Human Population Quotes

If I were reincarnated I would wish to be returned to Earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels.

Prince Philip

Ebola, Wish, Viruses

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My three main goals would be to reduce human population to about 100 million worldwide, destroy the industrial infrastructure and see wilderness, with it's full complement of species, returning throughout the world.

David Foreman

Eugenics, Goal, Population

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This planet might be able to support perhaps as many as half a billion people who could live a sustainable life in relative comfort. Human populations must be greatly diminished, and as quickly as possible to limit further environmental damage.

Eric Pianka

People, Support, Environmental

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Instead of controlling the environment for the benefit of the population, perhaps we should control the population to ensure the survival of our environment

David Attenborough

Survival, Population, Benefits

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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

War, Chinese, Balance

James Madison (1867). “1829-1836”, p.454

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It's coming home to roost over the next 50 years or so. It's not just climate change; it's sheer space, places to grow food for this enormous horde. Either we limit our population growth or the natural world will do it for us, and the natural world is doing it for us right now.

David Attenborough

Home, Years, Space

"Humans are plague on Earth". www.telegraph.co.uk. January 22, 2013.

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Can you think of any problem, in any area of human endeavour, 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?

Albert Allen Bartlett

Thinking, Population Problem, Long

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A finite world can support only a finite population; therefore, population growth must eventually equal zero.

Garrett Hardin

Zero, Support, Growth

Garrett James Hardin (1972). “Exploring new ethics for survival: the voyage of the spaceship Beagle”, Viking Adult

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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, but it disappears. It doesn't matter if someone dies.

Isaac Asimov

People, Democracy, Population

Interview with Bill Moyers on PBS miniseries "A World of Ideas" with Bill Moyers, www.pbs.org. October 17, 1988.

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It's obvious that the key problem facing humanity in the coming century is how to bring a better quality of life - for 8 billion or more people - without wrecking the environment entirely in the attempt.

E. O. Wilson

Keys, Population Problem, People

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Almost half of the population of the world lives in rural regions and mostly in a state of poverty. Such inequalities in human development have been one of the primary reasons for unrest and, in some parts of the world, even violence.

Abdul Kalam

Development, Unrest, Half

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Human population growth is probably the single most serious long-term threat to survival. We're in for a major disaster if it isn't curbed...We have no option. If it isn't controlled voluntarily, it will be controlled involuntarily by an increase in disease, starvation and war.

Prince Philip

War, Long, Growth

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Obama has always been, while President, has been close to the Queen of England, and the Queen of England has a standing policy now, which has been going on for some time, saying that we have to reduce the human population, on this planet, from 7 billion people down to less than 1! That is her avowed policy.

Lyndon LaRouche

Queens, People, President

Source: larouchepac.com

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All human populations are in some sense immigrants. All hostility between different cultures in one place has an aspect of the classic immigrant grudge against the next boatload approaching the shore. To defend one’s home and fields and ancestral graves against invasion seems a right. But to claim unique possession – to compound the fact of settlement with the aspect of a landscape into an abstract of eternal and immutable ownership – is a joke.

Neal Ascherson

Home, Unique, Population

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The human population can no longer be allowed to grow in the same old uncontrollable way. If we do not take charge of our population size, then nature will do it for us and it is the poor people of the world who will suffer most

David Attenborough

People, Suffering, Size

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Can a growing human population still leave space for wildlife?

David Attenborough

Space, Population, Growing

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After a moment, Wrath turned to John. "This is Lassiter, the fallen angel. One of the last times he was here on earth, there was a plague in central Europe-" "Okay, that was so not my fault-" "-which wiped out two-thirds of the human population." "I'd like to remind you that you don't like humans." "They smell bad when they're dead." "All you mortal types do.

J.R. Ward

Angel, Wrath, Europe

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Even if we act immediately, the world is doomed to lose many of its animal and plant species and this inturn will reduce the ability of ecosystems to deliver vital services to human populations. The Red List gives all of us a practical tool for raising awareness of the biodiversity crisis and for forging new partnerships within the international community.

Achim Steiner

Animal, Ecosystems, Giving

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...the chief cause for the impending collapse of the world - the cause sufficient in and by itself - is the enormous growth of the human population: the human flood. The worst enemy of life is too much life: the excess of human life.

Pentti Linkola

Worst Enemy, Growth, Population

Pentti Linkola (2011). “Can Life Prevail?”, p.122, Arktos

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With the world's human population now at seven billion and growing, and the demand for technology and modern conveniences increasing, we can't control all our negative impacts. But we have to find better ways to live within the limits nature and its cycles impose.

David Suzuki

Technology, Impact, Negative

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We humans have existed in our present form for about a hundred thousand years. I believe that if during this time the human mind had been primarily controlled by anger and hatred, our overall population would have decreased. But today, despite all our wars, we find that the human population is greater than ever. This clearly indicates to me that love and compassion predominate in the world. And this is why unpleasant events are "news"; compassionate activities are so much a part of daily life that they are taken for granted and , therefore, largely ignored.

Dalai Lama

Buddhist, War, Believe

"Dzogchen: Heart Essence of the Great Perfection" by Dalai Lama, Snow Lion Publications, 2004.

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Out of a human population on earth of four and a half billion, perhaps twenty people can write a book in a year. Some people lift cars, too. Some people enter week-long sled-dog races, go over Niagara Falls in a barrel, fly planes through the Arc de Triomphe. Some people feel no pain in childbirth. Some people eat cars. There is no call to take human extremes as norms.

Annie Dillard

Dog, Pain, Book

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The root cause of the looming energy problem - and the key to easing environmental, economic and religious tensions while improving public health - is to address the unending, and unequal, growth of the human population. And the one proven way to reduce fertility rates is to empower young women by educating them.

Lawrence M. Krauss

Religious, Keys, Roots

"How Women Can Save the Planet". The Scientific American Article, www.scientificamerican.com. November 1, 2009.

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...there is an optimal balance, depending on the manner of man's life, between the density of human population and the tolerances of nature. This balance, in the case of the United States would seem to me to have been surpassed when the American population reached, at a very maximum, two hundred million people, and perhaps a good deal less.

George F. Kennan

Men, Two, People

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It is evident that the fortunes of the world's human population, for better or for worse, are inextricably interrelated with the use that is made of energy resources.

M. King Hubbert

Energy, Population, Use

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