From Kirkus Reviews
HUMANS: AN ENDANGERED SPECIES
The Only Solution
Brent, Jason G.
Self (130 pp.)
$19.95 paperback, $7.99 e-book
ISBN: 978-0985412906; June 6, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
"A bleak, provocative portrait of the difficult choices to be made if humanity is to survive.
Brent is quite convincing in his argument that we’re heading toward 'the perfect storm' of global ecological crises.
Population growth exacerbates the rising level of consumption and shrinking resources, especially with respect to fossil fuels, which paints a new, stark reality highlighted by climate change, pollution, scarcity of potable water and food shortages. The author predicts that this critical situation will lead to armed conflicts between nations; thus, he asserts, 'The choice is between resource wars with weapons of mass destruction and coercive population control.'
For the most part, Brent writes in an accessible style, offering multiple examples or illustrations whereby readers can easily digest the large amount of statistics and mathematical projections. However, many readers may believe that there’s a way to convey the urgency of the matter without resorting to a hostile, confrontational tone. In fact, readers might then feel more engaged and less browbeaten. Most likely, inflammatory references to 'parasites' or 'religious fanatics who produce the most children and spread like a cancer over the face of the earth' will alienate even those who support some of Brent’s more palatable recommendations, such as increased access to proven methods of birth control. In the end, Brent advocates a global 'One-Child-Per-Family law,' along with execution of parents (and their second child) who disobey; naturally occurring multiple births (twins, triplets, etc.) would represent an exception to the rule.
This scenario raises a myriad of questions: Who will take care of the first child, now orphaned? Will those with a genetic predisposition toward multiple births be privileged or oppressed? Will homosexuality become a more socially desirable trait? Without addressing these particular consequences, he unequivocally states: 'Each individual will have a very clear choice—execution or birth control or sterilization or abortion or abstinence.'
Certain to stir the debate surrounding reproduction and environmental sustainability."
– Kirkus Reviews
HUMANS: AN ENDANGERED SPECIES
The Only Solution
Brent, Jason G.
Self (130 pp.)
$19.95 paperback, $7.99 e-book
ISBN: 978-0985412906; June 6, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
"A bleak, provocative portrait of the difficult choices to be made if humanity is to survive.
Brent is quite convincing in his argument that we’re heading toward 'the perfect storm' of global ecological crises.
Population growth exacerbates the rising level of consumption and shrinking resources, especially with respect to fossil fuels, which paints a new, stark reality highlighted by climate change, pollution, scarcity of potable water and food shortages. The author predicts that this critical situation will lead to armed conflicts between nations; thus, he asserts, 'The choice is between resource wars with weapons of mass destruction and coercive population control.'
For the most part, Brent writes in an accessible style, offering multiple examples or illustrations whereby readers can easily digest the large amount of statistics and mathematical projections. However, many readers may believe that there’s a way to convey the urgency of the matter without resorting to a hostile, confrontational tone. In fact, readers might then feel more engaged and less browbeaten. Most likely, inflammatory references to 'parasites' or 'religious fanatics who produce the most children and spread like a cancer over the face of the earth' will alienate even those who support some of Brent’s more palatable recommendations, such as increased access to proven methods of birth control. In the end, Brent advocates a global 'One-Child-Per-Family law,' along with execution of parents (and their second child) who disobey; naturally occurring multiple births (twins, triplets, etc.) would represent an exception to the rule.
This scenario raises a myriad of questions: Who will take care of the first child, now orphaned? Will those with a genetic predisposition toward multiple births be privileged or oppressed? Will homosexuality become a more socially desirable trait? Without addressing these particular consequences, he unequivocally states: 'Each individual will have a very clear choice—execution or birth control or sterilization or abortion or abstinence.'
Certain to stir the debate surrounding reproduction and environmental sustainability."
– Kirkus Reviews
From SQ Swans Guerrylla PhD. EcoWarrior, http://sqswans.weebly.com/jason-brent.html
Jason G. Brent
A pyramid scheme is a non-sustainable business model that involves promising participants payment or services, primarily for enrolling other people into the scheme, rather than supplying any real investment or sale of products or services to the public.
The flaw is that there is no end benefit. The money simply travels up the chain. Only the originator (sometimes called the "pharaoh") and a very few at the top levels of the pyramid make significant amounts of money. The amounts dwindle steeply down the pyramid slopes.
Individuals at the bottom of the pyramid (those who subscribed to the plan, but were not able to recruit any followers themselves) end up with a deficit.
