Awesome Population Quotes

•   "Once it was necessary that the people should multiply and be fruitful if the race was to survive.  But now to preserve the race it is necessary that people hold back the power of propagation."   Helen Keller   

•   "You know, I have often thought that at the end of the day, we would have saved more wildlife if we had spent all WWF's money on buying condoms."   Sir Peter Scott, founder of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).   

• "Family planning could bring more benefits to more people at less cost than any other single technology available to the human race."        United Nations Organization

• "Of course human numbers are at the very core of our crisis.  The explosive rate of growth simply can't continue."  Dr. David Suzuki

• "You may not want to hear it, and when I started medical practice 46 years ago, I certainly did not plan on finding it, but human population and our modern life-style choices are causing physiological changes responsible for our top ten killing 'diseases of civilization'."   Dr. Gregg Miklashek  - Millenial Alliance for Humanity

•    "Globally, and in Canada, population problems result from failure to recognize and act in accordance with one of Nature's fundamental characteristics.  Every species is endowed with a reproductive potential which, if uncontrolled , will result in its population exceeding t;he carrying capacity of its environment."   Dr. Fred Bentley, 1994    Professor Emeritus of Soil Science, University  of Alberta, Canada

• "The rich require an abundant supply of the poor."    Voltaire

•  "There is no human circumstance more tragic than the persisting existence of a harmful condition for which a remedy is readily available.   Family planning, to relate population to world resources, is possible, practical and necessary.  Unlike plagues of the dark ages or contemporary diseases we do not understand, the modern plague of overpopulation is soluble by means we have discovered and with resources we possess.  What is lacking is not sufficient knowledge of the solution but universal consciousness of the gravity of the problem and education of billions who are its victims."   Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.         (May 1966)    

•    "....democracy cannot survive overpopulation.  Human dignity cannot survive it.  Convenience and decency cannot survive it.  As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only declines, it disappears.  It doesn't matter if someone dies.  The more people there are, the less one individual matters."   Isaac Asimov         PRIORITY STATEMENT ON POPULATION  

•  "Among the most important issues affecting the world’s future is the rapid growth of human population.  Together, the increase in population and in resource consumption are basic causes of human suffering and environmental degradation and must become major priorities for national and international action.                           Because of its pervasive and detrimental impact on global ecological systems, population growth threatens to overwhelm any possible gains made in improving human conditions.  Failure to curb the rate of world population growth will magnify the deterioration of the Earth’s environment and natural resources and undermine economic and social progress.  A humane, sustainable future depends on recognizing the common ground between population and the environment.   Current national and international efforts to address the world’s rapidly expanding population are not sufficient.  A new commitment to population programs which enhance human rights and conditions is urgently needed.  The United States and all nations of the world must make an effective response to the issue of population growth a leading priority for this decade."      Zero Population Growth, 1991 

•         “The world might, perhaps, be considerably poorer if the great writers had exchanged their books for children of flesh and blood.”   Virginia Woolf     

•     "We feel this issue is of crucial concern for successful conservation and sustainable development.  Even while environmental goals can be met, conservation efforts will become secondary if population continues to grow at the present rate.  The sheer number of people, forced to exploit the environment for extraction of finite resources to meet basic needs, impacts the limited amount of progress we have been able to make."   Conservation  International, 1999

•            "Can you think of any problem in any area of human endeavor on any scale , from microscopic to global, whose LONG-TERM solution is in any DEMONSTRABLE way aided, assisted, or advanced by further increases in population, locally, nationally, or globally?"   Dr. Albert A. Bartlett, Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of Colorado    

•      "The point of population stabilization is to reduce or minimize misery."   Roger Bengston, founding board member, World Population Balance        

•    "We must alert and organize the world's people to pressure world leaders to take specific steps to solve the two root causes of our environmental crises - exploding population growth and wasteful consumption of irreplaceable resources.  Overconsumption and overpopulation underlie every environmental problem we face today."   Jacques-Yves Cousteau       

•   "The optimum population of a country is the one which is most likely to produce a good and sustainable quality of life for its inhabitants without adversely affecting the quality of life of people in other countries."   Optimum Population Trust Manchester, England, 1995    

•      "Which is the greater danger  -  nuclear warfare or the population explosion?  The latter absolutely!  To bring about nuclear war, someone has to DO something; someone has to press a button.  To bring about destruction by overcrowding, mass starvation, anarchy, the destruction of our most cherished values - there is no need to do anything.  We need only do nothing except what comes naturally - and breed.  And how easy it is to do nothing."   Isaac Asimov 

•       "There is no issue of importance to the environmental community that is not affected by the increasing number of humans on the planet.  Unless we can limit population growth, we cannot achieve ecological stability."   Peter Berle       President, National Audubon Society   

