccines. :-)
The damage is not caused by our behavior but by our sheer numbers. The planet cannot sustain the numbers of humans there are now and, we keep breeding. Out of control.
Respectfully, I think the old canard about over population is just that. Verified trends across the globe suggest birth rates are down. Just look at our once great nation: US birth rates and life expectancy is down for the first time in nearly 70 yrs. The unraveling of globalization will help w/ the downturn. Blaming science and vaccines for anything is dangerous. You should rethink your position b/c it’s reckless and myopic and frankly isn’t backed by the numbers. Take care and be well.
E-7. I always welcome the contrary view since that is the only view that leads to interesting conversation so thank you.
I think that it cannot be argued that the earth is not overpopulated by humans mainly because: The amount of forest that has been turned into farmland to support the rise of the current human population is incredibly vast. Just look at google earth sometime and try to find some forest someplace.
Farmland is about as bad as it can be for oxygen generation. It is the opposite. It generates tons of carbon if you add up all the tilling, tractors and trucks and fertilizer that farmland needs.
That forest, now gone, is that which gave us oxygen and that oxygen which gave us oxygen consumers life. Once all of the sources of oxygen in the atmosphere are gone, well, so are we.
But, nobody realizes that farmland is the real threat except, of course, farmers who know how bad it really is.
Thank you, Mike S. Having followed the UN and Zero Population Growth (now Population Connection, having learned this week that we are at 8 billion when the UN’s estimate is that the planet can support 2 billion, I am encouraging young friends who want children to adopt. Surely there are ways to make adoption of the world’s many orphans possible. But finding the love in our wretched present is another barrier.
As I grew up in a farming community, reminding everyone that Senators Tester and Warnock are working to make sure we have food. Senator Jon Tester needs funding. As the only Democrat in Idaho, he has an uphill battle to be re-elected. There is a farm bill that benefits small farmers. May we give Big Ag a dressing down and get it passed.
We as a society are lax about connecting the dots. Climate change is not only an inappropriate dependence on fossil fuels, it's the number of people, myself included, who are continuing to law their straws on the camel's back. There are remedies that will definitely help if we get serious about it, that will reduce the per capita burden on the environment, but the impact per person will never be zero. Conversion of habitat for balanced ecosystems is increasingly converted into concrete and monoculture. Our garbage down here is feeding an overabundance of seagull who migrate to the Arctic and out compete other species, resulting in population declines. Some of the Republicans want to outlaw birth control. Population concentration favors pandemics. The balance of nature that got us here is already going haywire.
Hello Virginia, I just want to differ from your assertion that "the UN estimate is that the planet can only support 2 billion people. The last time there were only 2 billion was 1927. In 1900 1.6 billion, 76 million Americans. The population of Africa was what Germany's Population is now. Currently, the most populous country is India at 1.3 billion on a land mass the size of the 11 western states. There are limits, but the issue is exponential growth and ability to adapt.
Mike, I just finished Braiding Sweetgrass. She suggests that one of the big problems is that we view everything as a commodity while Native Americans view what we need as a gift from mother nature, so they approach what they need as thanks, take only what they need, and work to sustain nature. In addition, one of her statements that struck me is everything does not have to be convenient which I have been mulling over since I read it. I would also say that the earth cannot sustain the world's population in a middle class life style.
Braiding Sweetgrass is an excellent book. In addition, take a look at https://www.overshootday.org/, according to which, in 2023 humanity is on track to use up the capacity of 1.7 Earths; in other words, we are overdrawing our "account" for what the Earth can provide (similar to overdrawing groundwater, which we are also doing). Overpopulation and, more importantly, over-consumption are drivers of this problem. As an example of the effects, fisheries around the world have collapsed due to unsustainable fishing practices. With the world's population demanding more meat and fish, this is an obvious result. We can hardly expect the third world to live on grain while we feast on steak. A difficult problem, to say the least.
I get what you’re saying and plz don’t take this badly but your analysis was relevant in 1989 when I graduated high school. In the 21st century there is a reason why virtually no one talks about that canard. I suggest you do some research on China and their catastrophic population collapse. It will be revelatory I promise. Thanks. Be well.
I live in Portland in a middle class to lower class neighborhood and their our coyotes roaming and in the more upscale neighborhood not far from here where I raise my family and my old neighbor still living there see coyotes in her back yard. We've driven animals out of their habitat so what do we expect. Over population mean destroying forests and wildlife.
Marine, with all due respect, what China has is an anti-immigration stance. Back in the day, China advocated (and enforced, effectively) a one-child-family policy (which was horrible for female children and resulted in a population completely unbalanced between males and females); coupled with a cultural aversion to immigration, they are now facing too small a youthful population to care for the elderly. They need to reverse their anti-immigration stance, and do as the US does - welcome enough immigrants into their borders to do the necessary work. There are plenty, more than plenty, of people from countries and regions in deadly turmoil who would be delighted to live someplace where they can raise their children in safety, and have a job that pays a meaningful wage. It would mean Chinese society and culture would have to change, and there would be overwhelming resistance (kind of like how the RWNJs regard immigration into the US - ironic, as virtually all of them are 2d- or 3d-generation Americans themselves), but, and I realize this is unlikely to occur, but this is a workable solution.
There are better ways to do things now tho, that can support the population. People think about sustainability now like they never did before. All I get today is Bad things happen when Billionairs exert their will on the rest of us!
'Rapid population growth is about to hit the countries whose economies and climates are least equipped to handle it.'
'A woman wearing a red dress and floral headscarf holds a baby as she speaks with a nurse, who stands behind a poster explaining how to prevent unwanted pregnancies. A field and trees are visible beneath a cloudy sky in the background.'
'The world’s population of about 8 billion is expected to reach 10.4 billion by 2100, a growth largely driven by a phenomenon called “population momentum.” Population momentum occurs when a large generation of young people in their reproductive years leads to the number of births exceeding the number of deaths.'
'Given that momentum, there is very little that policies or family planning can do to curb population growth for the next several decades, said John Bongaarts, a distinguished scholar at the Population Council, a nonprofit that conducts demographic research on underserved populations.'
“You have very large numbers of young people, and these young people have to go through reproductive years, which takes 40 to 50 years,” Bongaarts said.' “Then you have the children of these children, so momentum actually takes more than three decades to run its course. Maybe 60 to 70 years.”
'That would be good news for affluent countries that are grappling with record-low fertility rates, aging populations, and shrinking workforces. In the United States, people aged 65 and older are projected by 2034 to outnumber those under the age of 18 for the first time in U.S. history. China recorded its first population decline in decades this January, and an aging population has already put an expiration date on its economic miracle. South Korea is desperately looking for ways to raise its fertility rate, currently the world’s lowest at 0.78 births per woman. A fertility rate of 2.1 is needed for a country to maintain a stable population without migration.'
'But instead, half of the global population growth from 2022 to 2050 will occur in sub-Saharan Africa. The region’s population is currently growing three times faster than the rest of the world, and by the end of the century, it will be home to a third of all people in the world, compared to only 14 percent in 2019. This means that the burden of rapid population growth will fall on some of the poorest countries in the world, with nearly half of the region having a gross national income per capita below $1,135, and in places that are among the most vulnerable to climate change.' (ForeignPolicy) Link below. I am not a
subscriber but did not face its paywall. Sorry, that I cannot guarantee that it won't be a barrier.
When I was studying Wildlife Biology in University, I learned population overgrowth is generally followed by collapse. The collapse is caused by disease, strife, or migration. Today we can add in environmental catastrophe. If we humans do not bring our population back to sustainable levels (and practices), natural processes will, and likely in increasingly unpleasant ways.
Modern medicine is a wonderful thing, but it is far too often used to selfish ends such as ever extending life spans. Sure living a long time is generally great, until the equilibrium is thrown out of balance, as it has been. I’m in my late 60s, many of my ancestors barely 3 generations back made it out of their 40s and 50s . . . my great grandmother passed away before 40.
Nature is harsh and will seek equilibrium any way it can . . . either. through famine, disease, or war. If we want peace and happiness we need to reduce our numbers or natural processes will.
Even Republicans cannot ultimately get away with ignoring "laws" of nature. We are gifted with enough intelligence to avoid some of the worst traps of unwise behavior, but cursed with appetites that encourage us to ignore what nature tells us if we pay enough attention. Appetites make life worth living (we even have a appetite for learning) but it's too easy to fudge on the "paying attention" part and working it into the action plan. I fail to do so on a regular basis. I think it helps if we encourage each other to be a little more attentive.
Interestingly, we cease to be fertile, for the most part, beyond our mid 30's. Fertility beyond 35 is supported by increasingly complex assisted conception. Declining death rates at all ages are producing the imbalance in populations. "Retirement" is a 20th century invention. Life expectancies did not allow for retirement for the most part until after WWII. If our death rates were increasing at a similar rate as our birth rate is dropping, the population would decline but the ratio of young to old would remain in better balance. Currently, vanishingly few reach what it considered the outer horizon of human longevity (around 120 years), but more and more are reaching their 9th and 10th decade. They cease being "productive" in their 6th and 7th decades. There's no reason to assume that the trends will be any different in Asia, India and Africa than they have been in western countries going forward. Higher infant/child survival, higher education, higher standard of living will be followed by declining birth rates and aging populations. If we don't destroy ourselves in the meantime, world population will peak, then stabilize, then begin to decline as the death rate ultimately exceeds a declining world birth rate. It will not be uniform, by any means, but will vary considerably region by region.
I tell young people who don't have children: Don't. Get a dog. Or, a cat. Or. both. Why do humans think they should spend the most productive years of their lives raising other humans? Tradition? Someone to care for them in their old age? That doesn't happen any more. That was for farm families way back in the day when there was such a thing.
I got grounded in envirionmental science, including global warming, in 1975, in a class at UC Berkeley given by John Holdren, who three decades and change later became Pres O's Science Advisor.
Among other things, we depend on ecosystem services, which intact ecosystems provide for us, and land that has been taken up in sprawl and agriculture and other human uses does not provide. We've put somewhere around 75% of the land on earth to our own uses, and much of the rest of earth is covered with snow and ice (Antarctica).
Ecosystem services provide clean air, clean water, they complete the carbon cycle preventing global warming--or they used to do that. They provide pollination, fertile soil, food, now mostly in the form of ocean fish, since there's little left for hunting and gathering, but the 8,000,000,000 now on Earth have used up most of that resource.
Ecosystem services also provide disease prevention, by preserving ecosystem integrity. But new diseases have been emerging, and a group of scientists warned in Nature--one of the premier scientific journals--that that ecosystem service is very much at risk with the growth in the human population. HIV, which emerged in Africa, COVID, which emerged in Asia, and the various tick-borne diseases such as Lyme, which emerged in the US, are all examples of diseases that had been kept in check by nature, but that have emerged due to encroachment of human civilization on nature.
In other words, that "canard" is absolutelly not a canard and Earth is very much overpopulated, as is the United States.
Furthermore, in the US, while our birth rate is now way down, our population still skyrocketing, because of immigration. And that's a major problem as we are the major industrialized nation with the greatest per capita greenhouse emissions, and the greatest per capita resource use, generally, in other words, one of the worst places on the planet to put more people. Our Census Bureau projects that we will add 75 million over the next 40 years, equivalent to nearly four New York States--all but 7 million from immigration.
Also, the population of Africa is expected to double in the next generation, to three billion. The magafauna are likely to go extinct, or to become so sparse tht they will barely be hanging on. Elephants, for example, among the smartest non-humans on the planet, migrate thousands of miles annually in their search for food and water--something that the population growth in Africa will probably make very difficult. Elephants are among the more empathetic creatures on the planet, and it would be a great shame to lose them. The reason: the oldest female is automatically the group leader, so there is none of the sort of backstabbing that is typical of humans jockeying for power, which means that there is no evolutionary pressure for that to evolve among elephants.
If I had studied biology or anything to do with the natural world, I think I would want to put a gun to my head. I can't stand anything bad that happens to many aspects of nature. You name it. As a child I was fascinated by insects. ....Elephants! Indians worship them. To me, they are closer to gods than that imaginary god.
I loved caterpillars and butterflies as a kid. I fell in love with dung beetles writing an article on them for Smithsonian. And, yes, elephants are wonderful beings.
That "canard" is not a canard. Our planet is hugely overpopulated, with 8,000,000,000 (8 billion) people on it. People who study sustainability have calculated that it would take more than four earths to support the current population at the US standard of living.
We use around half of earth's habitable land for agriculture alone, and much more for our cities, our roads and highways, our homes and workplaces, etc. We are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction, the first major extinction since the asteroid that led to the dinosaurs' demise hit Earth.
And even among animals, that haven't gone extinct, populations are being decimated. There are less than half as many individual insects as there were 50 years ago, and insects form much of the bottom of the food chain.
Intact ecosystems provide vital services to life on earth. These ecosystem services include clean water, clean air, protection from global warming through removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, fertile soil, pollination, disease prevention, food--which these days is primarily ocean fish, but we are fast decimating those populations, and much more.
As for disease prevention, the decimation of ecosystems has been interfering with that service. HIV, COVID, and tick-borne diseases such as lyme are all diseases that got into the human population due to overpopulation. And within the last two years, a paper in Nature, one of the premier scientific journals on the planet, warned that if we didn't do something about the population explosion, we'd see a lot more new diseases.
while we are nearing what is predicted will be the peak of the human population, which will occur probably early in the next century, this will not happen before we've gained another two and a half billion people. And that, and global warming will reduce Earth's carrying capacity even more.
The next hundred years are probably going to be quite unpleasant for much, if not most of the human population. In fact, within the next several decades, Propublica projects that MILLIONS of Americans will become climate refugees.
Thanks, Jennifer and Gayle for bringing us back to the subject. While there are certainly wars fought over food, natural resources, and water, there are many that are fought over religion and ideology. That's arrogance, as in "my blank is better than your blank."
Another interesting comment. I hope everyone else caught the sarcasm in your vaccine reference. Technically, you are spot on. But I am sure you encourage all people to stay "boosted", right?
The single biggest idiocy of the human species is its over population. To fill this tiny orb with more than two or three billion (pick a random number) creatures all consuming and polluting and defiling the environment with its own detritus is certifiably nuts. We think we are smarter than all the other species. But we never used the amazing brain power that we have to manage ourselves intelligently.
So we breed and breed in an effort to dominate other tribes, to provide workers on our farms, to replace the ones that will die through accidents or disease. But as we cured the illnesses and prevented many accidents, we didn't stop.
The average number of children in Haredi familes is 7. The government pays the fathers to read the Torah. Not work. Not serve in the military or in any other capacity. In a few years they will be the majority of Israel. Just one example of thousands.
All over the world, birth control is a fantasy. Men demand sex. Women have little control over their reproductive destiny. Often because of religious men who dominate their lives. Men who think with their little heads instead of their big ones.
It can't be said too often. We reached the population tipping point a long time ago. And now we are watching the results. We altered the planet - exacerbated the natural forces of weather. We are flooding and burning up. There were always floods and fires. But we have put our weather system on some sadistic steroids.
What to do? Try finding scientific solutions. Help spread the starving suffering folks around as humanely as possible. Provide birth control opportunities where they don't exist. Do the best we can to treat others as we would like to be treated. As a species we blew it. Now we just need to manage the mess as best we can with compassion for others and respect for the tiny orb that we were hatched on.
