From: Minnesotans for Sustainability, Jun. 1, 1992
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THE RAGING MONSTER UPON THE LAND IS POPULATION GROWTH

By E.O. Wilson

The following is a quote from "The Diversity of Life", by E. O.
Wilson, published in 1992 by W. W. Norton and Company. This section
appears on pages 328-29 of the paperback edition.

"The raging monster upon the land is population growth. In its
presence, sustainability is but a fragile theoretical construct. To
say, as many do, that the difficulties of nations are not due to
people but to poor ideology or land-use management is sophistic.

"If Bangladesh had 10 million inhabitants instead of 115 million, its
impoverished people could live on prosperous farms away from the
dangerous floodplains midst a natural and stable upland environment.
It is also sophistic to point to the Netherlands and Japan, as many
commentators incredibly still do, as models of densely populated but
prosperous societies. Both are highly specialized industrial nations
dependent upon massive imports of natural resources from the rest of
the world.

"If all nations held the same number of people per square kilometer [as do the Netherlands and Japan], they would converge in quality of life to Bangladesh rather than to
the Netherlands and Japan, and their irreplaceable natural resources
would soon join the seven wonders of the world as scattered vestiges
of an ancient history.

"Every nation has an economic policy and a foreign policy. The time
has come to speak more openly of a population policy. By this I mean
not just the capping of growth when the population hits the wall, as
in China and India, but a policy based on a rational solution of this
problem: what, in the judgment of its informed citizenry, is the
optimal population, taken for each country in turn, placed against the
backdrop of global demography?

"The answer will follow from an assessment of the society's self-
image, its natural resources, its geography, and the specialized long-
term role it can most effectively play in the international community.
It can be implemented by encouragement or relaxation of birth control
and the regulation of immigration, aimed at a target density and age
distribution of the national population.

"The goal of an optimal population will require addressing, for the
first time, the full range of processes that lock together the economy
and the environment, the national interest and the global commons, the
welfare of the present generation with that of future generations. The
matter should be aired not only in think tanks but in public debate.
If humanity then chooses to breed itself and the rest of life into
impoverishment, at least it will have done so with open eyes."

Note: This quote does not constitute an endorsement by E. O. Wilson
for any particular political course of action. It is simply a
reflection of his views on the subject of optimum population, at the
time they were written. However, on March 21, 1995, Mr. Wilson
officially endorsed the National Optimum Population Commission (NOPC)
proposal, which would establish a process for determining the
optimum, sustainable population of the United States.