Warmed over Malthus, again

Vincent J. Curtis

16 Sept 24

RE: Has earth’s carrying capacity been reached? Spectator editorial by Wayne Poole. 16 Sept 24.

The thesis that Wayne Poole offers is called Malthusianism, after economist Thomas Malthus who, in 1798, said that the earth’s carrying capacity was within sight.  Even Poole, inter alia, admits the falsity of his claim when he says that the earth’s population is expected to increase by 36 percent, from 7.6 billion to 10.4 billion.  How can such a staggering increase be possible if carrying capacity has been reached?

There is also something profoundly racist in Poole’s thesis. Where the earth’s population is growing is in Africa, India, and China. If you’re going to cut out human population, logically, those are the places to start. But if Poole’s future must tolerate those numbers, those population must at least remain poor, for by electrification and industrialization, the world emissions of CO2 will increase.

I have noted that people who talk about “sustainability” have only the vaguest idea of what they mean. No part of the life-cycle of an insect is “sustainable”, yet insects have been around for over 100 million years!

The more extreme holders of Poole’s view maintain that the human population must drop by 75%, to 2 billion, by the end of the century for the planet to survive. A genocide of humanity is where Poole’s logic takes you.

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