-Caveat Lector- Cornell University http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Sept99/sustainable_life.hrs.html A.D. 2100: Cornell study warns of a miserable life on overcrowded Earth if population and resources are not controlled ITHACA, N.Y. -- One hundred years from now, democratically determined population-control practices and sound resource-management policies could have the planet's 2 billion people thriving in harmony with the environment. Lacking these approaches, a new Cornell University study suggests, 12 billon miserable humans will suffer a difficult life on Earth by the year 2100. "Of course, reducing population and using resources wisely will be a challenging task in the coming decades," says David Pimentel, lead author of the report titled "Will Limits of the Earth's Resources Control Human Numbers?" in the first issue of the journal Environment, Development and Sustainability. "It will be much more difficult," Pimentel says, "to survive in a world without voluntary controls on population growth and ever diminishing supplies of the Earth's resources." Even at a reduced world population of 2 billion in A.D. 2100, life for the average Earth dweller will not be as luxurious as it is for many Americans today. But the lifestyle won't be as wasteful of resources, either, the Cornell ecologist predicts. Some observers are seeing early signs that nature is taking a hand at reducing human populations through malnutrition and disease. According to the report, global climate change is beginning to contribute to the food and disease problems. "With a democratically determined population policy that respects basic individual rights, with sound resource-use policies, plus the support of science and technology to enhance energy supplies and protect the integrity of the environment," the report concludes, "an optimum population of 2 billion for the Earth can be achieved." Then the fortunate 2 billion will be free from poverty and starvation, living in an environment capable of sustaining human life with dignity, the report suggests, adding a cautionary note: "We must avoid letting human numbers continue to increase and surpass the limit of Earth's natural resources and forcing natural forces to control our number by disease, malnutrition and violent conflicts over resources," the report says. Among the key points in the report: -- The world population is projected to double in about 50 years. -- Even if a worldwide limit of 2.1 children per couple were adopted tomorrow, Earth's human population would continue to increase before stabilizing at around 12 billion in more than 60 years. The major reason for continued growth is "population momentum," due to the predominantly young age structure of the world population. -- The U.S. population has doubled during the past 60 years to 270 million and, at the current growth rate, is projected to double again, to 540 million, in the next 75 years. Each year our nation adds 3 million people (including legal immigrants) to its population, plus an estimated 400,000 illegal immigrants. -- Increasing U.S. and global population will place restrictions on certain freedoms: freedom to travel and commute to work quickly and efficiently, freedom to visit and enjoy natural areas, freedom to select desired foods and freedom to be effectively represented by government -- Today, more than 3 billion people suffer from malnutrition, the largest number and proportion of the world population in history, according to the World Health Organization. Malnutrition increases the susceptibility to diseases such as diarrhea and malaria. -- One reason for the increase in malnutrition is that production of grains per capita has been declining since 1983. Grains provide 80 percent to 90 percent of the world's food. Each additional human further reduces available food per capita. -- The reasons for this per capita decrease in food production are a 20 percent decline in cropland per capita, a 15 percent decrease in water for irrigation and a 23 percent drop in the use of fertilizers. -- Biotechnology and other technologies apparently have not been implemented fast enough to prevent declines in per capita food production during the past 17 years. -- Considering the resources likely to be available in A.D. 2100, the optimal world population would be about 2 billion, with a standard of living about half that of the United States in the 1990s, or at the standard experienced by the average European. The study was funded by Cornell University. In addition to Pimentel, authors of the Environment, Development and Sustainability report include Owen Bailey, Paul Kim, Elizabeth Mullaney, Joy Calabrese, Laura Walman, Fred Nelson nd Xiangjun Yao, all students at Cornell University. Related World Wide Web sites: The following sites provide additional information on this news release. Some might not be part of the Cornell University community, and Cornell has no control over their content or availability. -- Environment, Development and Sustainability journal: http://www.wkap.nl/journalhome.htm/1387-585X Raimondo on Buchanan's Humanism >http://www.antiwar.com/justin/pf/p-j121799.html >Behind the Headlines >by Justin Raimondo >Antiwar.com >December 17, 