Or we can be hawks - not the kind that eat rodents (which carry Lyme ticks!) - hawks that eat other birds. When the hawks screech overhead in our region, there are no other birds to be seen or heard. Silence, except for the screech. Reminds me of "Silent Spring" - one of the first calls for sanity.
I am in the process of doing a massive tree planting on one of my old farm fields. I was trying to let it "go back to nature" and become forested on its own BUT, invasive Honeysuckle was taking over instead. Another "DOH" that Europeans brought to America. Honeysuckle.
Farmland looks pretty out the window of a car driving through NY. But, in reality, farmland is former forested land that is now one of the largest producers of carbon on earth.
When you plow a field it releases carbon in two ways. 1) Turning the soil itself releases carbon gases from that soil due to plant life being turned into fertilizer naturally. 2) The 90 HP diesel tractor used to plow the field is pumping massive amounts of pollution and carbon into the atmosphere. Not to mention the noise pollution.
Farming is the real threat to all of the earth's natural living things. Farming is the exact opposite of the diversity of life that occurs when farming is NOT done on land.
We plow. Then, we take seeds that are all the same, plant them, and produce identical plants across millions of acres and then harvest them ensuring that natural, native species can never be again.
Farming is horrible. Without farming, almost all of us are dead.
Quite a sharp edge we all live on if you think about it.
Without farms, we don't have enough food to feed the planet. It's not farming itself that's horrible; it's INDUSTRIAL farming, which more often than not involves the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, fossil fuels for machinery, and so on. I would not denigrate our local farms, the majority of which have less than 20 acres and have to diversify their products in order to survive.
There are other methods of farming than massively turning the soil. My own farm (dry land) in Kansas is operated using “no till” or “minimal till” methods. That plus leaving the post harvest residue behind allows the soil to hold moisture and build nutrients. It’s not perfect, but has us moving in a more sustainable direction.
Mike, I have become interested in regenerative agriculture, the “food forest” concept in particular. It does not lend itself to massive production on the scale of corporate farms (that’s the point), but rather more local food production & distribution. I have, at my place, just enough land to make a neighborhood food forest but, alas, I have outgrown (getting too old & creaky) the ability & resources to pull it off. Sigh, if only I’d known about this 34 yrs ago when I purchased my place!
It is absolutely possible to practice farming in a way that captures carbon at a greater rate than releasing it. Read more about soil building, carbon capture, no-till farming, regenerative agriculture. Read about the potential net effect of deploying winter cover crops on all of the currently tilled land around the world, were that to occur.
Mike S - have you run across the FacePlant group "Native Plants of the NorthEast"? Lots of people providing a lot of valuable information about what is native to each region of the Northeast (NY as opposed to Maine, for example), where seeds and transplants can be located in your area, whether a particular plant in someone's yard is native or not, etc. I enjoy reading the posts - you may find it helpful, and you may be able to provide information to other members of the group.
But don't plant them randomly. They should be trees that grow naturally in an area, trees that feed the caterpillars that feed the birds, or that otherwise fit well into the local ecology. After I learned that in my area (metrowest Boston) oaks are particularly good at feeding the caterpillars that feed the birds, I noticed that I have a handful of small oaks in my hard. I don't expect those trees to need much nurturing, but I will avoid cutting them down, which I might otherwise have done, and I will be watching for more to emerge.
Bill, back in the late 60’s, looking down the road of the earth’s carrying capacity, my then husband and I took a vow to be child-free….a vow we both kept. I’ll say it again, humans = Hubris sapiens. How we can be so intelligent and stupid at the same time baffles me.
I have two dear friends, who had one child. Their child and her husband have decided not to have children, and will probably adopt when they are more financially stable. While my friends are disappointed, they still support her, and look forward to grandkids when the time comes that adoption becomes feasible.
Oh, that more couples made decisions like that. And apparently passed on not just their genes but their beliefs. I learned about overpopulation when I was 18 - good fodder to carry on. PLUS I didn’t want to be a mother like my own was. Yikes! I enjoy my pet babies immensely.
I had not only taken a child-free vow, but a husband-free one as well. I also had not one iota of interest in writing a book. Thank God I paid attention to Divine Intelligence! Successfully single until the age of 45, I am now married to my dream companion. in 2011, a mentor introduced to a homeless teenage girl from Turkey. Frank and I adopted her and Mother's Day is my new favorite holiday...and I've written two books. Just to say that adoption is under-rated as well as a problem solver....
The children in the past were NOT raised by the birth parents. They were raised by older folks. ...older siblings...
You got your most energetic years to be yourself.
Now, you are yourself and can relax and enjoy a child who came to you as a gift. Lucky her. too.
My husband and I were 18 (1958!) when "experimentation/fooling around" led to marriage. We had to "grow up" at the same time the boy and his twin sisters were growing up. We were lucky we all pulled through. The odds were against that.
I became concerned about overpopulation at age 9, in 1962. I was focused mostly on the US, although my vision enlarged as I got older. Unfortunately, both the population of the US and that of the world have increased hugely, and although we're just one country, our population increase--by more than 100 million since the early '60s--has had an outsized effect on global warming, since we're the major industrialized nation with the greatest per capita greenhouse emissions.
Worse, the Census Bureau projects we'll be adding another 75 million to the population over the next 40 years, equivalent to nearly four NY State population equivalents, and all but 7 million (one Massachusetts equivalent) due to immigration.
This, at a time when we're running out of water, endangering our agriculture and our sustainability
My wife and I decided to go out and find a child that needed parents. Turns out it was quite simple and no more costly than all the costs associated with conception to parturition. True, he doesn't share our chromosomes, but in every other respect he's our son.
Read Daniel Quinn's Classic "Ishmael" then "The Story of B" or "Beyond Civilization" to understand the population mess we've gotten ourselves into. That may be starting to rectify itself as so many young people are deciding to go childless. Education helps in this quest.
Want to learn how to farm and encourage the Earth to be a carbon sink rather than a carbon source, read Joel Salatin's books starting with "The Sheer Ecstasy of being a Lunatic Farmer" or visit his place, Polyface Farm, in Stokes, VA or on the web.
And stop wanting so much. Population is just half the problem. It seems as though every human being wants everything every other human being has and the media encourages that craziness. Turn off the damn television and forgo 99% of social media. I've never used Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or any of their cousins and believe I'm richer for that. No one is convincing me I "need" something more.
Your last line sounds positively Zen. You have found a "way". I like it.
I grow a lot of our food. No tilling, no chemicals, a bounty every year that we share with family and friends. From asparagus to zucchini. Current commercial farming techniques are a recipe for disaster.
I grow some of my own. Lots of figs and Asian persimmons plus my favorite veggie, Tenderette Bush Beans and a few assorted peppers and tomatoes. I still have 6 potted bush beans going this year; they're inside and while I smile at my inability to let them go the way of other summer veggies, I had a fresh bean pod not two hours ago. I serve them and they serve me; I like it that way.
Haredi Jews are a tiny piece of the problem. There are a mere 16 million Jews in the whole world. Africa is expected to double its population over the next generation, to 3 billion, which will probably wipe out most of the megafauna, which will be a tragedy of huge proportions. Elephants, for example, are among the smartest non-humans on the planet. They migrate thousands of miles annually, and they are empathetic, and much nicer than H. sapiens, probably because of their politics. The oldest female is automatically the group leader, so theres none of the back-stabbing in the quest for power that occurs among H. sapiens.
The population explosion going on in the US is particularly damaging because we are the majior industrialized nation with the greatest per capita greenhoiuse emissions--the worst place on the planet to put more people.
Yet we have a policy of growing oiur population through immigration. The average immigrant's GH emissions rise threefold after arrival--not surprising since most come from countries with low per capita GH emissions.
The Census Bureau projects we'll add the equivalent of nearly four NY States over the next 40 years, 90 percent of that due to mass immigration. And this despite the fact that our country faces a couple of environmental crises. We are running out of groundwater, endangering our agricultural production. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/08/28/climate/groundwater-drying-climate-change.html
Being a NYC resident for 45 years, I am familiar with the Hasidic or Orthodox living in Brooklyn. Same deal: tax money for schools that don't teach by anything close to NYC standards, building codes ignored, large families, men who study the Torah...some work but not outside of their "community. There are other similar communities in NY State and NJ. They keep pure by not mixing with the goyim. They take over by voting controlled by the leaders.
No free choice there. Mothers who leave the community due to abuse can count on losing their children. They and the young men who leave have a hard time making a living due their inadequate educations. They benefit by but share none of the values of a Democratic society.
Your comment is so disturbing and so wise. It seems that we used to talk about the need to address overpopulation. I’ve realized that in recent years it is barely discussed. I agree with your assessment completely. Unfortunately, I’m not confident that we have the capacity to
Talking about overpopulation usually gets people calling you nasty names. They think you’re all for killing the ones that are here, sterilizing the ones you don’t like & keeping immigrants from “wanting a better life.”
Add to that those who say we need MORE immigrants to keep our economies growing (& asset prices increasing!) & the airy fairies that think “we’ll manage with trillions more” (although “they” usually don’t want the newbies in “their” back yard.
Exactly Bill. I used to be called anti-Catholic for screaming that the Pope bears a good deal of the blame. The "Church" cares only about souls for heaven. If people only live long enough to die, so what? Birth control keeps those important numbers down. Can't have that.
I think the Catholic Church only cares about numbers....keep those women breeding away. That is one of the problems in Latin American countries....the poor people are told it's a sin to use birth control, the children are blessings.....Not if you can't feed them!! The wealthy get abortions....like everywhere.
What a vision for early morn. The truth be told. We are all crammed into a paradise slowly turning into hell. “You made me do it,” we scream at each other…
In 1951 when I was born there were 2.5 billion people on the earth. There are now over 7 billion people on this earth. It is a conundrum and that’s an understatement if there ever was one. Forget about reproductive healthcare. We can’t even get affordable general healthcare in our country. Also too many of our current leaders around the world seem to me, not up to the task (another understatement?). They are not as concerned with the greater good as they are with getting rich and/or having all the answers and being the smartest in the room (their knowledge often and unfortunately based in fundamentalist misogynist religion). Not sure my point except I think the earth’s human population size is a factor in the depletion of resources, migration and extreme climate events. Another understatement. Apologies. Meanwhile in this great population are an over abundance of grifters and con men of which Donald Trump is just one of many in the U.S. alone.
I was born in 1939. In my life, I believe we will have used 90%* of the natural resources. When I was 12, the teacher had a graph to show that the USA was 20%* of the world's population but we were using 80% * of the worlds natural resources. I think the message was that we knew how to get them and what to do with them. My thought was: WHY? what about the future humans? I never forgot that appalling little lesson. Years later, all of a sudden people got concerned with how much stuff we were using. But, mostly, we just keep using, wasting, depleting, seeing the 3rd world countries desperate for basic necessities like water. I remember when the world's population hit 5 billion; I said to myself: it's over. I tell young people who don't have children: Don't. Get a dog...or, a cat. In 50 years, there won't be any Democracies.
Mary Ellen. You state your age in your post - and with many others here posting age-related comments - I wonder what the age range is of us, the readers of Dr. Richardson. I am 82 years of age - how about the rest of you?
Hi Mike, Human over-population has many causes. Among the great apes, chimpanzees and bonobos, mothers nurse their babies/ youngsters for five years, until they young ones are competent to forage on their own. Nursing inhibits ovulation, and mothers seldom get pregnant again until they have weaned their last baby, and have a few months to gain weight and improve their physical condition. This results in most females bearing 5-7 babies, and raising 2 or 3 successfully to independence.
This same pattern is observed today in the remaining Hunter-gathers, such as the !Kung pygmies, and in the few true nomads, such as some Turkic peoples, where seasonal ovulation is observed, as evidenced by all children being born between March and June, 9 months after women have access to peak nutritional sources each year. In bad nutritional years, very few babies are born the next spring.
Also we can see that in societies where women have individual access to birth control resources, they tend to regulate the number of children they have, based on their perceived resources available to raise those children to adulthood and the amount of social support they feel they have. Modern Japan is the best example of this that I am aware of.
In societies where women do not have the means to regulate their reproductive choices, where children are seen as necessary laborers for a family, or number of children is an indicator of male status, we see much higher birth rates.
Advances in modern dentistry (in medieval Europe, abscessed teeth were the cause or a contributor in 40% of all adults deaths) and water, sewage and sanitation management reduced death rates dramatically anywhere they were implemented, although we still see outbreaks of cholera to this day. Antibiotics to cure bacterial infections, and vaccines to stop viral plagues came later. Humans reduced the death rates, and developed means to reduce birth rates, but in societies with monotheistic religions and/or patriarchal social systems, we forgot to let women evaluate their individual situations and make choices that fit their circumstances. So we see refugees pouring north out of Central America, refugees pouring north out of Central Africa, and 700,000 Palestinians trapped in Gaza, an area of land that is pretty much the same size as my family’s ranch in Wyoming.
Ugh. STEM type education for women around the world, uninfluenced by any flavor of religion (religions are good for dealing with the great mysteries of life and death, but by definition, none of them keep up with advances in modern medicine, you know what I mean?), and women’s access to adequate forms of reproductive management are the things that will help save this planet. That and quick, sure punishment for war criminals, rapists, and other outlier men who think only of their own glory or pleasure.
You’ve given us much to think about today Mike, thank you. Population is a bifurcated problem: too much in developing countries; too little in mature economies. As for the hawk, like most wild animals, he only takes what he needs. We humans, however, have created a perverse system of insatiable hunger. No matter how much we have, we want more. What was once a system of storage to prevent hunger and depredation in lean times, has become a destructive need to accumulate wealth without limit. It is this greed that threatens our lovely planet and all who call her home.
This profound inequality gives rise to poverty, famine, war, disease, addiction, mental illness, environmental destruction and despair. We could choose to tax the rich appropriately, but, they’ve rigged the system and made us feel helpless. There is enough for us all if we could learn how to share it. History tells us that birth rates go down when people feel secure.
UN projections show various scenarios, and though i agree the overall numbers are not sustainable, world populations are expected to peak over the next 50 years or so, depending.... on population control and/or a deteriorating environment. I remember, about 40 years ago reading Loren Aisley describing the human species as a virus, taking over the planet, with impending catastrophe, having spoiled our own beds. Population growth rates hadnt begun to slow down at that time, other then maybe Europe and Japan.
I love hawks and birds of prey and want to come back as one in my next incarnation. I love watching them soar through the air, completely owning the airspace. Our population is unsustainable and very destructive to Mother Earth. We humans are competitive and have violent tendencies. The wars going on now in the Middle East and Ukraine, make me very concerned for our existence, esp with madmen like Putin, who has is threatening nuclear war and the rise of the MAGA cult in our own country. Humans can be benevolent, but it seems that the few who gain the most power and wealth, become more greedy and violent. Also the rise of technology and AI. I don’t understand it but it could be very bad for us. The next 10 years will be the defining direction.
I agree with you, Mike. There was the Black Plague, Spanish flu, HIV--and yet the numbers kept growing. Via science, we found ways to outsmart Mother Nature's attempt to shrug some of us off: antibiotics, water sanitation, vaccines.
Our Sandy Lewis has suggested that the killing of the microbiome is responsible for the violence and mental illness that is plaguing us (no pun intended) today. Perhaps it is some subconscious spark in our reptilian brain that recognizes that too many of "us" leads to not enough resources for "me" and it fuels the fight.
