http://business.financialpost.com/
Half a century after publication of The Population Bomb, the world is healthier, better fed, less poor, better entertained and generally living fuller lives
It’s 2018, and the end is near — again. From the new Matt Damon movie Downsizing to the latest alarmist petitions from bands of scientists, the world is said to be careening toward destruction.
“We’re screwed,” says Oscar-winning director Alexander Payne, whose Downsizing explores the science-fiction idea that the world could maybe be saved if the technology existed to shrink individual humans down to the size of Ken and Barbie dolls, at which point consumption of dwindling earthly resources would be reduced to a fraction of current levels.
If you’re not keen on taking science lessons from Hollywood directors who admit they have no idea of how to avoid the alleged looming catastrophe, there’s the latest doomsterism from the Alliance of World Scientists. It has lots of ideas, all bad.
In a paper published in Bioscience, a group of scientists led by veteran Oregon State University bioactivist William Ripple call for a new global economic model to save us from hell on earth.
“By failing to adequately limit population growth, reassess the role of an economy rooted in growth, reduce greenhouse gases, incentivize renewable energy, protect habitat, restore ecosystems, curb pollution, halt defaunation, and constrain invasive alien species, humanity is not taking the urgent steps needed to safeguard our imperilled biosphere.”
For the rest of this column: http://business.financialpost.com/opinion/terence-corcoran-population-bombers-keep-on-bombing-and-50-years-on-they-keep-getting-it-wrong