Reinventing Malthus for the 21st Century: 

A Bicentennial Event on Malthus' Original Population Essay 

 

A presentation sponsored by 

Negative Population Growth (NPG) and The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR)

held at National Press Club, Washington, DC, July 14, 1997 

 
 

Remarks from Sharon McCloe Stein  Executive Director, NPG

  
I'd like to welcome you all here today. My name is Sharon McCloe Stein and I am the executive director of Negative Population Growth (NPG). NPG was founded in 1972 to warn the American public about the detrimental effects of overpopulation. I'm happy to see a number of NPG members here with us today.  

NPG advocates a national population policy to halt and reverse US population growth and to achieve a sustainable U.S. population level of about 150 million. We are pleased to co-host this event with the Federation for American Immigration Reform and we are grateful to all of you for joining us for what I know will be an enlightening discussion.  

We will hear first this afternoon from John Rohe, author of A Bicentennial Malthusian Essay: Conservation, Population and the Indifference to Limits. John is an accomplished attorney, author and legal scholar. A former Peace Corps volunteer, John now works with several land trusts and conservation organizations in Michigan where he resides. Among his many credits, he authored the Model Conservation Easement as used throughout Michigan. I believe John has done an incredible service to the population movement by bringing Malthus and his seminal work to the attention of a broader public. And I am sure each of you will enjoy reading John's excellent book, which we are here to discuss today. 

Following John is a man well-known to all of you. Lester Brown has been described as one of the world's most influential thinkers and the guru of the global environmental movement. In 1974, Lester founded the Worldwatch Institute, and now serves as its president. Among his many publications is the annual State of the World, which is considered the bible of the environmental movement.  He is the recipient of many honorary awards. He is a McArthur Fellow award winner; he has received the 1987 United Nations Environmental Prize, and the 1994 Blue Ribbon Panel Prize. And I am sure his research in drafting Who Will Feed China will provide us a present real-life illustration of Malthus' worse fears.  

Our final speaker is Dr. Rupert Cutler. Rupert holds a Ph.D. from Michigan State University and his career in environmental policy has spanned 42 years. He is the former president of the Defenders of Wildlife and has served as President Carter's Assistant Secretary of Agriculture for Conservation Research and Education. In 1997, Rupert became the founding executive director of the Western Virginia Land Trust, a nonprofit association created to preserve the natural scenic heritage of western Virginia. 

We are grateful to each of our distinguished panelists for being with us today and before we begin we would like to hear a few words from the executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, Dan Stein, who will explain what we hope to achieve today.