LETTERS: OVERPOPULATION CLAIM IS A MYTH

To the editor:

In his recent rebuttal to Christine Stephens' letter, Alan Journet states that the world is severely overpopulated and facing an imminent crisis. Nothing could be further from the truth.

It has been demonstrated mathematically that the entire population of Earth standing shoulder to shoulder would fit in an area the size of Jacksonville, Fla.

If anything, the world is underpopulated. Take Canada's Northwest Territories, for example. There are areas several times larger than Missouri that are totally devoid of human settlement. In western states like Montana and Idaho, there are small towns that are separated by 50 to 75 miles of open country. That really sounds like we are getting elbow to elbow in people to me.

The starvation problem in some parts of the world is caused by war and distribution problems, not overpopulation. A hundred years ago, the average farmer fed 10 people. Today, he feeds over 200 people, clearly outpacing population growth.

Overpopulation is just another one of the myths Paul Ehrlich made up. It was touted by the lunatic fringe environmentalists when he wrote his book. In 1970, a conservative bet him $10,000 that in 10 years any one of the five major premises he touted would be proved wrong. Ehrlich accepted the bet, and 10 years later all five of his premises had been proven wrong. He had to write a $10,000 check to the conservative.

I can't believe they are still teaching this stuff as fact so long after it has been debunked. If the business departments of American universities were this many light years behind, they would still be teaching their students that 1958 Edsel styling is here to stay -- and 1959's cars prove it.

I thought at first the Edsel would make a good symbol for the radical environmentalist groups. But, on second thought, that would be an insult to the car, because even Edsel wasn't as bad a flop as these environmental groups are.

They should change the title of Al Gore's book, "Earth in the Balance," to "Environmentalist Mentally out of Balance."

LEONARD M. WILLE

Jackson