Peak oil activist, author and documentarian Michael Ruppert discusses a variety of topics including our dependence on oil, what happens when the oil runs out, the real possibility of collapse, government’s role, the human population bubble and his new CollapseNet project.
Thanks to Rick Blaine who sent this one over. In Rick’s own words:
Ruppert is on fire!
…
Re the population bubble – that’s one of the more interesting things Ruppert has talked about. Even if you ignore the possibility of already passing peak oil, the simple exponential increase in human population over the last 150 years or so does raise an interesting scientific point – it seems that most, if not all, systems experience some sort of collapse at some point after seeing such an increase.
Are we overreacting? Only time will tell. I’ll say this much though – my philosophy is “prepare for unforeseen consequences.”
We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.
(Video follows excerpts)
Michael Ruppert on Bubbles:
There are only two great bubbles on this planet left to go. The Chinese bubble and the human population bubble. And after the Chinese bubble goes the human population bubble goes.
Michael Ruppert on Doomers and Gloomers:
There are so many of us who have been beating our brains out trying to make people listen, to say guys there are times when somebody says it’s here and they’re right.
Now what we have is a very short amount of time…
…when will the cliff event come?
I said no later than the Summer of 2010.
How do I analogize the cliff event to anything that’s remotely accessible to our experience? I likened it to the sinking of the Titanic. And what happened on the sinking of the Titanic? There were not enough life boats.
And what I said in the movie clearly was, if you’re on the Titanic and you know the ship is going to sink, and you find one group of people who says that the ship is unsinkable – unsinkable – you’re doomers, you’re gloomers, you’re not politically correct, I’m going to the bar, I don’t want to say anything that will upset anybody, leave me alone.
The big mistake that many people who got what was happening did was to try to pursuade those people.
I say let them die.
Michael Ruppert on what to expect from government at onset of collapse:
The internet will fail sporadically and intermittently…
Everything in those measures [Patriot Act / Homeland Security Bill] and in government strategy is intended to protect critical infrastructure. There are not enough troops in the country to impose martial law so disabuse yourself of that.
In CONUS, the last time I checked, there were only 13 combat brigades. That’s not enough to protect the airports, the microwave towers, the banks, the radio stations, the TV’s, the hospitals – so you will not see troops on every street corner.
What you will see is anarchy.
What you will see is nature at its best or at its worst.
This is a must-see for all doomers, gloomers and non-believers alike. It’s in speech type format, but well worth the hour and fifteen minutes.
My only comment would be about martial law and the statement that we don’t have enough troops. I agree, not enough American troops. But UN troops and equipment are showing up in greater and greater numbers everyday. Plus other countries have accepted land and resources of the US as collateral against money they have loaned us. If we see a collapse, they will want to secure their assets. Russia is already in agreement to send about 100K troops. I imagine China has some plan as well, though I have not seen any whistleblowers talk about that yet.
There will be more troops than you think I suspect.
Yes, let them die!
If this doesnt happen by summer 2010 or winter, will Rupert admit he was wrong?Â
All I can say is… scary stuff.
i’m just beginning to think how the megawealthy will use the peak oil situation against all the rest of us…
Good stuff, but nothing we didn’t already know at SHTF, except maybe, that the awareness of what is happening and will eventually happen is becoming common knowledge, Â and that’s a good thing …… especially for those who are profiting from sharing that knowledge: like this guy. Oh well, follow your bliss.Â
But give me SHTF instead.
Some really good advice about knowing your environment before hand; which is why I spent more than a year in the bush in my Walden Pond phase. Incoporated an E&P Nevada Corp in 1991 for certain O&G leases and gold mining claims, so I guess I was ahead of the “peak oil” and “gold bug” crowd by twenty years. See even a blind chicken can find some corn. So can you. Keep pecking. there’s still time.
Energy is in transition. We can all adapt to peak oil individually, if we are pro-active. Even profit from it. There are a number of new technologies emerging and greater efficiencies being achieved on a regular basis in solar energy for example, as well as significant new findings for photosynthesis at the molecular level, which will enhance both energy and food production.
By the time the end of oil comes we will have survived the crash, flash, splash, and “BOOM”; and demand will drop. The BOOM is the sound an unstoppable force makes when it destroys an immoveable object.