We kill for reasons other than simply sating hunger pangs. We start and fight wars for gains in someone's wealth, or over disagreements of some kind of religious belief system. Your hawk was just hungry, the chipmunk was his meal.
Mike, in general, we don't kill our own to eat enough food to survive. Yes, we have too much population now, but that doesn't explain the amount of killing our own species at other times when the population was much lower. In one of the primate groups closest to us, chimps, most of the time fights can be settled, sometimes aided by the alpha female. (See Mama's Last Hug) But sometimes things do get out of hand. Other groups are not welcome.
Actually don’t be so sure. Population pressures increase competition for limited resources to satisfy basic needs. Add in pressures due to greed and people will take what they can when they can by force or otherwise.
I love nature; I spent a lot of my childhood and adulthood in the woods.
I'm not kidding about this; during HIV and AIDS, I was rooting for it to wipe out the humans.
It didn't effect the animals except the monkeys but that's OK: the monkeys can go.
Then COVID: it's not done with us. I think MaNature will take us down. I'm a big bat fan.
I have rescued a few. Donated them to the Jim Thorp Nature Center, which was thrilled to get them. They told me people just step on the babies that fall from the roofs of barns.
I speak to my X and when I go on about Palestine, he has 2 responses: Biden has to win!....And, He doesn't care about any humans; he only cares about animals. I respond: Right! I forgot that one! I don't actually care about humans either.
However... ..This thing is, I am obsessed with this!
Israel: CRAZY............Palestine: a Holocaust!!!
It's an interesting notion, but I think this is just who we are. But I don't think it makes us fundamentally evil or flawed, such that it'd be better for all of us if we weren't on the planet. While I am a Jew, I have some extended family that is Christian, and they often talk about this idea of theirs called Original Sin; how we're all irredeemable were it not for the power of their God and my families' submission to Him. I don't know if you have similar beliefs or not, but the lowest common denominator of your belief and theirs is that we as humans are fundamentally "bad" (your words saying our species is very destructive to itself and every living thing).
Regardless of provenance, I don't agree with this assessment. While we can be unmercifully cruel toward one another, we can also commit beautiful acts of charity and magnanimity towards each other. We are only a more sophistical animal than the others, but if, say, parakeets ruled the world, we'd be in trouble. I have 4 parakeets, and even though they are bonded pairs and all 4 have gotten along with each other, 3 of them just pecked the other to death while I wasn't home the other day. Why? Because the 4th had been trying to hide his illness, however, but when he got noticeably sick, they did him in. Bad; evil? No; it's just what they do; it's in their DNA. As humans, we generally don't murder our loved ones because they are sick. Good; holy? It's just what WE do.
I do agree with Mike, however, that the balance gets out of control when there are too many of us. There are only so many resources to go around. As the world's water cycle only produces a limited amount of potable water per annum, and as our global population expands, we can expect to see more fighting over this precious resources. Bad; evil? No; no animal wants to die of thirst!
And if it comes to be that we've become so smart that we create weapons that someone ultimately decides to star a conflict that could envelop the entire world....bad; evil? No; it's just us following part of our nature, as the Stoics might say.
Pretty funny that you say " it'd be better for all of us if we weren't on the planet."
All of us? I would love to be one of the very few here.
It would be better for the animals if we hadn't evolved into what we are. Some humans are harmless, just wanting to get along, some are creative but sadly, the greedy destructive ones seem to be running the show.
Thank God I don't believe in any religion....I feel sorry for those that do but kind of envy their delusional comfort of an after life. I see the old ladies in the Catholic Church here in Mexico.
They have had way too much to deal with in their lives, but they have Our Lady.
Read that back to yourself..."thank God I don't believe in any religion". There's some truth in that statement; God exists regardless of your system of belief. Delusional comfort? Perhaps it's you who are deluded...have you considered the possibility that it's you with the perception block?
To which God are you referring? Frankly, if there was a God, he/she/it would have moved off in disgust at what this creation: humans are doing to this perfect planet.
Imagine yourself watching two colonies of ants at war with one another...each absolutely bent on annihilation of the other. What is your perspective on the outcome of this epic war and it's significance for the future of the world? Just a very vague approximation of the difference in perspective between us and God. The ants probably have no perception of whether or not you exist or whether you have an opinion or not about them and which colony is "right". You might choose to stamp out the whole combined mess in some self-righteous sense of how "wrong it is" that ants engage in mortal conflict, or you might just conclude that this is a part of nature that ants must engage in conflict to protect their territory and "may the best colony win" and then walk off in disinterest about the outcome, realizing that in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter which ant wins.
Allow your mind to let the concept of God expand a bit in relation to our human perspective. In your current mental paradigm, the ants couldn't possibly conclude that there is a human observing their existential crisis.
Hmm. Well, the reality is that even misanthropes are stuck with the rest of us. :)
"Better for the animals?" Judith, you are an animal. So am I. So are my parakeets, and they'll still peck each other to death if they're sick. Lower-order animals aren't "better" than us; they just exist.
Harmless humans are great, but they're often the first to die in a zombie invasion. :) Seriously, it takes all kinds. The harmless humans don't run societies, yet they are a part of SOME kind of society. They depend on others to help them get by, just as we all depend on others to greater or lesser degree. It's not a coincidence that the Bahai, the Quakers, the Amish, etc., don't run any large society. Society is never run by pacifists. Yet that doesn't make societies "evil" per se, because as the Good Book says, there are times for war and times for peace. Peaceable Kingdom in perpetuity? Unreality.
I usually don't make a moral judgment, but I have to at this juncture: your statement that you feel sorry for those who believe in any religion is entirely crass. Those old Mexican women find some comfort in la Virgen because they've faced a lot of sh-t in their lives, and the consolation they get from religion helps them make it through. And they aren't the only ones. Your expressed sentiment in this regard shows a parsimoniousness of spirit; a lack of understanding of what others go through, although it may not be the case for you. I hope you rethink it.
I understand that you want to be one of the only ones here. But the world wasn't made just for you; it was made for the rest of us, too. :)
Agree............Those old Mexican women find some comfort in la Virgen because they've faced a lot of sh-t in their lives, and the consolation they get from religion helps them make it throughThose old Mexican women find some comfort in la Virgen because they've faced a lot of sh-t in their lives, and the consolation they get from religion helps them make it through.
BTW: you said: " it'd be better for all of us if we weren't on the planet."...if WE weren't on the planet, there would be any US.
There is fascinating research melding genetics, psychology, and anthropology. Researchers are onto a theory that every 350 to 500 years, our human genome shifts, or evolves to higher order thinking. This coincides with some form of technology: fire, speech, the wheel, art, writing, printing press, radio, movie/video/tv, internet speeding everything up. Light stimulates all growth and activates are brains in ways we are still learning about. We are always evolving. Think of our founders and their wisdom,Martin Luther, Davinci, Michaelangelo, the Greek philosophers, Arab mathematicians, Egyptian builders. Some among us have already have the newest gene and their kids will create new pathways to knowledge towards new technologies and compassion. Others never will. That is a source of tension we see in the world right now. Like I said, it is a fascinating field of study.
But, Martin Luther, DaVinci, Michaelangelo, the Greek philosophers, Arab mathematicians, Egyptian builders...are not the types who become leaders of countries. We get some pretty un evolved creatures doing that.
As a child growing up in Illinois: Abraham Lincoln was my hero. For years I had a picture of him on my wall. A product of America, the land of the free. An entrepreneur from the very start. I am going to put his picture up again.
Evolution now favors the dolphins. They only go to war against sharks. Their technology is lagging way behind that of humans -- maybe they don't make what they don't need.
I don't think we should confuse the last 500 years of colonialism and industrialization with "human nature". Our species managed to exist on this planet for about 200,000 years (and hominids of various kinds for around 2 million years) before a handful of cultures decided that humans are distinct from nature and that the latter should be subservient to us. Believing that the Earth is not our home but only a brief stop on our way to a heavenly kingdom, these cultures committed themselves to using emerging scientific and technological methods to make their dominance concrete.
The results have been enormously destructive, as we can plainly see. There are complexities to this history that already fill volumes; I am simplifying for the sake of not writing another one. But it would be a mistake to resign ourselves to not being able to do better at *living with* this Earth rather than at its expense. We have done better before, in many different times and places, including here in what we call the Americas--and quite recently.
If we are to survive, those of us who have forgotten will have to remember our kinship with life.
We evolved exceptional powers of agency, but also exceptional abilities to grasp our own circumstances, the experience of others, and social accountability for our own actions. We also have, for emergencies, remnants of what some call our reptile brain. We need to be more choosey about which we follow.
Isn't it a crime against humanity that we have these exceptional abilities but completely ignore obvious facts and proceed on our merry way to destruction........When it came to my attention that there were American billionaires, I was aghast: why would an American need to be a billionaire?? The country was rich. One had freedom, free libraries and schools, and the opportunity to find ways to make a living. I, personally, had a great life on a low income.
Then I realized that they either knew or intuited that someday, only billionaires would have clean water and air and a police force to keep the starving hoards away.
The evolution fork in the road.....we got the fork. Everything else got to the evolution super highway. And now we are left lost with the fork stuck in our butts.
J L you ask: " Why is so much of our history and our present as a species devoted to making it a hell?" Good question, with no simple answer. Religion, racism, provincialism and misogyny come to my mind. I would add short-sightedness as well as we plunder the planet's natural resources, destroying the habitats of other creatures that share our planet Our lack of critical thinking skills and self-absorption will probably doom us at some point, if it doesn't come sooner through a nuclear war.
I would add that humans are largely unconscious. The self absorption which you reference is part and parcel of the lack of collective unconsciousness. Sigh.
When one has such a serious case of malignant narcissism, as with TFG, critical thinking is impossible, and even if it were, there is no empathy. TFG is the American equivalency to Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Pol Pot and other despots who are shallow humans that are rotten inside. Whom to blame for that? Their parents?
We didn’t descend from either of those primates, but from a common ancestor. Still, you make a point. It has been theorized that in the earliest times, women were revered because they gave birth, and men’s role in making babies wasn’t well understood. Later men claimed godlike status because each man could make more babies than any woman could. I think cold water has been dumped on that theory recently, but I like the idea of women being revered.
I had a mother, sisters and a wife who were brilliant, kind, understanding and caring. I don't know that it is testosterone that causes some to be sadistic. It's just that the political systems are such that they end up on top. Perhaps we could start a campaign to persuade TFG to donate his brain to science so that we may be able to find the defect that causes such malignancy.
And I would add, unconscious by design. There is an engrained social structure that deems only the select deserve to be educated while the rest be held down by a lack of response to those who learn differently or at a slower rate. Passing along kids who aren't ready ensures there will always be a low skilled work force. As an educator for 33 years, I have always felt that our students were not treated equally. The kids involved in sports, the kids who came from economically better families, etc , have always had the advantage while those without those advantages of experiences due to lack of economic status struggled and were labeled. No matter how often I talked to the powers that be about the importance of educating all kids based on their level of proficiency in grades 1-3, nothing changed.
I taught middle school and saw first hand the struggle of kids who were just passed along.
If we would make grades 1-3 fluid, meaning kids who may read at a lower grade level are taught with grade level peers, and the same with math, we could remediate early and get kids up to grade level by 4th grade. Research shows that if kids are not proficient readers and doing proficiently in math by 4th grade, the gap in their learning just grows. Everything we do is based in reading and problem solving, so it behooves us to ensure our students are proficient.
Reading,writing,math, and the arts should be the only subjects focused on in grades 1-3. Recess is their PE. Play is important.
Reading can include all kinds of content, but the purpose is reading and comprehension of what is read, rather than a deep dive into a subject.
By fourth grade we know if a lack of proficiency is a learning issue and have developed plans for that child, but a large majority will be proficient by 4th grade as all kids get the basics in the time they need. Brains grow when they are ready, not based on age. Some excel in math but need help in reading and visa versa. Our classrooms should reflect that fluidity.
When we have proficiency then having other core subjects added in becomes more accessible for all. 4th grade is the perfect time to begin more in depth study.
Interesting idea. Because of illnesses and injuries, I missed most of the first grade and was flunked. I was humiliated and hid out in an old car parked on our property very often. Because of the humiliation of being a failure, apparently I refused to return to school unless I was put in the second grade. I was but I knew nothing. We moved in the middle of my second grade and my teacher, Mrs. Weddle, asked me, "Richard, are you sure that you're in the second grade?" "Oh, yes, M'am," I replied. She kept me after school each day for remedial training. By the 5th grade I had caught up with the others and ultimately ended up with a Ph.D. and J.D. Who knows if that had something to do with my failure in the first grade? It did teach me this: young chiildren need to be treated with great understanding and kindness.
Thank goodness your teacher recognized your need to be given those fundamentals you missed. Had she not, I fear your trajectory would have been very different.
Had you been in 2nd grade, but got to be in like grade level groups, which had kids at your level learning the fundamentals missed while still being exposed to grade level material, it would have all been normal being in classes with mixed ages like mini one room school houses because all kids would have moved to other classrooms based on their levels. No one would have felt "stupid".
Imagine a kid who was ahead of their grade level peers being allowed to excel ...oh, they do... it's already there - advanced classes. It's the ones who struggle that are needing that kind of attention, but aren't getting it.
Educating the young is a challenge. More and More I have come to the conclusion that we need to start at an early age teaching the students how to think critically, to put a fact into the proper context. We need to teach more of the "why's" as well as the whats. This is, in part, the beauty of great literature, and in that regard William Shakespeare comes to mind. He may have been the best student of human nature ever to have existed. That's why he's so relevant today. Imagine what he could have done with Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis.
A black male friend in NYC, who has, sadly passed away, responded to a remark I made....I said, "it's terrible that the Puerto Rican schools are so bad",,,he said it was on purpose, or by design or something like that. I was shocked. What does the average white person know about these things. We had a lot in common....However, he said to me once and then again the last time I saw him, "Judy, we have lived in two different worlds".....Me: a liberal from diverse Montclair, an extension of Manhattan...is still learning. The BLM movement brought to the surface a lot of truth of which the white population has no clue.
Other commenters have cited the depletion of potable water supplies and deforestation as the result of overpopulation, but I would argue that it's the result of greed. We believe that our planet's natural resources are limitless, so we destroy and pollute and overuse them. Short-sightedness, exactly.
Richard. You echo my thoughts. However, I think it will be a combination of weather disruptions and disease. Floods, fires and plagues. Recent samples of that lack of human learning are people relocating in areas where nobody should live. And now, a pathetic shortage of the RSV vaccine that we have said should be administered to our youngest and oldest. Ya gotta love that private enterprise approach to health "care".
Interesting comment about the RSV vaccine. I have been debating getting one; I am 65, but in very good health with no respiratory issues. I'm "in the window" but just by my fingernails. I did get both the flu and Covid shots this past week.
We are totally in the window (76 and 72). But wavering. Had the Covid and Flu shots. I have had significant side effects from both. But better than serious illness or death! We are wavering on the RSV. Side note: many of us are again wearing masks in Trader Joe's and the other local markets - including cashiers.
My only side effects were from the soreness in my arm. I mask up when in public just about anywhere inside. I do have a wider bubble of people I don't mask up for. Our housemate is unable to be vaccinated (allergic reaction when a child in foster care; no way to access medical records) so we have continued taking our precautions.
At 83 I've had the RSV, flu and Covid booster shots with no side effects. I think that wearing the masks in public places is a good move, particularly that this is now the flu/Covid-19 season.