1999 > >PAT BUCHANAN AND THE NEW HUMANISM >As one caught up in âEUR" and generally blinded by âEUR" the vicissitudes of writing >a thrice-weekly column (try it sometime), I tend to live in the moment, >relentlessly scanning the headlines for new material, always immersed in the >latest controversy, with little time for or interest in the Big Questions. >But I was so struck by a letter I received the other day that it brought me >to a full stop. Here is the letter: > >A LETTER >"I rarely disagree with your opinions, however, I think you were a bit too >pessimistic in your recent article (12/13) on the prospects of the New World >Order. It is true that powerful forces are pushing to throw all of humanity >into the blender of New World Order globalism, but, at the same time, it is >also true that powerful forces are emerging to oppose this trend. You are one >example of this, as is Pat Buchanan, as is "The Battle In Seattle." Also if >you caught the Republican debate last night, Keyes, Bauer, even Forbes were >attacking different aspects of NWO globalism and interventionism. What a >change from 1992 when almost everybody in the Republican party were >complaining that we hadn't marched on Baghdad yet." > >BACK TO BARBARISM? >What struck me about the letter was how this reader had picked up on the >emotional subtext of that particular column. It was a column about the >meaning of the new spy scare as prelude to a new cold war, complete with >Russian spies, air raid drills, and the revival of Boris Badinov and his >slinky sidekick Natasha on the Saturday morning cartoons. This is a >development that I find monumentally depressing. So depressing, indeed, that >I raised, at the end of my piece, the question of whether we were headed >"back to barbarism." > >"The redivision of the world into power blocs, the rise of militantly >anti-Western ideologies, not only in the Islamic world but in the former >Soviet Union and China, the return of nuclear saber-rattling, the heightened >aggressiveness of US foreign policy, the smug complacency of a hubristic and >decadent intelligentsia âEUR" all this seems not like progress at all, but a >bizarre devolution that can only end in a complete reversion to barbarism. >God save us from the future âEUR" it's going to be downhill all the way." > >WRITER ON A HOT TIN ROOF >Usually, when I finish work on a piece, a click goes off somewhere in the >inner recesses of my brain, like the "click" heard by Brick in Tennessee >Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof that tells him he's had enough to drink. This >time, there was no click, and I wondered if the night's labors were over. Did >I really want to end on such a down note? There was something I wasn't >saying, or had forgotten to say, lost in contemplation of such a dark vision. >And yet âEUR¦ > >SITTING ATOP A VOLCANO >As I read this letter, however, it occurred to me that I had fallen victim to >a special kind of blindness. For in dealing, day after day, with the >manipulation of power and politics by the elites in government and the media, >I had forgotten all about one vital factor âEUR" the power of ordinary people to >make a difference. The smugness and complacency of our decadent elites >inevitably calls forth a disgusted response on the part of ordinary people >everywhere. Bereft of modesty, or any capacity for self-discipline, the >technocrats who run our lives are busy designing "new international >architectures" for the post-cold war world and haughtily declaring the >"obsolescence" of national sovereignty âEUR" while sitting atop a volcano that >will make short work of them in the end. > >CIVILIZATIONS IN COLLISION >Francis Fukuyama's famous thesis that we have come to "the end of history" is >all the rage with the foreign policy establishment: it is a theory that suits >their conceit, their fatuous certainty that they represent the apex of human >development. But Fukuyama's "endism" is about to be stood on its head, as the >world enters into a phase of what Samuel P. Huntington calls "civilizational >conflict." > >WE'VE ONLY JUST BEGUN >Huntington, a Harvard professor, and author of The Clash of Civilizations and >the Remaking of World Order holds the view that, far from ending, history is >about to accelerate. Forget the "inevitable" rise of Fukuyama's "world >homogenous state" âEUR" we're in for a clash of civilizations, with religion >taking the place of ideology and the cultural trumping the political as a >factor in the new international face-off. Instead of "progressing" to a world >order, in the Huntingtonian vision of futurity the monoculture is under >increasing challenge from competing traditions. In this view, the future will >not be determined by faceless transnational bureaucrats and their corporate >collaborators, but by the rise of Islam, and of the Indian subcontinent, >China, and Japan as centers of resistance to global cultural homogeneity. > >AGAINST TRIUMPHALISM >For most of our foreign policy elite, the end of the cold war has been the >occasion for a mad triumphalism, a bacchanalia of global preening and >posturing: they dream of conquering the Balkans, plundering the Caucasus, >encircling Russia and even taming China. But not