Freedom and Population

A few things worthy of mentioning this morning.

The first: Yesterday, the human population of the United States reached 300 million.

Giuli, over at Anthropik writes, “Our country joined the ranks of India and China as one of the few countries (and the only first world one) to have 300 million residents or more. For us "unreconstructed Malthusians"1 who fail to see how overpopulation is a "cause for celebration," as "[t]he United States is a dynamic, prosperous, thriving society and growth is necessary to keep it that way," environmental concerns are inevitable.”

Ever since I’ve read the Story of B the first time (which was about 7 years ago) I thought for sure the argument layed out by B under the section titles ABCs of Ecology (If anyone has ABCs of Ecology section in TSOB saved, would you send it to me? I’ll post it on here.) would shape the policies of governments around the world. I thought that somehow on a global scale we would see the human population level off by choice. Wow, was I naïve. Most of the people that I’ve heard talk about the planet being overpopulated with humans never make the connection between food availability and population growth. And, unfortunately I don’t see it happening anytime soon in the near future.

The second: If you want to read an amazing essay about what it means to be free, click here.

Daniel Quinn Freedom Population