Think Israel and Iran.
Recommend www. sciencedaily.com/ for interested persons.
@ Stan
That’s a good question. Ruppert is starting to get pretty specific about this stuff.
On a related note – I saw a video of a speec/presentation he gave at some university (I think) back in 2005 – you can find it on youtube. During that speech, he was talking about the coming collapse in housing and the “mega recession” – and this is back when people were still laughing at Peter Schiff. In the “Collapse” movie he does admit that his timing was off a bit – he said he was about a year early.
Given the difficulty in predicting such things, I’d give him until the end of 2011.
However, we need to keep in mind that there may not be a single, “holy $#!^” moment/event at which point “everyone” will know just how screwed we are…so, it may be difficult to pinpoint exactly when “it” happens…assuming “it” does actually happen.
Assuming things don’t get legimately better between now and say the end of this decade, it will be interesting to see how people look back at the first 20 years or so of the 21st century. Both Peter Schiff and Karl Denninger have suggested that the economy never “really” recovered after the dot.com bubble…
It is very hard to predict dates for these things I know. When the gulf oil leak first happened I predicted that oil would go to 90 within a few weeks. Well, I was wrong.Â
For a long time I have said that the huge turning point would be late 2011. China’s oil use will grow by then and the stimulus will be gone. States have a very small window of time before the first big one declares bankruptcy and of course this world can’t go long without a major war. The national debt will reach 15 trillion by the end of 2011.Â
But of course I am only guessing. Who knows?Â
Comments…..Anyone out there see the film “The Road?” I saw it recently and it appears that the movie is suggesting what sociiety may look like after a collapse from an EMP or nuclear attack. I recommend you all watch it, it is pretty grim. Anyone in so CAL that would wanna share prep tips or create a network here?
Well, Ruppert is right about the coming collapse and that it is irreversible, but he offers no hope.   Yes, Mr. Ruppert, “Let them die,” – after all, it’s just “darwinian deselection” – to Ruppert, apparently, people are just bio-machines who have no more intrinsic worth than a duckweed, as that is the logical conclusion of a darwinian construct.
  The major difference between those like me and Ruppert is that I have hope.   If I do not survive the coming cataclysm, and I may not even though I am preparing for it, my future is secure as this earth is not my home anyway. Â
Forget peak oil, how about “peak life?” We are all on the Titanic, as it were, and we are all going to die.   What are people doing to prepare for that?
Stan…
More proof I think of how much the whole economy really is manipulated. It is nonsensical that oil has not shot through the roof. It was over $4 a gal a couple years ago for little reason other than speculators driving up the cost (supposedly), now with a major oil disaster and the winds of war building in the middle east, it is not going up and even going down on some days?!?! Where are the speculators now? Have they run out of money? Or is the economy of the world so bad thus the need for oil so waning that the prices are not going up?? Or is EVERYTHING manipulated beyond our wildest imaginations?
Mac – I hope you don’t fall for this GARBAGE. Oil is-a-plenty. Food-is-a-plenty.  This is all ILLUMINATTI MIND CONTROL/ BRAINWASHING. This is governments’ excuse to control us all and to tax us to death. Our problems are corrupt, power hungry, evil governments; not oil or population.Â
This guy is a spokesman for the New World Order Control Machine. Don’t believe this garbage!
Most of us have heard the truth that the entire world’s population could easily fit into the state of Texas. No, it maybe wouldn’t be exactly comfortable, but it illustrates how absolutely absurd the lie of overpopulation is.Â
Yeahe Ruppert stated Dow 4,000 and Celente has forecasted the crash of 2010 but even now Celente has been saying that the DOW can go down to 8,000 but that anything can happen since he says it’s a rigged game. I think Celente is backing down on his forecasts.  And I don’t believe DOW will go to 4,000. That’s a very rare hopefully, unlikely event.
Comments…..So if the dow hits 4000 and gold $2000 an ounce, that means it will only take 2 ounces of gold to buy the stock market. back in year 2000 it took 40 ounce of gold to buy the stock market, event if the dow hits 12000 and gold $2000 that’s only 6 ounces of gold to buy the stock market. Really who cares where the stock market goes, to me it’s a guage of nothing like the casino on the corner. Reltive to gold the stock market has already crashed and is really worthless today.
