One of the self-appointed goals of Demography Is Destiny is highlighting
loopy anti-human predictions for posterity. Most of them come from the UK, God
bless the Brits, but lately I’ve found a few in the US as well. This one comes
an Earth Day message from the faculty at the SUNY College of
Environmental Science and Forestry, in Syracuse, New York. Overpopulation is
the world’s top environmental issue, they say, followed closely by climate
change and sustainable energy.

"Overpopulation is the only problem," said Dr Charles A. Hall, a systems
ecologist who studies the Adirondacks. "If we had 100 million people on Earth or
better, 10 million, -- no others would be a problem." (Current estimates put the
planet’s population at more than six billion.) He has made his own commitment
and has decided not to have any children.

The ESF scientists aver that they love people to death, but there ought to be
a lot fewer of them. "Individuals are the ones that are associated with
producing various pollutants and the more individuals there are, the more
pollutants there are," says Dr Myron Mitchell.

Dr Hall insists, "I’d wouldn’t go out and kill anybody. That’s not the point.
Let’s look at what the problem is." And the problem needs a drastic solution:
population control, a bit shop-soiled maybe after scandals in the 70s and 80s,
but still the only sharp knife in the drawer.

"It has to be a central issue regarding any type of environmental aspects of
controlling pollution and climate change. Population control has to be part of
the solution," Dr Mitchell told North
Country Public Radio.