The human race, as we know it, has become the greatest pyramid scheme ever devised because the unchecked growth of the population and the unrestricted exploitation of the world’s resources are moving the human race further and further down the pyramid of sustainability.
Jason Brent Humans: An Endangered Species is a practical look at what we’ve done and what we must seriously consider if the human race is to continue to grow and more importantly, to survive. Written as a logical look at the history of mankind’s unending desire for population propagation and its self-justifying need to indulge itself with the concept of ‘more is better’, Humans: An Endangered Species takes a statistical approach to understanding who we are, what we’ve done, and what we’re dooming ourselves to unless we take drastic and immediate steps to curtail our unrestrained growth and exploitation of our planet’s resources.
Humans: An Endangered Species Selected Excerpts: Every major problem facing humanity, without a single exception, will not and cannot be solved or even ameliorated without reducing the population growth of humans to zero; or, more likely, until the number of humans presently inhabiting the Earth is substantially reduced from the current (2011) 7.0 billion. Every major problem currently facing humanity will be solved or greatly ameliorated when the human growth rate is reduced to zero, or made negative. Those who believe that the collapse of civilization and/or the collapse of the social order will not commence for years into the future are just plain wrong.
No debate, discussion, or sophistry can change the fact that, by definition, infinite population and/or infinite economic growth cannot and will not happen on a finite earth. Therefore, at some point both population growth and economic growth will cease. No power on earth or in the heavens will permit infinite economic and/or infinite population growth on the finite earth. Any attempt by humanity to maintain continuous economic and/or population growth is doomed to failure. Any law enacted or any action taken by any government in the world intended to maintain continuous economic and/or population growth is not only doomed to failure, but will lead to the speedy and inevitable destruction of the entire human species in a very short period of time.
The Food and Agricultural Organization of the UN (FAO) has issued a sobering forecast on world food production. If the global population reached 9.1 billion by 2050, the FAO has projected that world food production would need to rise by 70% and food production in the developing world would need to double. Of course, unless population decreased subsequent to 2050 the amount of food produced annually would have to forever remain at those increased levels. While no one can predict the future with total certainty, it is almost certain that those levels of food production could not be achieved, let alone maintained forever. The forecast of the FAO did not take into account the possibility that population would be greater than 9.1 billion in 2050 or that population would continue to grow subsequent to 2050.
In November 2011 the FAO issued a report that stated that 25% of the world's land was "highly degraded" with soil erosion, water degradation, and biodiversity loss. Another 8% was moderately degraded, while 36% was stable or slightly degraded. The UN also found that around the world water is becoming ever more scarce and salinated, while groundwater is becoming more polluted by agricultural runoff and other toxins. And the degradation of the Earth's soil is continuing and will continue into the future as the population rises until there is a sudden production collapse causing the deaths of billions.
There are three ways population growth can be reduced to zero or made negative—a) by war, starvation, disease, ethnic cleansing, and/or some other horror beyond the imagination of almost every reader of this book after humanity has reached or exceeded the carrying capacity of the planet; b) by the voluntary action of all of humanity for an extended period of time --for the period of time humanity will remain on the earth-- and this must occur prior to humanity reaching or exceeding the carrying capacity of the Earth; and c) by some form of birth control/restriction being imposed by all of society, or by some group which would have the power to enforce whatever rules and regulations are necessary, to reduce population and economic growth to zero or to make both negative; and this must occur prior to humanity reaching or exceeding the carrying capacity of the Earth.
Categories (b) and (c) are sub-categories of non-violence or sub-categories of the intelligence of humankind. Since category (a) (war, starvation, etc.) would result in the destruction of civilization as we know it, it is not a viable option. For the reasons set forth herein, I do not believe that humankind will voluntarily reduce population and economic growth to zero or make both of them negative prior the deaths of billions of human beings and the destruction of society as we know it. If I am correct, then the only way to reduce population and economic growth to zero or make it negative such that humanity will survive is by the action of all of society or a group that will control population by effective sanctions against those who reproduce against the established rules.
What are the problems today which humanity faces in its fight for survival? The list is interminable--over population, environmental degradation, exhaustion of oil and other fossil fuels, global warming, rising food prices causing starvation and social unrest, the possibility of new and deadly plagues due to the destruction of forests and other natural habitats, destruction of species on a scale that could lead to the destruction of human life, lack of water to grow food due to the exhaustion of underground fossil aquifers, over fishing leading to the elimination of fish as a source of food for humanity, dead zones in the ocean due to fertilizer run off, the possibility of new and deadly plagues due to each human being living in close proximity with other human beings, excessive irrigation leading to the destruction of soils, overgrazing leading to the destruction of soils, pollution in the atmosphere and rivers and oceans leading to disease, artificial chemicals leading to genetic damage, destruction of wetlands due to chemical pollution and the damming of rivers, invasion by non-local species leading to the destruction of local species, and, of course, the probability of war with weapons of mass destruction.