Huntington, the stern >realist, who bridles at the hubris of the policymakers and writes "that >Western intervention in the affairs of other civilizations is probably the >single most dangerous source of instability and potential global conflict in >a multicivilizational world." > >IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST >Huntington's faith in the ability of indigenous cultures to reassert >themselves in the face of the global MTV/MacDonald's monoculture is not only >reassuring, but also entirely believable. We can see the consequences of this >growing resistance not only abroad, but in the growing resistance right here >'in the belly of the beast' (as they used to say in the sixties) to globalism >and interventionism. > >BUCHANAN, THE SURVIVOR >First and foremost is the Buchanan for President campaign, and the tremendous >excitement this is generating among conservatives and others whose central >concern is the issue of American sovereignty. This is a development that I >never expected to last as long as it has: in 1992, when Buchanan first took >up the cudgels against the internationalist establishment, it was hard to >envision that either he or his movement would endure. Under attack from every >quarter for daring to take on a sitting Republican president, and reviled for >challenging the bipartisan "consensus" in favor the Gulf war, Pat endured a >storm of abuse. I traveled throughout New Hampshire, during the historic 1992 >primary, and watched as a band of thugs and disrupters shadowed him >throughout the state, staging violent incidents and interrupting press >conferences in an attempt to smear Pat as an anti-Semite. Good lord, I >thought: don't these people have jobs, don't they live anywhere? But of >course that was their job âEUR" disrupting the campaign. As to who was paying >them, I leave to your imagination . . . > >CAUSE FOR OPTIMISM >But they failed. I'll never forget that night, as news of Pat's resounding >victory was broadcast over the television set in the hall where the >Buchananites were gathered. A cheer, a roar went up such as had not been >heard in many a moon âEUR" and the sound of it echoes down through the years, as >strong and resonant as ever. Who would have thought that Buchanan would >survive the storm of vituperation that was unleashed on his head? But he did, >and more than that, he prospered âEUR" and so did the movement spawned by his >candidacy. Who would have imagined that, in the year 2000, we would see a >merging of the two major populist tendencies in American politics, the >Buchanan and Perot movements, rapidly evolving into a formidable challenge to >the status quo? Now there is a cause for optimism! > >WAR, PEACE, AND THE SOUL OF LIBERTARIANISM >As the libertarian "dynamists" and "free traders" over at Reason magazine >excoriate Buchanan for opposing "change" âEUR" i.e. abortion, gay rights, and the >"right" to clone yourself âEUR" at least a few libertarians have not completely >disappeared into a world of science fiction, and still retain some interest >in what is going on in the real world. For them, Buchanan's latest speech >proves the contention I have been making in this column for months: that the >Buchanan campaign represents the very soul of libertarianism in its >opposition to war and respect for individual human life. In its concern for >the fate of the victims of US foreign policy, the essential humanism of >Buchanan's vision comes shining through as he denounces the barbaric policy >of imposing sanctions on "rogue nations": > >"Woodrow Wilson called sanctions the 'peaceful silent deadly remedy.' Today, >they may fairly be called America's silent weapon of mass destruction whose >victims are almost always the weak, the sick, the women and the young. When >Arab terrorists murder Israeli children, we Americans are rightly filled with >horror and disgust. But what do Arab peoples think of us when US sanctions >bring death to literally thousands of Iraqi children every single month? Can >a nation that declares piously it will never stoop to assassinating tyrants, >but wields a sanctions sword that slaughters children, truly call itself 'the >home of the brave?'" > >A MORAL COMPASS >Buchanan entitled his speech, delivered before an audience at the Center for >Strategic and International Studies, "Toward a More Moral Foreign Policy" âEUR >and this is really at the heart of his opposition to internationalism âEUR sheer >horror at the crimes committed in the name of support for "democracy" and >"human rights" abroad. Once the most advanced Arab country in terms of >medical equipment and care, > >" Now, Iraq's doctors cannot even read medical journals; because medical >journals are embargoed. Childhood leukemia, a disease with a cure rate of 70 >percent in America, is now nearly always fatal in Iraq. Disposable syringes >must be used over and over again. Their importation has been blocked out of >fear that medical syringes will be used to create anthrax spores. Ancient >X-ray machines leak radiation. Chlorine, a vital water disinfectant, all the >more necessary because Iraq's sewage treatment plants were bombed in Desert >Storm, is embargoed, lest it be diverted into chlorine gas. Even the plastic >bags