00:00:06
overpopulation so long predicted has
00:00:09
stolen upon us it's getting worse week
00:00:11
by week in the 1960s a new kind of fear
00:00:15
began to spread across America the us
00:00:18
could be busting out at the seams by the
00:00:20
end of the century if we do not by
00:00:22
Humane means limit our numbers then
00:00:25
numbers are going to be limited by more
00:00:27
famines and shortages and consequen
00:00:30
social conflicts the idea that human
00:00:32
population was outstripping the Earth's
00:00:34
ability to support mankind was a
00:00:36
powerful one and in the hands of one man
00:00:39
population growth will kill you stone
00:00:41
cold dead the message reached a wider
00:00:43
audience than ever before but what
00:00:46
became of the population bomb how many
00:00:48
years do you have to not have the world
00:00:50
end to decide it didn't end because that
00:00:52
reason was wrong
00:01:06
Stanford biologist Paul Erick didn't
00:01:09
start out as a profet of Doom his area
00:01:11
of study focused on butterflies but
00:01:14
after visiting the crowded streets of
00:01:15
Delhi he had a
00:01:17
realization if we continue to let
00:01:19
population grow and if we continue to
00:01:22
exploit the underdeveloped countries if
00:01:23
we continue to pollute the Seas uh with
00:01:26
a wide variety of compounds and so on
00:01:28
it's very difficult for me to picture
00:01:29
things holding together for more than
00:01:30
another decade or so the basic point is
00:01:34
so simple we have a finite planet with
00:01:38
finite resources and in such a system
00:01:41
you can't have infinite population
00:01:43
growth Erick laid out his hypothesis in
00:01:46
a slim volume called the population bomb
00:01:49
it was a call to action for many
00:01:51
including a student erck advised Stuart
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brand there's too many people and we'd
00:01:56
like to see people have fewer children
00:01:58
and better ones the whole idea that
00:02:00
people make more people who make more
00:02:02
people until there's too many people and
00:02:03
by then it's too late that's a very
00:02:05
persuasive argument Adrien Germaine a
00:02:08
young women's health Advocate found
00:02:10
herself drawn to erck as well due to his
00:02:12
support of birth control the message was
00:02:15
that we were already in a crisis and if
00:02:17
we didn't have urgent and immediate
00:02:18
action the world would simply destroy
00:02:21
itself look at what the year 200000 will
00:02:24
be our cities are going to be choked
00:02:26
with people they're going to be choked
00:02:28
with traffic they're going to be choked
00:02:29
with crime they're going to be choked
00:02:32
with pollution and they will be
00:02:34
impossible places in which to
00:02:37
live Paul's picture of Doom and Gloom
00:02:41
looked real net world population is
00:02:44
increasing by 23 people every 10 seconds
00:02:48
it's clear that world population growth
00:02:50
remains completely out of
00:02:52
control I bought it totally many of my
00:02:55
friends bought it totally I organized an
00:02:58
event for 60 people to starve in public
00:03:00
what are you trying to prove um it's
00:03:04
about pain in the world maybe anybody is
00:03:07
thinking of having a third child ought
00:03:08
to go hungry a week the mode became
00:03:11
don't have kids there's enough of them
00:03:13
in the world and if your friends have
00:03:15
kids it's fine if they feel
00:03:17
uncomfortable about that we had formed
00:03:20
an organization called zero population
00:03:22
growth and then Johnny took me on the
00:03:24
tonight's show would you welcome Dr Paul
00:03:28
erck have to get the death rate and
00:03:31
birth rate in balance and there's only
00:03:33
two ways to do it one is to bring the
00:03:34
birth rate down the other is to push the
00:03:36
death rate up I did the show maybe 20
00:03:38
times and we went from six chapters and
00:03:41
600 members to 600 chapters and 60,000
00:03:45
members we are starting in now this is
00:03:47
the first step the bagleys belong to a
00:03:49
growing number of young marriage who
00:03:51
favor zpg zero population grows how many
00:03:55
children do you have two I have two
00:03:58
children
00:04:00
erick's views on how to bring the birth
00:04:02
rate down were concrete compulsion if
00:04:05
voluntary methods fail creating a
00:04:08
blacklist of people companies and
00:04:10
organizations impeding population
00:04:12