The future does not bode well for the creatures, including humans, on earth, in the minds of many. Over-population, deforestation, and more. Right now we're simply trying to keep out democracy intact.
This year I got the RSV vaccine for the first time - no side effects. I also got my annual flu vaccine as well as the the latest COVID upgrade, which gave me a couple days pain in the arm, lethargy and mild fever just like the other 5. I hear that's an indication that my immunity was enhanced.
For years I have wished for another ELE Asteroid like the one 65 million years ago that rebooted the earth. It would be less embarrassing for our species to be taken out by a natural occurrence instead of by our own ignorance. Unfortunately, I hear that we are making headway of preventing that cosmic shutdown, as we continue destroying the planet from within.
'When a group of international journalists arrived at the southern fringe of Gaza City early Friday morning, riding in the back of an Israeli army jeep, we struggled to orient ourselves amid the ruins, the wreckage and the darkness.'
'Since leaving Israel less than an hour earlier, our jeep had bumped and lurched through a landscape so disfigured by 42 days of airstrikes and nearly three weeks of ground warfare that it was hard at times to understand where we were. House after house was missing a wall or a roof, or both. Many had simply been flattened, their concrete floors lying atop each other like a pack of playing cards.'
'Trying to situate myself after reaching Gaza City, I asked a senior Israeli commander where we were in relation to a fishing port where I usually stayed during visits to Gaza before the war.'
“Three hundred meters north,” the commander said.'
'I was stunned. Without realizing it, we had arrived at the Gazan neighborhood that I knew best.'
'Across roughly a dozen visits over the past three years, I had often jogged up and down this stretch of the Mediterranean shoreline, along the coastal road, past a fish market, a mosque, a cluster of apartment blocks and several beach clubs and cafes.'
'Now, it was barely recognizable. I could not find the fish market. The apartment blocks, I now realized, had been wrecked by shelling or strikes. The road had vanished, churned into a sandy, rutted track by the hundreds of Israeli tanks and armored vehicles that have fanned out across the territory since Israel invaded in late October.' (NYTimes) See gifted link below.
'A Journey Into Northern Gaza: Ruins, Wreckage and Darkness'
'New York Times journalists traveled with an Israeli military convoy to catch a rare glimpse of conditions inside wartime Gaza. They saw houses flattened like playing cards, and a city utterly disfigured.'
If Hamas had F-16s, Apache helicopters, and B-1 bombers they wouldn't be terrorists; they'd be Palestinians soldiers defending their homeland.
When Israel destroys Hamas with their unimaginable horror they will have opened the door to whomever will defend the Palestinian homeland next. There are thousands of Palestinian children who have just suffered through what we cannot even imagine and they will not forget.
When I hear "settlement expansion" my blood boils. What do you expect when you literally steal your neighbor's land?? Netanyahu is a snake, let alone a "friend."
I just thank all that is good in the world that these settlers are NOT my neighbors. I've gone 76 years w/o shooting someone and don't want to start now. Netanyahu plays to the worst people in his country just as Trump does here. We have no business arming his government.
OMG. The article is heartbreaking but reveals nothing.....that we don't already know. The comments, about 50%, on the other hand, reveal how many NY TImes subscribers support Israel wholeheartedly. Just like so many US citizens they think Hamas is the bad guy.
To me, what the article did reveal, is that Israel will bring journalists in to see the destruction, as if, it's justified...like a "real war". Into a hospital where doctors have never stopped trying to keep people from dying....with no electricity or medical supplies. Shouldn't Israel be ashamed or embarrassed??? It says a lot about their mind set. Like a hunter showing off his kill: a prize elephant.
Judith, Israel is not innocent, but it had not started devolving into a brute until after horrific attacks. Not every Israeli agrees with Netanyahu's policies. In fact most don't. Not all supporters of Israel in the US agree with e erything it does, but they all ask acommon question: How does one deal with an organization that is committed to your death and is willing to kill its own citizens? Military commentators on American mainstream media proudly point to the months they waited before invading Mosul in the 2nd Iraq war to allow civilians more time to escape, but they forget that they had all the time they needed and controlled the exit routes.
Back to the tunnels issue. How do you remove your enemy's ability to attack and then hide? Do you expect a purely diplomatic solution when you're dealing g with a nihilistic adversary? And regarding the New York Times, I subscribe to it plus the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal plus Reuters plus the Economist. The center of that cluster is almost dead center, with a strong dose of angst-ridden opinion about the current situation. The NYT does not blindly support Israel.
I do appreciate your questions and comments, because they have led me to search for and find richly textured histories that describe the tragic origins of the conflict.
The NY Times has gotten better...Except the comments are shocking....very uneducated: "those terrible Hamas". If I hadn't gotten information via Finkelstein, and the other....I would also have simplistic opinions I haven't checked WoPo much recently due to so much time on other sources. The response to the Oct7 attack was hardly the first time Gaza was viciously attacked with many dead, dozens of children, and infrastructure demolished. If I had more time I'd find sources that outline Operation this or Operation that. Somehow, you're missing that info. I think the "commitment" Hamas has to make Israel gone is a natural reaction to what has gone on for too long. If one is continuously abused by some entity, there comes a time when the solution is to KILL. An expected reaction to extreme abuse is an extreme reaction. Oct 7 was extreme by design.. The last 70 years has brought nothing but humiliation and abuse, taking away more and more resources to have a decent life: a job, a family and live in peace. Look at the West Bank; everyone, including Israel, agrees that is Palestinian land. How many have been displaced, murdered, left in fear for their lives and families?
American had riots by our black citizens...white people get enraged that stores are destroyed.....Frankly, I think the black citizens behave very nicely considering. They fight in wars,; they accept the meager opportunities doled out to them. After WW2, they didn't receive the education and housing benefits the white soldiers did. In Uniform , they were spat at. When the Black Panthers came to my attention, I said, if I were black I would so join that organization.
I had a 2 family house in East Orange, which is between classy Montclair and Newark. We had rented our 2nd floor to a couple, who were, like us, from Montclair. They were moving out of Newark. During their move, there was a major riot in Newark,1967. Warren couldn't drive back to retrieve pictures and lamps that he didn't trust the moving guys with. He couldn't enter because they weren't letting any blacks into Newark. I had no interest or clue about that riot. Riots were common then. 30 years later, PBS did a special on it. Police brutality. Like the Israeli's, no one cared what the police did; they could get away with anything. They saw those blacks the same way Israelis see Palestinians. You aren't like us, we own this and to us you're dirt.
Israel is pushing the limits; it has been for decades. Watch this!!, they say. We are the Chosen. ANY criticism is antisemitic. Don't EVER forget the Holocaust. Well, screw all that. They aren't "chosen" and using those accusations and excuses is ...well, should be, or will be, over.
There have been plenty of genocides in my lifetime. Bad ones. But, this one has really captured my attention. The whole dynamic: Jews, the pitiful situation for the displaced Palestinians, the world reactions. A very interesting stew. Jews have a fascinating place in history. I studied that in the early '60's when the Holocaust (I don't think it was called that then) came to my attention. It was still early on; it hadn't become a media sensation like it did in the 70's. Then I lived in NYC which has a very Jewish element to it......I won't get into what I personally experienced there. I began my life with a Jewish best friend and a romantic view of Jews: smart and fringe. I am close to antisemitic now. I don't want to rub them out...but, if they keep it up....
Oil = money = power. This reference in today's letter made me want to scream:
"the U.S. has also traditionally seen Israel as an important strategic ally as it stabilizes the Middle East, helping to maintain the supply of Middle Eastern oil that the global economy needs."
"...oil that the global economy needs..."
So we wreck the planet and kill each other over a substance that could be left in the ground if we had used the science readily available to provide sustainable power to every corner of the globe. You can't fix stupid.
This is a problem Re: the Palestinians...no power, no money. Th only things they have is people feel really bad for them. We'll see how that works out for them.
Why does the U.S. Government not support them: they are no bodies.
thanks...another piece of this puzzle. A Master's Degree Piece.....as a literature and philosophy major, anything to do w/ $ is challenging. I assume they are given those billions because they have practically no economy. During the Vietnam War I took the pass/fail option on the economics course that would have taken me off the dean's List..........Does that pay for the services Israel provides that have been cut off?
The largest diaspora from the Middle East in human history was that diaspora caused by Hillary Clinton's decision, while she was Secretary of State in 2012, to arm the (bloodthirsty) "rebels" that were trying to overthrow Bashar Al Assad in Syria. Thus began the "Syrian war", which, of course, did not go like Hillary thought it would because, of course, she was wrong. The people she sold weapons to were just as corrupt as Assad and not many supported them.
So, exceptionally poor judgement is not caused by testosterone.
Mike S, per a 2014 article by the BBC, the Obama administration did not start asking the rebels until well after the barrel bombs started to be dropped by the Adsad regime, to the chagrin of the US ambassador to Syria. The lament is that the US didn't arm the rebels enough.
An article on Wikipedia details the US arming the rebels in a meaningful way in 2015, well after the massacres of Syrian protesters and later rebels was started by the Assad regime, and that seems to have been for helping with the ISIS issue.
The info in those articles seems to run counter to your blaming of your favorite target, Hillary Clinton. Again, your assertion seems to be quoting Russian propaganda.
Mike S seems to be in the habit of repeating Russian misinformation. That's true of what he just posted, but my comment is based on several posts over the last couple of months.
If education and decent respect for and enjoyment of others ruled -- or had any perch in the U.S., or the Mideast, we'd not see the divisiveness and hatreds that rule the U.S. as in the Mideast.
Our schools fail.
Humanly fail.
Oh, yes, many elites succeed by the rubrics of standardized testing. Around the world -- everywhere -- numbers rule. Not just numbers. We can go beyond Bob Seger here. It's how numbers all fit, belong to, serve categories. And these groups. easily labeled entities, and easily packaged units all fit, belong to, and serve the schemes of our totally dehumanized billionaires.
The owners of the world now are our most vulgar rich. Education in no country allows for any to learn to see others as individuals in their communities.
Wish I could affirm you, Elizabeth. If education everywhere didn't belong but to the perennial vulgarities of our packagers, labelers, quantifiers, and abstracters.
In the US, the morbidly rich vulgarians are funding attacks on public education by promoting things like vouchers for school "choice" to private schools, often religious in nature. Meanwhile, they cut funding to public schools and don't pay educators decently, don't want to maintain the educational infrastructure. They intentionally hurt public education, but bitch and moan about how bad the schools are. I used to teach, and I loved watching little kids learn to read and do math. I would NOT go into education today.
I wish I knew the answer. It’s men. Too much testosterone and greed. It makes me sad ... through out history it’s been this way. No different. I have a reference magnet I bought in the ‘90’s which says “I’ll be a post feminist in the post patriarchy”..... and we are still here doing the same thing...
Support for your thesis (it’s men) shown this past week by the McCarthy-Burchett tiff and the Mullins offer to fight a witness in a senate hearing. First thing they think of is a fight.
Wise words at the close of the letter. Life is a gift. This planet is a gift, and both are unfathomably rich and fortunate. We endure floods, droughts, earthquakes, etc. and an array of infectious and congenital diseases, and yet, over all, this planet is paradise. Why is so much of our history and our present as a species devoted to making it a hell?
Because, our species is very destructive to itself and every living thing. Evolution either went too far or not far enough. It should have stopped with the monkeys or evolved into meditators.
Judith,
I have always loved hawks. I love how they circle overhead when I hike, almost like they can feel my presence. I love their sound way up in the sky.
I was recently at my cabin window which overlooks my pond when I saw the hawk that has long lived around that pond suddenly appear from nowhere and ram into the ground. I pulled out my binoculars and watched.
The hawk was holding a small chipmunk who had probably been out sending his mating call right before he was caught.
While the Chipmunk struggled in my binoculars, the hawk bent his head down and started eating him.
I put my binoculars away and tried to get the image out of my mind, which, one week later, I have successfully done.
So, I don't, necessarily, think we are much different as a species than other species EXCEPT that we just breed way too successfully and the death rate among humans is WAY too low and now our population is about a million times larger than it should be. I blame vaccines. :-)
The damage is not caused by our behavior but by our sheer numbers. The planet cannot sustain the numbers of humans there are now and, we keep breeding. Out of control.
Respectfully, I think the old canard about over population is just that. Verified trends across the globe suggest birth rates are down. Just look at our once great nation: US birth rates and life expectancy is down for the first time in nearly 70 yrs. The unraveling of globalization will help w/ the downturn. Blaming science and vaccines for anything is dangerous. You should rethink your position b/c it’s reckless and myopic and frankly isn’t backed by the numbers. Take care and be well.
E-7. I always welcome the contrary view since that is the only view that leads to interesting conversation so thank you.
I think that it cannot be argued that the earth is not overpopulated by humans mainly because: The amount of forest that has been turned into farmland to support the rise of the current human population is incredibly vast. Just look at google earth sometime and try to find some forest someplace.
Farmland is about as bad as it can be for oxygen generation. It is the opposite. It generates tons of carbon if you add up all the tilling, tractors and trucks and fertilizer that farmland needs.
That forest, now gone, is that which gave us oxygen and that oxygen which gave us oxygen consumers life. Once all of the sources of oxygen in the atmosphere are gone, well, so are we.
But, nobody realizes that farmland is the real threat except, of course, farmers who know how bad it really is.
Like me.
Thank you, Mike S. Having followed the UN and Zero Population Growth (now Population Connection, having learned this week that we are at 8 billion when the UN’s estimate is that the planet can support 2 billion, I am encouraging young friends who want children to adopt. Surely there are ways to make adoption of the world’s many orphans possible. But finding the love in our wretched present is another barrier.
As I grew up in a farming community, reminding everyone that Senators Tester and Warnock are working to make sure we have food. Senator Jon Tester needs funding. As the only Democrat in Idaho, he has an uphill battle to be re-elected. There is a farm bill that benefits small farmers. May we give Big Ag a dressing down and get it passed.
I do like Senator Tester. He's from Montana, though (my Dad's birth state_
We as a society are lax about connecting the dots. Climate change is not only an inappropriate dependence on fossil fuels, it's the number of people, myself included, who are continuing to law their straws on the camel's back. There are remedies that will definitely help if we get serious about it, that will reduce the per capita burden on the environment, but the impact per person will never be zero. Conversion of habitat for balanced ecosystems is increasingly converted into concrete and monoculture. Our garbage down here is feeding an overabundance of seagull who migrate to the Arctic and out compete other species, resulting in population declines. Some of the Republicans want to outlaw birth control. Population concentration favors pandemics. The balance of nature that got us here is already going haywire.
Hello Virginia, I just want to differ from your assertion that "the UN estimate is that the planet can only support 2 billion people. The last time there were only 2 billion was 1927. In 1900 1.6 billion, 76 million Americans. The population of Africa was what Germany's Population is now. Currently, the most populous country is India at 1.3 billion on a land mass the size of the 11 western states. There are limits, but the issue is exponential growth and ability to adapt.
Virginia, good post. May i make a correction...Tester is from Montana. Idaho is a lost cause at this point. I see Ally below beat me to it.
Virginia, I too am on the side of the small farmer.
But, all farming is actually "bad" where the overall environment is relevant. Farming is the opposite of natural.
And natural is sustainable.
As usual, you are on the mark, Virginia.
