U of Texas Professor Eric Pianka Predicted a Disease Would Control Population, Ebola?

From an article in 2006:

In his estimation, "We've grown fat, apathetic and miserable," all the while leaving the planet parched.

The solution?

A 90 percent reduction.

That's 5.8 billion lives - lives he says are turning the planet into "fat, human biomass."

He points to an 85 percent swell in the population during the last 25 years and insists civilization is on the brink of its downfall - likely at the hand of widespread disease.

"[Disease] will control the scourge of humanity," Pianka said. "We're looking forward to a huge collapse."

Wondering if he was on the mark and Ebola is that disease.

Source: rense.com...

a reply to: quirkygirl

"the scourge of humanity"
I can't relate to people that think like that.

I understand someone wanting to limit population growth, but to call humanity a 'scourge'? People like that are weird.

a reply to: butcherguy


I agree. He states people are not different than a bug or lizard. He's quite the character but smart and still a professor.

originally posted by: quirkygirl
a reply to: butcherguy


I agree. He states people are not different than a bug or lizard. He's quite the character but smart and still a professor.

He is also teaching this idea to university students. I hope they are smart enough to weigh his ideas against better ones and make the right decision about how to approach the population problem.

He is definitely not alone in thinking human beings are a scourge on the planet

Most environmental groups say the same thing, albeit in a more round about way

Many, many liberal/progressive/socialist politicians also see it the same way, that humans are a blight on the earth

It is actually becoming nearly mainstream liberal/progressive/socialist accepted thinking.

To say something like that is horrid, evil and downright genocidal in my eyes.

a reply to: quirkygirl

I've often wondered if it might not be the case that there's some critical mass of human population that once reached, would result in a naturally occurring plague that will emerge to cull the herd. By this I mean that perhaps its the case that if and when you cram too much population onto the planet, some naturally occurring virus or perhaps even a bacteria will arise and then, because of the "mass" of the host, (numbers of people), the virus mutates over and over again to become more effective, more easily spread and more difficult to control or counter.

I've never thought, based upon my research, that Ebola would be that virus, for a number of reasons I think everyone knows about. But then recently, I've read that there are 5 or 6 different strains of Ebola operating in Africa in distinct geographic regions of the continent. That suggests to me that there is some degree of mutation going on with the Ebola virus.

Another worry I've developed is these so-called Ebola vaccines. Considering the numerous failures of Virologists efforts of late, I'm concerned its more likely than not that the idiots will inadvertently create a vaccine that horribly backfires.

originally posted by: quirkygirl
From an article in 2006:

In his estimation, "We've grown fat, apathetic and miserable," all the while leaving the planet parched.

The solution?

A 90 percent reduction.

That's 5.8 billion lives - lives he says are turning the planet into "fat, human biomass."

He points to an 85 percent swell in the population during the last 25 years and insists civilization is on the brink of its downfall - likely at the hand of widespread disease.

"[Disease] will control the scourge of humanity," Pianka said. "We're looking forward to a huge collapse."

Wondering if he was on the mark and Ebola is that disease.

Source: rense.com...

It's not really that much of a prediction based on nothing though is it, Ebola is a dreadful disease and who knows what may happen, but to say that couldn't have been predicted at any time in the last few decades is a bit of a push. Novels have pushed either Ebola or an Ebola like disease as humanities greatest risk for quite a while.

His words though are fairly offensive, disease doesn't discriminate.

a reply to: TonyS

Nothing new to that concept.
At one point, syphilis was thought to be the one to cull the herd rendering men sterile. Then, various others, Spanish Flu, HIV/AIDS, bird flu,Swine flu, now Ebola. ..meh.

We survived the Black Plague. We'll survive whatever else Mother nature throws our way.

Ok the figures the professor is quoted as saying are greatly exaggerating the facts

I just went to www.geohive.com...

which has population charts and past % growth and projected % growth based on current trends beginning in 1950

In 1989 there were 5.230,452,409 humans
In 2014 there are 7,243,784,121

A percentage change of 32.2798

So the population has not increased 85% as was quoted in the OP, but rather 32%

Also, the chart showed a gradual and continual slowdown in % growth beginning in 1988
which continues to this day

The world is projected to hit negative growth around the year 2101 at which point the population will begin to decline as quickly as it has risen the past 25 years if current birth/death rates continue as they are today.

This does not account for the many scientists who project a much much faster decline in human population if current birth rates continue at their current dropping rates.

If he exaggerated about this, and he could easily of checked these numbers himself, then I would question all other statements coming forth from the man.

you people have really bad memory

www.abovetopsecret.com...

perhaps he got his ideas from this film...

www.youtube.com...

Yes. He time traveled.
a reply to: olaru12

originally posted by: butcherguy
a reply to: quirkygirl

"the scourge of humanity"
I can't relate to people that think like that.

I understand someone wanting to limit population growth, but to call humanity a 'scourge'? People like that are weird.

People like that are beyond weird. They are psychopaths. If the best solution he can come up with for the problems humanity faces is to simply kill off billions of people instead of looking for a productive, positive answer he is irrevocably broken. He is a far worse proposition than all of those people he callously categorizes as unworthy of life. Intelligence does not have a causal link with morality. Funny thing that...

originally posted by: YoungSkid
Yes. He time traveled.
a reply to: olaru12

Nice catch...

Perhaps this one then.

www.youtube.com...

