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We'd like to know what you think about our web site.  Feel free to send your comments by clicking the link below.  After review, your comments may be included in the PanEarth guest book so we can share your thoughts with other visitors.

Please include:  Your Name and Country (with State, Province, etc.)

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Dr. Alina M. Szmant (Professor of Marine Biology) -- Posted November 12, 2014

I like your site.  I have been preaching about overpopulation issues for 20 years+ but the issue continues to be ignored.  We need major organizations such as The Nature Conservancy, The Ocean Conservancy, Sierra Club, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Clinton Foundation etc to recognize that THIS is the issue they should be addressing and then the issues they care about (poverty, wildlife, biodiversity, etc) will solve themselves.

 

Julian Jackson (Writer and Editor) -- Posted November 12, 2014

This is an important and neglected topic.  Essentially we have to reduce the human population gradually by fair and just means to an amount that the carrying capacity of the planet - with reduced resources and especially fossil fuels - will be able to support.

Please see here: http://www.populationmatters.org and here http://blog.greenjobs.co.uk/2014/05/30/population-growth-means-emissions/
 

Brad Wilson

USA -- Posted June 20, 2011 10:22:04 A.M.

This is a hugely important topic.  Thanks for working on
it.

You’ve performed sophisticated mathematical analysis with
a few variables, but that can be misleading, as the
variables of real life are so much more complex.
Reductionism (ie. biological) is a huge challenge for
scientific approaches to human problems.

For the web site, I’d like to see more discussions and
peer review, perhaps stimulated by periodic blogs.

I’d like to see more on explaining the contradiction
between how population growth levels out with greater
wealth, etc., even though food production increases.

Historically, like most historical analyses, you make no
distinction between the results of the early agricultural
revolution and it’s worldwide spread, and the later
development of the urban power complex, which grew in a
few areas.  They were very different culturally and
materially.  The latter led to concentrations of
population and a variety of factors contributing to
instability and maldistribution of wealth.

You also include no farm policy and farm price data, for
example, in interpreting the period between 1961 and 1999.
This was also the period of the rise dominance of the
agribusiness power complex and of the megamodern or
megaindustrial era in general. In1962 the power complex
(and agribusiness complex in particular) called for policy
changes to force one third of US farmers off the land in
five years by lowering farm price floors and reducing
supply mangement (policy).  Similar policies were
implemented with a goal of destroying agriculture around
the globe with low prices (ie. decoupling, free trade).
The 1962 plan was essentially implemented in a fairly
similar time frame, with fairly similar results.
Throughout that entire period (ie. 1952-2010) farm prices
were lowered (with an exception after the Russian grain
sales of the 1970s which was at first kept secret to the
power complex, which reaped most of the profits).  This
represented a huge global reduction in agricultural
wealth, and had a huge impact on farming systems and food
production.  It strongly led agriculture away from
ecology. The part about how grain (& etc.) supply was
managed (ie. almost always reduced) for decades is also
not included in your analysis.

For documentation related to these matters see my blog:
http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/bradwilson
 

Matt Holbert

USA -- Posted September 11 2010 03:53:24 PM

Thanks for sharing your work. I got to the site by way of a comment and accompanying link at The Oil Drum by Steven Salmony. As far as survival is concerned, it seems that a concerted effort should be made to convert our universities into an environment whereby one/half of the curriculum is systems studies and the other half is training in some artisanal craft that requires little in the way of processing, packaging, and energy use. We can put together a quality of life that is far better than the one that currently predominates.

 

Frish

USA -- Posted 20 May 2010 06:50:18 AM

Great analysis of how we got here, and description of the trajectory we are on. Personally, I believe we have ALREADY gone beyond the point of no return. I know that sounds like I'm waving a "The End Is Near" sign. The "solution" to the human impact on the world's biosphere to to have NO humans on the planet. And that's exactly where our path leads, and, within the next 200 years (or less). Putting "my money where my mouth is" I choose to NOT have children, and believe that having children is immoral, given the destruction of species, habitat, and other impacts that another human mouth to feed obtains. "Live long and die off" is a motto I live by - www.vhemt.org

 

Beth H

USA -- Posted 20 May 2010 02:44:32 PM

I found your site through VHMET.  You've got some great things. I've known since  the 1970s that the earth was overpopulated, and humans are on collision with disaster if we continued, but, alas, we continued. I fear we are beyond the point of no return - that the world ecology has been damaged by chemicals, destruction of the ozone layer, florocarbons, nuclear wastes that we produced, not knowing how to handle, and trusting blindly that "someone" in the future would. They're now being isolated and buried. We're beyond peak oil, oil sustains food from everything from fertilizers to running tractors to trucks. When we run out of oil, we run out of food. Or, will we hit "peak (fresh) water" first, where we run out of drinkable water first? I don't know, but I know that there will be great human suffering when the abnormal and artificial conditions that caused the overgrowth of human population cease, we cannot maintain with the damage already caused, and humans become extinct. Note though that even that will not stop the damage done to the environment. There are plenty of chemical and nuclear materials which will continue to cause species extinction for hundreds or thousands or even millions of years in the future. I'll link to you at http://cynics4bettertomorrow.org Headcynic of Cynics for a Better Tomorrow

 

Kay Moseley

USA -- Posted 15 Mar 2009 02:26:48 PM

Was delighted to learn of your website and to go through the interesting and provocative presentation on population and food supply.

