Overpopulation
Erroneous U.N. Population Count

Paris 6 October 1999 (Zenit News Agency, www.zenit.org; ZE99100505)

Pierre Chaunu, professor emeritus of the Sorbonne and member of the French Academy, becomes irate when asked to comment on the U.N. report on population. UNFPA (an organisation from the U.N.) annouced that by October 12, there will be 6 billion human beings on earth. "This data is false, we are faced with a genuine manipulation of the kind used against Pius XII."

During 50 years of demographic research, Chaunu has analyzed all aspects of the growth and diminution of populations. In 1975 he denounced the demographic collapse of the West. "For the past 35 to 40 years we have witnessed an incredible deceleration of fertility rates, but these calculations are never kept in mind. All the African figures are inflated, as was shown in the result of a census carried out in Nigeria a few years ago, whose figures in no way agreed with those of the United Nations. He said the Nigerian calculations were also false. Africa has one hundred million less people than the official figures."

Question: Why would this data be inflated?

Pierre Chaunu: The international organisms have spent huge sums to impose a very authoritarian birth control plan in many countries, which must be justified by announcing an imminent danger for all the planet. Having said this, it is true that there have been periods in which the rate of growth of world population was excessive. But regulation follows spontaneously with an improvement in the standard of living. It is not necessary to falsify the data. Everyone knows that the population of the former USSR has always grown in a constant way, in perfect accord with the government's 5 year plans. In 1939, 3.5 million people were not accounted for. We know that in the gulags (soviet concentration camps), between 40 to 50 million people died in Russia alone, a country which does not reflect this in its official data. In the former USSR, where there is one live birth for every 7 abortions, and where the span of life has diminished, 292 million people have never existed. Also China's data, a country that at present is not replacing its generations, is not credible.

Question: And Europe?

Pierre Chaunu: In Europe at present there isn't a single country in which the population has a positive balance in its demographic growth, while in 12 or 15 countries, among them Italy and Germany, there are more deaths than births. If the figures have remained stable in Germany recently, it is thanks to the immigration from the Eastern countries. Even Latin America, with Brazil at the top of the list, has stopped growing. People do not know that in North Africa, in the Magreb, the population is decreasing at a speed that reminds the one of Sicily and southern Italy 15 years ago. At present in Italy we are faced with a rate of 0.8 children per woman, which is an authentic race toward death. Today there is talk of a transition period, that is, the step from demographic explosion to implosion, but this phenomenon already happened 50 years ago. According to my calculations, in the totality of the planet, the generations will not be replaced beginning the year 2020. The fact is that the phenomenon of the total drop in population is not obvious in the first 30 years, because the population continues to grow due to the effect of aging."

Question: Why do you think the United Nations continues to sound the alarm of overpopulation today?

Pierre Chaunu: Although they realize they have made a mistake in their calculations, in name of the good cause, a certain number of North American experts play with fear: fear of invasion and asphyxiation by the citizens of the third world.