The obvious root cause [of alleged human threat to a million species] is staggering over population. Animals consume what they need to survive, and generally no more. Humans have become the opposite. The Industrial Revolution has made us into hyper-consumers. And now that vast swaths of populations are becoming (or have already become) hyper-consumers, there is little hope. Our industrial-grade metabolic rate, multiplied by billions, will literally consume many species out of existence. Of course, no politician here would ever dare speak honestly about this fact. Even if they did, I doubt there are any solutions, let alone the will to enact a real solution.

What's staggering is not just his gullibility and junk science, but his hostility to the race of which he's a member. I posted a reply to suggest that a nuclear war, or perhaps a plague or two, would manage the problem nicely and why did he not come out and say the same thing clearly. I could also have suggested that he set us all a fine example by offing himself at the next opportunity.

Every living thing has evolved to take action to preserve and advance its own kind, often assisting other members in kinship groups, a delightful observation made in Louis Carabini's superb book Liberty, Dicta & Force. So of course the human race has done well, growing its population and defending itself against a wide range of predator species. We can take pride in that! But the Texan above is ashamed of the achievement. So, typically, is any enviro-freak.

While we members of hom. sap. can and should celebrate our race's success in the evolutionary process, we can also take enormous pleasure in other species and in some cases befriend and use them; the exchange of skills and care between man and dog for example is quite wonderful. Our whole environment is something to enjoy enormously, and in which to revel. We didn't build it, but it's there and is ours to enjoy. Okay, with a few exceptions, mostly wielding fangs or Jaws.

All of them resulted from the competitive process of evolution, which biologist Jacques Monod famously described as "Chance and Necessity." Chance, because each mutation seems to happen randomly, and Necessity because once one has taken place it is either extinguished because it renders the species less able to survive, or else is replicated rapidly because it improves that ability and so is hard-wired, as it were, into its DNA. A selection process that is therefore both random and cruel, neither of which can be reconciled with a benevolent and omnipotent creator.

This random though harsh process has resulted in us; and it is marvelous that we, probably alone among the species, have developed not only an ability to probe the origins and nature of ourselves and the universe, but also a moral sense, one of right and wrong, on top of the vital instinct to fight for survival. What autiniteintexas derides as "hyper consumption" is really the overflowing abundance of a life style that not only survives but prospers, enjoys leisure, exercises compassion, and builds a towering structure of intellectual and cultural achievement. Were it reversed, as he evidently wishes, all that would suffer. We would cease to be human.

Are we, even so, becoming too many for the Planet to sustain? - of course not. Vast resources of land and ocean await exploitation to feed a human population many times greater than the present 7 billion; and the density of that in the US (for example) is trivial compared to prosperous countries like Hong Kong.

Nonetheless, I love wide open spaces and hope it doesn't become too crowded for future generations, and I don't think it will; because the tendency to procreate seems to relate inversely to prosperity, and prosperity will rise exponentially after government has evaporated. Why does it fall as we become better off? I'm not sure, except to suggest that the more affluent we become the less dependent we are on having a large bunch of (grown) children to care for us in old age. My great-grandparents were poor, and had thirteen children; my maternal grandfather was #13. So I'm lucky they were not much wealthier.

So even the possibility of "overpopulation", spurious though that threat is, will be nicely countered when government has evaporated. A ZGS cannot change Nature, obviously, but in this case it comes close.