As for the rest of the comments this man knows what he’s talking about, but his timing is premature, everything he says will happen but over a longer period of time. Mortgae rests, oil spill, bees disappearing, wars, narutal disasters , shortage of food all these will take place over the next couple of decades. When it’s all over may be 5% of the popuplation will survive. Faith and foresight which leads to proper preparation is what saves man, just like Noah,God showed him when the flood was coming, so he knew exactly how much time he had to build his boat. The when is the most important thing to know.
Remember prophecy is nothing but intricate mathematical calculation. Philosophy is a form of expression but only mathematic is a true form of definition (kant).
Comments….perhaps innovation will change things. Humans have a great way of getting out of trouble. Hope for the best!
Sharon, I watched “The Road” this past weekend, the gruesome point was people became cannables since all wildlife had perished in a nuclear war. Man sometimes is selfdestructive, could be possible.
@ Sharon,
Check out American Preppers Network.You can access the site under ” Must Read Sites ” on the right side of this page. Good luck to you in So Cal.
I watched his “Collapse” movie… It was very hard to take it serious when every 5-10 minutes he mentions global warming.
UN Agenda 21 , the process of transferring USA natural resource control and usage decisions over to the United Nations ; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzEEgtOFFlM&feature=related Bill Gates population control video ; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0gvDkVcFkI
there are machines that can transform water into drinking form from the air , http://www.air2water.biz/faq.html   , http://www.ecoloblue.com/         , so why don’t we innovate these debates into solutions , not just sit here and watch this time bomb coming at us ????
Â
Time, Water Running Out for America’s Biggest Aquifer
Â
http://www.marketskeptics.com/2010/04/time-water-running-out-for-americas.html        Â
Â
http://hrd.apecwiki.org/index.php/The_Ogallala_Aquifer_and_Its_Role_as_a_Threatened_American_Resource   Â
 http://dieoff.org/page185.htm  – note the date on this and then scroll down to the ,” What you Can Do “Â
“Bolus of insight” from a great poet regarding the breach between an unsustainable civilization and a self-sustaining, “strong earth”.
The Purse-seine, by Robinson Jeffers, 1937
…….I cannot tell you
How beautiful the scene is, and a little terrible,
then, when the crowded fish
Know they are caught, and wildly beat from one wall
to the other of their closing destiny the
phosphorescent
Water to a pool of flame, each beautiful slender body
sheeted with flame, like a live rocket
A comet’s tail wake of clear yellow flame; while outside
the narrowing
Floats and cordage of the net great sea-lions come up
to watch, sighing in the dark; the vast walls
of night
Stand erect to the stars.
Lately I was looking from a night mountain-top
On a wide city, the colored splendor, galaxies of light:
how could I help but recall the seine-net
Gathering the luminous fish? I cannot tell you how
beautiful the city appeared, and a little terrible.
I thought, We have geared the machines and locked all together
into inter-dependence; we have built the great cities; now
There is no escape. We have gathered vast populations incapable
of free survival, insulated
From the strong earth, each person in himself helpless, on all
dependent. The circle is closed, and the net
Is being hauled in…….
___________________________________________
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?contentid=1176
Comments…..Contact me if you want to discuss about how soon we can expect about 2 billion people to depart the earth’s rolls.  Call is fine: 509-758-0629
There a precious few scientists like Professor Emeritus Gary Peters who have chosen not to remain silent but instead to accept their responsibility to science by rigorously examining extant evidence of human population dynamics. Please consider now the perspective of Dr. Peters on the research of Russell Hopfenberg and David Pimentel, which is found in the journal, The California Geographer, 2009. The title of his article is, Population, Resources and Enviroment: “Beyond the Exponentials” Revisited.
—begin
“The world’s population in 2009 was close to 6.8 billion. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, we can expect about 55.7 million people to die this year, so in purely demographic terms 300,000 deaths amount to just over half of one percent of all deaths. Furthermore, there are about 15,465 births per hour worldwide, so again in a purely demographic sense those 300,000 deaths can be replaced in less than 20 hours.
Paradoxically, the very fossil fuels that have allowed us to feed the vast increase in world population over the last century or two may 113 The California Geographer n Volume 49, 2009 also be starting to increase mortality rates, even if only slightly so far. Currently we add about 80 million people to the planet each year, and we know that population growth exacerbates most environmental problems, including global warming (Speth 2008, Diamond 2005, and Friedman 2008).
