In a strange sort of way, our current obsession with the impact of the industrial economy on climate is a continuation of our fear of the industrial economy that goes back to its early beginnings in the 18th century. The backdrop to the modern form of the anti-human movement of humans is a combination of Malthusian mathematics of 1798 and the Industrial Revolution that led to the fear of overpopulation and depletion of resources. 

GRAPHIC#1: EUGENICS 

GRAPHIC#2: FAMILY PLANNING PROGRAMS 

GRAPHIC#3: THE POPULATION BOMB 1968 & LIMITS TO GROWTH 1972

GRAPHIC#4: THE POPULATION PROBLEM AS SEEN BY EHRLICH

GRAPHICS#5: HOLDREN & EHRLICH 1970

ECOSCIENCE: POPULATION/RESOURCES/ENVIRONMENT

GRAPHIC#6: THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION IN THE THIRD WORLD

GRAPHIC#7: THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLE OF AMAZONIA

GRAPHIC#8: CLIMATE CHANGE END OF THE WORLD

Michael Oppenheimer Quote {Thanks to Rick C PE on WUWT}

“The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States. We can’t let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialization, we have in the US. We have to stop these Third World countries right where they are.”

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THIS POST IS AN INTERPRETATION OF THE CLIMATE-CHANGE MOVEMENT AGAINST THE INDUSTRIAL ECONOMY AND FOSSIL FUELS AS THE THE CONTINUATION OF A RACIST AGENDA IN EUGENICS, THE POPULATION BOMB, ECOSCIENCE, AND LIMITS TO GROWTH. 

SUMMARY: At the root of the AGW climate action movement is the racism that the Global South must not be allowed the kind of industrialization that had made the Global North so rich and so powerful that they can now orchestrate this global agenda apparently for the sake of planetary health. As in colonial times, the Global South is seen by the Global North as something that must ultimately serve the needs of the Global North. Thus, the population bomb alarm, the limits to growth alarm, and the climate change alarm are different expressions of the same underlying reality in which the Global North is concerned about the ability of the planet to support an Industrial Revolution on a global scale that includes the Global South. The assumed stewardship of the planet by the Global North is the fountain of racism from which derives the role of the North in dictating global action against perceived environmental crises such as climate change even when these actions are contrary to the real needs of the Global South because the needs of the North are more important than the needs of the South. 

1. THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION: The psychological impacts of the Industrial Revolution changed how humans view themselves. As in climate fearology, overpopulation fearology also has its roots in the Industrial Revolution that can be seen in the works of Thomas Malthus, 1798, Charles Dickens, 1850s [LINK] , and Francis Galton 1883. In a strange sort of way, our current obsession with the impact of the Industrial economy on climate is a continuation of our fear of the industrial economy that goes back to its early beginnings in the 18th century.
2. THOMAS MALTHUS: The backdrop to the modern form of the anti-human movement of humans is a combination of Malthusian mathematics of 1798 {An Essay on the Principle of Population} and the industrial revolution. Malthus described increase in food production as linear and population growth as exponential leading to a point of catastrophe as population growth increases the demand for food beyond production. Although his work has since been discredited {Waterman, (1998), “Malthus, mathematics, and the mythology of coherence.” History of Political Economy 30.4 1998}, the idea that there are too many of us lingered and even strengthened when the industrial revolution brought large numbers of workers into the cities to work in factories and made overpopulation a visual impression as seen in the works of Charles Dickens.
3. FRANCIS GALTON: Although the idea of selective reproduction of humans to weed out undesirable traits predates the Industrial Revolution, its proactive policy implications were first put forward in the 1880s. Statistician and all round genius, Francis Galton (the man who did the evolution math for his cousin Charles Darwin and along the way invented statistics, played an important role in the mathematics of Eugenics theory. In terms of policy implications it holds that governments must take action to ensure that individuals or classes of individuals with undesirable traits must be prevented from breeding through the use of sterilization. Climate Change and Eugenics are both {a mixture of science and social movement [LINK] } with conflicts between the two resolved in favor of the social movement.  Although Eugenics theory is no longer officially accepted and it no longer has a policy implication in governments of nations, some of its infrastructure and its implications survive to this day in the form of Planned Parenthood and the Family Planning programs in poor third world countries funded by rich Western countries that involve paying poor women to accept a sterilization procedure.
4. THE POPULATION BOMB: The overpopulation issue along with many other historical concerns about the Industrial Economy were resurrected anew by the environmental movement of the Hippie culture of the 1960s that included among other things a fear of chemicals in particular and technology in general, a hatred of fossil fuels, and the defining work of Rachel Carson in the book “Silent Spring“. The now famous book on overpopulation by Paul Ehrlich is a product of this era. The book was inspired by a trip to India where Ehrlich encountered, for the first time in his life, the large crowds and congestion that are common in the third world. The sight of so many people in a small space left a scarring impression on Ehrlich who lived in the intellectual circles of the West where overpopulation as a global issue was already taking hold early in the 1960s.
5. He went on to publish his own book on the overpopulation problem in 1968 with the now famous title “The Population Bomb”. It became the defining work of the overpopulation movement and it remains to this day its most glorious moment. Among other absurdities, the book projected that {The battle to feed humanity has been lost} and that {hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death} leading to the conclusion that {Too many people, packed into too-tight spaces, were taking too much from the earth} that claimed to lead to the logical conclusion that {Unless humanity cuts down its number soon, all of us would face mass starvation on a dying planet} with the death of the planet projected for the year 2000 [LINK] . Climate change has resurrected the death of the planet fear and “the end of times” with the date moved forward.
6. LIMITS TO GROWTH: In 1972, soon after the significant fear impact of The Population Bomb, the Club of Rome publication {Limits to Growth} was released. It stated that the strong post war economic growth in the developed world will not sustain because the resources needed for economic growth are finite and that their depletion is imminent and that the planet was running out of resources in terms of both raw materials and energy. The assessment was inspired by rapid industrialization and GDP growth in the Global South. {The phrase “Global South” refers to the developing world of poor non-industrialized nations, the former colonies of the industrialized West which is referred to as the Global North}.
7. At that time, industrial growth was particularly rapid in India, China, East Asia, and Southeast Asia. The large population of this region confirmed and strengthened the racist view of the Global North that the planet does not have the resources for everyone on earth to live like white people. The so called {Peak Oil} and {End Oil} projections that followed held that the finite energy resources of oil, gas, and coal were nearly exhausted with various forecasts of when oil production would begin its decline {Peak Oil} and when it would be depleted {End Oil} [LINK] . It was assessed that raw materials for the industrial economy including minerals, and uranium were also being rapidly depleted with the rate of depletion accelerated by industrialization in the Global South. There was a call for conservation, for controlling waste, and for efficient use of resources as well as to prepare for a possible overhaul of the economic structure as an appropriate response to the new alarming situation.
8. What had once been a comfortable donor-recipient relationship between the industrialized West {the Global North} and the developing world {the Global South} in which the Global North provided development assistance to the Global South in terms of finance, material, and technology transfer, became complicated in the context of limited and diminishing resources of the planet that support economic development in the Industrial Era. Thus, rapid development of an Industrial Economy in China, India, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere, that had once promised a larger marketplace for the West, now took on a sinister interpretation in terms of competition for limited and diminishing resources.
9. THE IMPACT OF THE INDUSTRIAL ECONOMY ON CLIMATE: In this context, the human caused climate change issue {AGW} is the latest chapter in the long psychological puzzle of our relationship with the industrial economy. As it follows closely in the heels of the fear of overpopulation and the fear of depleting resources as well as the 1960s environmental movement’s fear of fossil fuels, we propose that AGW must be interpreted and understood in terms of our love-hate-fear relationship with industrialization. We note for example, that the climate change activist organization Extinction Rebellion holds that the reason for its climate activism is that the climate breakdown is a symptom of the real underlying problem which is that post Industrial Revolution Europe has become infected with a toxic social system.
10. In this latest chapter of our confused love-hate relationship with industrialization, we have turned to the conclusion that it was not a good idea after all or that it has been done all wrong. To correct the wrong, the Global North must retreat and re-invent the advancement from the pre-industrial agricultural economy. More importantly, the Global South must not be allowed to proceed in their scary advancement into the old style industrial economy because that at once complicates the population problem and the problem of limited resources. To the extent possible industrial development in the Global South must be stopped where it is possible perhaps with assurance that they will be taken are of by the Global North.
11. That the Global North’s needs are often served at great cost to the Global South is seen in the effects of Rachel Carson’s {Silent Spring} that may or may not have saved some birds in the North but at great cost and suffering from the ban on DDT in the Global South. Similarly, the planet saving interpretation of AGW constructs the attitude of the Global North towards the primitive stone age forest dwellers of Amazonia in the Global South. It is claimed that the AGW anti-industrialization priority of the Global North must guide the future of the people of the Amazon forest such that they should remain primitive so that their lands can remain a forest and serve the needs of the Global North by continuing to be The Lungs of the Planet. That Europe was once a forest and the Lungs of the Planet that was cleared by the Europeans on the way to their wealth, power, and Industrial Economy must be considered to be a purely historical detail and irrelevant in terms of the urgency of climate action to Save the Planet from climate change by ensuring that the Amazon remains a stone age museum of forest dwellers so that The Lungs of the Planet are preserved.
12. SUMMARY & CONCLUSION: At the root of the AGW climate action movement is the racism that the Global South must not be allowed to have the kind of industrialization that had made the Global North so rich and so powerful that they can now orchestrate this global agenda apparently for the sake of planetary health. As in colonial times, the Global South is seen by the Global North as something that must ultimately serve the needs of the Global North. Thus, the population bomb alarm, the limits to growth alarm, and the climate change alarm are different expressions of the same underlying reality in which the Global North is concerned about the ability of the planet to support an Industrial Revolution on a global scale that includes the Global South. The assumed stewardship of the planet by the Global North is the fountain of racism from which derives the role of the North in dictating global action against perceived environmental crises such as climate change even when these actions are contrary to the real needs of the Global South because the needs of the North are more important than the needs of the South. 