The economic law of supply and demand applies to every resource on the planet, and since the demand is increasing every day due to the increasing population and the exploding world economy, and since the supply is finite because no resource is infinitely large, or because the supply is decreasing due to the usage by humanity, the cost of every resource must eventually increase no matter the intelligence or creativity of humankind. This effect is compounded by the fact, set forth above, that every day it is becoming more difficult and expensive to obtain the resources as humanity has already used the easiest and cheapest resources available.
According to the experts, a few human beings arrived on Easter Island and found a vacant island paradise. Population grew and grew until humanity destroyed the island paradise, until all or almost all of the resources of the island paradise were destroyed and resource wars followed which resulted in the deaths of almost all of the humans who had inhabited the island. While no one has made a scientific analysis of the intelligence of the inhabitants of Easter Island, there isn’t any reason to presume that, on the average, they were any less or more intelligent than the rest of humanity. According to those who have studied Easter Island, the situation became so bad that those who remained alive resorted to cannibalism, and to make the situation even worse, they were forced to eat those they killed raw because there wasn’t any fuel on the island to cook those to be eaten. Again the cause of the death, destruction, and cannibalism, was the excess population in relation to the resources that could be provided by the island.
The very same thing will occur to the rest of humanity on the planet earth. If humanity uses more resources than can be provided by the planet on an annual basis, our species is doomed. While the entire planet is larger than Easter Island, there isn’t any difference between Easter Island and our planet. They both are finite in size and both have resources that have been or will be exhausted. The intelligence of humankind will not change the result. The intelligence of those who lived on Easter Island did not change the result.
Anyone who disagrees with the concept of limiting population and economic growth must take the position that both can grow infinitely large on the finite earth, and that position cannot be logically defended—it cannot happen. Since both the economy and population must cease growth, we are left with two and only two questions—when and how will both cease. It is almost axiomatic that the larger the population and the larger the economy, the more difficult it will be to cease the growth of either or both. Growth tends to be self-perpetuating, and the longer growth continues the more difficult it will be to prevent the destruction of humankind. Anyone who believes that growth can continue without resource wars with weapons of mass destruction must be correct in his/her position forever. He/she cannot be wrong even once. Humanity cannot permit a single war with weapons of mass destruction as that war would probably result in the almost total annihilation of all of humanity, and surely would result in the destruction of civilization as we know it. Humanity cannot afford the gamble.
Jason G. Brent
A pyramid scheme is a non-sustainable business model that involves promising participants payment or services, primarily for enrolling other people into the scheme, rather than supplying any real investment or sale of products or services to the public.
The flaw is that there is no end benefit. The money simply travels up the chain. Only the originator (sometimes called the "pharaoh") and a very few at the top levels of the pyramid make significant amounts of money. The amounts dwindle steeply down the pyramid slopes.
Individuals at the bottom of the pyramid (those who subscribed to the plan, but were not able to recruit any followers themselves) end up with a deficit.
The human race, as we know it, has become the greatest pyramid scheme ever devised because the unchecked growth of the population and the unrestricted exploitation of the world’s resources are moving the human race further and further down the pyramid of sustainability.
Jason Brent Humans: An Endangered Species is a practical look at what we’ve done and what we must seriously consider if the human race is to continue to grow and more importantly, to survive. Written as a logical look at the history of mankind’s unending desire for population propagation and its self-justifying need to indulge itself with the concept of ‘more is better’, Humans: An Endangered Species takes a statistical approach to understanding who we are, what we’ve done, and what we’re dooming ourselves to unless we take drastic and immediate steps to curtail our unrestrained growth and exploitation of our planet’s resources.
Humans: An Endangered Species Selected Excerpts: Every major problem facing humanity, without a single exception, will not and cannot be solved or even ameliorated without reducing the population growth of humans to zero; or, more likely, until the number of humans presently inhabiting the Earth is substantially reduced from the current (2011) 7.0 billion. Every major problem currently facing humanity will be solved or greatly ameliorated when the human growth rate is reduced to zero, or made negative. Those who believe that the collapse of civilization and/or the collapse of the social order will not commence for years into the future are just plain wrong.
