Be Afraid of World Population Day. Be Very Afraid!

Yesterday was World Population Day and you missed it. I know you’re embarrassed. The United Nations came up with the idea and you, you selfish creep, missed it. Underlying this wonderful day is the UN Population Fund’s belief that we must decrease world population in order to save the planet and promote economic growth.

It’s easy to believe the world is overpopulated. We see news coverage of the sad eyes of children with distended bellies. We see people living in squalor all over the globe. The UN believes that there is a link between overpopulation and poverty but there isn’t. New York City and Monaco are two of the most densely populated areas on the globe. They both seem to be doing quite well, thank you very much. What the world has is not an overabundance of people. We have a deficit of capitalism.

Over the last century population across the globe has increased exponentially, but global life expectancy has increased from 30 years to over 60 years.

I believe it is dangerous to link population and poverty. The solution to world poverty according to the United Nations is not making those countries less poor it is amounts to simply wishing the poor away. They never say we have enough rich people. We only have too many poor people.

The United Nations mis-diagnosis is unsettling and dangerous. Al Gore in “Earth In The Balance” stated that in today’s global population trends, “the absolute numbers are staggering”; and that, “we can’t acquiesce in the continuation of a situation that adds another…China’s worth of people every decade”.

“We can’t acquiesce?” Does that phrase scare the hell out of anyone other than me? What does it mean? “We can’t acquiesce” means that the government must take action against population. That means people. It means one of two things -we start taking out people or we prevent them from having children. Folks, the first one’s already happening. Consider that about one month ago the US-sponsored resolution in the United Nations calling on states to eliminate prenatal sex selection and female infanticide has been withdrawn due to pressure from China, India, Canada, Costa Rica, Mexico and others. And for the third straight year, the Bush administration withheld funds from the United Nations population agency because it cooperates with activities in China that promote abortion.

I hate to say it. I believe the U.N. will slowly attempt to increase its power. Every institution seeks to expand its reach. It’s human nature. And they will name crises that require action. And then they will take action. They will not acquiesce. It may one day, I fear, be impossible not to notice World Population Day. So World Population Day was yesterday and you missed it. Thank God you’re still able to.