‘Plan’ Is Not a Four-Letter Word
By Rick Ruffin
It seems that some people are upset with the recent U.N. report the ``State of the World Population.’’ A July 11 column in The Korea Times by Professor Nicholas Eberstadt, a Wendt Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, made a few good points, but left a lot of ground unturned.
In it, the author decried U.N. efforts to try and manage global population patterns and growth.
Eberstadt writes that overcrowding has significance only when linked to poverty. Perhaps we should invite Eberstadt to South Korea, a relatively prosperous country, and let him fight his way from Hyundai Department Store to the front gate of Yonsei University during peak human rush hour.
That will teach him a thing or two about overcrowding. And let us remind him that the Seoul government embarked on a very vigorous effort of family planning three decades ago, and where would South Korea be today had it not done so?
Like Eberstadt, many people decry China’s one child policy. It is indeed harsh, having led to ``abortion on demand’’ and a huge imbalance between the number of boys and girls. But the male/female gender disparity is not because of the one child policy. It is because of outdated Chinese beliefs that value a son over a daughter.
As for the Chinese population as a whole, experts claim that if not for the ``draconian’’ one child policy, China’s current population would be around 1.6 billion people. Large parts of China are arid, and overgrazing and water table depletion have led to desertification of even larger parts of the country.
There is serious doubt as to whether China could support a population of 1.6 billion. These are problems than can be _ and have been _ controlled by family planning.
When Eberstadt states that ``global living standards’’ have improved dramatically in the last century, he is right _ partially. While we are experiencing material wealth like never before, we are also witnessing unprecedented poverty and misery worldwide.
Kibera is a slum in Nairobi, where more than half a million people exist with no clean water, no electricity, and no medical care. Monica Mwakili, 36, who is HIV positive and whose husband died of HIV/AIDS, says: ``If I was given a wish, I would wish to have enough food and medicine to raise my 10 children.’’ Ten children? What is this woman doing with 10 children? But according to Eberstadt, overpopulation is not a problem. Let everybody have all the babies he or she wants.
Eberstadt and others like him think that the world’s natural resources will never run out. He cites vast reserves of aluminum and copper as an example. But what he fails to mention is the long list of resources we have already lost. The passenger pigeon, which once numbered five billion birds, is gone, hunted to extinction by humans, and that took place nearly 100 years ago.
Most of the large tuna, as well as swordfish and other pelagic food fishes, are basically gone. Because of man-made greenhouse gases, Himalayan glaciers are rapidly disappearing, and with them the lifelines of water that feed so many people in Central and Southeast Asia.
Around the equator the world’s tropical rainforests are rapidly dwindling, to make way for palm oil (used in the manufacture of cookies and sweet snacks) and soybean oil plantations, cattle operations, and export logs for patio furniture. These forests are home to a staggering variety of biodiversity, and a defense against greenhouse gases.
Free market fundamentalists are addicted to the belief that technology will find answers to all the world’s woes _ technology and the ``invisible hand’’ of the free market. But technology has yet to find an answer for species extinction, which today is happening at a rate 100 to 1,000 times faster than ever before.
Technology has yet to show us how to grow an ecosystem that took millions of years to create _ such as that of Malaysia’s Teman Negara National Park _ in three easy steps over three short decades.
I have read the U.N. report Eberstadt is referring to. It does not reek of ``anti-natalism,’’ as he puts it. Rather, it is a well-researched report put together by experts with no private agenda _ and no profit _ at stake. They are simply examining ways to improve the human condition. These people believe that the human condition can only be improved by minimizing the negative human impact on the environment.
When people like Eberstadt make statements like ``overpopulation is not a problem,’’ I can only shake my head in disbelief. Overpopulation, and its consequences, is a serious problem, with far-reaching consequences.
Scholars like these despise the U.N. because it gets in the way of the American agenda, a pipe dream to open up the world to the ``miracle’’ of the free market, and let the poor raise themselves up by their own bootstraps, as if every human being is a Warren Buffett in the making.
Yes, everyone can have a McMansion and a two-car garage. There’s lots of room and resources to go around. It’s the American Dream, by God!
How it’s done they don’t care, as long as some corporation somewhere _ American, presumably _ is making a tidy profit. And what is left for future generations does not matter either, as long as there’s a buck to be made today.
The writer, a graduate of University of Texas, Austin, now writes from Gangneung, Gangwon Province. His articles have appeared in various newspapers and magazines. He can be reached at his e-mail (rick_ruffin@yahoo.com).