No debate, discussion, or sophistry can change the fact that, by definition, infinite population and/or infinite economic growth cannot and will not happen on a finite earth. Therefore, at some point both population growth and economic growth will cease. No power on earth or in the heavens will permit infinite economic and/or infinite population growth on the finite earth. Any attempt by humanity to maintain continuous economic and/or population growth is doomed to failure. Any law enacted or any action taken by any government in the world intended to maintain continuous economic and/or population growth is not only doomed to failure, but will lead to the speedy and inevitable destruction of the entire human species in a very short period of time.
The Food and Agricultural Organization of the UN (FAO) has issued a sobering forecast on world food production. If the global population reached 9.1 billion by 2050, the FAO has projected that world food production would need to rise by 70% and food production in the developing world would need to double. Of course, unless population decreased subsequent to 2050 the amount of food produced annually would have to forever remain at those increased levels. While no one can predict the future with total certainty, it is almost certain that those levels of food production could not be achieved, let alone maintained forever. The forecast of the FAO did not take into account the possibility that population would be greater than 9.1 billion in 2050 or that population would continue to grow subsequent to 2050.
In November 2011 the FAO issued a report that stated that 25% of the world's land was "highly degraded" with soil erosion, water degradation, and biodiversity loss. Another 8% was moderately degraded, while 36% was stable or slightly degraded. The UN also found that around the world water is becoming ever more scarce and salinated, while groundwater is becoming more polluted by agricultural runoff and other toxins. And the degradation of the Earth's soil is continuing and will continue into the future as the population rises until there is a sudden production collapse causing the deaths of billions.
There are three ways population growth can be reduced to zero or made negative—a) by war, starvation, disease, ethnic cleansing, and/or some other horror beyond the imagination of almost every reader of this book after humanity has reached or exceeded the carrying capacity of the planet; b) by the voluntary action of all of humanity for an extended period of time --for the period of time humanity will remain on the earth-- and this must occur prior to humanity reaching or exceeding the carrying capacity of the Earth; and c) by some form of birth control/restriction being imposed by all of society, or by some group which would have the power to enforce whatever rules and regulations are necessary, to reduce population and economic growth to zero or to make both negative; and this must occur prior to humanity reaching or exceeding the carrying capacity of the Earth.
Categories (b) and (c) are sub-categories of non-violence or sub-categories of the intelligence of humankind. Since category (a) (war, starvation, etc.) would result in the destruction of civilization as we know it, it is not a viable option. For the reasons set forth herein, I do not believe that humankind will voluntarily reduce population and economic growth to zero or make both of them negative prior the deaths of billions of human beings and the destruction of society as we know it. If I am correct, then the only way to reduce population and economic growth to zero or make it negative such that humanity will survive is by the action of all of society or a group that will control population by effective sanctions against those who reproduce against the established rules.
What are the problems today which humanity faces in its fight for survival? The list is interminable--over population, environmental degradation, exhaustion of oil and other fossil fuels, global warming, rising food prices causing starvation and social unrest, the possibility of new and deadly plagues due to the destruction of forests and other natural habitats, destruction of species on a scale that could lead to the destruction of human life, lack of water to grow food due to the exhaustion of underground fossil aquifers, over fishing leading to the elimination of fish as a source of food for humanity, dead zones in the ocean due to fertilizer run off, the possibility of new and deadly plagues due to each human being living in close proximity with other human beings, excessive irrigation leading to the destruction of soils, overgrazing leading to the destruction of soils, pollution in the atmosphere and rivers and oceans leading to disease, artificial chemicals leading to genetic damage, destruction of wetlands due to chemical pollution and the damming of rivers, invasion by non-local species leading to the destruction of local species, and, of course, the probability of war with weapons of mass destruction.
The economic law of supply and demand applies to every resource on the planet, and since the demand is increasing every day due to the increasing population and the exploding world economy, and since the supply is finite because no resource is infinitely large, or because the supply is decreasing due to the usage by humanity, the cost of every resource must eventually increase no matter the intelligence or creativity of humankind. This effect is compounded by the fact, set forth above, that every day it is becoming more difficult and expensive to obtain the resources as humanity has already used the easiest and cheapest resources available.
According to the experts, a few human beings arrived on Easter Island and found a vacant island paradise. Population grew and grew until humanity destroyed the island paradise, until all or almost all of the resources of the island paradise were destroyed and resource wars followed which resulted in the deaths of almost all of the humans who had inhabited the island. While no one has made a scientific analysis of the intelligence of the inhabitants of Easter Island, there isn’t any reason to presume that, on the average, they were any less or more intelligent than the rest of humanity. According to those who have studied Easter Island, the situation became so bad that those who remained alive resorted to cannibalism, and to make the situation even worse, they were forced to eat those they killed raw because there wasn’t any fuel on the island to cook those to be eaten. Again the cause of the death, destruction, and cannibalism, was the excess population in relation to the resources that could be provided by the island.