Mike, I just finished Braiding Sweetgrass. She suggests that one of the big problems is that we view everything as a commodity while Native Americans view what we need as a gift from mother nature, so they approach what they need as thanks, take only what they need, and work to sustain nature. In addition, one of her statements that struck me is everything does not have to be convenient which I have been mulling over since I read it. I would also say that the earth cannot sustain the world's population in a middle class life style.
Braiding Sweetgrass is an excellent book. In addition, take a look at https://www.overshootday.org/, according to which, in 2023 humanity is on track to use up the capacity of 1.7 Earths; in other words, we are overdrawing our "account" for what the Earth can provide (similar to overdrawing groundwater, which we are also doing). Overpopulation and, more importantly, over-consumption are drivers of this problem. As an example of the effects, fisheries around the world have collapsed due to unsustainable fishing practices. With the world's population demanding more meat and fish, this is an obvious result. We can hardly expect the third world to live on grain while we feast on steak. A difficult problem, to say the least.
I get what you’re saying and plz don’t take this badly but your analysis was relevant in 1989 when I graduated high school. In the 21st century there is a reason why virtually no one talks about that canard. I suggest you do some research on China and their catastrophic population collapse. It will be revelatory I promise. Thanks. Be well.
I live in Portland in a middle class to lower class neighborhood and their our coyotes roaming and in the more upscale neighborhood not far from here where I raise my family and my old neighbor still living there see coyotes in her back yard. We've driven animals out of their habitat so what do we expect. Over population mean destroying forests and wildlife.
Marine, with all due respect, what China has is an anti-immigration stance. Back in the day, China advocated (and enforced, effectively) a one-child-family policy (which was horrible for female children and resulted in a population completely unbalanced between males and females); coupled with a cultural aversion to immigration, they are now facing too small a youthful population to care for the elderly. They need to reverse their anti-immigration stance, and do as the US does - welcome enough immigrants into their borders to do the necessary work. There are plenty, more than plenty, of people from countries and regions in deadly turmoil who would be delighted to live someplace where they can raise their children in safety, and have a job that pays a meaningful wage. It would mean Chinese society and culture would have to change, and there would be overwhelming resistance (kind of like how the RWNJs regard immigration into the US - ironic, as virtually all of them are 2d- or 3d-generation Americans themselves), but, and I realize this is unlikely to occur, but this is a workable solution.
The earth absolutely does not need more humans.
You’re forcing me to expand my understanding of extinction. Harsh but absolutely necessary to understand.
Birth rates may be down, but the earth’s population has risen from 2.5 billion in 1950 to 8 billion today.
When it hit 5 billion, I thought: it's over. Too GD many for this planet.
Mike S
Perhaps then we should be replanting farmland with forest and put in place protections for it to thrive.
We definitely need to balance a great many things to use land wisely.
There are better ways to do things now tho, that can support the population. People think about sustainability now like they never did before. All I get today is Bad things happen when Billionairs exert their will on the rest of us!
Where you see intractable social problems, follow the money.
Many years ago a man named Malthus thought the same.
Yep. It's been around a while. Today's numbers are only a bit more accurate.
Yes Mike, this is the REAL dicussion that need to be held widely. The pain and suffering is part and parcel of the quest for MORE.
Pls see my response to E-7, now directly above your comment.
'Demography Is Destiny in Africa'
'Rapid population growth is about to hit the countries whose economies and climates are least equipped to handle it.'
'A woman wearing a red dress and floral headscarf holds a baby as she speaks with a nurse, who stands behind a poster explaining how to prevent unwanted pregnancies. A field and trees are visible beneath a cloudy sky in the background.'
'The world’s population of about 8 billion is expected to reach 10.4 billion by 2100, a growth largely driven by a phenomenon called “population momentum.” Population momentum occurs when a large generation of young people in their reproductive years leads to the number of births exceeding the number of deaths.'
'Given that momentum, there is very little that policies or family planning can do to curb population growth for the next several decades, said John Bongaarts, a distinguished scholar at the Population Council, a nonprofit that conducts demographic research on underserved populations.'
“You have very large numbers of young people, and these young people have to go through reproductive years, which takes 40 to 50 years,” Bongaarts said.' “Then you have the children of these children, so momentum actually takes more than three decades to run its course. Maybe 60 to 70 years.”
'That would be good news for affluent countries that are grappling with record-low fertility rates, aging populations, and shrinking workforces. In the United States, people aged 65 and older are projected by 2034 to outnumber those under the age of 18 for the first time in U.S. history. China recorded its first population decline in decades this January, and an aging population has already put an expiration date on its economic miracle. South Korea is desperately looking for ways to raise its fertility rate, currently the world’s lowest at 0.78 births per woman. A fertility rate of 2.1 is needed for a country to maintain a stable population without migration.'
'But instead, half of the global population growth from 2022 to 2050 will occur in sub-Saharan Africa. The region’s population is currently growing three times faster than the rest of the world, and by the end of the century, it will be home to a third of all people in the world, compared to only 14 percent in 2019. This means that the burden of rapid population growth will fall on some of the poorest countries in the world, with nearly half of the region having a gross national income per capita below $1,135, and in places that are among the most vulnerable to climate change.' (ForeignPolicy) Link below. I am not a
subscriber but did not face its paywall. Sorry, that I cannot guarantee that it won't be a barrier.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/08/26/demographics-africa-sub-sahara-population-boom-growth-aging-gender-inequality-climate-change/
When I was studying Wildlife Biology in University, I learned population overgrowth is generally followed by collapse. The collapse is caused by disease, strife, or migration. Today we can add in environmental catastrophe. If we humans do not bring our population back to sustainable levels (and practices), natural processes will, and likely in increasingly unpleasant ways.
Modern medicine is a wonderful thing, but it is far too often used to selfish ends such as ever extending life spans. Sure living a long time is generally great, until the equilibrium is thrown out of balance, as it has been. I’m in my late 60s, many of my ancestors barely 3 generations back made it out of their 40s and 50s . . . my great grandmother passed away before 40.
Nature is harsh and will seek equilibrium any way it can . . . either. through famine, disease, or war. If we want peace and happiness we need to reduce our numbers or natural processes will.
Even Republicans cannot ultimately get away with ignoring "laws" of nature. We are gifted with enough intelligence to avoid some of the worst traps of unwise behavior, but cursed with appetites that encourage us to ignore what nature tells us if we pay enough attention. Appetites make life worth living (we even have a appetite for learning) but it's too easy to fudge on the "paying attention" part and working it into the action plan. I fail to do so on a regular basis. I think it helps if we encourage each other to be a little more attentive.
WAR IS NOT NATURAL!!!
Interestingly, we cease to be fertile, for the most part, beyond our mid 30's. Fertility beyond 35 is supported by increasingly complex assisted conception. Declining death rates at all ages are producing the imbalance in populations. "Retirement" is a 20th century invention. Life expectancies did not allow for retirement for the most part until after WWII. If our death rates were increasing at a similar rate as our birth rate is dropping, the population would decline but the ratio of young to old would remain in better balance. Currently, vanishingly few reach what it considered the outer horizon of human longevity (around 120 years), but more and more are reaching their 9th and 10th decade. They cease being "productive" in their 6th and 7th decades. There's no reason to assume that the trends will be any different in Asia, India and Africa than they have been in western countries going forward. Higher infant/child survival, higher education, higher standard of living will be followed by declining birth rates and aging populations. If we don't destroy ourselves in the meantime, world population will peak, then stabilize, then begin to decline as the death rate ultimately exceeds a declining world birth rate. It will not be uniform, by any means, but will vary considerably region by region.
I tell young people who don't have children: Don't. Get a dog. Or, a cat. Or. both. Why do humans think they should spend the most productive years of their lives raising other humans? Tradition? Someone to care for them in their old age? That doesn't happen any more. That was for farm families way back in the day when there was such a thing.
I got grounded in envirionmental science, including global warming, in 1975, in a class at UC Berkeley given by John Holdren, who three decades and change later became Pres O's Science Advisor.
Among other things, we depend on ecosystem services, which intact ecosystems provide for us, and land that has been taken up in sprawl and agriculture and other human uses does not provide. We've put somewhere around 75% of the land on earth to our own uses, and much of the rest of earth is covered with snow and ice (Antarctica).
Ecosystem services provide clean air, clean water, they complete the carbon cycle preventing global warming--or they used to do that. They provide pollination, fertile soil, food, now mostly in the form of ocean fish, since there's little left for hunting and gathering, but the 8,000,000,000 now on Earth have used up most of that resource.
Ecosystem services also provide disease prevention, by preserving ecosystem integrity. But new diseases have been emerging, and a group of scientists warned in Nature--one of the premier scientific journals--that that ecosystem service is very much at risk with the growth in the human population. HIV, which emerged in Africa, COVID, which emerged in Asia, and the various tick-borne diseases such as Lyme, which emerged in the US, are all examples of diseases that had been kept in check by nature, but that have emerged due to encroachment of human civilization on nature.
In other words, that "canard" is absolutelly not a canard and Earth is very much overpopulated, as is the United States.
Furthermore, in the US, while our birth rate is now way down, our population still skyrocketing, because of immigration. And that's a major problem as we are the major industrialized nation with the greatest per capita greenhouse emissions, and the greatest per capita resource use, generally, in other words, one of the worst places on the planet to put more people. Our Census Bureau projects that we will add 75 million over the next 40 years, equivalent to nearly four New York States--all but 7 million from immigration.
Also, the population of Africa is expected to double in the next generation, to three billion. The magafauna are likely to go extinct, or to become so sparse tht they will barely be hanging on. Elephants, for example, among the smartest non-humans on the planet, migrate thousands of miles annually in their search for food and water--something that the population growth in Africa will probably make very difficult. Elephants are among the more empathetic creatures on the planet, and it would be a great shame to lose them. The reason: the oldest female is automatically the group leader, so there is none of the sort of backstabbing that is typical of humans jockeying for power, which means that there is no evolutionary pressure for that to evolve among elephants.
If I had studied biology or anything to do with the natural world, I think I would want to put a gun to my head. I can't stand anything bad that happens to many aspects of nature. You name it. As a child I was fascinated by insects. ....Elephants! Indians worship them. To me, they are closer to gods than that imaginary god.
I loved caterpillars and butterflies as a kid. I fell in love with dung beetles writing an article on them for Smithsonian. And, yes, elephants are wonderful beings.
That "canard" is not a canard. Our planet is hugely overpopulated, with 8,000,000,000 (8 billion) people on it. People who study sustainability have calculated that it would take more than four earths to support the current population at the US standard of living.
We use around half of earth's habitable land for agriculture alone, and much more for our cities, our roads and highways, our homes and workplaces, etc. We are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction, the first major extinction since the asteroid that led to the dinosaurs' demise hit Earth.
And even among animals, that haven't gone extinct, populations are being decimated. There are less than half as many individual insects as there were 50 years ago, and insects form much of the bottom of the food chain.
Intact ecosystems provide vital services to life on earth. These ecosystem services include clean water, clean air, protection from global warming through removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, fertile soil, pollination, disease prevention, food--which these days is primarily ocean fish, but we are fast decimating those populations, and much more.
As for disease prevention, the decimation of ecosystems has been interfering with that service. HIV, COVID, and tick-borne diseases such as lyme are all diseases that got into the human population due to overpopulation. And within the last two years, a paper in Nature, one of the premier scientific journals on the planet, warned that if we didn't do something about the population explosion, we'd see a lot more new diseases.
while we are nearing what is predicted will be the peak of the human population, which will occur probably early in the next century, this will not happen before we've gained another two and a half billion people. And that, and global warming will reduce Earth's carrying capacity even more.
The next hundred years are probably going to be quite unpleasant for much, if not most of the human population. In fact, within the next several decades, Propublica projects that MILLIONS of Americans will become climate refugees.
https://www.propublica.org/article/climate-change-will-force-a-new-american-migration
Thank you.
That's ONLY because women HAD rights.
Life expectancy is down due to children getting shot, alcoholism or O.D.ing
The difference between what humans do to each other and the hawk is that the hawk was eating to survive.
How lovely to be in a cabin near a pond!
Thanks, Jennifer and Gayle for bringing us back to the subject. While there are certainly wars fought over food, natural resources, and water, there are many that are fought over religion and ideology. That's arrogance, as in "my blank is better than your blank."
The hawk was doing it to survive and to keep the population of chipmunks in check.
Sweet thought..image
Mike,
Another interesting comment. I hope everyone else caught the sarcasm in your vaccine reference. Technically, you are spot on. But I am sure you encourage all people to stay "boosted", right?
The single biggest idiocy of the human species is its over population. To fill this tiny orb with more than two or three billion (pick a random number) creatures all consuming and polluting and defiling the environment with its own detritus is certifiably nuts. We think we are smarter than all the other species. But we never used the amazing brain power that we have to manage ourselves intelligently.
So we breed and breed in an effort to dominate other tribes, to provide workers on our farms, to replace the ones that will die through accidents or disease. But as we cured the illnesses and prevented many accidents, we didn't stop.
The average number of children in Haredi familes is 7. The government pays the fathers to read the Torah. Not work. Not serve in the military or in any other capacity. In a few years they will be the majority of Israel. Just one example of thousands.
All over the world, birth control is a fantasy. Men demand sex. Women have little control over their reproductive destiny. Often because of religious men who dominate their lives. Men who think with their little heads instead of their big ones.
It can't be said too often. We reached the population tipping point a long time ago. And now we are watching the results. We altered the planet - exacerbated the natural forces of weather. We are flooding and burning up. There were always floods and fires. But we have put our weather system on some sadistic steroids.
What to do? Try finding scientific solutions. Help spread the starving suffering folks around as humanely as possible. Provide birth control opportunities where they don't exist. Do the best we can to treat others as we would like to be treated. As a species we blew it. Now we just need to manage the mess as best we can with compassion for others and respect for the tiny orb that we were hatched on.
Or we can be hawks - not the kind that eat rodents (which carry Lyme ticks!) - hawks that eat other birds. When the hawks screech overhead in our region, there are no other birds to be seen or heard. Silence, except for the screech. Reminds me of "Silent Spring" - one of the first calls for sanity.
Bill,
I am in the process of doing a massive tree planting on one of my old farm fields. I was trying to let it "go back to nature" and become forested on its own BUT, invasive Honeysuckle was taking over instead. Another "DOH" that Europeans brought to America. Honeysuckle.
Farmland looks pretty out the window of a car driving through NY. But, in reality, farmland is former forested land that is now one of the largest producers of carbon on earth.
When you plow a field it releases carbon in two ways. 1) Turning the soil itself releases carbon gases from that soil due to plant life being turned into fertilizer naturally. 2) The 90 HP diesel tractor used to plow the field is pumping massive amounts of pollution and carbon into the atmosphere. Not to mention the noise pollution.
Farming is the real threat to all of the earth's natural living things. Farming is the exact opposite of the diversity of life that occurs when farming is NOT done on land.
We plow. Then, we take seeds that are all the same, plant them, and produce identical plants across millions of acres and then harvest them ensuring that natural, native species can never be again.
Farming is horrible. Without farming, almost all of us are dead.
Quite a sharp edge we all live on if you think about it.
Without farms, we don't have enough food to feed the planet. It's not farming itself that's horrible; it's INDUSTRIAL farming, which more often than not involves the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, fossil fuels for machinery, and so on. I would not denigrate our local farms, the majority of which have less than 20 acres and have to diversify their products in order to survive.
Ellen,
I hope nobody thinks my observation about farmland and its dent to the environment is a denigration of farmers.
