Politics from the Palouse to Puget Sound

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

More on Doctor Doom

Some updates on Dr. Eric “Dr. Doom” Pianka, the University of Texas professor with some interesting ideas on “sustainable development.”

First, it seems Pianka has drawn the attention of the FBI:

Ebola, a form of hemorrhagic fever in which the internal organs of the victim liquefy, has one of the highest rates of fatality of any known contagious disease at approximately 80-90% and is one of the most contagious diseases known to medical science. It is also high on the list of possible bio-terror weapons of concern to international law enforcement and military security agencies. Tom Clancy’s thriller novel, Rainbow Six describes a group of radical environmentalists that wants to rid the world of people using a modified version of Ebola. [Clancy also had a 747 crashing into the U.S. Capitol in his book "Executive Decision" years before 9/11]

All of which is why the FBI is interested in talking to Texas ecologist and herpetologist, Dr. Eric R. Pianka, who suggested at a meeting of the Texas Academy of Sciences that an airborne version of Ebola that would wipe out 90% of the human population was the solution to the human “overpopulation problem.”

This week, Pianka has been in the Texas media saying that he was not advocating bio-terrorism, but also told the Austin Statesman that he is meeting with local FBI officials in response to complaints that he is advocating biological terrorism.
The Pearcey Report has a full transcript of Pianka’s speech. My favorite excerpt is below. I love Pianka’s explanation of the liberal buzzwords: “sustainable development.” You can see that, to the leftists, “smart growth” really does mean “no growth.” Think about that the next time you hear “sustainable development” and “smart growth” bandied about by our local liberals.

Notice how in Pianka’s mind, economics and genocide get all wrapped up together. It’s the radical environmentalists’ idea of lebensraum.

Now here’s a voice crying in the wilderness. It's been widely ignored by everybody.

Herman Daly, who wrote 4 books on steady-state economics – Beyond Growth: The Economics of Sustainable Development. He coined those terms.

And by sustainable development, I first thought those were antonyms just strung together … they couldn’t be … it weren’t possible.

He means something a little different. He means using renewable resources and leaving the earth the way it was when we came into it, each and everyone of us. Which would mean population control.

We should be born with the right to reproduce but not to overreproduce.

We need to change our tax system so that you’re taxed for having kids rather than getting a reward. [Applause.]

Daly is being completely ignored by mainstream ecologists. They’re all into this grow, grow, grow – the principle of a ponzi … you know, growth, a chain letter, a ponzi scheme.

You can’t do it.

When you hear politicians say, “We’re going to grow the economy,” think about it. Money is debt. For economies to grow, debt has to increase. What we have done in spending in the last 4, 5, 6 years is put our grandchildren into debt, and their grandchildren. And they’re never going to be able to work it off.

If Japan, Japan finally call in all those American dollars in debt, America is going to go under. That could happen any time.

Here’s another sort of upside to it. Actually, Dennis Meadows at the bottom there was asked to write this book – to do a study – using systems ecology – back in the days before pcs, and he did it in 1972, and the book was called Limits to Growth.

And then in 1992, he and some other co-authors did a Beyond the Limits book and showed that we were over carrying capacity.

And then he enlisted his daughter, Donella, to do the 30-year update, which just came out a couple of years ago. She’s dead now, but she was the most optimistic of all the people that wrote this book. And you can see it in her chapter at the very end, where she talks about what we could do if we just had the will . . . .

But anyway, he estimated that we crossed the maximum number of humans the earth could support back about 1978. But up until then we could have eased into a sustainable world, but now we're 20% above.

I think it’s actually much worse than that. We could not have reached six and a half billion if it weren’t for fossil fuels, to do agriculture and feed the hordes of humans around the earth. And the fossil fuels are running out. So I think we might have to cut back to, say, two billion, which would be about one-third as many people.
HT: Right Mind

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