DON’T PANIC: Ozone? Global Warming? We’re All Going to Die
I hate to break this to you, but we’re all going to die.
I have no idea when, of course. I just wanted you to know none of us are going to live forever, in case you hadn’t heard.
To listen to the Left, however, (and the spineless Right) you’d think the entire world population should have been decimated years ago. From what, you ask? Name it. Global cooling, global warming, garbage dumps, ozone layer depletion, heterosexual AIDS, [insert year] hurricane season, [insert year] drought, [insert year] flood season, honey bee extinction, SARS, West Nile Virus, H1N1…
Don’t tell me you haven’t heard of these.
Not a single purported disaster mentioned above, and the multitudes unmentioned, have come true. These crisis mongers would normally provide great comic relief but for the many in elected or appointed office who throw down laws and regulations based on this continued nonsense.
Take the ozone layer. In the 1980s we were lead to believe there was a gaping hole — caused, of course, by chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) produced by that evil creature called man — over Antarctica that would cause drastically more and severe malignant melanomas, cataracts, and plummets in populations of animal and marine life. So refrigerators and aerosols had to be modified and regulated. More money, more bureaucracy, etc. Oddly enough, the hole is repairing itself and I doubt you could point to anything that evil creature called man has done to make a difference.
One of the greatest “world is ending” myths is the world population explosion, the fervor of which was brought to new heights by the 1970s book The Population Bomb by Paul Ehrlich. Of course, Ehrlich’s prediction of 1995 being the end of civilization didn’t come true.
In fact, like most of what the Left claims, not only is this not true, it’s the opposite.
Two books worth reading are Mark Steyn’s America Alone and George Friedman’s The Next 100 Years. Each provides solid evidence that the world population is actually shrinking. As a reference point, in order to maintain a stable population a country needs to produce 2.1 for every one woman. In America, we’re at 2.11 so we’re just ahead of the curve. The problem with that number is it’s not due to fertility but immigration.
Let’s look at other countries (from 2006):
Spain — 1.1
New Zealand — 1.79
Canada — 1.3
Russia — 1.2
Italy — 1.2
Japan — 1.4
China — 1.7
And the smart players in this game?
Somalia — 6.91
Niger — 6.83
Afghanistan — 6.78
Yemen — 6.75
So while we are not the locusts Ehrlich would have us believe, devouring everything in our path until the world shrivels up, the real problem is we are not replacing ourselves. This is bad for labor (unions, are listen up), bad for research, and bad for productivity at virtually all levels. Keep in mind that while these numbers are a bit dated, seismic shifts don’t occur overnight. I hope for the world’s sake we all get our act together.
Here’s another problem: What would you say the baby making countries have in common? Could it be a certain religion currently motivating armies throughout the Middle East to convert, subjugate, or kill vast numbers of what they deem as non-believers? Could be.
This isn’t a column to rip on Islam. It’s a plea for America to start making more Americans — whether by birth or legal and structured immigration. We have world peace to maintain.
Image: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_de_la_couche_d%27ozone
