VHEMT: Misguided idealist?

VHEMT is the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. I read about it first in a book called "The World Without Us" by Alan Weisman. It's an interesting book the discusses what would happen if people vanished tomorrow. It covers things like what happens to our pets, our buildings, roads, nuclear power plants, etc. An interesting read; I recommend it.

Before I dis VHEMT, let me state for clarity that I do think there are too many people on the planet already, and that steps need to be taken to control population expansion.

What precipitated this blog entry was the following opinion from Les Knight, founder of VHEMT; it's paraphrased by Weisman, but it still sounds very naive to me. VHEMT suggests we should all stop reproducing right now, and just let humanity die off. He's not a militant who wants more wars or famine or pestilence. But he thinks that voluntary lack of reproduction (or some ailment that blocks reproduction) would be akin to humanity dying in its sleep:

...Knight predicts that spiritual awakening would replace panic, because of a dawning realization that as human life drew toward a close, it was improving. There would be more than enough to eat, and resources would again be plentiful, including water. The seas would replenish. Because new housing wouldn't be necessary, so would forests and wetlands.

He is quoted as saying

"With no more resource conflicts, I doubt we'd be wasting each other's lives in combat."

and

"The last humans could enjoy their final sunsets peacefully, knowing they have returned the planet as close as possible to the Garden of Eden."

First, the voluntary scenario just wouldn't happen. You'd have to convince the religious people of the world to give up their ideas about what they think God has planned for humanity.

Second, his assessment of what it might be like seems so unrealistic to me, I don't even know where to begin. I imagine a scenario more like that in Children of Men. I think resource conflicts would continue. People like to fight to take rather than to earn resources. Greed would not disappear, and you'd still have people trying to take more than their fair share.

Obviously, VHEMT are entitled to their opinions. But I think there are more productive and realistic ways to tackle the human population problem.