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ABSTRACT: In response to my post "The Elephant in the Room:
Overpopulation," both Richard Heckathorn and Alfredo Louro stated
that they did not see how overpopulation relates to physics or
physics education. In "Education for a Sustainable Future" [Hake
(2004)] I quoted a possibly enlightening passage from Bartlett's
(1997) article "Environmental Sustainability": "The explosion of
knowledge and communication has been accompanied by an explosion of
anti-knowledge. If students leave our classes and are unable to
separate sense from nonsense, they will be of little value to a
society that is going to face enormous real problems. It may be that
no other academic discipline is seriously or realistically concerned
with education for sustainability. IN WHICH CASE, IT'S UP TO US. [My
CAPS.]"
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In response to my post "The Elephant in the Room: Overpopulation"
[Hake (2009)]:
1. Richard Heckathorn (2009) of the Physhare list wrote: "I FOR ONE
DO NOT SEE HOW THIS RELATES TO PHYSICS. Further co2 emissions and
it's effect on the environment has it's pro's and cons with $'s
driving the cause." [My CAPS.]
2. Alfredo Louro (2009) of the PhysLrnR list wrote: "I'm sorry, I
DON'T SEE THE CONNECTION WITH PHYSICS, OR PHYSICS EDUCATION. I hope
you're not suggesting that we should 'educate' people not to have
children." [My CAPS.]
I suspect that neither Heckathorn nor Louro seriously considered
Bartlett's (2008) article "Why have Scientists Succumbed to Political
Correctness?" referred to in my *complete* post at
<http://tinyurl.com/krfmw9>. In any case:
WHAT DOES OVERPOPULATION HAVE TO DO WITH PHYSICS EDUCATION?
I quoted Al Bartlett's answer to that question about 5 years ago in
a post "Education for a Sustainable Future" [Hake (2004)]. Therein I
wrote [bracketed by lines "HHHHHHH. . . ."; references have been
updated]:
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Al Bartlett (1997, 1998, 2001) and Michael Kraft (1999) have both
deplored the fact that the wildly popular "sustainable development"
movement usually side steps the key problem of population growth.
Al Bartlett (1998) wrote:
"Today we hear many people talking about 'Sustainability,' as though
we can accommodate continued population growth with something vague
and ill-defined that is called 'sustainable development.' The thought
seems to be that there is no need to worry about population: all we
need to do is to make minor modifications of our way of life,
(conserve, recycle, etc.) and this will suffice to make our society
'sustainable.' Please remember the First Law of Sustainability: 'IT
IS NOT POSSIBLE TO SUSTAIN POPULATION GROWTH OR GROWTH IN THE RATES
OF CONSUMPTION OF RESOURCES.' "[My CAPS.]
Michael Kraft (1999) wrote:
"As the end of the 20th century, sustainability has become broadly
accepted as a desirable social goal from local and regional levels to
the world as a whole. At the local level, for example, hundreds of
communities across the United States have begun sustainability
initiatives, with their collective actions reflected in the May 1999
National Town Meeting for a Sustainable America. There are comparable
activities at the national and international level that signal a new
awareness of the need to link environmental, social, and economic
goals in pursuit of sustainable development. Despite this progress,
however, HUMAN POPULATION GROWTH AS A KEY DETERMINANT OF OUR
COLLECTIVE FUTURE CONTINUES TO BE WIDELY IGNORED. Yet failure to deal
with population issues guarantees that no community or nation can
achieve sustainability." [My CAPS.]
BTW: WHAT'S ALL THIS GOT TO DO WITH PHYSICS EDUCATION? Al Bartlett
(1997) wrote:
"The explosion of knowledge and communication has been accompanied by
an explosion of anti-knowledge. If students leave our classes and are
unable to separate sense from nonsense, they will be of little value
to a society that is going to face enormous real problems. It may be
that no other academic discipline is seriously or realistically
concerned with education for sustainability. IN WHICH CASE, IT'S UP
TO US. [My CAPS.]"