Pimentel (2001), Hopfenberg (2003), and others have established in a series of articles that human population growth is a function of food supply, yet we continue to expand food supplies to accommodate future growth—even if that growth threatens the planet’s socioeconomic systems, ecosystems, biodiversity, oceans,
and atmosphere. Continued expansion of food supplies has come at considerable cost both to people and to Earth. As Pollan (2008, 121) commented, “Clearly the achievements of industrial agriculture have come at a cost: It can produce a great many more calories per acre, but each of those calories may supply less nutrition than
it formerly did…. A diet based on quantity rather than quality has ushered a new creature onto the world stage: the human being who manages to be both overfed and undernourished, two characteristics seldom found in the same body in the long natural history of our species.†According to Heller and Keoleian (2000), it takes seven to ten calories of input, mainly from fossil fuels, to produce one calorie of edible food in the United States. Looking at the American landscape, Babbitt (2005, 100) observed that “[I]ndustrial agriculture has been extended too far, and the price has been too high for the land and waters to bear.†In many places, agricultural landscapes are no longer what Tuan (1993, 143) had in mind when he wrote that “In common with the vast majority of humankind, Americans
love the small intimate world that is their home, and, immediately beyond it, a rich agricultural land.â€
According to Pimentel (2001), humans already use more than half the planet’s entire biomass, leaving less and less for other species. From there, as Hopfenberg (2009, 2) noted, “It is not a far logical leap to determine that, if human population and resource use continues to grow and we continue to kill off our neighbors in the biological community, one of the many species facing extinction will be the human. Thus, the impact of civilized humanity on the rest of the
biological community can be seen as lethal to the point of destroying our own ecological support”. It is a reminder that, as Bush (2000, 28) noted, “If there is one lesson that the geological record offers, it is that all species will ultimately go extinct, some just do it sooner than others.†With the expansion of human numbers has come a steady increase in the background rate of extinction.
But even among environmentalists, population has been dropped from most discussions because it is controversial; it has been snared in the web of political correctness. As Speth (2008, 78) somewhat ironically pointed out, “By any objective standard, U.S. population growth is a legitimate and serious environmental issue. But the subject is hardly on the environmental agenda, and the country has not learned how to discuss the problem even in progressive circles.†Cobb (2007, 1) put it this way, “Even if some politicians, policymakers and reporters in wealthy countries can see beyond the daily mirage of plenty to the overpopulation problem, they do
not want to touch it.â€
—end
It is one thing for “politicians, policymakers and reporters” not to touch research of human population dynamics and the human overpopulation of Earth. It is something altogether different when the elective mutism of scientists with appropriate expertise hides science in silence. Such a willful refusal to scrutinize peer-reviewed and published evidence and report findings strikes me as a betrayal of science and also a denial of what could somehow be real.
How are global challenges of the kind we can see looming before humanity in our time to be addressed and overcome if any root cause of what threatens us and life as we know it is not acknowledged?
Of course, it could be that Professor Peters’ assessment of the research by Pimentel and Hopfenberg is incorrect; that their work is fatally flawed. If that is the case, we need to know it. On the other hand, if that is not the case and the research is somehow on the correct track, then discussion of the research needed to have begun years ago, at the onset of Century XXI, because this research appears, at least to me, to possess extraordinary explanatory power with potentially profound implications.
Thanks to those within the community of scientists and to those in the population at large with a perspective to share who choose to examine the evidence to which your attention is drawn and report your findings.
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population, established 2001
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/
http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?contentid=1176
http://www.panearth.org/Â Â Â
Steven Earl Salmony: Thanks for the info. Problem is the unsustainable growth of population is occuring in third world nations, not in America, Europe, China, or even Russia where birth rates are declining.
In South and Central America you have the Catholic Church encouraging people to make more catholics, so Mexicans for example are have 8-12 kids per family. It doesn’t seem to matter to the Church or to the parents that they can’t feed , clothe, house, or educate these children; they are encouraged to make catholics they cannot afford.
