Happy Earth Day! Please, die already (The Korea Times, April 22, 2010)

Happy Earth Day! And Please, Live,

By Casey Lartigue Jr.

The annual Earth Day celebration (marking its 40th anniversary today) makes one point clear about

the issue of overpopulation: There are too many people who think there are too many people.

Doomsayers have long warned that Earth would soon be overburdened with too many mouths to feed. Despite a continuous rise in living standards and continued success in feeding more people with less land and labor, alarmists continue to bombard us with deadlines and dire warnings.

``Our numbers are burdensome to the world, which can hardly support us," warned the theologian Tertullian of Carthage. The keynote speaker at an Earth Day rally? No. He was talking in the second century about the 190 million people he believed were rapidly depleting the Earth's resources.

When British economist-cum-clergyman Thomas Malthus warned against overpopulation in 1798, there were fewer than one billion people on the planet. There were 3.5 billion people on the planet in 1968 when Paul Ehrlich hysterically warned in ``The Population Bomb" that ``hundreds of millions" would starve in the 1970s and 1980s.

No such thing happened. Widespread famines now occur in areas that are not very populated, are in the midst of war or where dictators reign. Could Tertullian, Malthus or Ehrlich have ever imagined Earth today with almost seven billion humans inhabiting it? There you have the crux of the population control arguments. How many is too many ― and who decides what is too many?

Rather than seeing the increased population as human ingenuity delaying death, doomsayers present charts and graphs highlighting potential catastrophe. Like cult leaders predicting that the world will end on a particular date, doomsayers look to the future with fear. You can extrapolate just about any trend into disaster, if you ignore reality.

For example, has anyone else noticed that the average temperature in Seoul has gone up since January? At this rate we are sure to burn up by December 2011. Extrapolating like this about population and resources without considering that humans will always create and adapt is similar to not realizing that the Earth will spin us back into a different season.

As economist Julian Simon argued: The ultimate resource is people. The ``natural" resources to create the modern conveniences we enjoy today have existed since the beginning of time. They were useless resources until people ― often motivated by greed ― used ingenuity to turn those raw materials into life-improving conveniences and life-saving technologies. Even those inventions that have helped us push back death are seen as a threat because they allegedly cause ``global cooling," ``global warming" or ``climate change."

Despite the numerous advancements, some continue to insist that doom is just around the corner. ``Population Outgrows Food, Scientists Warn the World." This could have been the latest report from an environmental group faxed in to the New York Times. It was actually a New York Times front-page headline on Sept. 15, 1948. The American Society for the Advancement of Science (ASAS) warned in 1994 that domestic oil wells would go dry in twenty years and that America would no longer be able to export food by the year 2025. In reality, we are constantly warned about the future threat of starvation from overpopulation, even as overweight people join health clubs and drink diet shakes. Some governments pay farmers to destroy produce or not to farm at all to keep prices high and just about all governments impose duties and taxes on agricultural imports.

So we've reached another Earth Day, with life for the poor surpassing that of the affluent from yesteryear. Yet the dire warnings and demands continue. The unofficial kick off for Earth Day is Earth Hour, held in March, when people demonstrate their commitment to the environment by turning off their lights for one hour. Don Boudreaux of George Mason University suggests that Earth Hour's founders (the World Wildlife Fund) should ``create a special Lifetime Achievement Award for North Korea's Dear Leader, Kim Jong-il."

Why? North Korea celebrates ``Earth Hour" year around.

2006 satellite photo of the Korean peninsula

We can only speculate what that one light on in North Korea may be. Kim Jong-il watching his dancing girls perform?

Whatever the case may be, the photo is striking. Those of us in Seoul may sometimes regret the bustling activity. Cars everywhere. People everywhere. Bright lights on 24 hours a day. Seoul is crowded, not overpopulated. If things had gone differently in the 1950s, then we might be using candles as they still do in North Korea, wishing one day that we could have Neon Light Hour.

Original Korea Times link,

Get rid of that watermelon!