control in the US responsibility prizes
00:04:15
for childless marriages a tax on
00:04:18
children and a luxury tax on diapers and
00:04:21
Cribs the concerns about population
00:04:24
became misanthropic and it was taken
00:04:26
with so much seriousness that polarly
00:04:28
could recommend things like putting
00:04:30
stuff in public water that would make
00:04:32
people not as fertile Panic is not too
00:04:35
strong a word to use for some of the
00:04:37
Advocates that I referred to as true
00:04:39
believers it was a a Zeitgeist that was
00:04:42
taking shape attention all citizens
00:04:46
childbearing is herewith
00:04:52
forbidden one of the things about
00:04:53
Zeitgeist is they have uh astonishing
00:04:56
durability it appears that large
00:04:58
families are on the way out and zpg may
00:05:01
be possible the idea also took hold in
00:05:04
the developing world where governments
00:05:06
like indiaia had already begun to
00:05:07
embrace population control the core
00:05:11
message of the book population growth
00:05:13
outstripping food supply resonated quite
00:05:17
a bit with India's elites with the
00:05:20
middle classes they much preferred to
00:05:23
believe that the poor were poor because
00:05:27
of too many children rather than being
00:05:29
poor because of an unfair and unequal
00:05:32
economic
00:05:34
system if you start with that problem
00:05:38
definition then it's almost inevitable
00:05:42
that there will be circumstances where
00:05:44
governments and other actors will act in
00:05:47
in in a way that is
00:05:50
coercive in the mid 1970s the Indian
00:05:53
government began a controversial effort
00:05:55
to encourage Mass
00:05:57
sterilization we do want to create an
00:06:00
atmosphere in which people realize the
00:06:02
importance of this program it led to
00:06:04
abuses access to food Aid and housing
00:06:06
were sometimes used as coercion others
00:06:09
weren't even given a choice more than 8
00:06:11
million sterilizations were performed
00:06:13
many forcibly the people in the words of
00:06:16
one Family Planning expert were treated
00:06:18
like cattle several days ago crowds
00:06:21
formed to protest being sterilized the
00:06:24
police opened fire and killed at least
00:06:26
50 of
00:06:27
them zero population growth is a tragic
00:06:31
frame in the sense that it was assumed
00:06:34
that there was no way out that people
00:06:37
would just go on reproducing until it
00:06:39
really was a desperate circumstance in
00:06:41
the
00:06:42
world erick's message could be summed up
00:06:45
in a dramatic prediction sometime in the
00:06:47
next 15 years the end will come and by
00:06:49
the end I mean an utter breakdown of the
00:06:51
capacity of the planet to support
00:06:55
Humanity predictions do not necessarily
00:06:58
come true the critics go in and look at
00:07:01
these little stories that won't come
00:07:02
true and when they didn't come true say
00:07:05
erlick was wrong I was recently
00:07:07
criticized because I had said many years
00:07:10
ago that I would bet that England
00:07:12
wouldn't exist in the year 2000 well
00:07:15
England did exist in the year 2000 but
00:07:17
that was only 14 years ago but erck says
00:07:21
it could still be just a matter of time
00:07:23
one of the things that people don't
00:07:25
understand is that timing to an
00:07:26
ecologist is very very different from
00:07:29
timing to an average person how many
00:07:32
years do you have to not have the world
00:07:33
end to decide whatever reason you
00:07:35
thought the world was going to end that
00:07:37
actually maybe it didn't end because
00:07:39
that reason was
00:07:41
wrong early predicted that by the
00:07:44
1970s India would be starving quite to
00:07:47
the contrary the Green Revolution came
00:07:50
to India with a big bang and a boom in
00:07:53
such a rapid way that India has never
00:07:57
looked back although an estimated 3
00:07:59
million children around the world still
00:08:01
die of malnutrition every year the green
00:08:04
revolution's farming technology helped
00:08:06
lessen rates of hunger in the developing
00:08:08
world over the decades even as the
00:08:10
world's population skyrocketed I know
00:08:14
polar Le reasonably well and I respect
00:08:16
him as a biologist I don't and never
00:08:19
have and he knows it agreed with his
00:08:22
views on population there's a tendency
00:08:25
to apply to human beings the same sort
00:08:29
of models that may apply for the insect
00:08:33