In Africa the exploding birth rate is matched by a exploding death rate from aids. Maybe we should stop sending them subsidized prescription drugs that we can’t get in the United States (even if we are willing to go to Canada to get them). Its clear that sex is the major form of recreation for the worlds poor.
Maybe Bill Gates should send them free x-boxes instead of free vacinations?
Dear Durango Kidd, Does it appear to you that we could move toward sustainability in a much more sensible way if we stopped willfully ignoring extant science of human population dynamics; stopped consciously refusing to communicate openly about peer-reviewed evidence of the human overpopulation of Earth? How on Earth do we reasonably address and overcome the human-driven global challenges looming before the human community if top rank scientists with appropriate expertise reject their responsibilities to acknowledge and deny their duties to examine published evidence and report findings?
Professor Emeritus Gary L. Peters and Professor Emeritus Albert A. Bartlett have chosen a different, seldom taken path, one that is morally courageous, because they have broken the silence by speaking out so loudly and clearly while many too many of their outstanding, similarly situated colleagues have remained electively mute.
We are massively overpopulated and our consumption of resources is staggering. Â Scientists don’t want to discuss it because all the religious wackos come out of the woodwork all enraged. Â The wackos think it’s their right to spew out as many kids as they want, with no regard for the consequences at all. Â Thank god that the younger generations are going away from the ideas of having kids and getting married. Â Neither one of those two things is important in the world moving forward.
SEL: I agree with you on all that you have said, but the reality is that sex is the only recreation for the poor except fishing; and sex is a lot more fun. Even jonny v knows that and he likes to fish. It is the poor of third world nations that are over populating the planet. Try your morality speech on them and see how far you get.
Is it any wonder then that Jesus said: “…. the poor you will always have with you….”?    ( that was a religious insert for jonny v.)   🙂
Hey DK, I have to disagree. Â Fishing is more fun. Â Just think, no screaming and hollering, no “are you done yet?”, no, “you could at least stay awake and talk to me afterwords!”. Â After 30 years of non-stop fornication, all I wanna do is take my fishing gear and my flasks and head for the river. Â I’ve given up. Â 🙂
Overpopulation is one of the top issues facing the world. It doesn’t help either that our world credit/money/economic system is based on growth. To a large degree that means physical growth, along with the attendant resource depletion.
Quite simply, humans are overwhelming the capacity of the planet to host them.
Many don’t wish to acknowledge this because of religious or financial reasons. The fact is, shifting to a more eco-friendly scheme will likely be traumatic. And of course the Powers that Be will be there to game the transition so as to ensure they end up on top just as they are in the current scheme.
Witness the puppets they put in power …. i.e. Obama.
“They’re making more people every day, but they ain’t makin’ any more dirt.”
  — Will RogersÂ
Stocks I bought.. CEF, GTU
Allocated metal in Canada.
yeah..physical is the way to go…this is my 401k self directed trading…so it’s the best I can do.
WE can eat the super obese people! Ha, maybe this has all been a big plot.  Remember that movie… where the book the aliens left “To serve man”….  IT’S A COOKBOOK!  Maybe the Illuminati will eat us all.  HA.  LOL.
I’m not a religious nut…yet check this out.
Revelations, Chapter 3, verse 18.
I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich;
Revelation chapter 3 verse 18
I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich;
Regardless of what we believe because it is politically convenient, economically expedient, socially correct, religiously tolerated and culturally syntonic to do so, whatsoever is is, is it not? Please assist me by examining research of the population dynamics of the human species. The implications of this research appear to be potentially profound. If human population dynamics is essentially common to, not different from, the population dynamics of other species, then the unbridled growth of absolute global human population numbers in our time could be the proverbial “mother†of the human-induced global challenges looming before the family of humanity. If this global challenge continues to be ignored, the human family could end up winning some Pyrrhic victories over subordinate global challenges but losing the larger struggle for survival itself.