THE “JUST HAVE A THINK” CLIMATE CHANGE CHANNEL ON YOUTUBE

AN Amerindian group called the Kayapo has protected an a vast Amazon ecosystem against a crushing wave of development their tribal lands are the largest tract of protected tropical forest in the world. In contrast to stories of indigenous people exploited by the extraction of resources from their territories, the Kayapo offer a remarkable success story.. Their success is a direct result of who they are: warriors, whose strong sense of community and ritual traditions has allowed them to protest, pressure…and prevail. At the start of 2011, the Brazilian government approved the $17 million construction of the Belo Monte dam on the Xingu River. Projected to be the world’s third-largest hydroelectric dam, the project has faced fierce opposition by the Kayapo, environmentalists, and international figures.

RELATED POSTS ON POPULATION CONTROL IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH  

[LINK#1] [LINK#2]

FULL TEXT BELOW

1. On the one hand, Western pundits warn us about the dangers of an impending “population bomb” brought about by overpopulation. We are told that the planet is being overwhelmed by the sheer number of people on it and will soon be unable to supply us with sufficient food, water, shelter, and energy and so we must do everything we can to control the population growth rate. On the other hand, we find that the Western nations themselves are scrambling for population growth. They provide tax deductions and other financial benefits per child and the United States is now counting on a vigorous fertility rate to boost its population to 400 million by the year 2050 as a way of gaining economic advantage with a more stable population (America will be just fine, Bangkok Post, April 7, 2010).
   We thus find that the same nations that fund anti-fertility programs to limit population growth in Asia and Africa, are, at the same time, providing tax benefits for having children and brag about their ability to increase fertility and growth rate of their own populations. These contradictions raise serious questions. Is population growth good or bad? Is the population bomb a global problem or a localized one? To protect the planet from the population bomb should the population growth in some areas be restricted while that in others encouraged?
   CONCLUSION: THE POPULATION BOMB DOES NOT MEAN THAT THERE ARE TOO MANY OF US. IT MEANS THAT THERE ARE TOO MANY OF THEM!
2. It is reported that there are 6.8 billion humans living on our planet but that it is endowed with natural resources and ecosystems that can support only 4.5 billion humans. The pressure on the ecosystem thus induced will cause a mass extinction of species by way of global warming and climate change. The scale of the mass extinction will be comparable with the extinction of dinosaurs (UN urges action to save species, Bangkok Post, October 19, 2010). It is the old and completely discredited Paul Ehrlich Population Bomb hype of the 1960s and 1970s (2001 an Overpopulation Odyssey, Los Angeles Times, October 22, 1974). It has been resurrected to be recycled in the fancy new language of global warming and climate change apparently to present known falsehoods as climate science. The new global warming hype is thus exposed as nothing more than the old overpopulation pig with lipstick. It is a continuation of the movement by human beings against the habitation of the planet by other human beings but not themselves. This time around, not limited resource consumption, but carbon dioxide emission is presented as the proxy for destructive human activity. Ironically, in the same issue of the Bangkok Post, we read that Europeans are alarmed that phthalates in toys can damage the sexual development of children (The problem with hazardous phthalates, Bangkok Post, October 19, 2010). Those who really believe in the alleged dangers of overpopulation should be comforted by the population control effect of phthalates. That they are alarmed shows that the global warming mass extinction alarm is a lie disguised as science, and that overpopulation is not a concern that there are too many of us but that there are too many other people.

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