Overpopulation

Economist Julian Simon criticized (“Group’s Warning on Overpopulation Criticized,” Part I, April 18)) the Population Institute’s warning of the “severe damage population pressures are doing to this planet,” pointing out that doom-sayers have been wrong in the past, and “can manufacture scares faster than you can write stories about them.” The subject is serious, and deserves a more reasoned discussion.

Every breath you put in a balloon makes it firmer and more beautiful. The doom-sayers who caution you not to risk another breath are shown to be wrong by the success of all the prior breaths. But if you can continue basing your forecasts on the wisdom of the past, inevitably the balloon will burst. Like the balloon, our global ecosystem does not have infinite stretch. Simon is justified in noting that improving technologies, and the increases of resources that have been helping us, improve our human lot; however, he is shortsighted in thinking that such solutions will always be available.

Our business, cultural and religious institutions, based on the past, are not necessarily appropriate for a non-expanding Earth as population pressures mount, environmental stresses intensify, and the wholesale wiping out of species continues. The Population Institute’s warning should stimulate Simon to apply his talents to thinking about the future toward which we should aim, and particularly about serious questions of nature vs. technology.

He is correct that some previous forecasts of problems proved premature; that does not mean he is right to assume technology will rescue the future. Thank goodness many of the youngsters who will be living the future are more open-minded.

PAUL B. MacCREADY

Monrovia