world the difference of course is that
00:08:35
human beings are conscious beings and we
00:08:37
do all kinds of things to change our
00:08:40
destiny Paul erck saw a density of
00:08:43
people that frightened him but with the
00:08:46
time we've been able to look past the
00:08:48
car window into what's actually going on
00:08:49
with the demographics of the people who
00:08:51
live there and they're not having so
00:08:53
many kids and that's changed the whole
00:08:56
story that story is playing out today in
00:08:59
parts of India in growing cities like
00:09:02
chenai in the South large families once
00:09:04
needed for farming are no longer always
00:09:07
seen as the key to success previously my
00:09:10
father used to have four children and my
00:09:13
grandfather used to have seven children
00:09:15
but the things have changed even myself
00:09:17
I have only two children even my sister
00:09:20
is having only one kid because now
00:09:22
education become the first priority here
00:09:25
Kamal Sharma takes time off from work to
00:09:27
walk his three children home from School
00:09:29
in the northern city of PNA where he
00:09:31
lives with his wife SEMA
00:09:36
Devi become him deie made her own choice
00:09:39
to limit her family size unlike in the
00:09:42
1970s when some people were forcibly
00:09:45
sterilized although the national policy
00:09:47
has changed pressure to meet unofficial
00:09:50
sterilization targets remains in many
00:09:52
areas of the country and sometimes turns
00:09:54
sterilization surgery into a dangerous
00:09:57
assembly line we're told that 8 three
00:09:59
women were operated upon in a span of
00:10:02
just 6 hours by a single doctor but
00:10:05
increasingly the government is finding
00:10:08
that fertility rates can be reduced in
00:10:10
other ways for example a prioritization
00:10:13
of maternal Health in clinics like this
00:10:15
one in metav vakum has lowered infant
00:10:17
mortality making families more
00:10:19
responsive to the government's message
00:10:22
population bomb was defused by
00:10:24
urbanization by people getting out of
00:10:26
poverty all over the world by having
00:10:28
enough to eat so you didn't have
00:10:30
multiple children the hopes that some of
00:10:32
them would
00:10:33
survive it's somewhat ironic that what
00:10:36
Paul erck saw as a horrible hellish
00:10:39
vision of the future is what turned the
00:10:42
population bomb upside
00:10:44
down bran says that Erick did succeed in
00:10:47
raising awareness about important issues
00:10:50
such as the destructive effect
00:10:51
population growth can have on the
00:10:53
environment even if some of his
00:10:54
predictions didn't come to pass if you
00:10:57
ask me the question are there things
00:10:59
that I have written in the past that I
00:11:01
wouldn't write today the answer is
00:11:03
certainly yes I expressed more certainty
00:11:06
because I was trying to bring people to
00:11:08
get something done but his core message
00:11:11
Remains the Same today there are nearly
00:11:14
4 billion more people in the world and
00:11:16
they are consuming more resources than
00:11:18
ever before I do not think my language
00:11:21
is too apocalyptic in the population B
00:11:23
my language would be even more
00:11:24
apocalyptic today the idea that every
00:11:28
woman should have as many Bab as she
00:11:30
wants uh is to me exactly the same kind
00:11:33
of idea as everybody ought to be
00:11:35
permitted to throw as much of their
00:11:36
garbage into their neighbor backyard as
00:11:39
they want but if the world were to
00:11:41
succeed in its decades old task to curb
00:11:44
population growth what then what if
00:11:47
large population is not bad but is good
00:11:50
what many more countries are already
00:11:52
trying to come to terms with is aging of
00:11:54
the population Japan needs more women to
00:11:57
have children the fertility rates low
00:11:59
the population is is getting older and
00:12:01
shrinking America is in the midst of a
00:12:04
baby bust China is hoping for a new baby
00:12:07
boom while certain population hotspots
00:12:10
remain a concern largely in areas with
00:12:12
the scarcest resources much of the world
00:12:15
is now grappling with the flip side of
00:12:17
the population bomb the point at which
00:12:20
population Peaks around 9 billion in the
00:12:23
2040s OR 50s the story will not be oh my
00:12:27
God we got 9 billion people how horrible
00:12:30
it'll be oh my God we're running out of
00:12:32
people