The very same thing will occur to the rest of humanity on the planet earth. If humanity uses more resources than can be provided by the planet on an annual basis, our species is doomed. While the entire planet is larger than Easter Island, there isn’t any difference between Easter Island and our planet. They both are finite in size and both have resources that have been or will be exhausted. The intelligence of humankind will not change the result. The intelligence of those who lived on Easter Island did not change the result.
Anyone who disagrees with the concept of limiting population and economic growth must take the position that both can grow infinitely large on the finite earth, and that position cannot be logically defended—it cannot happen. Since both the economy and population must cease growth, we are left with two and only two questions—when and how will both cease. It is almost axiomatic that the larger the population and the larger the economy, the more difficult it will be to cease the growth of either or both. Growth tends to be self-perpetuating, and the longer growth continues the more difficult it will be to prevent the destruction of humankind. Anyone who believes that growth can continue without resource wars with weapons of mass destruction must be correct in his/her position forever. He/she cannot be wrong even once. Humanity cannot permit a single war with weapons of mass destruction as that war would probably result in the almost total annihilation of all of humanity, and surely would result in the destruction of civilization as we know it. Humanity cannot afford the gamble.
Jason Brent offers a chilling view of what we are doing to ourselves without thinking of the consequences plus a series of practical, if not terrifying, ways to stem the oncoming demise of humankind as we know it.
Emily Spence
* * * * * *
I have been meaning to contact you for some time. You sent me a copy of your book, which struck quite a cord with me. How we think alike!
You have done a brilliant work showing the terrible dilemma that humankind is faced with. It is a terrific project! I know how frustrated you must be that so few people are listening to our message. So let's both keep writing and working on these problems because we can't just stand there doing nothing.
Good luck and stay in touch.
Richard (Dick) Lamm
Governor of Colorado 1975-1987
* * * * * *
Many thanks for the copy of your book. This is great that you published the book on the need to reduce population numbers in the world. I agree with you and hope that your book will change minds.
I suggested that food is limiting more than 66% of the world population now. This stimulated a group to discuss what can be done to use food as a limiting factor. Several people have been arguing about this for about a year.
Again, Jason many thanks for the copy of your book. I hope that it is widely read and stimulates some helpful action.
David Pimental, Professor Emeritus, Cornell University.
* * * * * *
The logic is compelling. The conclusion is indisputable. We are already in a state of global collapse though the symptoms of it vary by country and/or continent. His observation about the middle east conflicts is accurate: no government can support an expanding population and diminution of resources. Anyone who thinks that the revolutions in those countries about employment-- or those anywhere else in the world-- have nothing to do with the overshoot of population over resources doesn't know anything about science, physics or ecology (which is most people in the world and most governments). Anyone who thinks that voluntary birth control measures, even if made available to every woman on earth, will suffice is spitting in the wind.
Lorna Salzman
* * * * * *
Have just been reading your book. I find it rigorous and well argued. What I particularly like is that you take seriously the need to deal with limits. How did environmentalism ever get away from this?
I would point out that one could go quite far in agreeing with you, and not agree with everything. For example, one could believe that we need to move to an average of one-child per couple, while trying to get there with incentives or mild disincentives, rather than penalties.
I would love to see your book out in the public arena, generating discussion.
Philip Cafaro
Professor of Philosophy, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO
* * * * * *
In this 120 page book, Jason Brent employs simple logic and math to prove what should be common knowledge---- that continuing economic and population growth is physically impossible. The statistics and tables in its concluding pages speak for themselves, and afford a valuable reference for any who need to make the case that our industrial economy is fated to crash with horrific consequences for humankind.
The only solution to avoid catastrophe, in Jason's view, is the implementation of rapid population reduction that would involve, first and foremost, a revolution in our dysfunctional ethical concepts.
The author invites the reader to look at the facts that he has presented and the logical arguments that he draws from them, and then, and only then, demonstrate where he has erred. As impressive as his presentation is, more impressive was the perseverance and sacrifice Jason made to see his book in print. Book publishers---particularly those with an activist agenda----demand happy endings, and are playing a pivotal role in sequestering reality from public awareness. We are indebted to Jason for making no compromises in his determination to reveal the plain truth. Hope without evidence should be the exclusive province of clerics, not green hucksters who milk their flock with dreams of renewable energy and relocalized communities while the stark reality of population overshoot renders such remedies trivial and inconsequential.
