The Political Freakshow

Michelle Duggar Doesn't Believe in Overpopulation

Michelle Duggar, reality TV star and mother of 19,doesn’t believe in overpopulation. In a Web interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, the star of TLC’s “19 Kids and Counting” remarked that the idea of overpopulation isn’t accurate.

”Well, first off, the idea of overpopulation is not accurate because really the entire population of the world, if they were stretched shoulder to shoulder, could fit within the city limits of Jacksonville,” Duggar said. Theland area of Jacksonvilleis between 758 and 885 square miles. The world population is a little over 7 billion, which would equal about 8,500,000 people per square mile.

But overpopulation, according to experts, isn’t just about the number of people on a piece of land. James Hopkins’ site onthe human population crisisstates, “Overpopulation applies much more so to the number of people in an area exceeding the resources and the carrying capacity of the environment necessary to sustain human activities.”

[Video:The Duggars Get Terrible News on ‘19 Kids & Counting’]

Scientists have called overpopulationthe worst problem the environment faces. “Overpopulation is the only problem,” said Dr. Charles A. Hall, a systems ecologist in 2009. “If we had 100 million people on Earth — or better, 10 million — no others would be a problem.”

In a speech earlier this month,Stanford professor Paul Ehrlichremarked that to give everyone the kind of standard of living enjoyed by the average Kansas resident, we would need about four or five other Earths.

Still, Duggar believes she and her family are resourceful when it comes to buying and discarding. “What our family does is that our motto is we buy used and we save the difference. We go to the thrift store. We buy used cars.”

“To say that there are too many children is like saying there are too many flowers,” Duggar said, quoting the late Mother Teresa. “Our world needs more joy.”

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