In a brilliant work,  Kurt Dahl in “False Hope”, at www.populationelephant.com , illustrates humanity’s overpopulation plight. Published with permission by the author.

 

“This is hard,” said Dahl.  “Al Gore is a hero to many, including me. But, just as in many family situations where it is possible to love and respect someone and yet have a responsibility to call them out when their behavior impacts others in a negative way, Mr. Gore's deliberate avoidance of presenting overpopulation as the main driver of our problems to his massive following obscures the reality of our critical situation for his millions of admirers.

“Mr. Gore is of course, first and foremost a politician. So he knows how to avoid errors of "commission", and he knows how to mislead by simply committing errors of "omission" (the other two high priests are not that savvy).

“In his books and his canned slide shows, he simply avoids any mention of population at all. But when pressed in an informal setting a few years ago - on the David Letterman show - he did deliberately mislead Letterman's audience of tens of millions. Letterman, a man who is surprisingly well informed and thoughtful on this issue of mankind's future, asked Gore if in fact the main cause of our problems was overpopulation, and that the continued growth in population might make it impossible for Gore's solutions to work.

“Mr. Gore responded by saying that big progress was being made in reducing population growth, and that population would peak by mid-century at around 8 billion or so (please remember the figures for 2050 population stated above). He went so far as to say that reducing population growth rates was one of the great success stories of the last century. Essentially, he very clearly indicated to Letterman's massive audience that overpopulation and continued population growth is not something that anyone should worry about - as it would soon be solved.

“Think of the incredible impact that this one short exchange between Letterman and Gore had on the mass of thoughtful people that were listening that night. These people don't have time to research the actual truth - the actual figures - so they blindly accept what Mr. Gore has told them, and dismiss any other information (in this case - the facts) that the small handful of population activists are trying desperately to get known.

“Not only deceptive in the facts, Mr. Gore has now decided to carry that deception to our "attitudes". In his latest slide show, he spends a large portion of the presentation simply stating and repeating how incredibly optimistic he is in our ability to solve all of our dangerous problems. This is of course the politician speaking - he wants to please, and what better way to please then to tell everyone that "everything is going to be all right" - like telling your junkie son that there is no need to worry, you'll be just fine. This is, unfortunately, false hope carried to the
extreme.”

Vice-Grand High Priest Lester Brown

“For those of you who don't know Mr. Brown, he is the head of the Earth Policy Institute, and even more well know as the author of the bestselling book series "Plan B x.0, mobilizing to save civilization". He is a well known and well respected writer, speaker and thinker on global environmental issues.

“His latest book - Plan B 4.0 - should be on everyone's must read list. In Part I of that book (the first three chapters) he describes the challenges we face in a comprehensive and unflinching manner. No one can read those chapters and not be scared to death by the implications. It is the best summary of what is going on in our world right now available anywhere. Do yourself a favor and read it. Recommend it to everyone else you know.

“Mr. Brown is not the politician that Mr. Gore is - so he is willing to propose specific Green solutions that can be scrutinized (if one has the time) for accuracy. But like Mr. Gore, he essentially ignores the overpopulation issue.

“He mentions the figures from the U.N. for the high, medium and low projections, then simply states that we must "strive for the low one" - as if this was a buffet where we can choose the size of the piece of pie that we want.

“He goes on to praise (rightly so) the work of the Population Media Center, and extol again the need for better education for women and more access to contraceptives - all worthy goals. But he never states or indicates in any way that overpopulation is a primary driver, or the major obstacle for solving our problems. He does not establish a target for world population or a plan (even though this book is called Plan B 4.0) for reducing it.

“And like Mr. Gore, he chooses in at least one case, to misstate the facts in order lead us to thinking that the population will be dropping soon and therefore implying that nothing needs to be done about it. He claims that fertility in the U. S. has dropped to below replacement levels and that U.S. population will be declining by mid-century.

“In fact, fertility in the U.S. is not dropping but has been climbing slowly but steadily since the mid-1970s (I'll bet you didn't know that!) and is now roughly back at replacement levels. The U.S. census bureau projects U.S. population in 2050 to be at 439 million with annual growth after that time actually accelerating. By 2050, the U.S. will have added more people to the world than every other country except India - so much for the myth that only poor countries are growing fast.”