Part 1: When I was a youngster I used to collect Confederate money, posters and photographs with caricatures of blacks, and "No blacks allowed signs." I loved the money because it was a reminder of how far the sorry Confederacy had fallen. I had one poster of a dark-skinned black boy munching on a watermelon. I would look at that small poster and wonder, "What in the world is wrong with anyone wanting to eat watermelon?" Yes, white people, I'm talking to you. Your parents, grandparents, and other ancestors who thought making fun of blacks for eating watermelon were crazy ! Even people who say that nothing has changed in race relations must acknowledge that the many stereotypes of blacks are no longer prevalent. But then, there are also some ready to remind us of days-gone-by by debunking stuff that doesn't need to be debunked today. According to the Washington Post: The sound you just heard was yet another racial stereotype going kersplat ! Some ...

Rich talking back

The rich are talked about very often in negative terms, but how often do the rich respond in kind? Australian billionaire Gina Rinehart, who inherited most of her money but apparently has also done very well with it, recently railed against class warfare and had some advice for the non-rich : "There is no monopoly on becoming a millionaire," she writes. "If you're jealous of those with more money, don't just sit there and complain. Do something to make more money yourself - spend less time drinking, or smoking and socializing and more time working." She complained about politicians raising taxes, regulations that slow investment, and other anti-business policies that harm the poor. "If you want to help the poor and our next generation, make investment, reinvenstment and businesses welcome."

Last weekend: Suicide, Kim Young Ha, NK

Credit: Joanne Cho Event 1: Friday night I went to a talk given by Fulbright junior researcher Joanne Cho. She did a great job putting together statistics about some of the most commonly cited reasons that so many Koreans commit suicide. Probably the most provocative tidbit: Cho watched 86 dramas from the spring of 2012 to now, she says that 63 had "scenes depicting or discussing suicide" in a favorable light (as a way to solve problems, that troubled people can be forgiven for their sins and are even seen as sympathetic). Another interesting tidbit: While it is often cited that Korea is number one in the world in suicide (among countries reporting reliable statistics), what I had not realized or had forgotten is that Korean men are number 8 in the world compared to men in other countries with reliable statistics, Korean women are #1 in the world when compared to women in other countries. My questions for the speaker: 1) What was a finding in your research th...

Common Sense on North Korea (Korea Times, April 2, 2012)

By Casey Lartigue, Jr. As interesting as Kookmin University professor Andrei Lankov’s writings are, there is nothing quite like attending one of his lectures. He can barely restrain himself behind the podium, often pointing and waving his arms. I also enjoy his unscripted speeches, but his answers in Q&A sessions are like the difference between watching Michael Jordan shoot baskets in warm-ups and an actual game. I have finally discovered the secret behind Lankov’s consistently solid analysis about North Korea: Use common sense. At an Asan Institute conference last summer, he argued that North Korea watchers should try to understand North Korea from its perspective. Don’t most people know that you must understand the mindset of others you are dealing with? Yet, common sense in theory gets ignored politically. From the North Korean perspective, nuclear weapons are the best thing they’ve got going. They will NOT give them up easily, even if President Obama ...

Why I won't go to North Korea (Korea Times, December 27, 2012)

By Casey Lartigue, Jr. “Have you ever been to North Korea?” This is the question I am almost always asked here in South Korea when people learn that I have become an activist for North Korean escapees. My response is curt: “No.” “Do you plan on going?” they ask next. My answer remains the same: “No.” When they start to ask a follow-up question, I cut them off: "No." People are often just trying to make conversation, I know, but I am blunt for a reason: I am not interested in going to North Korea as long as North Koreans are held captive. I could go one day, but for now, I can do without a government-guided tour by " men-stealers and women-whippers ," to borrow a phrase from American abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. I don’t mean to criticize people who have gone to North Korea for political, educational, business, religious reasons or just plain curiosity. However, some people push me on the issue, ― and I push back. A good friend wh...

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