William Vogt

Another important factor was a growing concern for the environment, resulting from the rise of a fossil-fuel-based economy, improved living conditions and increased life expectancy.

In 1948, two groundbreaking books by Fairfield Osborn Jr. and William Vogt, were published with a dire message.

The expanding global population would bring environmental disaster if not checked with birth control measures and global management of resources.

These ideas were spread with the help of conservation foundation, an organization founded by Osborne and Wacht in 1948 together with John D. Rockefeller's grandson, Lawrence Rockefeller, and funded by Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

Conservation Foundation would have a major influence on the scientific discussions about global warming in the 1960s.

It was environmentalism rooted in eugenics, which meant improving the genetic quality of the human population through selective breeding.

In 1952, Lawrence's brother John and the president of the National Academy of Sciences, Detlef Bronck, organized a conference on population problems in Williamsburg, attended by 33 hand-picked advocates of eugenics, including Fairfield Osborn Jr. and William Vogt.

Bronck was a key player in the American scientific community, and had an extensive network due to his position as president of the National Academy of Sciences.

Even letting people die is OK, as you will see when we come to the next thinker.

So the next thinker I want to talk about is a gentleman named William Vogt, who in 1948 wrote a very influential book called The Road to Survival.

I have a quiz question for you guys now.

In that book, he said that the greatest national asset of Chile is...

And he pointed out that a doctor's duty is always to save patients.

So let me read out this incredible quote.

From William Vogt, the modern medical profession still framing its ethics on the dubious statements of an ignorant man, he meant Hippocrates, of an ignorant man who lived more than 2000 years ago continues to believe it has a duty to keep alive as many people as possible.

In many parts of the world, doctors apply their intelligence to one aspect of man's welfare, survival, and deny their moral right to apply it to the problem as a whole.