Thanks from Africa
Dear Population Research Institute,
Peace be with you. I received your letter today with the generous package containing copies of PRI Review. Thank you so much for them I have shared them with friends, supporters and admirers.
Francis Muroki
Editor,
Nairobi, Kenya
Sterilization in India
Dear Population Research Institute,
Recently, I was able to spend seven weeks in India and was so surprised at what I learned. I was able to spend some time in a small village where the people were very poor and was appalled to learn that all the women had been sterilized. These were young women with one or two children. When I inquired further about this, I was told that the government had paid them a large sum of money to be sterilized.
These women felt they had no choice but to take the money because they were so poor and they felt as if they were doing their duty to lower the population.
The idea that India is overpopulated is certainly pushed upon the people. It seemed that most problems were somehow blamed on overpopulation. It was very sad to see these unsuspecting family-oriented women so misled and to think of the impact these sterilizations will have on them and the country in the future.
I also attended a fair and went through an AIDS exhibit. The worker at the booth recognized me as an American and immediately, eagerly began to tell me how they were modeling their AIDS prevention program on America’s by promoting condoms and sex education in the schools.
I tried to tell him that these were not working in America and were just causing us more problems. Of course, the exhibit ended with a large poster describing the overpopulation problem in India.
Kathy Rennie
Bloomington, IL
“Carrying capacity”
Dear Population Research Institute,
Thank you for providing me information about your site on the Worldwide Web.
One issue of contention I have [with your positions] is from an agricultural perspective. Agricultural production has increased dramatically since WWII due to the use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers. This is an indisputable fact. I believe that long term use of finite raw resources used to produce synthetics is unsustainable. More effort needs to be exerted in new innovative techniques of nutrient recycling from waste products and use of legume cropping systems. Couple these technologies with intensive mapping of “prime farmland” and educating the society of the importance of agriculture [and] eventual progress will be made toward finding the population equilibrium.
Unfortunately population controversies are all too often based on social sciences, when the actual solution often can be realized if an area’s carrying capacity is understood.
Jason Teets via the INTERNET
Editors reply:
In our opinion the term “carrying capacity” is used inappropriately when applied to human beings. Human beings are not, despite some assertions to the contrary, merely another species of animal let loose on the planet. To the contrary; we are unique in the possession of intellect and free will.
Two hundred years ago, for example, the “carrying capacity” of Hong Kong island might have been assumed to be the 200 people who survived there at a bare subsistence level by fishing. If humans were merely animals like other species, the population would have remained at that level. But now 1.2 million people, 1/6 of Hong Kong’s total population, lives on that same island, reflecting a real-life “carrying capacity” many times that of a mere two centuries ago.
“Carrying capacity” is a term which can be rightly used when discussing the number of shellfish, zebra, bacteria or other organisms which can occupy a given habitat. It is inappropriate, even dehumanizing, to apply it to human beings.