Tim Murray
* * * * * *
Jason, your email made me laugh! Your book however, did not make me laugh. I'm pretty sure I drank a couple of extra glasses of wine due to it, and I'm certain I've lost sleep.
Seriously, I found your book very blunt, very easy to understand, totally logical. However, I did NOT find it easy to read and the experience was completely unenjoyable. Sorry, but true. My conclusion, to be blunt back, is that we're pretty screwed.
I saw not one single flaw in any of your logic, math or extrapolations. And it appears to me that any one of the multiple issues now facing us (limited water, food, petroleum/other fuel, farmable soil, etc) will be enough to be our ultimate undoing, WITHOUT any population growth at all. Factor in population growth, and our undoing is coming soon.
Leslie Sears
* * * * * *
I have received your manuscript and read a good deal of it. It contains sobering, and alarming, stuff. I am not saying you are wrong--though I do not agree with all of your proposals by any means--but I can say with some measure of confidence that we cannot find enough of a market for this bleak argument to make publishing your book economically feasible.
I salute your clear-sighted logic, and regret the bleakness of your conclusions, because, as you might have guessed, there is not a government in the world that would implement your suggestions, at least not one that any reader would choose to live under.
Starling Lawrence
Editor-in-Chief, W.W. Norton and Company Inc.
* * * * * *
Got your brave little book. As you know, I'm in your camp, but I do not think people will be able to agree to adopt
your rather fierce Draconian measures. My own feelings are that it is much too late for us to escape extinction due
to climate change, among other things. The demographic inertia has us trapped, and people will continue to dwell
in the madness of denial right up until the collapse of civilization. It is all very sad and most tragic.
Good luck with your stern message
Eric Pianka
Professor, University of Texas at Austin
* * * * * *
First of all, thanks for sending me a copy of your very important (but too mildly titled) book: Humans: An Endangered Species. "Endangered," I think, understates the situation. I have read with great interest what you've written; I concur with nearly every sentence, and it convinces me more than ever that writing is not merely a way of expressing one's ideas; it is a way of developing them. That is to say, I became convinced that you started out trying to diagnose the present human condition in order to offer a promising program for remediation but became increasingly aware as you wrote that Earth's humans actually following "The Only Solution" is almost utterly improbable.
I, too, have found myself moving more and more in that direction in my thinking about the global human predicament. I now feel we have missed important opportunities we had within my lifetime to change course, and are now hurtling toward disaster -- still imagining that it will somehow be averted. There are too many reasons why humans will continue wanting to do the things that are rendering our finite planetary home less and less suitable for supporting us, while we continue increasing both our numbers and our aspirations -- and we continue defining even population growth as well as the escalation of aspirations as "a good thing").
I was particularly impressed with your use of the "pyramid scheme" as a metaphor for our predicament. As a boy, in the Great Depression years, I remember my parents talking about some "chain letter" that was at the time enticing economically hard-pressed people to hope for abrupt "wealth" attainable by simply sending a dime (or was it a dollar?) to the writer of a letter received, writing out ten copies of that letter to send to ten others, with the instruction to do likewise, and waiting for dollars to arrive in return mail. It was implied that dollars would come in by powers of ten, but I think I can recall my father explaining why the promised inflow of money was likely not to occur, and certainly unlikely to match expectations, and I think my mother resisted the temptation of the scheme, albeit somewhat reluctantly. I was too young at the time to be sure my present memories of the episode are accurate. But I do remember the fad as a kind of belief in magic that supposedly intelligent people tended to fall for even if they should have known better.
However, I have recently come to the conviction that for the past couple of centuries humanity has been collectively enmeshed in a global ponzi scheme. We are not victims of some malevolent, greedy, self-centered individual schemer. We are victims of our own naivete -- in failing to make an adequate distinction between renewable and non-renewable resources, treating non-renewables as if they were renewable. We have too eagerly mistaken each discovery of another deposit of some ore, or another coal seam, or another oil field, as the replenishment of whatever previously known stocks of the stuff we've been drawing down. If we think of the use of an exhaustible resource as the incurring of a debit, and reliance on gaining access to a previously inaccessible or unknown increment of it as the means of "paying off" that debit, that IS, essentially, a non-monetary ponzi scheme Your book and Chris Clugston's are vitally important corrective to such delusions.
Bill Catton
Professor emeritus, WSU
* * * * * *
THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!
