Texas Ecologist Calls for 90% of Humans to be Wiped out to save the environment

This story's still unfolding...

UT Professor Clearing The Record On Speech
http://www.kxan.com/Global/story.asp?S=4720390

 

if humans need to be destroyed to help the environment than that should be done..

 

doesn't sound to me that he's wanting ti kill anyone, just that he thinks it's inevitable that it will happen, and ecological balance will come of it again. where's the controversy?

 

ahh, well that's completely different than what he was implying in his previous statements; seemed he felt like Ebola should be unleashed on the masses

 

Its not so much the economic system in place that is a hazzard to the enviroment, but rather the perception that we are above nature and that it must be contained, and controlled, (Managed)

 

the earth doesn't need ebola its already got american foreign policy, maybe this character should run for president

 

i heard this guy on Coast to Coast a few nights ago

 

you are a genius

 

i dunno. i guess saying that the environment would be better after a 90% reduction in the human population is a far cry from saying that you're personally calling for someone ot wipe out 90% of the population. and wasn't the first report of his alleged statements hearsay from a rival?

 

Sounds like a good idea, o wait though. Do it in about 100 years and then I will have no problems.

 

The alleged previous statements came from the lifesite network, that site's position on these issues is on the opposite extreme. Like was mentioned here by kc:

I have strong suspicions that the lifesite twisted his words about to suit their agenda which is to smear anyone who publicly say human population growth is not sustainable. Read anything from that site with a grain of salt.

 

The Spanish flu killed 50 million to 100 million people worldwide during about a year in 1918-1919 and the black plague killed about a third of the people in Europe in couple of years in the 14 century. While that is not nearly a 90% death rate, epidemics and pandemics can easily kill off millions of people in a short amount of time. In modern times, the spread of a disease would happen much faster and be much more wide spread, due to the ease of fast transcontinental air travel. Mass die-offs often happen in deer and other animals due to disease when their populations grow out of control due to unnatural elimination of predators. It would not be suprising to see this happen to humans to some extent. Nature will always balance things whether people like it or not.

 

I've been following this. Pianka did not advocate killing 90% of the human population. What he said is that in all likelyhood 90% of the human population will die off soon from some cause, perhaps a plague, because there are WAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY too many people on this planet for it to support. Now if anyone here really thinks that the current human popluation isn't ridiculously high, the keep sniping.

 

The only thing people find horrifiying about things like this is their survival instinct - ofcourse no one wants to be killed off in a painful and horrific death.

But at the same time billions of people condome wiping off the lives of uncountable bacteria, slaughting huge numbers of animals and crops for our own GREED - not NEED.

In my hopinion it would not be a bad idea to geneticly engineer a virus that would make 90% of humans sterile

 

If that amount of people were wiped out, what to do with houses standing? Possessions?

Since there will be so few of us left does this mean we will have ghost towns?

Batty

 

What a weirdo.

 

Humanity went through a "bottleneck" 70,000 years ago when a Supervolcano erupted in the Phillipines. Scientists say less than 10,000 people survived that global disaster. Look where we are now, even with all the wars, natural disasters and pestilence that have occurred since that time. The fecundity of the human race is far greater than the earth can sustain, and we have few natural enemies beyond disease to check our growth.

So the next time you hear some "pro-life" screamer yelling about abortion, ask him(or her) how the earth can sustain all the births they want.

 

well said old hippie.
I liken "pro-life" to anti-biodiversity.

 

Sounds to me like one of his rivals in the academic world has a gripe against the speaker at that conference. At the airport if a customs officer asks "what have you got in the case"? and you make a joke and reply, "a bomb" they will immediately arrest you - joke or no joke. The point is that he was probably joking but the reportage of the event was slanted toward reporting as though he had made serious statements. Besides which the guy is about as relevent to world events as you are

 

Overpopulation in any species sets it up for serious problems. I think the 90% figure represents more of a statistical guess rather than a strategy to save the planet. There is currently work being done to revive extinct micro-organisms to learn about the past. I think one like that where no antibodies are present, could easily produce the 90% figure.

I mean China was a secretive society long before Mao showed up. Even though there was very little information coming out of China at the time, some estimate that the death toll from the Spanish flu in 1918 could have been as high as 50 million people there. Global estimates are as high as 100 million fatalities. And that's just a flu. The bad news.....recent studies have shown that it wasn't a swine flu as previously believed, but was a bird flu similar to the one the world is watching and preparing for right now.