From Pianka's actual speech, in 2006:

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.

This is an old figure from the Meadows 1992 Beyond the Limits book and you are here in 1999 – we’re actually out here now. We’re starting to experience the world oil crash, and you know that every time you fill up your car.

Here’s the most optimistic projection: Is we don’t have a collapse.

But here’s what’s gonna happen. And after the human population collapses, there’s going to be a lot fewer of us. Food’s going to be diminished. Pollution’s going to go down, which will be good. But there’s not going to be much to recover from. Our descendants are going to curse us for the party we took, the party we had, and I really recommend Richard Heinberg’s book the Party’s Over: Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Societies. This man has thought about these things deeply. (Source)

He's basing society's collapse on peak oil, which we now know is not likely to happen for a very, very long time. In addition, he seems to be advocating limiting the number of children that a person can have in order to reduce population to two billion, not a disease that would cut the population by 90%. Him saying that seems to be hearsay by students, it's definitely not in his speech.

You can read the whole speech by following that "Source" link.

a reply to: olaru12 or he got ideas from the bible.

a reply to: grandmakdw

The view of humanity as a scourge has truth to it, in a way, and is simply a push back on the old "humans are God's gift and multiply without any thought to consequences."

The thought of us as locusts or a cancer is just another perspective to mull over and possibly learn from to change things before it becomes truth.

Your take on progressives, greenies and socialists misses the mark... they are that way precisely BECAUSE they love humans and do not want them to suffer.... any of them... even fascistic right wingers who hate them.

But in the big picture, we will have to limit population growth OR find new lands to fill. It's not hateful to face truth. Our responses to truths can be hateful, though.

a reply to: quirkygirl

Well they could have picked a better disease.
Ebola is entirely containable and it is transferred via close contact, so not really the best for spreading worldwide and "getting" a lot of people.

Even the guy who discovered it says it's fairly easy to contain.

Fundamentally, Ebola is easy to contain. It's not a question of needing high technology. It's about respecting the basics of hygiene, and about isolation, quarantine and protecting yourself - in particular protecting healthcare workers, because they are very exposed.

LINK


Then again how lax people have gotten in hospitals with hygiene and so on, anything is possible.

a reply to: blupblup

Talk about a poster for the problem. If Ebola gets loose in India there is no stopping it.


www.chinasmack.com...

a reply to: Baddogma

Do a little research, and you will find that the population growth worldwide is within a tiny margin of of starting a population decline.

ALL industrialized countries have a negative birth rate. That is, the average family/person is not having enough children to replace one for one people who die. There have been lots of threads on this. Population boom is no more, we are now at the cusp of a population bust. The only thing keeping the population close to stable now are third world countries. That is why so many countries have mass immigration from third world countries. They need them to keep their population stable and to literally keep the lights on. (I have posted the facts/figures in several threads on ATS and am just too tired to do it here, sorry)

But there is another issue now, the third world countries who are having more than replacement rate births also right now are having very high mortality rates. Such as we see in Africa.

I even read a journal recently that talked about the secret problem in Islamic countries of a looming quite large population bust. Men who love their daughters are not forcing them to marry. Women whose fathers do not force them to marry are refusing to marry as they are frightened of what could happen to them if they do. There is even a city quietly being built for just women to live in, so they can walk about freely and do business freely, and no men will be allowed in the walls of the city.

Right now Japan is in deep deep trouble with their negative birth rate. There are not enough young people to support the pensions or to care for the elderly. China is having the same issue. Both countries have a deep prejudice against marriage outside their race and a deep prejudice against immigration (xenophobic). Therefore, Japan is feeling it the worst because of their small population to begin with, and China is making laws requiring the young by law to support, care for, and visit their parents (each young family is by law obligated to support their child and 4 elder adults)

There are some scientists who speculate the human race will be extinct within 500 years if current trends continue at the same rate. That is, as third world countries become more educated and get access to widespread technology, their people will also stop having children at replacement levels also.

However, there are some, like this professor who continue for whatever reason to spread the myth of overpopulation. Which will end quite soon, maybe in your lifetime, and a rapid decline in population will occur because people are no longer interested in either having children or having more than 2 children. It actually takes having a large number of people having a 3rd child to have replacement rates, and that is not happening in all industrialized countries. This is even true now of Mexico, if their birth rate drops by .01% then they will enter the rest of the world with a negative birth rate.


This is why the US is stealing young people from third world countries through open borders. Dirty little secret, 2nd and third generation and above americans aren't having on average enough babies to keep the lights on, the streets paved, etc. And certainly not enough to keep social security and welfare checks going.

Why the myth is linked with liberalism? Because the environmental movement has entrenched itself into liberal/progressive/socialist policies and thinking. Environmentalists have convinced many that human beings are a blight on the earth, and have done their best to worm that thinking into liberal/progressive/socialist agendas.
But the people loving (?) socialists who think that the greater good is more important than one persons suffering, see people as harming the greater good of planet earth.

My opinion, one persons suffering must be addressed, and the greater good of humanity lies in its ability to care about the one as much as the whole society or whole earth. Is negative birth rate worldwide a good thing, maybe, but it will cause an awful lot of pain and suffering for individuals especially the young who will end up caring for and be legally obligated to support on average 3 people for most of their productive years - one child, both parents. As societies will be forced into doing what China is doing or have mandatory euthanasia at the end of ones productive and society contributing years.