needed for blood transfusions are restricted." > >WHO IS THE REAL "COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATIVE"? >How is it that George Dubya is masquerading as the "compassionate >conservative," while saying not a word about the massive suffering of an >entire people âEUR" except, perhaps, to endorse it? > >MAD MADELEINE, MORAL MONSTER >In Buchanan's injection of morality into the debate over war and peace âEUR not >the warlike "morality" of the global crusaders, but the distinctively >Christian morality of the devout Catholic who upholds the sanctity and >worthiness of the individual soul âEUR" he is expressing the profoundly >libertarian conviction that violence is justified only in self defense and >only against those who initiate its use. The three- and four-year-old kids >who are starving to death and suffering brain damage because Madeleine >Albright believes "it is worth it" (as she told Sixty Minutes) never posed a >threat to the US or any of its citizens. As Buchanan puts it: > >" No, Madam Secretary, it is not worth it. A policy that sentences thousands >of Iraqi children to death every month, because their parents will not rise >up and overthrow a tyrant, is unrighteous and immoral." > >A POLICY BASED ON JUSTICE >This is a magnificent and eminently libertarian answer that underscores the >centrality of justice to Buchanan's vision: those Iraqi kids are innocent. >They don't deserve to die âEUR" and nothing, not any political or economic >considerations, can serve to justify their wanton murder. Perhaps the >hostility of the quasi-hip "dynamists" over at Reason âEUR" who only mention >Pat's trade policies and completely blank out his foreign policy views âEUR is >traceable to the Christian, and specifically Catholic roots of his >noninterventionism. Well, isn't that tough for these alleged rationalists âEUR >for all their alleged devotion to "reason" and "liberty," La Postrel and her >neocon buddies have never been known to discuss the rationality of mass >murder in Iraq. In discussing the concept of a "just war," Buchanan notes that > >"Christian doctrine demands that such a war be defensive, and never >aggressive. It must be waged only as a last resort, after all other means of >negotiating peace have been exhausted. The violence used must be proportional >to the threat. There must be a prospect of victory so that soldiers are not >sent to their death for no purpose. In a just war, innocents may never be >directly targeted; and, after the fighting is over, there must be no acts of >vengeance." > >AN AXIOM >This is a clear evocation of the famous nonaggression axiom âEUR" enshrined at >the center of libertarian political thought âEUR" applied to the realm of >international relations. The idea that individual human life is sacred, that >it belongs, if not to itself, then to God âEUR" but not to any State âEUR captures >the spirit as well as the letter of the libertarian creed. Of all the >presidential candidates, only one dares to raise the question: why are we >killing the children of Iraq? What, in God's name, have they ever done to >us?" His name is Pat Buchanan. > >A DAY OF INTROSPECTION >Besides asking what are we doing to the children of Iraq and Myanmar, of >Cuba, and Libya, he poses another question: what are we doing to ourselves? >What kind of internal corruption is eating away at the vitals of our >republican form of government that we can commit such crimes with impunity? > >""As we end this American Century and this decade of national preeminence, we >remain a people divided over our role in the world. It is a time for what >Catholics call a "retreat," not a withdrawal into isolationism, but a day of >introspection. Why is America, its economic and military power unrivaled, its >popular culture dominant in the world, so resented by so many? Is it envy? Is >it because we are an enlightened nation and they are benighted? Or have we, >too, succumbed to the hubris of hegemony?" > >THE GLOBAL FIGHT AGAINST GLOBALISM >Yes, the new cold war is on, and the battle lines are being drawn, but at >least a new opposition is rising, and it is not restricted to Buchanan and >his movement, nor is it confined to the United States. The fight against >globalism is, by definition, global âEUR" and that is not an irony, but a simple >fact. I am particularly proud of that a rising percentage of our readers come >from outside the West we have regular readers in Japan, Singapore, the >Middle East, as well as throughout Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Now there >is yet another cause for optimism that I am glad to acknowledge, one that >contradicts the dark thesis of a few columns ago âEUR" and that is the ongoing >success and growth of Antiwar.com. > >WE'RE READY >The antiwar movement of the new millennium has its leaders, such as Buchanan, >its institutions, such as Antiwar.com, its cadre of activists, intellectuals, >and publicists, and a growing mass following now developing the >organizational forms necessary to carry on the fight. Well, then, let the new >cold war commence because we're more than ready for it. DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. 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