Norman E. Borlaugh, RIP

The recent death of Dr Borlaugh on Sep 12 gives the occasion for the W Times to salute the contributions of this man of science to the well-being of humankind:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/sep/16/the-humanitarian-the-greens-hated/?source=newsletter_opinion_headlines

Dr Borlaugh was the genius behind the Green Revolution in crop science that may have saved as many as a billion people by making countries such as India self sufficient in food production. Political Greens hated him, because political Greens hate humanity and want people to die off. One poster to the Puffington Post put it this way: "How many non-human organisms have been destroyed to facilitate the constant demand for monoculture wheat farming that is needed to feed the billions of parasitic humans currently scratching and nibbling at the earth's surface?" We suspect that the ecosystem would not miss this particular parasitic scratching nibbler if he practiced what he preached and reduced his carbon footprint to zero. " Dr Borlaugh answered his critics: "They've never experienced the physical sensation of hunger. They do their lobbying from comfortable office suites in Washington or Brussels. If they lived just one month amid the misery of the developing world, as I have for 50 years, they'd be crying out for tractors and fertilizer and irrigation canals and be outraged that fashionable elitists back home were trying to deny them these things."

Dr Borlaugh mistakenly believed that the population explosion would continue and opposed Pres Reagan's efforts to reduce the pro-abortion propaganda for the third world. But, as economics improved (largely because Asian countries like India gave up on Socialism and the Green Revolution took hold) the population explosion abated and it was diffused.