Unpublished Letters: Gwynne Dyer and the Gaia Proposal

Vincent J. Curtis

18 Dec 2012


In a previous email, I suggested that columnist Gwynne Dyer was one of those people who believed that the world was over-populated with human beings, and that since the human species was merely one among many, the planet earth would be better off if a substantial portion of the human population died off.  This is the essence of the Gaia philosophy, and was the reasoning behind the Zero Population Growth movement of the 1960s and 1970s.

In today's article, Mr. Dyer confessed.  He concludes: "...the astounding total of seven billion human beings, on our way to nine or ten billon.  That's far too many for this finite planet, and a rapid decline in the birth rate, even to below replacement level, would be a Good Thing."

Since Mr. Dyer's position is that the human race is too numerous on earth, how does that inform the other positions he has taken, on global warming, on energy generation for example?  Does he advocate in his columns what is best for humanity, or what is best for Gaia, the "mother earth" which he says is overpopulated with human beings?  Mr. Dyer evidently believes that the interests of Gaia and of humanity are in conflict, and that to bring the interests of the the human race and Gaia into harmony, the human herd needs to be culled, just as we cull the deer in the Dundas Valley Conservation Area.

Mr. Dyer may not come right out and say that six or seven billion people need to die without replacement within the century, but that is what he means.  A loss of 80 % or more of the human population within a century would count as one of those catastrophic die-offs which are said to have happened in earlier earthly epochs.  If we merely held the human population to ten billion, if the earth were to prove that it could sustain seven, eight, or ten billion people by the end of the century, then poor Mr. Dyer's theory of the limits of Gaia - the mother earth - would be called into question.  Mr. Dyer needs to advocate a die-off if he believes his own theory.

The theory of Malthus has been proven wrong every time it has been proposed, and the theory of Malthus is what Mr. Dyer evidently believes.

The sincere motives of Mr. Dyer's advocacy of one position or another are now in question.  Does he advocate what he thinks is best for humanity, or is he secretly advocating the culling of humanity because it is best for Gaia?  To Mr. Dyer, the benefit to the human race of culling the herd is that by the culling of humanity, the human race  would be brought more into harmony with Gaia.

I thought the 20th century had seen enough of such monstrous beliefs.  Eugenics, racial superiority, abortion, birth control, and now Gaia.  They are all of a piece.
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