Without calling for Malthusian checks, however, how can we best work towards the cultural and policy changes required to bring population growth in check?

More generally, congratulations on this terrific website. It is not often that one finds such sacred cows -- "Increase food supply!" and "Increase reproductive choice!" -- subject to such frontal assault. Bravo.

It would be helpful, however, if you would indicate if there are any other population-related organizations whose work you approve, and if there are relevant policies and policy decisions which you would recommend for letter-writing campaigns or whatever. These are not easy issues to confront. In fact it is perhaps the more general issue of sustainability, and the catastrophic human impact on other species and resources, that might be the most politically-feasible avenue of approach.

Thanks, KPM

 

Robert Fiske

USA -- Posted 06 Mar 2009 11:17:53 PM

Your work is extremely thought-provoking. You provide a sound basis for choosing to make a figure-ground reversal (what you refer to as a paradigm shift). This can substantially alter the mental framework, thereby leading to spontaneous behavior change. I would link your approach quite strongly to the three "Limits to Growth" reports issued by Meadows, Meadows and Randers. I regard their work as seminal and vastly under-appreciated. Please let me know your views on their work. Thanks for your efforts!

 

Richard Grossman

USA -- Posted 28 Nov 2008 01:57:39 PM

I have heard of your work from Steven Salmony (?spelling), and have been impressed with the article that he publicized. I chose the field of medicine to work in the population arena because I had the strong feeling that the increase in population growth rate was due to medical and public health advances. Now I realize that the increase is due to both factors--health and availability of food--and that the two are intimately related. I commend you for changing my mind. I have tried to watch the video but have been unable; is the problem at my end of the internet or yours? Dick

 

Zot Lynn Szurgot

Estados Unidos -- Posted 05 Oct 2008 02:39:05 PM

Thank you ever so much for compiling and presenting this data so well. The perspective introduced is vital yet apparently difficult to arrive at, if its rarity is any indication. The presentation here should be very helpful to English-speakers who are open to arriving at understanding. i hope they are many, and that they make use of such a valuable resource as you have so freely offered. Certainly it can help others overcome difficulties. Gratitude! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If i may be so bold as to make use of this Guestbook to refer to other Guestbook entries, i feel the comments of David Lovelace are salient and bear investigation. Like him, i feel we can add traction to our efforts by pushing toward increasing the economic and social choices of women worldwide. In that, i wish him and others the best, even as i join their push. Unlike Mr. Lovelace, i do not feel any driver is more primary than the basic ecological equations common to all life, including resource availability as a magnet pulling population levels toward K, more fundamental than any social arrangements. While social disempowerments can accelerate the speed at which a population responds to this magnetic pull, changing the speed will only help a little as long as this electromagnet of irrationally-increasing-K remains turned on. Again, i hope to help with this little, but it is at least as important to help reverse the primary engine, which is excess resource availability from converting healthy ecosystems into human food. Humans will overpopulate to approach an artificially-raised K whether women are with or without choices, yet stabilizing K will lead to population stability among both empowered-women populations and disempowered-women populations, so we must stabilize K no matter what else we do. i prefer the route through empowering women, but that is a worthwhile boon that nevertheless does not reach to the bottom of the population dilemma, so let us not fail to acknowledge the primacy of resource availability in determining their lives and the future of all of us. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The embarrassing truth, so well presented here, is that humans (at the level of whole populations) do in fact behave like fruit flies as regards the basics of population dynamics, and any resistance to acknowledging this is obstructive to sustainability. Understanding our situation can lead to better-integrated solutions, and also to a deeply satisfying biophilia as we relearn to belong among our sister species. Tackling the serious problems of population growth can certainly be helped by gender equality, and we must also understand that stabilizing food supplies is an absolute requirement. If we are wise, we will do both. One hooray to anyone who moves to empower women, and three cheers to anyone who helps destroy the myths behind food overproduction!

 

Mark A. Adsett

Sweden -- Posted 17 Aug 2008 12:01:45 PM

Very informative - good work. Will check back soon.

 

Kristal L. Rosebrook

USA -- Posted 27 Jul 2008 07:02:11 PM

Great website

 

Tjerk Bakker

Netherlands -- Posted 15 Jul 2008 02:32:26 PM

Thanks for your wonderful website and information Its so useful. The big issue is overpopulation, you made me clear how it functions in relation to food supply. Your website is linked on my Dutch website for sometime already. www.opwarming.info

 

Ruben Nelson

Canada -- Posted 23 Jul 2008 10:01:58 AM

Thank you.

 

John

USA -- Posted 20 Jun 2008 01:22:32 PM

this is very interesting. THank you.

 

Randy Crohn

Israel -- Posted 08 Jun 2008 04:44:31 AM

Dude!