I am a farmer. I grew up a farmer. I know what farming does to the land and to the natural landscape. It is not good.
There are other methods of farming than massively turning the soil. My own farm (dry land) in Kansas is operated using “no till” or “minimal till” methods. That plus leaving the post harvest residue behind allows the soil to hold moisture and build nutrients. It’s not perfect, but has us moving in a more sustainable direction.
Cynthia,
Yes, I have a picture from the 1930's of a house about 7 feet higher than the surrounding land. Caused by repetitive tilling and wind.
Long ago you guys out west figured out the bad stuff.
Mike, I have become interested in regenerative agriculture, the “food forest” concept in particular. It does not lend itself to massive production on the scale of corporate farms (that’s the point), but rather more local food production & distribution. I have, at my place, just enough land to make a neighborhood food forest but, alas, I have outgrown (getting too old & creaky) the ability & resources to pull it off. Sigh, if only I’d known about this 34 yrs ago when I purchased my place!
Barbara, there is still time. Hire a kid and teach him!!
Or her as the case may be.
:-)
It is absolutely possible to practice farming in a way that captures carbon at a greater rate than releasing it. Read more about soil building, carbon capture, no-till farming, regenerative agriculture. Read about the potential net effect of deploying winter cover crops on all of the currently tilled land around the world, were that to occur.
Mike S - have you run across the FacePlant group "Native Plants of the NorthEast"? Lots of people providing a lot of valuable information about what is native to each region of the Northeast (NY as opposed to Maine, for example), where seeds and transplants can be located in your area, whether a particular plant in someone's yard is native or not, etc. I enjoy reading the posts - you may find it helpful, and you may be able to provide information to other members of the group.
PLANT MORE TREES FTW!
But don't plant them randomly. They should be trees that grow naturally in an area, trees that feed the caterpillars that feed the birds, or that otherwise fit well into the local ecology. After I learned that in my area (metrowest Boston) oaks are particularly good at feeding the caterpillars that feed the birds, I noticed that I have a handful of small oaks in my hard. I don't expect those trees to need much nurturing, but I will avoid cutting them down, which I might otherwise have done, and I will be watching for more to emerge.
Yup. As the one time Texas Agriculture Commisioner, Jim Hightower says, "If you eat, you are part of agriculture".
Bill, back in the late 60’s, looking down the road of the earth’s carrying capacity, my then husband and I took a vow to be child-free….a vow we both kept. I’ll say it again, humans = Hubris sapiens. How we can be so intelligent and stupid at the same time baffles me.
I have two dear friends, who had one child. Their child and her husband have decided not to have children, and will probably adopt when they are more financially stable. While my friends are disappointed, they still support her, and look forward to grandkids when the time comes that adoption becomes feasible.
Oh, that more couples made decisions like that. And apparently passed on not just their genes but their beliefs. I learned about overpopulation when I was 18 - good fodder to carry on. PLUS I didn’t want to be a mother like my own was. Yikes! I enjoy my pet babies immensely.
I had not only taken a child-free vow, but a husband-free one as well. I also had not one iota of interest in writing a book. Thank God I paid attention to Divine Intelligence! Successfully single until the age of 45, I am now married to my dream companion. in 2011, a mentor introduced to a homeless teenage girl from Turkey. Frank and I adopted her and Mother's Day is my new favorite holiday...and I've written two books. Just to say that adoption is under-rated as well as a problem solver....
Smart and Lucky you!!
The children in the past were NOT raised by the birth parents. They were raised by older folks. ...older siblings...
You got your most energetic years to be yourself.
Now, you are yourself and can relax and enjoy a child who came to you as a gift. Lucky her. too.
My husband and I were 18 (1958!) when "experimentation/fooling around" led to marriage. We had to "grow up" at the same time the boy and his twin sisters were growing up. We were lucky we all pulled through. The odds were against that.
I became concerned about overpopulation at age 9, in 1962. I was focused mostly on the US, although my vision enlarged as I got older. Unfortunately, both the population of the US and that of the world have increased hugely, and although we're just one country, our population increase--by more than 100 million since the early '60s--has had an outsized effect on global warming, since we're the major industrialized nation with the greatest per capita greenhouse emissions.
Worse, the Census Bureau projects we'll be adding another 75 million to the population over the next 40 years, equivalent to nearly four NY State population equivalents, and all but 7 million (one Massachusetts equivalent) due to immigration.
This, at a time when we're running out of water, endangering our agriculture and our sustainability
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/29/climate/groundwater-aquifer-overuse-investigation-takeaways.html
and Propublica projects that within the next several decades, MILLIONS of Americans will become climate refugees https://www.propublica.org/article/climate-change-will-force-a-new-american-migration
Kudos to you and your husband, Barbara!
My wife and I decided to go out and find a child that needed parents. Turns out it was quite simple and no more costly than all the costs associated with conception to parturition. True, he doesn't share our chromosomes, but in every other respect he's our son.
Barbara, you ask, "How we can be so intelligent and stupid at the same time baffles me."
It's bad programming.
Two thumbs up Barbara.
You have my respect (as usual :).
Babies are so cute but when I see one now, I think, "more pollution".
Read Daniel Quinn's Classic "Ishmael" then "The Story of B" or "Beyond Civilization" to understand the population mess we've gotten ourselves into. That may be starting to rectify itself as so many young people are deciding to go childless. Education helps in this quest.
Want to learn how to farm and encourage the Earth to be a carbon sink rather than a carbon source, read Joel Salatin's books starting with "The Sheer Ecstasy of being a Lunatic Farmer" or visit his place, Polyface Farm, in Stokes, VA or on the web.
And stop wanting so much. Population is just half the problem. It seems as though every human being wants everything every other human being has and the media encourages that craziness. Turn off the damn television and forgo 99% of social media. I've never used Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or any of their cousins and believe I'm richer for that. No one is convincing me I "need" something more.
I like:
The less you need, the more you have.
Thanks for the tips!
Your last line sounds positively Zen. You have found a "way". I like it.
I grow a lot of our food. No tilling, no chemicals, a bounty every year that we share with family and friends. From asparagus to zucchini. Current commercial farming techniques are a recipe for disaster.
I grow some of my own. Lots of figs and Asian persimmons plus my favorite veggie, Tenderette Bush Beans and a few assorted peppers and tomatoes. I still have 6 potted bush beans going this year; they're inside and while I smile at my inability to let them go the way of other summer veggies, I had a fresh bean pod not two hours ago. I serve them and they serve me; I like it that way.
Bill,
Correct, I do and did encourage all my friends to get vaccinated when they rolled out the vaccines for Covid. Yes, my kids have all their vaccines.
So, my comment, as you detected, was not anti-vax. Just root cause of large human populations along with massive deforestation.
Haredi Jews are a tiny piece of the problem. There are a mere 16 million Jews in the whole world. Africa is expected to double its population over the next generation, to 3 billion, which will probably wipe out most of the megafauna, which will be a tragedy of huge proportions. Elephants, for example, are among the smartest non-humans on the planet. They migrate thousands of miles annually, and they are empathetic, and much nicer than H. sapiens, probably because of their politics. The oldest female is automatically the group leader, so theres none of the back-stabbing in the quest for power that occurs among H. sapiens.
The population explosion going on in the US is particularly damaging because we are the majior industrialized nation with the greatest per capita greenhoiuse emissions--the worst place on the planet to put more people.
Yet we have a policy of growing oiur population through immigration. The average immigrant's GH emissions rise threefold after arrival--not surprising since most come from countries with low per capita GH emissions.
The Census Bureau projects we'll add the equivalent of nearly four NY States over the next 40 years, 90 percent of that due to mass immigration. And this despite the fact that our country faces a couple of environmental crises. We are running out of groundwater, endangering our agricultural production. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/08/28/climate/groundwater-drying-climate-change.html
And Propublica projects that within several decades MILLIONS of Americans will become climate refugees https://www.propublica.org/article/climate-change-will-force-a-new-american-migration
Being a NYC resident for 45 years, I am familiar with the Hasidic or Orthodox living in Brooklyn. Same deal: tax money for schools that don't teach by anything close to NYC standards, building codes ignored, large families, men who study the Torah...some work but not outside of their "community. There are other similar communities in NY State and NJ. They keep pure by not mixing with the goyim. They take over by voting controlled by the leaders.
No free choice there. Mothers who leave the community due to abuse can count on losing their children. They and the young men who leave have a hard time making a living due their inadequate educations. They benefit by but share none of the values of a Democratic society.
Btw, the many children of the Heredi population are given little to no education.
They want to keep them "pure"....unable to live in the larger world.
Your comment is so disturbing and so wise. It seems that we used to talk about the need to address overpopulation. I’ve realized that in recent years it is barely discussed. I agree with your assessment completely. Unfortunately, I’m not confident that we have the capacity to
“manage the mess” we’ve made.
Talking about overpopulation usually gets people calling you nasty names. They think you’re all for killing the ones that are here, sterilizing the ones you don’t like & keeping immigrants from “wanting a better life.”
Add to that those who say we need MORE immigrants to keep our economies growing (& asset prices increasing!) & the airy fairies that think “we’ll manage with trillions more” (although “they” usually don’t want the newbies in “their” back yard.
It’s become a taboo subject. )
Exactly Bill. I used to be called anti-Catholic for screaming that the Pope bears a good deal of the blame. The "Church" cares only about souls for heaven. If people only live long enough to die, so what? Birth control keeps those important numbers down. Can't have that.
I think the Catholic Church only cares about numbers....keep those women breeding away. That is one of the problems in Latin American countries....the poor people are told it's a sin to use birth control, the children are blessings.....Not if you can't feed them!! The wealthy get abortions....like everywhere.
Exactly. Male domination is a major factor also. Barefoot and pregnantis an Evangelical trope too.
There is a balance in nature; the thing that tips the scales in the human element.
Thanks, Bill. Nicely put.
What a vision for early morn. The truth be told. We are all crammed into a paradise slowly turning into hell. “You made me do it,” we scream at each other…
Top of the morning to you Jeri. Always my pleasure!
Early birds we seem to be…
I did not! I was asleep.
In 1951 when I was born there were 2.5 billion people on the earth. There are now over 7 billion people on this earth. It is a conundrum and that’s an understatement if there ever was one. Forget about reproductive healthcare. We can’t even get affordable general healthcare in our country. Also too many of our current leaders around the world seem to me, not up to the task (another understatement?). They are not as concerned with the greater good as they are with getting rich and/or having all the answers and being the smartest in the room (their knowledge often and unfortunately based in fundamentalist misogynist religion). Not sure my point except I think the earth’s human population size is a factor in the depletion of resources, migration and extreme climate events. Another understatement. Apologies. Meanwhile in this great population are an over abundance of grifters and con men of which Donald Trump is just one of many in the U.S. alone.
I was born in 1939. In my life, I believe we will have used 90%* of the natural resources. When I was 12, the teacher had a graph to show that the USA was 20%* of the world's population but we were using 80% * of the worlds natural resources. I think the message was that we knew how to get them and what to do with them. My thought was: WHY? what about the future humans? I never forgot that appalling little lesson. Years later, all of a sudden people got concerned with how much stuff we were using. But, mostly, we just keep using, wasting, depleting, seeing the 3rd world countries desperate for basic necessities like water. I remember when the world's population hit 5 billion; I said to myself: it's over. I tell young people who don't have children: Don't. Get a dog...or, a cat. In 50 years, there won't be any Democracies.
* Approximates
Mary Ellen. You state your age in your post - and with many others here posting age-related comments - I wonder what the age range is of us, the readers of Dr. Richardson. I am 82 years of age - how about the rest of you?
Also 82.
86
Hi Mike, Human over-population has many causes. Among the great apes, chimpanzees and bonobos, mothers nurse their babies/ youngsters for five years, until they young ones are competent to forage on their own. Nursing inhibits ovulation, and mothers seldom get pregnant again until they have weaned their last baby, and have a few months to gain weight and improve their physical condition. This results in most females bearing 5-7 babies, and raising 2 or 3 successfully to independence.
This same pattern is observed today in the remaining Hunter-gathers, such as the !Kung pygmies, and in the few true nomads, such as some Turkic peoples, where seasonal ovulation is observed, as evidenced by all children being born between March and June, 9 months after women have access to peak nutritional sources each year. In bad nutritional years, very few babies are born the next spring.
Also we can see that in societies where women have individual access to birth control resources, they tend to regulate the number of children they have, based on their perceived resources available to raise those children to adulthood and the amount of social support they feel they have. Modern Japan is the best example of this that I am aware of.
In societies where women do not have the means to regulate their reproductive choices, where children are seen as necessary laborers for a family, or number of children is an indicator of male status, we see much higher birth rates.
Advances in modern dentistry (in medieval Europe, abscessed teeth were the cause or a contributor in 40% of all adults deaths) and water, sewage and sanitation management reduced death rates dramatically anywhere they were implemented, although we still see outbreaks of cholera to this day. Antibiotics to cure bacterial infections, and vaccines to stop viral plagues came later. Humans reduced the death rates, and developed means to reduce birth rates, but in societies with monotheistic religions and/or patriarchal social systems, we forgot to let women evaluate their individual situations and make choices that fit their circumstances. So we see refugees pouring north out of Central America, refugees pouring north out of Central Africa, and 700,000 Palestinians trapped in Gaza, an area of land that is pretty much the same size as my family’s ranch in Wyoming.
Ugh. STEM type education for women around the world, uninfluenced by any flavor of religion (religions are good for dealing with the great mysteries of life and death, but by definition, none of them keep up with advances in modern medicine, you know what I mean?), and women’s access to adequate forms of reproductive management are the things that will help save this planet. That and quick, sure punishment for war criminals, rapists, and other outlier men who think only of their own glory or pleasure.
You’ve given us much to think about today Mike, thank you. Population is a bifurcated problem: too much in developing countries; too little in mature economies. As for the hawk, like most wild animals, he only takes what he needs. We humans, however, have created a perverse system of insatiable hunger. No matter how much we have, we want more. What was once a system of storage to prevent hunger and depredation in lean times, has become a destructive need to accumulate wealth without limit. It is this greed that threatens our lovely planet and all who call her home.
This profound inequality gives rise to poverty, famine, war, disease, addiction, mental illness, environmental destruction and despair. We could choose to tax the rich appropriately, but, they’ve rigged the system and made us feel helpless. There is enough for us all if we could learn how to share it. History tells us that birth rates go down when people feel secure.
Ms. Love (what a wonderful last name!) ... Yes, "There is enough for us all if we could learn how to share it.". Truly.
UN projections show various scenarios, and though i agree the overall numbers are not sustainable, world populations are expected to peak over the next 50 years or so, depending.... on population control and/or a deteriorating environment. I remember, about 40 years ago reading Loren Aisley describing the human species as a virus, taking over the planet, with impending catastrophe, having spoiled our own beds. Population growth rates hadnt begun to slow down at that time, other then maybe Europe and Japan.
I love hawks and birds of prey and want to come back as one in my next incarnation. I love watching them soar through the air, completely owning the airspace. Our population is unsustainable and very destructive to Mother Earth. We humans are competitive and have violent tendencies. The wars going on now in the Middle East and Ukraine, make me very concerned for our existence, esp with madmen like Putin, who has is threatening nuclear war and the rise of the MAGA cult in our own country. Humans can be benevolent, but it seems that the few who gain the most power and wealth, become more greedy and violent. Also the rise of technology and AI. I don’t understand it but it could be very bad for us. The next 10 years will be the defining direction.
