The fate of the planet

It was hard not to smirk when I walked by a sign earlier today, loudly proclaiming:
Carbon Trading is Hitler Style Genocide

Wow.

Big call.

I didn't want to stop and hear them out because I figured laughing out loud would be rude, so I googled them at the privacy of my desk.

The founder of the movement, Lyndon LaRouche, has allegedly been called "the greatest American Economist" by some sources, dubious at best.

Interestingly enough, the article (I won't link to it in case it drives more traffic to them) uses this as the crux of the argument justifying the headline:

"When inmates at the German chemical giant I.G. Farben’s Auschwitz concentration camp were provided barely 800 calories of food per day, it killed them as surely as the gas chambers and firing squads.

The world condemned it as genocide.

By the same measure, environmental policies that suppress energy consumption, and deny populations the normal economic development to generate sufficient sources of energy, are equally genocide.

Take Africa, for instance. Ninety per cent of people in sub-Saharan Africa lack electricity, running water, proper sanitation and decent housing, and therefore die, in the millions, from malaria, malnutrition, TB, HIV/AIDS, and intestinal diseases."

Yeah.. now that you mention it.. [sarcasm]Intentionally gassing millions of people systematically segregated by their religious beliefs is a lot like maintaining a sustainable level of environmental degredation for many future generations of humans (and animals alike) to come.[/sarcasm]

I also noticed a pattern of linking pretty much anyone who wasn't Lyndon Larouche to either Hitler, or being Nazi. This list includes Al Gore, Charles Darwin and Jacques "Save the Whales" Cousteau.

Having said all that, it did reignite a train of thought that I'd been considering for some time now. Let me share this burden of questioning with you.

We know a few things:

1) The Earth has finite land and resources
2) The human population is continuously growing
3) There are no natural predators to humans

Apply 2 to 1 and like it or not, at some point, maybe 20,000 years down the track, we're going to have more people per sqm than the planet can sustain.

What happens then? Assuming there's no 'end of dinosaurs' or SARS-Ebola-Swine-WestNile-Aids virus that significantly takes a chunk of human population out of the equation (thus extending the 20,000 year timeframe for another 20,000 years).

The only plausible scenarios I can think of are:

a) We colonise other resource rich planets (ala Mars in 'Total Recall')
b) We 'manage' population growth (ala Genetic manipulation in 'Gattaca')
c) A natural predator arises (ala virus in '12 Monkeys', giant bugs in 'Starship Troopers')

So the obvious question is...

"What did I have for lunch?"

Tempura Udon.

(ok.. ok .. I think I'm partial towards a mix of a) & b), but I have a feeling c) without the bugs will emerge as the likely scenario.)