"In the web of life every event has many antecedents. Only by an arbitrary decision can we designate a single antecedent as "cause." Our choice is biased - biased to protect our egos against the onslaught of unwelcome truths. As T.S. Eliot put it in Burnt Norton:
"Go, go, go," said the bird, "Human kind cannot bear very much reality."
"Were we to identify overpopulation as the cause of a half-million deaths, we would threaten ourselves with a question to which we do not know the answer: How can we control population without recourse to repugnant measures? Fearfully, we close our minds to an inventory of possibilities.
Instead, we say that a cyclone caused the deaths, thus relieving ourselves of responsibility for this and future catastrophes. "Fate" is so comforting.
"Every year we list tuberculosis, leprosy, enteric diseases, or animal parasites as the "cause of death" of millions of people. It is well known that malnutrition is an important antecedent of death in all these categories and that malnutrition is connected with overpopulation. But overpopulation is not called the cause of death. We cannot bear the thought.
"People are dying now of respiratory diseases in Tokyo, Birmingham, and Gary, because of the "need" for more industry. The "need" for more food justifies over fertilization of the land, leading to eutrophication of the waters, and lessened fish production - which leads to more "need" for food.
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