I was lucky to meet the amazing Al Bartlett, physicist, professor and outspoken on an issue we continue to collectively ignore. He brought a gentle but firm intellectual and scientific perspective to the issue of overpopulation and the unsustainability of adding more growth to an already overpopulated US and world. He was born, ironically enough, in Shanghai China, back when China was still under 1 billion citizens.
The US in the 1920’s, had 112 million people living within its borders and when he died the US had grown to the unsustainable number of 316 million. Since his death, the US has added another 20 million people. Al knew the numbers and did the math. The US cannot continue to feed, clothe, house and provide water, health care, and transportation to limitless numbers of people. No country can take that on.
Al would be disappointed that we did not follow his advice so well laid out in his NPG article.
https://www.albartlett.org/articles/bartlett_thoughts_on_immigration_2007dec.html.
He based his statements solely on the issue of sustainability. We are not sustainable now so more growth only exacerbates the
problem of growing exponentially when resources can only grow
arithmetically. On the ever-controversial topic of mass immigration, he took the mathematical approach when he said, “Immigration, legal plus illegal, is the main driver of population growth in the United States in 2007; therefore, any discussion of sustainability in the U.S. must address the need to reduce or eliminate immigration, both legal and illegal, into the U.S.”
Indeed we should’ve listened to Al. The delusion that the US can keep growing in numbers without accounting for their impact on our dwindling resources is a fools’ game. It is also pretentious to think we are being kind by sharing what we no longer have with those who will always be in need. Currently there are 700 million people living in extreme poverty in the world. I am sure each and every one of them would want to come to the US where all they have to worry about is racism, classism, homelessness, joblessness, gun violence and our very own rising poverty. Al was a kind soul. He would advise us that helping others is important, but it must be done in other ways since it cannot be done sustainably, and it hasn’t been sustainable for a very long time.
To honor Dr. Bartlett on what would’ve been his 101st birthday, we need to realize that we don’t need a degree in physics to understand this issue, we just need listen to Al.