Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!yale!husc6!panda!genrad!decvax!tektronix!uw-beaver!tikal!sigma!bill
From: bill@sigma.UUCP (William Swan)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Population control
Message-ID: <852@sigma.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 15-Sep-86 17:08:16 EDT
Article-I.D.: sigma.852
Posted: Mon Sep 15 17:08:16 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 22-Sep-86 23:27:49 EDT
References: <543@gargoyle.UUCP> <7802181@inmet> <2644@burdvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: bill@sigma.UUCP (William Swan)
Lines: 21

In article <2644@burdvax.UUCP> devonst@burdvax.UUCP (Tom Albrecht) writes:
>>
>Can we straighten out one thing?  Overpopulation does not CAUSE famine.
>Famine comes about when natural causes or government ineptness reduces the
>amount of food available to a given population.  No reputable scientist has
>ever suggested (as far as I know) that the world is so limited in natural
>resources that it cannot support the current population of humans.  Most of
>what the ZPG people and other fanatical groups put out is simply
>statistics-twisting propaganda.

Overpopulation may not cause famine DIRECTLY.. but it is certainly a large
contributing factor. 

To suggest that the ZPG-type groups are twisting statistics because there
are lots of natural resources for everybody is to be twisting the statistics
yourself. There's a big difference between the mere existance of resources
_somewhere_ and having them right where you need them.

Are you saying that because it rains a lot in Seattle we ought to be able
to end the drought in Africa (or even the South)? You'd find a lot of people
here quite willing to ship it over. :-)