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News of the Day ... In Perspective04/14/2006Earth needs a 90% decrease in human population, Texas professor says A popular professor at the University of Texas at Austin tells students that human beings are turning Earth into �fat, human biomass,� while leaving the planet �parched.� The Planet would be better off with 90% of human beings dead, Professor Eric Pianka believes. Pianka was named the 2006 Distinguished Texas Scientist by the Texas Academy of Science. He is a specialist in herpetology and evolutionary ecology. �The Earth�s population is growing,� he said. �We will see a point when we reach the carrying capacity�there aren�t enough resources.� He thinks the current 6.5 billion human beings are too many, and 0.7 billion would be about the right number. Human life, he thinks, is no more valuable than other life, such as lizards or bison. Pianka tells his student audiences, cheerfully, that each one of them will get to bury nine others. �This is really an exciting time.� The prime candidate for achieving this massive genocide is the Ebola virus, as soon as it evolves the capacity for airborne transmission, states Pianka. (Jamie Mobley, Seguin Gazette 4/2/06). Another mechanism for the Apocalypse, suggested by many others including Al Gore, is catastrophic, human-caused global warming, which is supposed to inundate coastal population centers. Alternately, cutting energy use below the level needed to sustain the current population could accomplish significant culling even if it did not measurably affect global temperatures. Stabilizing or reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels could help contain or partly reverse the �green revolution� in agriculture, which permits the increase in human biomass. Additional information:
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