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Bartlett, A.A. 1998. "The World's Worst Population Problem (Is There
a Population Problem?)" slightly revised version of a paper published
in Wild Earth 7(3): 88-90, 1997; online at
<http://www.albartlett.org/articles/art1998sep09.html>.
Bartlett, A.A. 2001. Re: "President's Council on Sustainable
Development Report," PHYSOC post of 8 Jul 2001 20:58:27-0600; online
at
<http://tinyurl.com/lxz66a>. To access the archives of PHYSOC one
needs to subscribe, but that takes only a few minutes by clicking on
<http://listserv.uark.edu/archives/physoc.html> and then clicking on
"Join or leave the list (or change settings)." If you're busy, then
subscribe using the "NOMAIL" option under "Miscellaneous." Then, as a
subscriber, you may access the archives and/or post messages at any
time, while receiving NO MAIL from the list!
Bartlett, A.A. 2008. "Why have Scientists Succumbed to Political
Correctness?" Teachers' Clearinghouse for Science and Society
Education, Vol. 27, Spring 2008, page 21; online at
<http://www.albartlett.org/articles/art2008spring.html>.
Hake, R.R. 2004. "Education for a Sustainable Future," online on the
PhysLrnR archives at <http://tinyurl.com/m9a8gs>. Post of 6 Nov 2004
12:28:40-0800 to PhysLrnR and Physoc. To access the archives of
PhysLnR one needs to subscribe, but that takes only a few minutes by
clicking on <http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/physlrnr.html>
and then clicking on "Join or leave the list (or change settings)."
If you're busy, then subscribe using the "NOMAIL" option under
"Miscellaneous." Then, as a subscriber, you may access the archives
and/or post messages at any time, while receiving NO MAIL from the
list!
Hake, R.R. 2009. "The Elephant in the Room: Overpopulation," online
on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at <http://tinyurl.com/krfmw9>. Post of
8 Aug 2009 20:09:31-0700 to AERA-L, Net-Gold, and Physoc. The
abstract only was transmitted to AP-Physics, Physhare, Phys-L, &
PhysLrnR.
Heckathorn, R. 2009. "Re: The Elephant in the Room: Overpopulation,"
Physhare post of 9 Aug 2009 00:40:32-0400; online at
<http://tinyurl.com/mhz9m5>. To access the archives of Physhare one
needs to subscribe, but that takes only a few minutes clicking on
<http://lists.psu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=PHYSHARE>> and then clicking on
"Join or leave the list (or change settings)." If you're busy, then
subscribe using the "NOMAIL" option under "Miscellaneous." Then, as a
subscriber, you may access the archives and/or post messages at any
time, while receiving NO MAIL from the list!
Kraft, M. 1999. "Population Policy for the 21st Century," online at
<http://www.populationpress.org/essays/essay-kraft.html>. ["Michael
Kraft is Chair of the Department of Public and Environmental Affairs
at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. He holds a Ph.D. in
Political Science from Yale University. Among other works, he is the
author of 'Environmental Policy and Politics: Toward the 21st
Century,' and co-editor of 'Toward Sustainable Communities:
Transition and Transformations in Environmental Policy.' He
contributed the chapter 'Population Policy' in the 'Encyclopedia of
Policy Studies.' He served on the Board of Directors of Zero
Population Growth from 1976 to 1985."]
Louro, A. 2009. "Re: The Elephant in the Room: Overpopulation,"
PhysLrnR post of 9 Aug 2009 00:00:24-0600; online at
<http://tinyurl.com/llghyh>. To access the archives of PhysLnR one
needs to subscribe, but that takes only a few minutes by clicking on
<http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/physlrnr.html> and then
clicking on "Join or leave the list (or change settings)." If you're
busy, then subscribe using the "NOMAIL" option under "Miscellaneous."
Then, as a subscriber, you may access the archives and/or post
messages at any time, while receiving NO MAIL from the list!