Ted Turner: Global warming could lead to cannibalism

Billionaire environmentalist says world has too many people
By MIKE MORRIS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Apr. 09, 2008

Failure to address global warming will have us all dead or eating each other by mid-century.

So says Ted Turner, the restaurateur, environmentalist and former media mogul whose controversial comments have earned him the nickname "Mouth of the South."

If steps aren't taken to stem global warming, "We'll be eight degrees hotter in 30 or 40 years and basically none of the crops will grow," Turner said during a wide-ranging, hour-long interview with PBS's Charlie Rose that aired Tuesday.

"Most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals," said Turner, 69. "Civilization will have broken down. The few people left will be living in a failed state — like Somalia or Sudan — and living conditions will be intolerable."

One way to combat global warming, Turner said, is to stabilize the population.

"We're too many people; that's why we have global warming," he said. "Too many people are using too much stuff."

Turner suggested that "on a voluntary basis, everybody in the world's got to pledge to themselves that one or two children is it."

Admitting that he's "always suffered from foot-in-the-mouth disease," Turner added, "I've gotten a lot better, though. It's been a long time since anybody caught me saying something stupid."

Turner went on to say that military budgets need to be cut "way back."

"Right now, the U.S. is spending $500 billion a year on the military, which is more than all 190 countries in the world put together," he said.

"The two countries that the military industrial complex and some of our politicians would like to demonize and make enemies are Russia and China," Turner said. "China just wants to sell us shoes. They're not building landing craft to attack the United States, and Russia wants to be our friends, too."

He said that despite the United States' huge military budget, "we can't win in Iraq."

"We're being beaten by insurgents who don't even have any tanks, they don't have a headquarters, they don't have a Pentagon, we don't even know if they have any generals," Turner told Rose.

Turner called the Iraqi insurgents "patriots" who "don't like us because we invaded their country and occupied it. Nobody likes to be invaded."

The CNN founder also said he thinks his old network has veered too far away from serious news, instead favoring lighter stories delivered by attractive female "chickies" and opinion-based news such as Lou Dobbs' show.