Guillermo Ramon Adames Reflects on Paul Erlich's 'The Population Bomb' Guillermo Ramon Adames y Suari - PVNN
June 3, 2013

The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate...
-from The Population Bomb, by Paul R. Erlich

The Population Bomb by Paul R. Ehrlich Check it out on Amazon.com

This was a very popular book that was written in 1968 by Paul R. Erlich. It describes what the future was going to be like due to overpopulation. This would be people that would “demand” all sorts of “rights”: going from food, electricity, water and most basic needs that a human being requires simply for share survival.

It described that the population growth would overflow the available area (including the seas) at our disposal, to grow food, whichever food. The worse critic against the book was that the future cannot be predicted. In 1968 there were about 3.5 billion inhabitants. Today there are about as double and we still seem no to be able to predict the future with the exception that there are more people and there will be much more. In a couple more years we will be hitting the 10 billion people mark. Erlich’s question is still valid: Where are we going to get food for everybody and at what price? The minor climatic problem and millions will die.

Let’s go to essentials: the question of human reproduction is taboo. You just don’t talk about it. Before, countries would declare war: WW-I took some 50 million souls. WW-II was not any better but today’s wars kill 1,000 people. China tried to stop the population growth imposing a “one child per couple”. Human Rights stopped that behavior and population are on the growth again. In India the government offered a portable radio against vasectomy but that did not work either. In Mexico “the left” offers anything against “your vote”. It sounds like your only problem is to be born and “the left” will give you everything. The Mexican populist version of “daddy government furnishes everything”.

Religion does not help either: in the Christian religions “you will bear the children that God sends you” and other religions reason as the like. Forget about birth control: preservatives (whichever) or the various pills or other methods. They are simply not approved. Also forget abortions which have also been legalized in a number of countries.

So, statistically we cannot predict anything: We will inevitably reach a point in which we will have more people than food. More people than water required per capita.

Then we will reach a point in which we will “demand” to the governments that it is a right to have food. Then the governments will respond: “you demanded human rights and you exercised them, you wanted freedom of choice and you got it: Don’t come up now and tell me that I did not grant all the rights you wanted, you had them all”. But they won’t dare say to you that there is also a responsibility of your own life. Even if that goes with education.

And then what? Food will become a very expensive commodity and wars will start left right and center. Mexico which has enormous amounts of coast lines will be invaded by huge amounts of foreign boats to get the fish whether we like it or not. Whether we want it or not. And many will die: some trying to preserve what “belongs” to Mexico and some trying simply to eat!!! And the name of the game will become: either you eat or I eat….

Let me borrow your imagination:

Just imagine any city as if it was a closed prison and food is scarce: what would you do? Liberate the prisoners? Put them to work for the community? (Far too nice)… kill the ones that have more than 20 yrs. sentence? (Wow - human rights) and if you don’t do SOMETHING you will have a problem in that prison and you cannot go away!!! How will conflicts get resolved? Human Rights in a place where there is not enough to eat? The heavy weights will impose their law.

So, “we cannot predict” and let’s stick to the “non-action” of our political leaders. We will go straight ahead against a problem. Today’s world has no political leaders, like Mao, Ghandi, de Gaule, Lincoln… We will just do what the Vanderbilt Commission wants us to do. Before WW II nobody did anything. Hitler came out and see what he left for millions of people…. But don’t worry, let’s do absolutely nothing.

Guillermo Ramon Adames y Suari is a former Electoral Officer of the UN

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