Please note the following perspective from Sir Fred Hoyle that dates back to 1964, a time prior to the publication of Ehrlich’s “Population Bomb†and the Club of Rome’s seminal work, “Limits to Growth.â€
begin—-
“It has often been said that, if the human species fails to make a go of it here on the Earth, some other species will take over the running. In the sense of developing intelligence this is not correct. We have or soon will have, exhausted the necessary physical prerequisites so far as this planet is concerned. With coal gone, oil gone, high-grade metallic ores gone, no species however competent can make the long climb from primitive conditions to high-level technology. This is a one-shot affair. If we fail, this planetary system fails so far as intelligence is concerned. The same will be true of other planetary systems. On each of them there will be one chance… and one chance only.â€
end—-
It appears to me that Sir Fred Hoyle was asking people years ago, when I was still a teenager, to carefully consider and rigorously examine a superordinate situation that was too dangerous to ignore… that dwarfed other already identified global challenges. Rather than seriously scrutinize population dynamics leading to the human overpopulation of the Earth, which would require experts to rivet their attention on the placement of the human species within the natural order of living things, the topic was avoided, just as it is being ignored now. At the beginning of my lifecycle in 1945 there were about 2.8+/- billion human beings on Earth. Only 65 years later 6.8+/- billion people are members of the human community.
So much time has been wasted recently by the brighest and best of my generation. The implications of such an unfortunate failure of nerve appear to be far-reaching. We cannot address problems, the root cause of which we refuse to acknowledge.
Representative democracies led by human beings with feet of clay could readily become a force too formidable to ignore with remarkable speed, I believe, but first humankind needs to be helped to see why a force too formidable to ignore is necessary as well as to understand more adequately the nature of the primary human-induced global challenge that presents itself to the family of humanity in our time; that takes its shape in the form of a colossal looming threat to future human wellbeing, environmental health and the integrity of Earth as a fit place for human habitation.
Research by Russell Hopfenberg and David Pimentel appears to indicate with remarkable simplicity that human population dynamics is essentially similar to the population dynamics of other species.
Since many too many population experts remain silent about this research and blogmeisters associated with the mass media refuse to discuss the peer-reviewed evidence, perhaps you could take a look at it, make your comments, and encourage by your example others to do the same. You can find the article, Human Population Numbers as a Function of Food Supply, by Hopfenberg and Pimentel on the worldwide web or at the following link, http://www.panearth.org/ . Other articles and a slideshow presentation on human population dynamics and human overpopulation can also be found at this link.
No amount of rationalization or excuse will pass muster when the issue is the conscious denial of science. The abject failure of every major legitimate scientific group to respond to the exceptionally strong evidence of human population dynamics and human overpopulation of the Earth from Hopfenberg and Pimentel is simply inexcusable. Many too many experts have been effectively ignoring research from these two outstanding scientists, who have devoted their lives to actually observing data and providing critiques/interpretations in an intellectually honest manner.
The willful avoidance of the open discussion of science, especially the scientific research of human population dynamics, is as unconscionable as it is destructive. Experts who have remained silent need to be stood up to and directed to assume their responsibilities to science and their duties to humanity. Is there a reasonable justification for elective mutism in response to carefully collected, honestly analyzed and heretofore unchallenged evidence?
The tasks at hand for scientists are to freely acknowledge, critique and interpret evidence, I suppose, and to encourage that evidence to be examined from different viewpoints. It is irresponsible and pernicious for scientists to remain silent because they are slowing the development of momentum for necessary change in population policy and programming, I believe.
SES:Â I got mine, get yours!
Their may be truth in what is being said in this lecture,however there are a few things that bother me. 1. Why is he hawking an autographed book if money will soon become irrelevant. 2. Why does he need to constantly tell us his percentage of correct predictions and bring up his past “achievements”? 3. Based on body language and tone he seems to have little patience for people and their questions.4. Why does he bring up the lack of profit his work is generating if the entire monetary fund is on the verge of collapse? While his premise may be sound I would not be surprised if his true motive is to sell something he understands will happen over a long period of time by simply shortening the time line. “Pay me today and I will tell you how the world will end tomorrow!” Does not seem to make sense to me If you go to you tube and search “The most important video you will ever watch” you will see a more sane and sensible explanation (including mathematical explanations) of peak oil. Not that these explanations are any more comforting just more rational.
DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION: FACT OR FICTION?
Please see below a note from a friend on the widely shared and consensually validated pseudoscience regarding human population dynamics and human overpopulation (in quotation marks), followed by my comment on the scientific finding regarding food supply and human population numbers from the research of two outstanding scientists, Russell Hopfenberg and David Pimentel.
