Part 1: Utterly strangling the population debate in Canada and America

By Frosty Wooldridge

“The raging monster upon the land is population growth. In its presence, sustainability is but a fragile theoretical construct.  To say, as many do, that the difficulties of nations are not due to people, but to poor ideology and land-use management is sophistic.”  Harvard scholar and biologist Dr. E.O. Wilson

For over 30 years, I have written, spoken and stood up to discuss, debate and move the human overpopulation issue forward in America.  I have run into a brick wall constructed by the Catholic Church, the immigration open border lobbies and the Congress of the United States.  It appears that any discussion in America or Canada provides our two countries with the last taboo: no discussion of population for fear of hurting someone else’s feelings.

Whose feelings?  How about the 13.4 million American children living below the poverty line? What about the 100,000 children in Somalia starving to death in the past several months and future months? How about the 18 million humans that starve to death around the planet annually this year and every year? 

Why is the population equation the last taboo?  Answer: religion, culture and human denial.  I call upon the Catholic Church, the Protestant Churches, Islam, Buddha, Hindu and all other ancient religions to come to the table to get a handle on relentless human population growth that they all support. Why? Because it’s killing not only millions of human beings; it’s killing millions of fellow creatures and it’s killing our planet.

My long time Canadian friend Tim Murray brings it in this interview. He makes no bones about who is stifling, strangling and suppressing the population equation.

“I am not, by nature, a conspiracy theorist,” said Murray. “As Carl Sagan said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. But when people of my ilk consistently see our interviews, op-eds, and lecture invitations abruptly cancelled with feeble excuses given—if given at all—then random events suddenly take on a pattern. If we examine it, I think only one conclusion emerges as most plausible. We have been witnessing a slow strangulation of debate about overpopulation. It represents a mass die-off of open discussion of arguably the most important topic of our time by those upon whom our society most depends. Our scientists.”

An Excuse That Just Doesn’t Add Up

“CAPS (Californians for Population Stabilization) was to have a booth set up at the Vancouver Convention Centre for the science fair held by the American Association for the Advancement of Science this winter,” said Murray. “But guess what. After making the arrangements and paying a fee of $2500, CAPS was told that the deal was off. They could not have a booth at the fair after all. Why? It seems that somebody got to them. Of course, alternative explanations can be entertained. AAAS explained that it is “a non-profit, non-partisan, scientific association, and unfortunately, CAPS does not align with AAAS”. Funny how they took the rent and then made the discovery that CAPS didn’t have as legitimate a right to have a booth as did other organizations less focused on education.

“In response to further inquiry, they added that “We do not provide booth space to organizations with as direct a political and lobbying intent as CAPS on issues that go beyond the interests of our multidisciplinary membership and meeting audience.” Keep in mind, this is the same AAAS whose journal “Science” published Dr. Garrett Hardin’s “Tragedy of the Commons”, an article that attracted more reprint requests than any other paper Science had ever published. Ironically, Dr. Hardin was a founder of CAPS, which AAAS now wants to exclude from its upcoming Vancouver conference.”

Once upon a time overpopulation was considered a legitimate subject for scientific research

“How times have changed,” said Murray. “In 1976, Canada’s then most prestigious and august scientific body, the Science Council of Canada, issued a report (Number 25) that concluded that the country faced a future of severe resource constraints, and that it would be prudent for us to slow the population rate down so as not to exceed 30 million people by century’s end. “Only by keeping population growth low, while at the same time implementing conservation measures on all fronts….”, would it be possible to meet future energy demands. And if we did that, they predicted, our population would “stabilize within a generation”. (p. 10, SC Report #25) They added that “annual net immigration of about 50,000 per annum would achieve that growth.” (p. 61)

“Net immigration is now more than six times that number and according to the 2007 census Canada had the fastest growing population in the G8 group, with all major parties wanting to increase the pace! By the beginning of this year, Canada stood at more than 34 million people—and still growing, as resource shortages loom. No one can say that, as far back as 1976, our top scientists did not try to warn us about the consequences. And the warnings continued.

“In May of 1991 scientists in the “Intelligence Advisory Committee” submitted a report to the Privy Council of Canada that emphasized that “Controlling population growth is crucial to addressing most environmental problems, including global warming.” Six years later, a team of 63 scientists, academics and graduate students led by Dr. Michael Healey of UBC completed a $2.4 million federally-commissioned study of the Fraser Eco-Basin that argued for the development of a Population Plan for the country, as it was apparent that many other farming regions outside Canada’s major urban centers would suffer the same ecological damage that Greater Vancouver’s burgeoning population had inflicted upon the region.”

“Their verdict was that “…population is central to the problem of sustainability. The government cannot pursue sustainability and at the same time ignore population…The federal government should adopt a population policy for Canada that is consistent with the principles of sustainability (of which) immigration is one facet.” (Executive Summary, Prospects for Sustainability, p.6)

“In all three cases then, scientists had identified rampant human population growth as very much a legitimate subject of scientific research and felt compelled to recommend curbs to that growth,” said Murray. “Their reports obviously evidenced “lobbying intent”. But now, in 2011, the zeitgeist has shifted to the point that apparently “science” must stand by in silent witness to a mugging of nature, and pretend that this “non-involvement” is something other than what is it—collusion by default. Scientists have become “silent partners in crime”. Surely Dr. Stuart Hurlbert of SDSU was correct.”

“Suppression of fact and opinion highly relevant to a topic under discussion (eg. Sustainability, population growth , effects of immigration controls) is one of the strongest, most devious , and most irresponsible forms of advocacy possible.” It seems that the editorial gatekeepers of scientific debate are even more reluctant to debate population issues than are politicians. As Professor Fred Meyerson of URI once remarked, “If we were discussing the population and growth and migration of any other species, no one would shy away from it.”

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