Human-Hating Enviro-Pessimist Letter of the Day

From Biz Weak’s Letters to the Editor (appears to be free for now, but will eventually require subscription; eighth letter at link) — an “I told you so” about enviro beliefs (bolds are mine):

Your article highlights what environmentalists dare not say aloud: That is, any solution to problems surrounding energy use (or all human consumption issues, for that matter) and the environment that does not involve a substantial reduction in global population is doomed. No matter which way we turn, such as replacing fossil fuels with biofuels, one problem is alleviated and another is created because the fundamental calculus of human demand and the inexorable growth of our numbers remain unchanged.

In my opinion it is far too late to avoid the agonizingly painful measures that must be taken to avoid a “soylent green” future. Maximum sustainable population for this planet was reached about a century ago. Yet population growth remains unabated and affects the poorest and least efficient societies the most. The horrific images of starvation and death brought to us daily from places like Darfur are going to become far more common than any of us imagines. The nightmarish logic of Thomas Malthus, while postponed thanks to technology, has not been abrogated.

Your article merely points out why billions will suffer and die because we cannot use our minds to control our instincts.

Geoffrey K. Wascher
Aurora, Ill.

Actually, this post is beyond an “I told you so.” In a post last weekend, I said that globaloney advocates are okey-dokey with keeping billions in poverty in the name of “saving the planet.” Wascher’s letter shows that there are more than a few enviros who, though they “dare not say (it) out loud,” believe that billions of us must die until the earth’s population is back to about 1.7 billion (roughly the world’s population a century ago, down from its current 6.5 billion) in the name of that same cause. Wascher does not address how we’ve managed to survive a century at ever-more “unsustainable” levels, or how he would propose to rid the world of so many excess humans, but you can be sure that an overbearing government would have to be part of a “solution” that would cause the “Final Solution” to pale in comparison. And does anyone believe that people like Wascher will volunteer to be among the first to be eliminated in the name of the cause?

The belief that world population needs to come way down is, unfortunately, not an isolated one (see Ted Turner reference at link).

To what level of pessimism have you sunk when you convince yourself that (to used tired CPA terminology) human beings are not on the whole contributing, clever, and creative assets to be nurtured, but instead are (again on the whole) greedy, careless, unimportant, resource-consuming liabilities, most of whom “need” to be eliminated?

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UPDATE: Just added a Wiki link to “soylent green” in Wascher’s letter above (and, obviously, in this sentence). I thought I had an idea of what it meant, and glossed through its use in the letter. I obviously shouldn’t have (lesson learned). Go to the Wiki link, and you’ll see how grim Wascher and by inference other enviros who “dare not say (the truth) out loud” really are. Thanks to Matt in the first comment for the gruesome catch.