Well, if you DO come back as a hawk, take it easy on the Chipmunks!!
I agree with you, Mike. There was the Black Plague, Spanish flu, HIV--and yet the numbers kept growing. Via science, we found ways to outsmart Mother Nature's attempt to shrug some of us off: antibiotics, water sanitation, vaccines.
Our Sandy Lewis has suggested that the killing of the microbiome is responsible for the violence and mental illness that is plaguing us (no pun intended) today. Perhaps it is some subconscious spark in our reptilian brain that recognizes that too many of "us" leads to not enough resources for "me" and it fuels the fight.
Lots of engaging comments you started here.
Miselle, thank you. I had a little time today and have been away for a while.
The microbiome is substantially altered by farming relative to that in a forest. No doubt.
We kill for reasons other than simply sating hunger pangs. We start and fight wars for gains in someone's wealth, or over disagreements of some kind of religious belief system. Your hawk was just hungry, the chipmunk was his meal.
Mike, in general, we don't kill our own to eat enough food to survive. Yes, we have too much population now, but that doesn't explain the amount of killing our own species at other times when the population was much lower. In one of the primate groups closest to us, chimps, most of the time fights can be settled, sometimes aided by the alpha female. (See Mama's Last Hug) But sometimes things do get out of hand. Other groups are not welcome.
Michele,
Yes, I agree, it is not overpopulation that is causing our violent nature.
Actually don’t be so sure. Population pressures increase competition for limited resources to satisfy basic needs. Add in pressures due to greed and people will take what they can when they can by force or otherwise.
So you are a fan of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse? :-).
the Four who??
:-)
Truth is so painful sometimes but you’ve explained a lot tonight.. this morning.. now
In 1955 when I was born, the World population was 2,746,072,141 (source: database.earth) Today it is ~8,073,710,280 (source: worldometers.info)
That’s almost 3X as many people as came to be in all the years before my birth!!!!
That’s a growth of: 5,327,638,139 in just 68 years
I love nature; I spent a lot of my childhood and adulthood in the woods.
I'm not kidding about this; during HIV and AIDS, I was rooting for it to wipe out the humans.
It didn't effect the animals except the monkeys but that's OK: the monkeys can go.
Then COVID: it's not done with us. I think MaNature will take us down. I'm a big bat fan.
I have rescued a few. Donated them to the Jim Thorp Nature Center, which was thrilled to get them. They told me people just step on the babies that fall from the roofs of barns.
I speak to my X and when I go on about Palestine, he has 2 responses: Biden has to win!....And, He doesn't care about any humans; he only cares about animals. I respond: Right! I forgot that one! I don't actually care about humans either.
However... ..This thing is, I am obsessed with this!
Israel: CRAZY............Palestine: a Holocaust!!!
It's an interesting notion, but I think this is just who we are. But I don't think it makes us fundamentally evil or flawed, such that it'd be better for all of us if we weren't on the planet. While I am a Jew, I have some extended family that is Christian, and they often talk about this idea of theirs called Original Sin; how we're all irredeemable were it not for the power of their God and my families' submission to Him. I don't know if you have similar beliefs or not, but the lowest common denominator of your belief and theirs is that we as humans are fundamentally "bad" (your words saying our species is very destructive to itself and every living thing).
Regardless of provenance, I don't agree with this assessment. While we can be unmercifully cruel toward one another, we can also commit beautiful acts of charity and magnanimity towards each other. We are only a more sophistical animal than the others, but if, say, parakeets ruled the world, we'd be in trouble. I have 4 parakeets, and even though they are bonded pairs and all 4 have gotten along with each other, 3 of them just pecked the other to death while I wasn't home the other day. Why? Because the 4th had been trying to hide his illness, however, but when he got noticeably sick, they did him in. Bad; evil? No; it's just what they do; it's in their DNA. As humans, we generally don't murder our loved ones because they are sick. Good; holy? It's just what WE do.
I do agree with Mike, however, that the balance gets out of control when there are too many of us. There are only so many resources to go around. As the world's water cycle only produces a limited amount of potable water per annum, and as our global population expands, we can expect to see more fighting over this precious resources. Bad; evil? No; no animal wants to die of thirst!
And if it comes to be that we've become so smart that we create weapons that someone ultimately decides to star a conflict that could envelop the entire world....bad; evil? No; it's just us following part of our nature, as the Stoics might say.
Thank you. Exactly. Beautifully expressed!
Pretty funny that you say " it'd be better for all of us if we weren't on the planet."
All of us? I would love to be one of the very few here.
It would be better for the animals if we hadn't evolved into what we are. Some humans are harmless, just wanting to get along, some are creative but sadly, the greedy destructive ones seem to be running the show.
Thank God I don't believe in any religion....I feel sorry for those that do but kind of envy their delusional comfort of an after life. I see the old ladies in the Catholic Church here in Mexico.
They have had way too much to deal with in their lives, but they have Our Lady.
Read that back to yourself..."thank God I don't believe in any religion". There's some truth in that statement; God exists regardless of your system of belief. Delusional comfort? Perhaps it's you who are deluded...have you considered the possibility that it's you with the perception block?
To which God are you referring? Frankly, if there was a God, he/she/it would have moved off in disgust at what this creation: humans are doing to this perfect planet.
Imagine yourself watching two colonies of ants at war with one another...each absolutely bent on annihilation of the other. What is your perspective on the outcome of this epic war and it's significance for the future of the world? Just a very vague approximation of the difference in perspective between us and God. The ants probably have no perception of whether or not you exist or whether you have an opinion or not about them and which colony is "right". You might choose to stamp out the whole combined mess in some self-righteous sense of how "wrong it is" that ants engage in mortal conflict, or you might just conclude that this is a part of nature that ants must engage in conflict to protect their territory and "may the best colony win" and then walk off in disinterest about the outcome, realizing that in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter which ant wins.
Allow your mind to let the concept of God expand a bit in relation to our human perspective. In your current mental paradigm, the ants couldn't possibly conclude that there is a human observing their existential crisis.
Hmm. Well, the reality is that even misanthropes are stuck with the rest of us. :)
"Better for the animals?" Judith, you are an animal. So am I. So are my parakeets, and they'll still peck each other to death if they're sick. Lower-order animals aren't "better" than us; they just exist.
Harmless humans are great, but they're often the first to die in a zombie invasion. :) Seriously, it takes all kinds. The harmless humans don't run societies, yet they are a part of SOME kind of society. They depend on others to help them get by, just as we all depend on others to greater or lesser degree. It's not a coincidence that the Bahai, the Quakers, the Amish, etc., don't run any large society. Society is never run by pacifists. Yet that doesn't make societies "evil" per se, because as the Good Book says, there are times for war and times for peace. Peaceable Kingdom in perpetuity? Unreality.
I usually don't make a moral judgment, but I have to at this juncture: your statement that you feel sorry for those who believe in any religion is entirely crass. Those old Mexican women find some comfort in la Virgen because they've faced a lot of sh-t in their lives, and the consolation they get from religion helps them make it through. And they aren't the only ones. Your expressed sentiment in this regard shows a parsimoniousness of spirit; a lack of understanding of what others go through, although it may not be the case for you. I hope you rethink it.
I understand that you want to be one of the only ones here. But the world wasn't made just for you; it was made for the rest of us, too. :)
Agree............Those old Mexican women find some comfort in la Virgen because they've faced a lot of sh-t in their lives, and the consolation they get from religion helps them make it throughThose old Mexican women find some comfort in la Virgen because they've faced a lot of sh-t in their lives, and the consolation they get from religion helps them make it through.
BTW: you said: " it'd be better for all of us if we weren't on the planet."...if WE weren't on the planet, there would be any US.
I alway do re-thinking...we all should.
There is fascinating research melding genetics, psychology, and anthropology. Researchers are onto a theory that every 350 to 500 years, our human genome shifts, or evolves to higher order thinking. This coincides with some form of technology: fire, speech, the wheel, art, writing, printing press, radio, movie/video/tv, internet speeding everything up. Light stimulates all growth and activates are brains in ways we are still learning about. We are always evolving. Think of our founders and their wisdom,Martin Luther, Davinci, Michaelangelo, the Greek philosophers, Arab mathematicians, Egyptian builders. Some among us have already have the newest gene and their kids will create new pathways to knowledge towards new technologies and compassion. Others never will. That is a source of tension we see in the world right now. Like I said, it is a fascinating field of study.
But, Martin Luther, DaVinci, Michaelangelo, the Greek philosophers, Arab mathematicians, Egyptian builders...are not the types who become leaders of countries. We get some pretty un evolved creatures doing that.
Abraham Lincoln.
As a child growing up in Illinois: Abraham Lincoln was my hero. For years I had a picture of him on my wall. A product of America, the land of the free. An entrepreneur from the very start. I am going to put his picture up again.
Evolution now favors the dolphins. They only go to war against sharks. Their technology is lagging way behind that of humans -- maybe they don't make what they don't need.
I think they beautifully do not feel entitled to own / dominate the world.
I don't think we should confuse the last 500 years of colonialism and industrialization with "human nature". Our species managed to exist on this planet for about 200,000 years (and hominids of various kinds for around 2 million years) before a handful of cultures decided that humans are distinct from nature and that the latter should be subservient to us. Believing that the Earth is not our home but only a brief stop on our way to a heavenly kingdom, these cultures committed themselves to using emerging scientific and technological methods to make their dominance concrete.
The results have been enormously destructive, as we can plainly see. There are complexities to this history that already fill volumes; I am simplifying for the sake of not writing another one. But it would be a mistake to resign ourselves to not being able to do better at *living with* this Earth rather than at its expense. We have done better before, in many different times and places, including here in what we call the Americas--and quite recently.
If we are to survive, those of us who have forgotten will have to remember our kinship with life.
*edited for badly mangled syntax. I'm still not happy with it, but close enough.
Heather's subscribers are capable of wonderfully optimistic forecasts. God (doesn't exist) Bless them.
We shouldn't have given up on heaven; we need that hope now more than ever.
We evolved exceptional powers of agency, but also exceptional abilities to grasp our own circumstances, the experience of others, and social accountability for our own actions. We also have, for emergencies, remnants of what some call our reptile brain. We need to be more choosey about which we follow.
Isn't it a crime against humanity that we have these exceptional abilities but completely ignore obvious facts and proceed on our merry way to destruction........When it came to my attention that there were American billionaires, I was aghast: why would an American need to be a billionaire?? The country was rich. One had freedom, free libraries and schools, and the opportunity to find ways to make a living. I, personally, had a great life on a low income.
Then I realized that they either knew or intuited that someday, only billionaires would have clean water and air and a police force to keep the starving hoards away.
The evolution fork in the road.....we got the fork. Everything else got to the evolution super highway. And now we are left lost with the fork stuck in our butts.
It is still evolving...
We’re programmed to be selfish. That’s why paradise is dying.
I like to think we might be in a transition to the next turn of the evolutionary wheel.
and...it may not include us.
The evolutionary wheel turns over many many many years....by then, there won't be any "stuff" left.
I love your conclusion! Thanks for the reason to smile....
J L you ask: " Why is so much of our history and our present as a species devoted to making it a hell?" Good question, with no simple answer. Religion, racism, provincialism and misogyny come to my mind. I would add short-sightedness as well as we plunder the planet's natural resources, destroying the habitats of other creatures that share our planet Our lack of critical thinking skills and self-absorption will probably doom us at some point, if it doesn't come sooner through a nuclear war.
I would add that humans are largely unconscious. The self absorption which you reference is part and parcel of the lack of collective unconsciousness. Sigh.
Also Jennifer, I totally agree that far too many people lack a deep understanding of who they are.
Just that is a red flag: projections of their unconscious dark side, and fueled by testosterone it too often explodes.
I wholeheartedly agree Samm. Shadow is important to know about oneself to minimize projecting and ‘exploding.’
And if I might add, there is also a shocking lack of critical thinking....
When one has such a serious case of malignant narcissism, as with TFG, critical thinking is impossible, and even if it were, there is no empathy. TFG is the American equivalency to Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Pol Pot and other despots who are shallow humans that are rotten inside. Whom to blame for that? Their parents?
If I have understood our human lineage correctly, if we had descended from bonobos instead of gorillas, we might have become much more loving.
And yes, testosterone has fueled far too much hatred.
Thinking randomly, the Egyptian pharaohs surrounded themselves with eunuchs. Et voila.
We didn’t descend from either of those primates, but from a common ancestor. Still, you make a point. It has been theorized that in the earliest times, women were revered because they gave birth, and men’s role in making babies wasn’t well understood. Later men claimed godlike status because each man could make more babies than any woman could. I think cold water has been dumped on that theory recently, but I like the idea of women being revered.
I had a mother, sisters and a wife who were brilliant, kind, understanding and caring. I don't know that it is testosterone that causes some to be sadistic. It's just that the political systems are such that they end up on top. Perhaps we could start a campaign to persuade TFG to donate his brain to science so that we may be able to find the defect that causes such malignancy.
Nature or nurture? Both together probably.
And I would add, unconscious by design. There is an engrained social structure that deems only the select deserve to be educated while the rest be held down by a lack of response to those who learn differently or at a slower rate. Passing along kids who aren't ready ensures there will always be a low skilled work force. As an educator for 33 years, I have always felt that our students were not treated equally. The kids involved in sports, the kids who came from economically better families, etc , have always had the advantage while those without those advantages of experiences due to lack of economic status struggled and were labeled. No matter how often I talked to the powers that be about the importance of educating all kids based on their level of proficiency in grades 1-3, nothing changed.
I taught middle school and saw first hand the struggle of kids who were just passed along.
If we would make grades 1-3 fluid, meaning kids who may read at a lower grade level are taught with grade level peers, and the same with math, we could remediate early and get kids up to grade level by 4th grade. Research shows that if kids are not proficient readers and doing proficiently in math by 4th grade, the gap in their learning just grows. Everything we do is based in reading and problem solving, so it behooves us to ensure our students are proficient.
Reading,writing,math, and the arts should be the only subjects focused on in grades 1-3. Recess is their PE. Play is important.
Reading can include all kinds of content, but the purpose is reading and comprehension of what is read, rather than a deep dive into a subject.
By fourth grade we know if a lack of proficiency is a learning issue and have developed plans for that child, but a large majority will be proficient by 4th grade as all kids get the basics in the time they need. Brains grow when they are ready, not based on age. Some excel in math but need help in reading and visa versa. Our classrooms should reflect that fluidity.
When we have proficiency then having other core subjects added in becomes more accessible for all. 4th grade is the perfect time to begin more in depth study.
Just my humble opinion as a former educator.
Interesting idea. Because of illnesses and injuries, I missed most of the first grade and was flunked. I was humiliated and hid out in an old car parked on our property very often. Because of the humiliation of being a failure, apparently I refused to return to school unless I was put in the second grade. I was but I knew nothing. We moved in the middle of my second grade and my teacher, Mrs. Weddle, asked me, "Richard, are you sure that you're in the second grade?" "Oh, yes, M'am," I replied. She kept me after school each day for remedial training. By the 5th grade I had caught up with the others and ultimately ended up with a Ph.D. and J.D. Who knows if that had something to do with my failure in the first grade? It did teach me this: young chiildren need to be treated with great understanding and kindness.
Thank goodness your teacher recognized your need to be given those fundamentals you missed. Had she not, I fear your trajectory would have been very different.