“I agree that the Theory of Demographic Transition is just that, a convenient theory that holds out the promise of lower fertility in nations in due time if they just hop on the capitalistic development bandwagon.
It’s a non-threatening and positive theory and it’s potentially good for business for the developed world.
All one need do is take a look at population growth statistics,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_growth_rate
(2009 CIA table)
and per capita income statistics of countries,
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_gro_nat_inc_percap-gross-national-income-per-capita
and one can observe that a relatively wealthy country does not necessarily have a low population growth rate. Examples are US, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Luxembourg, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, Kuwait, Bahrain and more. It can also be observed that many of the more developed and thus more wealthy and educated countries, mostly in Europe, have below
replacement fertility (Italy, Germany, Japan). Many countries with a predominant religion furthering large family size have larger population growth rates like the Arab countries.
The following paper http://www.jstor.org/pss/2947709 concludes that
“..that indicators of education, health, and family planning program effort have a significant independent effect on fertility” and that “No significant impact can be attributed to indicators of economic development once family planning efforts and social development indicators are held constant.”
Yet the National Geographic January 2011 issue on “Population – 7 Billion” features the Demographic Transition Theory, though it does briefly admit that fertility in some countries has fallen dramatically without significant economic development. Bangladesh is a major example.
As I see it, in the absence of religious or social pressures, most people would prefer smaller families as they can better provide for them. Given the education and means to control their fertility they will readily try to do so.
In many developing countries, the ubiquitous radio is the major source of news and entertainment. The presence of only a few radio stations makes this an ideal medium for education and behavioral change. Organizations such as
Population Media Center http://www.populationmedia.org/ and
Population Communications International http://www.population.org/
have been very effective on a per dollar basis in getting listeners to
their culturally-sensitive soap operas educated on family planning
advantages and seeking means to help them control their fertility.”
Â
The food availability-population growth finding from the research of Hopfenberg and Pimentel
http://www.panearth.org/
shows us that there is NO demographic transition, NO population stabilization, NO benign end to population growth a mere four decades from now. That is the problem with the theory, which is preternatural not scientific and descriptive not predictive. Scientific evidence directly contradicts the demographic transition theory and indicates that human population dynamics could be essentially similar to the population dynamics of other species. More food equals more human organisms; less food equals less human organisms; and no food equals no humans. Skyrocketing absolute global human population numbers in the past 65 years provide bold and unmistakeable evidence of this fact. I fear that when the explosive growth of the food supply for human consumption we have witnessed during my lifetime can no longer be sustained by a planet with the size, composition and ecology of Earth, and comes to an end much sooner than any one of us would want, I believe this relationship between food and population numbers will become much easier for the people to see. And at that future moment in space-time people are not, definitely not going to like what they are seeing, I suppose. I also believe that at that time those with responsibilities to assume and duties to perform will look back in anger and utter disbelief at what those in my not-so-great generation have overlooked and denied, for a variety of self-serving excuses.
Michael Ruppert is great. He knows that we are past peak oil and he knows that burning coal for electricity is the #1 cause of current global warming. Meat-eating (factory farming) and human overpopulation are #2. He knows we must change our lifestyle.
He’s not an idiot anti-science intellectually lazy libertarian who preaches allowing anybody to do anything they want. He knows that we could run out of oil tomorrow and we will STILL cause devastating crop damage due to geologically rapid climate change (100 years vs 10^6 years) from all the CO2, CH4, etc we have ALREADY put into the atmosphere (inertia) AND especially if we continue BAU (business as usual) with burning coal and nuclear.
We have to go solar and wind for electricity.
It’s called the Second Law of Thermodynamics, folks: ENTROPY! ANY time you create greater LOCALIZED order:
grow a cow by feeding them grains instead of directly eating the grains ourselves;
growing another human being in an already overpopulated world;
trying to run a sustained fission or fusion reaction with all the phenomenal cleanup costs that WILL come as reactors DECAY with time, let alone by earthquakes or accidents – and those costs are ALWAYS born by the public, the taxpayer, NEVER by the utility –
you create FAR greater DISORDER (deaths, financial costs, environmental damage) on the planet.
One big criticism of Ruppert: he could much more easily summarize the failure of all these possible “alternatives” (e.g. shale gas, clean coal) by stating one word: ENTROPY.