Episode 1: Overpopulation: The Making of a Myth

Where did this myth come from? When was humanity supposed to end?

Did Malthus really say to kill off the poor?

Yep. In his Essay on the Principle of Population, Malthus calls for increased mortality among the poor:

All the children born, beyond what would be required to keep up the population to this level, must necessarily perish, unless room be made for them by the deaths of grown persons… To act consistently therefore, we should facilitate, instead of foolishly and vainly endeavoring to impede, the operations of nature in producing this mortality; and if we dread the too frequent visitation of the horrid form of famine, we should sedulously encourage the other forms of destruction, which we compel nature to use. Instead of recommending cleanliness to the poor, we should encourage contrary habits. In our towns we should make the streets narrower, crowd more people into the houses, and court the return of the plague. In the country, we should build our villages near stagnant pools, and particularly encourage settlements in all marshy and unwholesome situations. (Book IV, Chap. V) — Read it online.

Malthus thought doctors shouldn’t cure diseases?

“But above all, we should reprobate specific remedies for ravaging diseases; and those benevolent, but much mistaken men, who have thought they were doing a service to mankind by projecting schemes for the total extirpation of particular disorders. (Book IV, Chap. V) — Read it online.”

Did Paul Ehrlich really say that famines would devastate humanity in the 1970s?

Yep. In his 1968 work The Population Bomb, Ehrlich stated:

“The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s the world will undergo famines–hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.”

What’s the UNFPA? How do they profit from fear?

The United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) was founded in 1969, the year after Ehrlich published The Population Bomb. They have been involved in programs with governments around the world who deny their women the right to choose the number and spacing of their children. Their complicit work with the infamous “one-child policy” mandated by the government of the People’s Republic of China, uncovered by an investigation of the U.S. State Department in 2001, led the United States to pull its funding.

The wealthy of the West, in their terror of poverty, have given copiously to the UNFPA and its population control programs. Visit Population Research Institute for more info.

No way everyone could fit in Texas …

According to the U.N. Population Database, the world’s population in 2010 will be 6,908,688,000. The landmass of Texas is 268,820 sq mi (7,494,271,488,000 sq ft).

So, divide 7,494,271,488,000 sq ft by 6,908,688,000 people, and you get 1084.76 sq ft/person. That’s approximately a 33′ x 33′ plot of land for every person on the planet, enough space for a town house.

Given an average four person family, every family would have a 66′ x 66′ plot of land, which would comfortably provide a single family home and yard — and all of them fit on a landmass the size of Texas. Admittedly, it’d basically be one massive subdivision, but Texas is a tiny portion of the inhabitable Earth.

Such an arrangement would leave the entire rest of the world vacant. There’s plenty of space for humanity.

Where are you getting these numbers?

U.N. Population Database. While they provide Low, Medium, and High Variants, the Low Variant is the one that keeps coming true, so the Low variant numbers are the ones used in this video. Check their online database.

The world’s population will peak in 30 years? Prove it.

According to the U.N. Population Database, using the historically accurate low variant projection, the Earth’s population will only add another billion people or so over the next thirty years, peaking around 8.02 billion people in the year 2040, and then it will begin to decline. Check their online database.