"We need to realize the "load" with which we humans burden the planet's ecosystems consists of more than just a population number. People living by different cultures not only reproduce at different rates; they impose very different per capita ecological impacts. Culture includes a population's technology and people's ways of organizing themselves. Each of us living in a "developed" country (i.e., industrialized far beyond anything conceivable to Malthus) has an enormously greater resource appetite and environmental impact than does each resident of a so-called "developing" country. For our grossly unsustainable manner of living, 6 billion is far too many."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
William R. Catton, Worse than Foreseen by Malthus (even if the living do not outnumber the dead). Washington State University (March 2000)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Overpopulation
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Overpopulation
208 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Overpopulation →
Related Quotes
"In 1800, every human on the planet had a corresponding 80 kg of mammal mass in the wild. Wildland mammals outweighed …"
"Energy has been fundamental to our story of growth. The various hockey stick curves over the last century or so are a…"
"Our fossil fuel bonanza has left our ecosystem in a perilous state. We have destroyed vast forests and habitats, poll…"
"The human explosion has accelerated across the millennia, most recently reaching a fever pitch owing to the employmen…"
"Population estimates are usually based on demographic data alone with no consideration of exogenous factors. This is …"
"As if the Enlightenment was not enough, in quick succession we joined another enormous river. One could say that the …"
"Given the Maoist position that a large population was a “resource”, rather than a burden, for the Communist state, it…"
"What did we do with our fossil fuel bonanza? We exploded population by revolutionizing agriculture [and health]. Now …"
"…fossil fuels allowed us to drastically overshoot the natural carrying capacity of the planet, and that bill will com…"
"We have used [fossil fuels] to expand the human enterprise and population, knock down forests, destroy and fragment h…"