Thank you for writing such a concise and truth filled book! Since I was 16 years in 1981 I have been pointing out and talking about these issues that people just don't want to see. My Catholic parents even had me incarcerated in a mental ward over my understanding of reality. Yes, they still see me as bad because I am not a good Catholic.
It makes me feel much less alone and more balanced to know that someone with your credentials and education sees the human population crisis much the same as I do. It is good to know that there are actually thinking individuals whom care about not only their own children, but the children of humanity's future. I agree that space and invention won't solve the crisis. Only population reduction will save our planet, which is specifically why my wife and I don't have children of our own but try to help disadvantaged children. Not with money, but with our time.
Thank you for helping me feel a bit less crazy in a world of insanity crashing toward its squalor laden overcrowded reality that is destroying itself under the weight of humanity!
Robert Durci
U.Texas, Austin
* * * * * *
Emily Spence
* * * * * *
I have been meaning to contact you for some time. You sent me a copy of your book, which struck quite a cord with me. How we think alike!
You have done a brilliant work showing the terrible dilemma that humankind is faced with. It is a terrific project! I know how frustrated you must be that so few people are listening to our message. So let's both keep writing and working on these problems because we can't just stand there doing nothing.
Good luck and stay in touch.
Richard (Dick) Lamm
Governor of Colorado 1975-1987
* * * * * *
Many thanks for the copy of your book. This is great that you published the book on the need to reduce population numbers in the world. I agree with you and hope that your book will change minds.
I suggested that food is limiting more than 66% of the world population now. This stimulated a group to discuss what can be done to use food as a limiting factor. Several people have been arguing about this for about a year.
Again, Jason many thanks for the copy of your book. I hope that it is widely read and stimulates some helpful action.
David Pimental, Professor Emeritus, Cornell University.
* * * * * *
The logic is compelling. The conclusion is indisputable. We are already in a state of global collapse though the symptoms of it vary by country and/or continent. His observation about the middle east conflicts is accurate: no government can support an expanding population and diminution of resources. Anyone who thinks that the revolutions in those countries about employment-- or those anywhere else in the world-- have nothing to do with the overshoot of population over resources doesn't know anything about science, physics or ecology (which is most people in the world and most governments). Anyone who thinks that voluntary birth control measures, even if made available to every woman on earth, will suffice is spitting in the wind.
Lorna Salzman
* * * * * *
Have just been reading your book. I find it rigorous and well argued. What I particularly like is that you take seriously the need to deal with limits. How did environmentalism ever get away from this?
I would point out that one could go quite far in agreeing with you, and not agree with everything. For example, one could believe that we need to move to an average of one-child per couple, while trying to get there with incentives or mild disincentives, rather than penalties.
I would love to see your book out in the public arena, generating discussion.
Philip Cafaro
Professor of Philosophy, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO
* * * * * *
In this 120 page book, Jason Brent employs simple logic and math to prove what should be common knowledge---- that continuing economic and population growth is physically impossible. The statistics and tables in its concluding pages speak for themselves, and afford a valuable reference for any who need to make the case that our industrial economy is fated to crash with horrific consequences for humankind.
The only solution to avoid catastrophe, in Jason's view, is the implementation of rapid population reduction that would involve, first and foremost, a revolution in our dysfunctional ethical concepts.
The author invites the reader to look at the facts that he has presented and the logical arguments that he draws from them, and then, and only then, demonstrate where he has erred. As impressive as his presentation is, more impressive was the perseverance and sacrifice Jason made to see his book in print. Book publishers---particularly those with an activist agenda----demand happy endings, and are playing a pivotal role in sequestering reality from public awareness. We are indebted to Jason for making no compromises in his determination to reveal the plain truth. Hope without evidence should be the exclusive province of clerics, not green hucksters who milk their flock with dreams of renewable energy and relocalized communities while the stark reality of population overshoot renders such remedies trivial and inconsequential.
Tim Murray
* * * * * *
Jason, your email made me laugh! Your book however, did not make me laugh. I'm pretty sure I drank a couple of extra glasses of wine due to it, and I'm certain I've lost sleep.
Seriously, I found your book very blunt, very easy to understand, totally logical. However, I did NOT find it easy to read and the experience was completely unenjoyable. Sorry, but true. My conclusion, to be blunt back, is that we're pretty screwed.
I saw not one single flaw in any of your logic, math or extrapolations. And it appears to me that any one of the multiple issues now facing us (limited water, food, petroleum/other fuel, farmable soil, etc) will be enough to be our ultimate undoing, WITHOUT any population growth at all. Factor in population growth, and our undoing is coming soon.