•       "'Smart growth' destroys the environment.  'Dumb growth' destroys the environment.  The only difference is that 'smart growth' does it with good taste.  It's like booking passage on the Titanic.  Whether you go first-class or steerage, the result is the same."   Dr. Albert A. Bartlett 
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•       "Overpopulation of the earth is a danger to the planet's life-support system and to the people themselves."   David Brower,   Earth Island Institute 

•       "There will not be an environment left to worry about unless we get the population crisis under control."   John H. Adams,     Natural Resources Defense Council      

•    "Achieving and maintaining a sustainable relationship between human populations and the natural resource base of the earth is the single most critical long-term issue facing the peoples of the world and this issue will increasingly be the focus of international affairs for the foreseeable future."   Russell E. Train,      World Wildlife Fund 

•       "If steps are not taken soon to stabilize population growth, all our efforts in conservation will have little or no impact."   Russell A. Mittermeier,   Conservation International  

•        "Global population growth is an urgent priority, and it must be addressed with substantial family planning assistance."   Denis Hayes,   Earth Day 

•       "The population problem concerns us, but it will concern our children and grandchildren even more.  How we respond to the population threat may do more to shape the world in which they will live than anything else we do."   Lester Brown,   Worldwatch Institute    

•      "Governments must foster conditions leading to population stabilization if we are to preserve the global climate and environment."   Dr. James Hansen,   Goddard Institute for Space Studies     

•     "Basically, then, there are only two kinds of solutions to the population problem.  One is a 'birth rate solution,' in which we find ways to lower the birth rate.  The other is a 'death rate solution,' in which ways to raise the death rate - war, famine, pestilence - find us."   Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb     

•   "In the last 200 years the population of our planet has grown exponentially, at a rate of 1.9% per year.  If it continued at this rate, with the population doubling every 40 years, by 2600 we would all be standing literally shoulder to shoulder."   Prof. Stephen Hawking     

•     "The hungry world cannot be fed until and unless the growth of its resources and the growth of its population come into balance.  Each man and woman--and each nation--must make decisions of conscience and policy in the face of this great problem."   Lyndon Baines Johnson       

•   "Instead of controlling the environment for the benefit of the population, maybe we should control the population to ensure the survival of our environment."   Sir David Attenborough    

•    "For those not numerically aware, humans have quadrupled in number in the 20th century.  That is referred to as 'plague phase' by biologists."   Steve Kurtz     

•     "I consider the dramatic growth in the world's  population to be the greatest challenge currently facing the environment....  the effects of this rapid increase are felt around the globe.  Starvation, deforestation and lack of clean water are just some of the problems...."   Al Gore, U.S. Vice-President     

•   "The human race's prospects of survival were far better when we were defenceless against tigers than they are today when we have become defenceless against ourselves."   A. Toynbee

•        "If motherhood doesn't interest you, don't do it.  It didn't interest me, so I didn't do it."   Katherine Hepburn        

•  "The U.S. cannot afford to ignore the threat raised by increasing world population."   Jay D. Hair,   National Wildlife Federation   

•     "Pressures resulting from unrestrained population growth put demands on the natural world that can overhwelm any efforts to achieve a sustainable future.  If we are to halt the destruction of our environment, we must accept limits to that growth."   World Scientists' Warning to Humanity, signed by 1600 senior scientists from 70 countries, including 102 Nobel Prize laureates     

•   "Desperation to have a child comes from neediness, not instinct.  It comes from the expectation that a child will fill an existing hole in our heart.  Children, or anything else out there, can't fill that empty space.  A feeling of wholeness comes from within."   Susan Jeffers     

•     "It is not prudent to rely on science and technology alone to solve problems created by rapid population growth, wasteful resource consumption and harmful human practices."   U.S. National Academy of Sciences and Royal Society of London, joint statement    

•      "If the world is to save any part of its resources for the future, it must reduce not only consumption but the number of consumers."   B.F. Skinner   

•       "When the family is small, whatever little they have they are able to share.  There is peace."   Philip Njuguna  ---       pastor, Nairobi, Kenya      

•  "We must stabilize population.  This will be possible only if all nations recognize that it requires improved social and economic conditions, and the adoption of effective, voluntary family planning."   Lester Milbrath  

•        "What becomes of the surplus of human life? It is either, 1st. destroyed by infanticide, as among the Chinese and Lacedemonians; or 2d. it is stifled or starved, as among other nations whose population is commensurate to its food; or 3d. it is consumed by wars and endemic diseases; or 4th. it overflows, by emigration, to places where a surplus of food is attainable."    James Madison, 1791, U.S. President     

•       "Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio."   Thomas Robert Malthus     

Don't keep it to yourself.  If you have another population quote to add or if you want to let me know which quote is your favorite and why  -  email me at valcrows@yahoo.ca!!!!!!