Popcorn: Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics

Turn Homosexual, Save the Planet

Gore Vidal, the notorious homosexual writer of sexually explicit novels, and gadfly commentator on social and political themes, recently took on his most important project ever — the saving of planet Earth from destruction by the “Five and a half billion people [who] now clutter a small planet built for two [billion].”

Writing in the prestigious British journal, New Statesman & Society,1 Vidal claims that man’s burgeoning numbers are “wrecking [the] planet,” and will ultimately cause the “destruction of our species.” Mr. Vidal says that “Simply to maintain the breeders in the United States, we have managed to poison all our water. Yes, all of it.” Accordingly, Vidal “would not bet the farm” on mankind’s survival “too far into the next century.”

In his usual gross and vile manner, Vidal advocates that “semen-shooters” (males), and “egg-layers” (females), “should be encouraged [to engage] in an activity that will not add another consumer to the population:” homosexuality! Any “shooter” who “wants to shoot with another shootist,” or “egg-layer” who “decides not to lay that egg should be encouraged.” Also, any woman wishing “to mate [?] with another woman.”

Vidal says such persons “should be considered benefactors by everyone, while the breeders must be discouraged — though, of course, not persecuted.”

Gee, ah, thanks loads. Gore, especially for that bit about not being “persecuted.” For the vast majority of us, however, your proposed “cure” is even worse than the alleged “disease.”

ZPG Corrects False U.S. Population Figure

A new piece of Zero Population Growth (ZPG) overpopulation propaganda, a six page fund-raising letter signed by “Honorary President” Paul Ehrlich, was received by PRI in September. It’s the same letter, word for word, except for a change in year to “2010” from “2000,” as the ZPG letter previously treated in Popcorn, PRI Review, Vol. 1, No. 6 (Nov/Dec. 1991).

At that time PRI pointed out that the Ehrlich/ZPG claim that U.S. population will grow by “another 40 million people…by the year 2000,” if current growth rates continue, was achievable only if nobody died during the remaining years of the 1990s! (How could such alleged population experts as Ehrlich and ZPG overlook such a basic statistic as death figures when computing future population estimates?)

Apparently someone at ZPG read our critique and made the appropriate change. If only ZPG would correct the many other “overpopulation” errors they’ve been spreading.

World Population Estimates Cut

The Population Reference Bureau (PRB), Inc., the oldest U.S. organization studying demography and population growth, in its monthly publication Population Today, took notice of the “results of quite a few censuses taken around 1990 [which] are becoming available and…are lower than past estimates.”

Thus, PRB explained. “This year’s world population total will be something of a shock to those who would routinely add [the] estimated annual world increase of 93 million to last year’s total of 5.384 billion. This would yield 5.477 billion for 1992. But the total this year is less: 5.420 billion.”

This discrepancy of 57 million is accounted for by “lower population totals resulting from recent censuses…[in] Brazil, Venezuela, and Thailand,” and “Nigeria’s November 1991 census count of only 88.5 million instead of the 120+ million previously estimated.”2

Modestly, PRB didn’t mention that it was one of the chief proponents of that “120+ million” figure. PRB’s “1991 World Population Data Sheet,” for instance, reported the mid-1991 Nigerian population at 122.5 million, apparently the highest estimate for Nigeria given by anyone anywhere in the world. A remarkable aspect of this situation is that PRB now claims that “Analysts have long suspected that the population estimates often used for Nigeria were too high.”3

If that was actually the case, PRB certainly didn’t mention it to the general public, who were fed new, fat PRB population estimates for Nigeria year after year: 91.2 million (1985), 115.3 (1989), 118.8 (1990), and the aforesaid 122.5 (1991).4 In light of the Nigerian census, PRB’s newly recalculated mid-992 figure for Nigeria’s population is 90.1 million, a number lower than PRB’s previous estimate for the year 1985.

PRB also found it necessary to sharply cut its old estimates of future Nigerian population totals. Thus PRB’s new estimate of Nigeria’s 2010 population (152.2 million), is lower than its previous projections for the year 2000 of 156.5 million, 160.9 and 160.8, given in 1985, 1989 and 1990, respectively. Likewise, PRB’s new estimate of Nigeria’s 2025 population (216.2 million), is almost equal to its one year old estimate for 2010 (213.0 million), and nearly 90 million lower than its earlier 2025 figure, also given the previous year.

Unaccountably, PRB has now raised Nigeria’s rate of natural increase, whereas PRB had previously reported a decline from 3.1% in 1985 to 2.8 % in 1991. The new figure is supposedly 3.0%. Could this be the start of a new attempt to inflate future Nigerian population guesstimates?

As for the rest of the world, PRB has cut 75 million and 100 million, respectively, from its 1991 estimates of world population totals for 2010 and 2025. And yet, PRB continues to issue world population estimates to the nearest million, as if they could count that accurately!