Leslie Sears
* * * * * *
I have received your manuscript and read a good deal of it. It contains sobering, and alarming, stuff. I am not saying you are wrong--though I do not agree with all of your proposals by any means--but I can say with some measure of confidence that we cannot find enough of a market for this bleak argument to make publishing your book economically feasible.
I salute your clear-sighted logic, and regret the bleakness of your conclusions, because, as you might have guessed, there is not a government in the world that would implement your suggestions, at least not one that any reader would choose to live under.
Starling Lawrence
Editor-in-Chief, W.W. Norton and Company Inc.
* * * * * *
Got your brave little book. As you know, I'm in your camp, but I do not think people will be able to agree to adopt
your rather fierce Draconian measures. My own feelings are that it is much too late for us to escape extinction due
to climate change, among other things. The demographic inertia has us trapped, and people will continue to dwell
in the madness of denial right up until the collapse of civilization. It is all very sad and most tragic.
Good luck with your stern message
Eric Pianka
Professor, University of Texas at Austin
* * * * * *
First of all, thanks for sending me a copy of your very important (but too mildly titled) book: Humans: An Endangered Species. "Endangered," I think, understates the situation. I have read with great interest what you've written; I concur with nearly every sentence, and it convinces me more than ever that writing is not merely a way of expressing one's ideas; it is a way of developing them. That is to say, I became convinced that you started out trying to diagnose the present human condition in order to offer a promising program for remediation but became increasingly aware as you wrote that Earth's humans actually following "The Only Solution" is almost utterly improbable.
I, too, have found myself moving more and more in that direction in my thinking about the global human predicament. I now feel we have missed important opportunities we had within my lifetime to change course, and are now hurtling toward disaster -- still imagining that it will somehow be averted. There are too many reasons why humans will continue wanting to do the things that are rendering our finite planetary home less and less suitable for supporting us, while we continue increasing both our numbers and our aspirations -- and we continue defining even population growth as well as the escalation of aspirations as "a good thing").
I was particularly impressed with your use of the "pyramid scheme" as a metaphor for our predicament. As a boy, in the Great Depression years, I remember my parents talking about some "chain letter" that was at the time enticing economically hard-pressed people to hope for abrupt "wealth" attainable by simply sending a dime (or was it a dollar?) to the writer of a letter received, writing out ten copies of that letter to send to ten others, with the instruction to do likewise, and waiting for dollars to arrive in return mail. It was implied that dollars would come in by powers of ten, but I think I can recall my father explaining why the promised inflow of money was likely not to occur, and certainly unlikely to match expectations, and I think my mother resisted the temptation of the scheme, albeit somewhat reluctantly. I was too young at the time to be sure my present memories of the episode are accurate. But I do remember the fad as a kind of belief in magic that supposedly intelligent people tended to fall for even if they should have known better.
However, I have recently come to the conviction that for the past couple of centuries humanity has been collectively enmeshed in a global ponzi scheme. We are not victims of some malevolent, greedy, self-centered individual schemer. We are victims of our own naivete -- in failing to make an adequate distinction between renewable and non-renewable resources, treating non-renewables as if they were renewable. We have too eagerly mistaken each discovery of another deposit of some ore, or another coal seam, or another oil field, as the replenishment of whatever previously known stocks of the stuff we've been drawing down. If we think of the use of an exhaustible resource as the incurring of a debit, and reliance on gaining access to a previously inaccessible or unknown increment of it as the means of "paying off" that debit, that IS, essentially, a non-monetary ponzi scheme Your book and Chris Clugston's are vitally important corrective to such delusions.
Bill Catton
Professor emeritus, WSU
* * * * * *
THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!
Thank you for writing such a concise and truth filled book! Since I was 16 years in 1981 I have been pointing out and talking about these issues that people just don't want to see. My Catholic parents even had me incarcerated in a mental ward over my understanding of reality. Yes, they still see me as bad because I am not a good Catholic.
It makes me feel much less alone and more balanced to know that someone with your credentials and education sees the human population crisis much the same as I do. It is good to know that there are actually thinking individuals whom care about not only their own children, but the children of humanity's future. I agree that space and invention won't solve the crisis. Only population reduction will save our planet, which is specifically why my wife and I don't have children of our own but try to help disadvantaged children. Not with money, but with our time.
Thank you for helping me feel a bit less crazy in a world of insanity crashing toward its squalor laden overcrowded reality that is destroying itself under the weight of humanity!
Robert Durci
U.Texas, Austin
* * * * * *
