There are already too many people living on Planet Earth, according to one of most influential science advisors in the US government.
Nina Fedoroff told the BBC One Planet programme that humans had exceeded the Earth’s “limits of sustainability”.
Dr Fedoroff has been the science and technology advisor to the US secretary of state since 2007, initially working with Condoleezza Rice.
Under the new Obama administration, she now advises Hillary Clinton.
“We need to continue to decrease the growth rate of the global population; the planet can’t support many more people,” Dr Fedoroff said, stressing the need for humans to become much better at managing “wild lands”, and in particular water supplies.
Pressed on whether she thought the world population was simply too high, Dr Fedoroff replied: “There are probably already too many people on the planet.”
GM Foods ‘needed’
A National Medal of Science laureate (America’s highest science award), the professor of molecular biology believes part of that better land management must include the use of genetically modified foods.
“We have six-and-a-half-billion people on the planet, going rapidly towards seven.
“We’re going to need a lot of inventiveness about how we use water and grow crops,” she told the BBC.
“We accept exactly the same technology (as GM food) in medicine, and yet in producing food we want to go back to the 19th Century.”
Dr Fedoroff, who wrote a book about GM Foods in 2004, believes critics of genetically modified maize, corn and rice are living in bygone times.
“We wouldn’t think of going to our doctor and saying ‘Treat me the way doctors treated people in the 19th Century’, and yet that’s what we’re demanding in food production.”
In a wide ranging interview, Dr Fedoroff was asked if the US accepted its responsibility to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be driving human-induced climate change. “Yes, and going forward, we just have to be more realistic about our contribution and decrease it – and I think you’ll see that happening.”
And asked if America would sign up to legally binding targets on carbon emissions – something the world’s biggest economy has been reluctant to do in the past – the professor was equally clear. “I think we’ll have to do that eventually – and the sooner the better.”
By Steven Duke
Editor, One Planet, BBC World Service
The full interview with Dr Nina Federoff can be heard on this week’s edition of the new One Planet programme on the BBC World Service
Enough for everyone, but nature restricts
Lecture on Bhagavad-gita 2.12, London, Aug 18, 1973
PRABHUPADA: Nityo nityanam. So every living entity is nitya [eternal]. As Krishna is nitya. He is singular number we are plural number. That is the difference. We are many; Krishna is one. There cannot be many Krishnas. But there are many living entities. So what is the difference between the singular number? That is also stated here: eko bahunam yo vidadhati kaman. This one singular number is supplying all the necessities of this plural number. Is it not fact? We are very much disturbed over population. That is all nonsense. Krishna is quite able, if there is overpopulation… There cannot be overpopulation, because there are already ananta [unlimited] living entities, what to speak of overpopulation. It is already there, you cannot count. There is no question of… There is already overpopulation. And they can be provided by Krishna. Eko bahunam yo vidadhati kaman. Krishna is not limited; He is also unlimited. He can provide unlimited living entities. There is no scarcity of food.
So this theory that overpopulation is nonsense. It is also nonsense. There cannot be overpopulation. But there is restriction, by nature. Nature will restrict production of food if there are demons. Nature will not provide the demons. You’ll find in the Srimad-Bhagavatam, Fourth Canto, nature is quite prepared to supply all the foods, but as soon as there are number of demons… because the whole plan is to correct. Just like the criminals are sent to the prison house for being corrected so that they may not again commit criminals. Similarly, we are all criminals who are in this material world. The purpose is to be corrected. We wanted to imitate Krishna, to become Krishna, and therefore we violated the orders of Krishna, and that criminality means material life.
krishna-bahirmukha hana bhoga vancha kare
nikata-stha maya tare japatiya dhare (Prema-vivarta)
This is maya – this material world, maya [illusory]. This body is false, maya. So we have to accept this body because we wanted to enjoy. So enjoy, you enjoy with this body, particular body. Either human’s body, or dog’s body, or cat’s body, or demigod’s body, you get as you desire. You get a material body and enjoy. This is material life.
So Krishna also, although in the material life, Krishna is providing all necessities of life. Duly, there are seasonal changes. You get seasonal fruits, flowers, grains, and all necessities. You’ll be still given chance, especially to the human being, that you get all supplies, necessities. Eko bahunam yo vidadhati kaman. All necessities, But again you revive your consciousness, Krishna consciousness. That is the plan. But if you do not revive your Krishna consciousness, if you simply enjoy the senses, then there will be restriction of supply. This is the law. That is the restriction of supply. Therefore, there will be no rain. And if there is no rain, what factory will do, you rascal? You can manufacture scissors and knives and buckets of plastic, but you cannot prepare rice and wheat. That is not possible, sir. That will depend on rain. So immediately rains will be restricted. Now you all chew all these kankar . What is this kankar? These stone particles?
DEVOTEE: Pebbles?
PRABHUPADA: What are called these? In Hindi, it is called kankar, Indian.
REVATINANDAN: Pebbles?
PRABHUPADA: Pebbles, big. Small. Sand, sand. Yes. So you can eat that. When there is no rain… That is also eatable. The peacocks, they eat. The pigeons, they eat. Yes, they can eat. You have seen? They’re eating. So everything is there eatable. So there is no question of overpopulation. Overpopulation is already there, anantyaya kalpate. Why do you call overpopulation? When there is already fire, why do you say there will be fire? It is already there. But the restriction, eko bahunam yo vidadhati kaman. That eka, that eka, Krishna, He orders. He does not order actually. Just like, not every time the police has to be ordered by the superior authority to punish the criminal. They know how to punish. So the nature knows how to punish these criminals. Therefore, the scientists are finding now shortage of petrol, shortage of this, shortage… What to do? What to do? This is the position. Otherwise, there is no question of overpopulation. The supply is restricted. That is the problem. Eko yo bahunam. Because He supplies all the necessities, [but] the supply will be restricted. As they become more and more sinful and without Krishna consciousness, they will be put into difficulties, they will be dying within the womb, they will be killed, within the womb, there will be war, there will be pestilence, there will be famine, there will be earthquake. In so many ways, we have to die. Bhutva bhutva praliyate [Bhagavad-gita 8.19: “Again and again, when Brahma’s day arrives, all living entities come into being, and with the arrival of Brahma’s night they are helplessly annihilated.”]. Again, take birth, this business will go on. And ultimately, when the whole universe is annihilated, then again we take shelter in the body of Maha-Vishnu and live in that way, without any body, for many millions of years. Again, there is creation, and then again given chance – “All right, take another chance. Be Krishna conscious.”
So this is material creation. Bhutva bhutva praliyate [Bg. 8.19]. As we have got this body, we have got the chance now to become Krishna conscious, and if we miss, then I do not know where I am going next life. But I am not going to die. That’s a fact. That will be explained in the next verse. I am not going to die. We existed in the past, we are now existing at present, and we shall continue to exist in the future. This is the position.
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