 

sheila chambers

usa -- Posted 27 Apr 2008 03:13:47 PM

Since I'm still stuck with a slow dial up I can't watch your videos but I have known we're overpopulated since the 1960's. Because of that observation, I chose not to have children, unfortunately, too many other people continue to have too many children. Now I hear the call for another "green revolution" to feed the now starving hordes. No, no more, with the decline of oil, mass starvation will happen no matter what we now do. The green revolution was to buy us time to stop population growth and stabilize it and we instead chose to just keep feeding the new mouths that were added each year, to prevent the dissemination of birth control, deny abortions and keep people ignorant about sex education. Now we will all pay the cost of our stupid actions as will billions of innocent children who should have never been born.

 

David Lovelace

UK -- Posted 09 Mar 2008 01:36:23 AM

Your analysis underestimates a key driver of population growth: women’s the lack of reproductive choice. Religion and culture are stronger drivers than resource availability in many human populations and mutually reinforce each other to deny 100’s of millions of women the right to control their own fertility. In many countries especially throughout Sub-Saharan Africa and Asian women have little or no control over when or whom they marry, when they start having children or how many they have. This has nothing to do with food imports or the degree of poverty and everything to do with the low status of women and girls in the prevailing religion and culture. A recent report by Actionaid “Hit or Miss - Women’s Rights and the Millennium Development Goals” (www.actionaid.org.uk March 2008) gives the details. Human populations do not behave like fruit flies or as rational beings so your equations are simplistic and naïve. Tackling the serious problems of population growth requires gender equality rather than food restrictions. David Lovelace (Herefordshire UK)

 

Hillary Anderson

US -- Posted 15 Jan 2008 12:16:15 PM

 

Chris Koch

USA -- Posted 04 Jan 2008 02:05:32 PM

Having been introduced to the Population Explosion / Food Production correlation by way of Daniel Quinn's books, I am devoted to "preaching" this message in any way I can, when and wherever I can. As it can be difficult to express the issue from as many angles as it seems to require, it is great to have such a detailed and in-depth tool. I confess that in this election year, when the issues being brought up by the campaign are undeniably real, it is difficult to maintain interest when nobody -- nobody anywhere -- seems to be talking about the problem of population, and it is so obviously the foundation of so many other grievous issues. And of course, if it IS being discussed anywhere, no one is discussing it from the perspective of its scientifically indisputable cause. I can only hope that the slide down the other side of the petroleum bell-curve is as devastating as it promises to be, and that the end of the petroleum party will finally result in a stabilization of food production and a subsequent levelling and/or lowering of population increase. Because sadly, we seem incapable of realizing this proactively. Again thanks for providing this, and do let me know if any support is needed in your efforts.

 

Michael Bedar

U.S.A. -- Posted 23 Dec 2007 10:08:33 AM

Learning more about Pan Earth, I feel basically I share a vision - that it is ecological and sustainable farming, with tendencies towards organic farming and also vegan eating, that will bring human nourishment and the living planet in balance. A belief about receiving in order to share, rather than to dominate. The food gardening we teaching in the Spiritual Veganic Farming Apprenticeship at our center, the Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center, in Patagonia, AZ. Thanks for showing the world this. I'd be interested in including you as s reference in our book, by Gabriel Cousens, M.D., "Creating Peace by Being Peace." Will you get back to me to talk about these ideas? Thank you very much.

 

.Ramalingam

India -- Posted 22 Dec 2007 08:10:38 AM

very interesting !

 

Geoff Dickinson

Australia -- Posted 06 Dec 2007 11:01:25 PM

Top stuff. Limits to Growth in a new form

 

Hendrick

Europe  --  Posted 26 Oct 2007 12:00:31 PM

Your web site will add to the awareness of human beings that we should change on how we look at the earth and behave before we kill the life diversity on the planet, including ourselves. I read about those communities that could lead those changes, however, we are trapped (for 50% of the population) in cities as corporate slaves and mortgage slaves. How do we get out of this system? Should we collapse first, before we can change the system? If I listen to people around me, everyone seems ok with this by saying "let me have a nice life, I have to go on, what can I really do, etc...". So far I do not see that a few communities can really change the mass.

 

kerry morris

USA  -- Posted 25 Oct 2007 07:27:59 PM

This web site provided a lot of helpful information

 

Steven Earl Salmony

USA -- Posted 17 Oct 2007 08:22:57 AM

Thanks for such rare and much-needed contributions to the science of human population dynamics. This research indicates to me that we can now see the primary problem, the proverbial "mother" of all global challenges, which is presented to humanity in the early years of Century XXI. The problem is a huge one. This problem is posed by the human population to humanity and takes its shape from the anticipated convergence of unwelcome, fulminating ecological conditions, ones that arise as a consequence of the skyrocketing and unbridled growth of absolute global human population numbers, I suppose.

 

Steven Earl Salmony

USA -- Posted 26 Sep 2007 10:58:14 AM

This presentation is surely one of most significant contributions to scientific knowledge that I have ever seen. Thanks for such outstanding research.

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Revised: 03/26/15 11:37:02 -0500.

 

 

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