Mr. Brown- Thank you for your response, especially when you aren't feeling well. You are correct about the RATE of population growth declining in some parts of the globe. Unfortunately, more people making babies at a somewhat slower rate still adds considerably more mouths than the planet can feed, house or provide water for. My view is a dim one and is in agreement with Stephen Hawking. Last year, he stated that humans had better learn space travel pretty quickly as he thought there was about 100 years before our host planet could no longer support us. Fell better soon. Ed Martone

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From: Barrett Brown [mailto:barriticus@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2008 2:53 PM
To: Ed Martone
Subject: Re: Your article in AMERICAN ATHEIST

Mr. Martone-

Thanks for writing; I'm glad that you enjoyed the article and hope that you will enjoy Dodos as well. Regarding the question of overpopulation, I absolutely agree with you that continued growth along the lines that we saw in the 20th century would eventually be disastrous for a variety of reasons, but it's my understanding that the rate of growth has seen a consistent decline even in much of the developing world as of late (I seem to recall having read something along these lines in a recent issue of The Economist, but I may be remembering it incorrectly, as I'm on a bunch of wacky cold medicine this morning). Hopefully, as nations such as India and Bangladesh, for instance, continue to follow in the footsteps of the Western world, they'll begin to take on our relatively low-growth breeding habits as well - unless, of course, the Catholic Church is successful in its continued attempts to ensure that many of the world's peoples are either legally barred from or theologically disinclined to regulate their own reproduction.

Thanks again,

Barrett Brown

On Tue, Mar 11, 2008 at 3:38 PM, Ed Martone <emartone@njaconline.org> wrote:

Mr. Brown: I thoroughly enjoyed, and learned from, your article titled,"My Hand Shall Be Against The Prophets," in the March, 2008 issue of AMERICAN ATHEIST. I very much appreciate what you had to say along with your very clever writing style. I have further ordered your book "Flock of Dodos..." from my local B&N bookstore. My only mild admonition is that you take the question of over-population more seriously. Your dead-on criticizm of Paul Ehrlich notwithstanding, adding a billion people every twenty years to the evermore exhausted Earth is the ultimate soiling of the nest. Keep up your good work and astute observations. Ed Martone

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