Had you been in 2nd grade, but got to be in like grade level groups, which had kids at your level learning the fundamentals missed while still being exposed to grade level material, it would have all been normal being in classes with mixed ages like mini one room school houses because all kids would have moved to other classrooms based on their levels. No one would have felt "stupid".
Imagine a kid who was ahead of their grade level peers being allowed to excel ...oh, they do... it's already there - advanced classes. It's the ones who struggle that are needing that kind of attention, but aren't getting it.
Educating the young is a challenge. More and More I have come to the conclusion that we need to start at an early age teaching the students how to think critically, to put a fact into the proper context. We need to teach more of the "why's" as well as the whats. This is, in part, the beauty of great literature, and in that regard William Shakespeare comes to mind. He may have been the best student of human nature ever to have existed. That's why he's so relevant today. Imagine what he could have done with Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis.
A black male friend in NYC, who has, sadly passed away, responded to a remark I made....I said, "it's terrible that the Puerto Rican schools are so bad",,,he said it was on purpose, or by design or something like that. I was shocked. What does the average white person know about these things. We had a lot in common....However, he said to me once and then again the last time I saw him, "Judy, we have lived in two different worlds".....Me: a liberal from diverse Montclair, an extension of Manhattan...is still learning. The BLM movement brought to the surface a lot of truth of which the white population has no clue.
Other commenters have cited the depletion of potable water supplies and deforestation as the result of overpopulation, but I would argue that it's the result of greed. We believe that our planet's natural resources are limitless, so we destroy and pollute and overuse them. Short-sightedness, exactly.
Kinda both I think…hand in hand on the path to destruction.
Richard. You echo my thoughts. However, I think it will be a combination of weather disruptions and disease. Floods, fires and plagues. Recent samples of that lack of human learning are people relocating in areas where nobody should live. And now, a pathetic shortage of the RSV vaccine that we have said should be administered to our youngest and oldest. Ya gotta love that private enterprise approach to health "care".
Interesting comment about the RSV vaccine. I have been debating getting one; I am 65, but in very good health with no respiratory issues. I'm "in the window" but just by my fingernails. I did get both the flu and Covid shots this past week.
We are totally in the window (76 and 72). But wavering. Had the Covid and Flu shots. I have had significant side effects from both. But better than serious illness or death! We are wavering on the RSV. Side note: many of us are again wearing masks in Trader Joe's and the other local markets - including cashiers.
My only side effects were from the soreness in my arm. I mask up when in public just about anywhere inside. I do have a wider bubble of people I don't mask up for. Our housemate is unable to be vaccinated (allergic reaction when a child in foster care; no way to access medical records) so we have continued taking our precautions.
At 83 I've had the RSV, flu and Covid booster shots with no side effects. I think that wearing the masks in public places is a good move, particularly that this is now the flu/Covid-19 season.
The future does not bode well for the creatures, including humans, on earth, in the minds of many. Over-population, deforestation, and more. Right now we're simply trying to keep out democracy intact.
This year I got the RSV vaccine for the first time - no side effects. I also got my annual flu vaccine as well as the the latest COVID upgrade, which gave me a couple days pain in the arm, lethargy and mild fever just like the other 5. I hear that's an indication that my immunity was enhanced.
For years I have wished for another ELE Asteroid like the one 65 million years ago that rebooted the earth. It would be less embarrassing for our species to be taken out by a natural occurrence instead of by our own ignorance. Unfortunately, I hear that we are making headway of preventing that cosmic shutdown, as we continue destroying the planet from within.
NO NO NO! Not the birds and the bees. Or, the dolphins!
Just us.
'When a group of international journalists arrived at the southern fringe of Gaza City early Friday morning, riding in the back of an Israeli army jeep, we struggled to orient ourselves amid the ruins, the wreckage and the darkness.'
'Since leaving Israel less than an hour earlier, our jeep had bumped and lurched through a landscape so disfigured by 42 days of airstrikes and nearly three weeks of ground warfare that it was hard at times to understand where we were. House after house was missing a wall or a roof, or both. Many had simply been flattened, their concrete floors lying atop each other like a pack of playing cards.'
'Trying to situate myself after reaching Gaza City, I asked a senior Israeli commander where we were in relation to a fishing port where I usually stayed during visits to Gaza before the war.'
“Three hundred meters north,” the commander said.'
'I was stunned. Without realizing it, we had arrived at the Gazan neighborhood that I knew best.'
'Across roughly a dozen visits over the past three years, I had often jogged up and down this stretch of the Mediterranean shoreline, along the coastal road, past a fish market, a mosque, a cluster of apartment blocks and several beach clubs and cafes.'
'Now, it was barely recognizable. I could not find the fish market. The apartment blocks, I now realized, had been wrecked by shelling or strikes. The road had vanished, churned into a sandy, rutted track by the hundreds of Israeli tanks and armored vehicles that have fanned out across the territory since Israel invaded in late October.' (NYTimes) See gifted link below.
'A Journey Into Northern Gaza: Ruins, Wreckage and Darkness'
'New York Times journalists traveled with an Israeli military convoy to catch a rare glimpse of conditions inside wartime Gaza. They saw houses flattened like playing cards, and a city utterly disfigured.'
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/17/world/middleeast/northern-gaza-israel-hamas-war-ruins.html?unlocked_article_code=1._Uw.CZvw.R_vAMIljIKzr&smid=url-share
Israel making terrorists.
If Hamas had F-16s, Apache helicopters, and B-1 bombers they wouldn't be terrorists; they'd be Palestinians soldiers defending their homeland.
When Israel destroys Hamas with their unimaginable horror they will have opened the door to whomever will defend the Palestinian homeland next. There are thousands of Palestinian children who have just suffered through what we cannot even imagine and they will not forget.
Israel making terrorists.
When I hear "settlement expansion" my blood boils. What do you expect when you literally steal your neighbor's land?? Netanyahu is a snake, let alone a "friend."
The settlers in the West Bank should leave their houses intact and the the F out!
I just thank all that is good in the world that these settlers are NOT my neighbors. I've gone 76 years w/o shooting someone and don't want to start now. Netanyahu plays to the worst people in his country just as Trump does here. We have no business arming his government.
Gosh. Something in my NY Times that isn't pro-Israel. Lately, I have avoided it.
Thank you Fern.
OMG. The article is heartbreaking but reveals nothing.....that we don't already know. The comments, about 50%, on the other hand, reveal how many NY TImes subscribers support Israel wholeheartedly. Just like so many US citizens they think Hamas is the bad guy.
To me, what the article did reveal, is that Israel will bring journalists in to see the destruction, as if, it's justified...like a "real war". Into a hospital where doctors have never stopped trying to keep people from dying....with no electricity or medical supplies. Shouldn't Israel be ashamed or embarrassed??? It says a lot about their mind set. Like a hunter showing off his kill: a prize elephant.
Judith, Israel is not innocent, but it had not started devolving into a brute until after horrific attacks. Not every Israeli agrees with Netanyahu's policies. In fact most don't. Not all supporters of Israel in the US agree with e erything it does, but they all ask acommon question: How does one deal with an organization that is committed to your death and is willing to kill its own citizens? Military commentators on American mainstream media proudly point to the months they waited before invading Mosul in the 2nd Iraq war to allow civilians more time to escape, but they forget that they had all the time they needed and controlled the exit routes.
Back to the tunnels issue. How do you remove your enemy's ability to attack and then hide? Do you expect a purely diplomatic solution when you're dealing g with a nihilistic adversary? And regarding the New York Times, I subscribe to it plus the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal plus Reuters plus the Economist. The center of that cluster is almost dead center, with a strong dose of angst-ridden opinion about the current situation. The NYT does not blindly support Israel.
I do appreciate your questions and comments, because they have led me to search for and find richly textured histories that describe the tragic origins of the conflict.
The NY Times has gotten better...Except the comments are shocking....very uneducated: "those terrible Hamas". If I hadn't gotten information via Finkelstein, and the other....I would also have simplistic opinions I haven't checked WoPo much recently due to so much time on other sources. The response to the Oct7 attack was hardly the first time Gaza was viciously attacked with many dead, dozens of children, and infrastructure demolished. If I had more time I'd find sources that outline Operation this or Operation that. Somehow, you're missing that info. I think the "commitment" Hamas has to make Israel gone is a natural reaction to what has gone on for too long. If one is continuously abused by some entity, there comes a time when the solution is to KILL. An expected reaction to extreme abuse is an extreme reaction. Oct 7 was extreme by design.. The last 70 years has brought nothing but humiliation and abuse, taking away more and more resources to have a decent life: a job, a family and live in peace. Look at the West Bank; everyone, including Israel, agrees that is Palestinian land. How many have been displaced, murdered, left in fear for their lives and families?
American had riots by our black citizens...white people get enraged that stores are destroyed.....Frankly, I think the black citizens behave very nicely considering. They fight in wars,; they accept the meager opportunities doled out to them. After WW2, they didn't receive the education and housing benefits the white soldiers did. In Uniform , they were spat at. When the Black Panthers came to my attention, I said, if I were black I would so join that organization.
I had a 2 family house in East Orange, which is between classy Montclair and Newark. We had rented our 2nd floor to a couple, who were, like us, from Montclair. They were moving out of Newark. During their move, there was a major riot in Newark,1967. Warren couldn't drive back to retrieve pictures and lamps that he didn't trust the moving guys with. He couldn't enter because they weren't letting any blacks into Newark. I had no interest or clue about that riot. Riots were common then. 30 years later, PBS did a special on it. Police brutality. Like the Israeli's, no one cared what the police did; they could get away with anything. They saw those blacks the same way Israelis see Palestinians. You aren't like us, we own this and to us you're dirt.
Israel is pushing the limits; it has been for decades. Watch this!!, they say. We are the Chosen. ANY criticism is antisemitic. Don't EVER forget the Holocaust. Well, screw all that. They aren't "chosen" and using those accusations and excuses is ...well, should be, or will be, over.
There have been plenty of genocides in my lifetime. Bad ones. But, this one has really captured my attention. The whole dynamic: Jews, the pitiful situation for the displaced Palestinians, the world reactions. A very interesting stew. Jews have a fascinating place in history. I studied that in the early '60's when the Holocaust (I don't think it was called that then) came to my attention. It was still early on; it hadn't become a media sensation like it did in the 70's. Then I lived in NYC which has a very Jewish element to it......I won't get into what I personally experienced there. I began my life with a Jewish best friend and a romantic view of Jews: smart and fringe. I am close to antisemitic now. I don't want to rub them out...but, if they keep it up....
Anger. Fear. Hatred. Jealousy. Powerful and toxic stimulants. You have to be carefully taught to hate. They have been.
Because of oil.
Oil = money = power. This reference in today's letter made me want to scream:
"the U.S. has also traditionally seen Israel as an important strategic ally as it stabilizes the Middle East, helping to maintain the supply of Middle Eastern oil that the global economy needs."
"...oil that the global economy needs..."
So we wreck the planet and kill each other over a substance that could be left in the ground if we had used the science readily available to provide sustainable power to every corner of the globe. You can't fix stupid.
Yes Bill, but the planet will be fine, with or without us. In the meantime we need work on stupid workarounds.
You mean we humans are not "the center of the universe"? /S
Yes.
Gaza I understand owns the oil in the sea not Israel. Moot point now.
Geographically, even if Gaza was a real country, the gas finds in the nearby Mediterranean Ocean are Israeli and maybe Lebanese to the north.
No I believe they were owned by Gaza. Whether the Israeli's took them over I don't know.
Or, an excess of testosterone.
all wars are political and about Power and Money
This is a problem Re: the Palestinians...no power, no money. Th only things they have is people feel really bad for them. We'll see how that works out for them.
Why does the U.S. Government not support them: they are no bodies.
Except, an handy excuse to bomb Iran.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_aid_to_Palestinians#:~:text=The%20international%20community%20has%20sent,%24600%20million%20in%202020%20alone.
thanks...another piece of this puzzle. A Master's Degree Piece.....as a literature and philosophy major, anything to do w/ $ is challenging. I assume they are given those billions because they have practically no economy. During the Vietnam War I took the pass/fail option on the economics course that would have taken me off the dean's List..........Does that pay for the services Israel provides that have been cut off?
Don't forget!
The largest diaspora from the Middle East in human history was that diaspora caused by Hillary Clinton's decision, while she was Secretary of State in 2012, to arm the (bloodthirsty) "rebels" that were trying to overthrow Bashar Al Assad in Syria. Thus began the "Syrian war", which, of course, did not go like Hillary thought it would because, of course, she was wrong. The people she sold weapons to were just as corrupt as Assad and not many supported them.
So, exceptionally poor judgement is not caused by testosterone.
Mike S, per a 2014 article by the BBC, the Obama administration did not start asking the rebels until well after the barrel bombs started to be dropped by the Adsad regime, to the chagrin of the US ambassador to Syria. The lament is that the US didn't arm the rebels enough.
An article on Wikipedia details the US arming the rebels in a meaningful way in 2015, well after the massacres of Syrian protesters and later rebels was started by the Assad regime, and that seems to have been for helping with the ISIS issue.
The info in those articles seems to run counter to your blaming of your favorite target, Hillary Clinton. Again, your assertion seems to be quoting Russian propaganda.
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33997408
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_equipment_used_by_Syrian_opposition_forces#:~:text=Large%20equipment%20like%20tanks%20and,opposition%20forces%2C%20or%20other%20sources.
she was letting out her "male side"...
Mike S seems to be in the habit of repeating Russian misinformation. That's true of what he just posted, but my comment is based on several posts over the last couple of months.
ever the misandric...
If we were good animals, the breeders would have told the fellas to stay the hell home.
Or education and brotherly/sisterly love.
How I wish I could affirm you, Elizabeth.
If education and decent respect for and enjoyment of others ruled -- or had any perch in the U.S., or the Mideast, we'd not see the divisiveness and hatreds that rule the U.S. as in the Mideast.
Our schools fail.
Humanly fail.
Oh, yes, many elites succeed by the rubrics of standardized testing. Around the world -- everywhere -- numbers rule. Not just numbers. We can go beyond Bob Seger here. It's how numbers all fit, belong to, serve categories. And these groups. easily labeled entities, and easily packaged units all fit, belong to, and serve the schemes of our totally dehumanized billionaires.
The owners of the world now are our most vulgar rich. Education in no country allows for any to learn to see others as individuals in their communities.
Wish I could affirm you, Elizabeth. If education everywhere didn't belong but to the perennial vulgarities of our packagers, labelers, quantifiers, and abstracters.
In the US, the morbidly rich vulgarians are funding attacks on public education by promoting things like vouchers for school "choice" to private schools, often religious in nature. Meanwhile, they cut funding to public schools and don't pay educators decently, don't want to maintain the educational infrastructure. They intentionally hurt public education, but bitch and moan about how bad the schools are. I used to teach, and I loved watching little kids learn to read and do math. I would NOT go into education today.
And if parents could love children with food and hugs because the parents were fed and hugged....
I wish I knew the answer. It’s men. Too much testosterone and greed. It makes me sad ... through out history it’s been this way. No different. I have a reference magnet I bought in the ‘90’s which says “I’ll be a post feminist in the post patriarchy”..... and we are still here doing the same thing...
Support for your thesis (it’s men) shown this past week by the McCarthy-Burchett tiff and the Mullins offer to fight a witness in a senate hearing. First thing they think of is a fight.
Pathetic, yes, but we're not ALL that way. Sad to see them in positions of power.