Message-ID: <51792E5D4B6ED011B7DB00805FBE3836040EC0AD@xch-evt-06.ca.boeing.com>
From: "Van Zant, Peter J" <Peter.VanZant@PSS.Boeing.com>
To: PROGRESSIVE POPULATION NETWORK <ppn@csf.colorado.edu>,
        "'fgbart@nwrain.com'" <fgbart@nwrain.com>
Subject: RE: two fundamentals
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1998 15:13:11 -0800
MIME-Version: 1.0
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You are absolutely right that what you are saying will receive strong
reactions here on PPN, from everything I've seen of it so far. I'm not
unsympathetic to what you're saying, but I hope you're not holding your
breath waiting for humanity to slam the brakes on procreation. We do seem to
moving toward replacement fertility, although I'm sure not nearly so fast as
you'd like.

> ----------
> From: 	Francis G. Bartlett[SMTP:fgbart@nwrain.com]
> Sent: 	Tuesday, November 17, 1998 4:03 PM
> To: 	PROGRESSIVE POPULATION NETWORK
> Subject: 	two fundamentals
> 
> Two topics having great influence on the growing human population are
> seldom mentioned in the flurry of commentary on the subject. 
> 
> 	1. The life forces of nature active  have sustained life on this
> planet for the last half billion years without fear of total extinction 
> 
> 	2. human intervention with those life forces have destabilized the
> ecological balances needed for sustaining life. 
> 
> Ever since mankind began to "help" nature produce food using agriculture
> without compensating for its eventual effects it has taken the time since
> the last ice age receeded to finally bring the world to a condition where
> future life is in jeopardy. Prior to the end of the last ice age the
> natural widely dispersed food stuffs required much effort by humans to
> hunt for and gather necessary nourishment. This process kept them moving
> about since their consumption of food in any given area would soon deplete
> it. Prior to 25,000 years ago humans left no evidence of burial customs so
> for about 75.000 years humans on dying would suffer similar conditions to
> that of the wild animals. This may have been part of the reason why the
> human population ten thousand years ago has been estimated at only four
> million, spread through Africa, the Near East, Malaysia and as far as
> eastern Asis. Some of the more adventuresome had reached Australia and the
> Americas and the population densitys were very low. 
> 
> The strength of nature's life force that has persisted through 500 million
> years of earth's history cannot be overlooked since that history as
> revealed in the configurations of the earth beneath our feet and the
> strata exposed so handsomely in places like Grand Canyon of Arizona
> includes events that makes any of man's accomplishments quite
> inconsequential. Now that the human population has reached it present
> levels the earth is running out of space and resources for people to live
> in American.luxury. 
> 
> It appears to me that present concerns about the population explosion need
> to be directed toward easing the traumas already apparent throughout the
> world of high population densities with due regard to the availability of
> food enough for the living and little for any increases in humAn numbers.
> Such A radical approach would face unimaginable reactions due to the long
> cultural attitudes toward population increases. 
>