E. O. Wilson: Runaway population growth at epicenter of environmental problems Comments

Chela Graham

Tue, 17 Jan 2023 23:13:38 +0000

He does address over consumption in his description in Half Earth of human beings as “collectively ravenous consumers”. That doesn’t negate the fact that overpopulation is a significant factor in climate crisis and in upcoming water shortages. He is joined in this view by many prominent biological scientists including Jane Goodall and David Attenborough. Wilson’s professional opinion is that overpopulation is the central factor in climate crisis, not the only factor. Given his long history of scholarship many people are convinced by his perspective and are advocating for increased funding for voluntary global family planning. Why is this a problem for other environmentalists? Are people criticizing his opinion proposing that an overpopulation of 8 billion people plays no part in environmental degradation?

Puja B.

Sun, 19 Jan 2020 19:18:18 +0000

I am horrified and crestfallen to see scientific idols like Ed Wilson still making statements like “We’ve already determined that [human population growth] is, environmentally, possibly the central and most important part of the modern environmental movement.”) Why, after all these years, does the highly skewed distribution of resource consumption rarely get implicated by the world's most privileged? Do capitalism and the myth of unlimited economic growth have nothing to do with climate change, water shortage, and the extinction crisis? There are a lot of people, including social and bio-physical scientists, that say greed and overconsumption by the world's privileged are at the core of the crisis facing the planet. And we, as population biologists, should remember that a key assumption of the model underlying the concept of carrying capacity is equal distribution of resources. All economic data shows that there is an ever widening gap in resource distribution so the concept of "over" population is impossible to actually assess. Our scientific heros are not without their biases or blind spots. Please consider.

John Weiss

Wed, 15 Jan 2020 19:10:15 +0000

I may be wrong, but I think Wilson's view ISN'T that there's not enough food. He's Not saying we need to reduce population to reduce starvation.

He's saying that the PRODUCTION of all that food, and all the other forms of energy production, and all forms of waste produced by human society, are the problem for ecosystems.

Donna Tucker

Sun, 12 Jan 2020 21:15:38 +0000

We are like a virus on the landscape, all consuming and unstoppable. I believe that we will be stopped by our own reckless actions in the form of chemical neutering. Pesticides are already achieving that end in marine mammals and fresh water species such as amphibians right now. It is simply a matter of time as we flush more chemicals into the ecosystems worldwide. Rachel Carson will ultimately be correct in her assessment of what our future will be.

Vivek

Thu, 28 Nov 2019 13:30:56 +0000

It isn't human over-population but the economic arrangement known as capitalism--the pursuit of profit at all costs--and the power of corporations, that is destroying the ecosystem, undermining human rights and democracy, and threatening life on this planet. Surplus food is produced yearly--enough to feed all of humanity-- yet because of the profit motive, enormous amounts of wood is discarded and wasted. Corporations have become very powerful over the past 1.5 centuries, so much so that they can unleash lawyers by the thousands to defend the interests of the corporation AGAINST human life or the health of the biosphere. It's corporations that control the information and content that civilians consume and which influences people's perceptions and beliefs and behaviors. Can you please post the entire interview unedited? thanks.

Erica Louise Lieser Whyte

Tue, 26 Nov 2019 16:56:31 +0000

I find E.O.Wilson intriguing and feel inspired to read his books.

Kumon Tokumaru

Sat, 23 Nov 2019 20:44:55 +0000

I like Wilson's idea to identify linguistic humans as eusocial animal.

Then we have to identify what is linguistic?

I think that our language is digital evolution of mammal analog vocal communication.

Barry Watkins

Wed, 20 Nov 2019 14:24:32 +0000

Admired the man since studying zoology and entomology in South Africa. Although am a marine biologist ants, termites and the Odonata fascinate me. E.O. Wilson a rare breed.

Frank Payne

Wed, 20 Nov 2019 05:18:33 +0000

What intrigues me no end is the fact that the human species is virtually the only one that to be devoid of any self regulation in breeding, seemingly disconnected from natural constraints that control most other species’ numbers. Natural cycles of famine and plenty, keep species naturally in balance, whereas human breeding is explosive and threatens all other’s sustainability. It is almost as if we are alien in our disconnect from nature and despite our self glorified claims of “superior intelligence” don’t seem to be able to recognize the unsustainability of our actions, both insofar as it challenges our own future as well as the terrible damage it is causing to all other life forms on the planet. Or worse still, that we don’t care. Nature is an exquisitely balanced system that humans through their consumptive and resource extractive activities, are destroying apace, without any real thought of the inevitable consequences which have become so evident. The effects we are witnessing should be at the center of our civic narrative and the prominent subject in our education programs, to counter the abysmal ignorance that afflicts society in general. Our consumptive and despoiling behaviour is not sustainable and unfortunately if no concerted change in behaviour is either self regulated or externally imposed, our future and that of this beautiful planet is in mortal danger. Global warming is incontrovertibly real and it seems to me that the explosion in human breeding and its resultant exploitation of the natural order are the fundamental causes. No other “explanation” makes sense.

Esther Phillips

Fri, 28 Jun 2019 15:00:55 +0000

Would you please kindly advertise this event which is to put pressure on the UN to include "small families" in the Sustainable Development Goals Many thanks https://www.facebook.com/events/481886305947870/

Roger Taylor

Fri, 14 Jun 2019 06:25:28 +0000

The neuro-biologist Robert M. Sapolsky says of E.O. Wilson : "E.O. Wilson is arguably the most important naturalist of the last half of the twentieth century, an architect of the sociobiology synthesis along with a number of other fields, a biology god." Quoted from : BEHAVE The biology of humans at our best and worst. by. Robert M. Sapolsky, PENGUIN PRESS, Copyright c. 2017 by Robert M. Sapolsky.

Janet

Sun, 9 Jun 2019 02:32:31 +0000

What a fascinating man! I found this article very interesting, and I agree that overpopulation is the root of so many of our environmental and societal challenges.