Beyond a critical point within a finite space, freedom diminishes as numbers increase. This is as true of humans in the finite space of a planetary ecosystem as it is of gas molecules in a sealed flask. The human question is not how many can possibly survive within the system, but what kind of existence is possible for those who do survive.
— Frank Herbert
Pick up a newspaper, turn on the news, and almost daily you can read about climate problems, air pollution, water pollution, land pollution, war problems, political discord.
To me these only appear to be symptoms; the problem seems clear to me. The dangers that scientists, environmentalists, and political commentators warn of are symptoms of this much larger problem: there are too many people.
Even were the majority of the civilized world to cut their rate of consumption and waste and pollution and war in half, in another forty years the population is expected to double, which will obliterate any gains we make in the half century previous.
If humans one day become extinct...there would be no greater tragedy in the history of life in the universe. Not because we lacked the brain power to protect ourselves but because we lacked the foresight. The dominant species that replaces us in post-apocalyptic Earth just might wonder, as they gaze upon our mounted skeletons in their natural history museums, why large headed Homo sapiens fared no better than the proverbially peabrained dinosaurs.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson
Picture the city you live in. Try to grasp a clear mental picture of how many people live there. Perhaps a crowded mall or grocery store may help you get a good picture. Now take all those people in your mental picture and double it.
Does it seem crowded?
Do you remember those old television shows of the 1950s? Small towns where everybody knew everyone else. In 1950, the global population was half what it is now. There is a direct correlation between population and crime. Perhaps because higher population means a greater number of strangers. Not only do most most people remain suspicious of strangers, but perhaps it is also easier to commit a wrong against someone you don't know. An already underfunded and understaffed police force (check your inner city statistics) will not be able to keep up with the civil unrest wrought by a higher population density.
I predict it will come to a boil likely even before the population doubles in forty years.
From a diplomatic standpoint, world governments appear to be doing little to reduce the heat. On the contrary, some governments, the United States and Israel in particular, continue an unyielding, hard-line stance with other countries which all but guarantees violent confrontation.
Perhaps that is just what we need to save us: a war of large — perhaps even global — proportions would drastically reduce a large portion of child-bearing aged adults from the breeding population. Post-war, the damage to social infrastructure would endanger much of the globally poor, perhaps even to the point of decimating large numbers of them.
Global war is, of course, a horrific suggestion, and to suggest that it may be what is best for humanity is cynical to say the least. Additionally, there is the very real possibility that a global war would include the use of nuclear weapons, which pose a threat of wiping us all out.
If we survive, our time will be famous for two reasons: that at this dangerous moment of technological adolescence we managed to avoid self-destruction; and because this is the epoch in which we began our journey to the stars.
— Carl Sagan
Clearly, however something must be done to prevent the widespread chaos and destruction certain to result from the doubling of the global population by 2050. One possibility is that Mother Nature will settle things herself. Arizona Bay, anyone?
As the population increases, natural disasters prove to be more devastating. Consider the inevitable bottleneck during a fire at a crowded theater. Fewer people mean there is a better chance all of them get out alive. Larger disasters scale the loss of life appropriately (or inappropriately, as it were).
As natural resource consumption and waste and pollution increase so too do the odds of natural disasters resulting from climate change. The more rabbits you cram into a cage, the harder it becomes to clean up all the rabbit shit (and, incidentally, the less happy the rabbits become). But again, a climate-change caused natural disaster solution to the problem of global population involves humanity killing itself.
The final solution I can foresee to this problem is also the most difficult to implement and maintain. Humanity must make a voluntary reduction in population growth. What this means is a commitment to bearing one child per adult. Incentives to bearing one child per couple. Enhanced support for adoption and social services for couples that can't bear children (such as those in the homosexual community).
I can imagine the many scoffs that will result from this suggestion, and no wonder. Really, such a suggestion seems not only unreasonable (especially in our "freedom"-loving America) but impossible to enforce as well. Yet I posit that such measures will be the only way to limit population growth without humans killing themselves.
This is not a pretty picture I paint, and let's face it, there have been prophets of doom and naysayers before (and will be again, probably perpetually). What makes my "prophecy" so special that one should pay attention to it over any other?
I don't have a good answer to that question.
I will say that short of a global natural disaster (like the one killing the dinosaurs) or a global nuclear war humanity will survive. But at what cost? There's the question.
The entire world exists in a symbiosis, one in which humans are currently grossly overbalanced. It is only the natural order of things that humans sink back into balance. It is merely my opinion that it is better to control the descent rather than to succumb to it.
"And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." King James Version, Genesis 1:28
I'd say we pretty much have fulfilled the charge of God to Adam and Eve in this verse, with the exception of the "replenish the earth" part. Perhaps we can stop the "be fruitful and mulitply" and "subdue" parts that everyone likes to focus on and turn our attention to the rest of our duties to this planet.
4 comments :
In rereading this post, I realized belatedly that it could be inferred that I mean homosexual couples can't bear children due to the fact that they are homosexual. This isn't what I meant, and I hope no one assumes that.
I simply meant that if a homosexual couple wants to have children, there are extra steps they must take, just like any heterosexual couple with fertility problems.
You pretty much never hear of a homosexual couple getting pregnant because someone's birth control failed.
http://www.alternet.org/environment/131400/rebuttal_to_chris_hedges:_stop_the_tired_overpopulation_hysteria/
I think the article does a good job of pointing out some of the problems in the simplistic argument 'we're running out of room,' which completely ignores so many crucial issues.
Responsibility in family planning? The most developed countries are the ones who do the most environmental damage, and use the most resources, yet have the lowest birth rates.
I'm not arguing the fact the population is growing, but looking at population growth as *the* problem shifts focus from issues that may actually help stop some of the problems you unoriginally 'foresee' in this argument. For example, a global shift in our use of resources would do more than a one-child policy, which does nothing but shift responsibility away from the corporations, governments and individuals who are truly at fault, onto families and- particularly- women.
Honestly, this is so ethnocentric- the problem might be real, but the outlined 'solutions' are no help. Lower birth rates come with development, education, etc- as it stands the countries where people have large numbers of children regularly are places where they need hands to work their subsistence farms and take care of them when they're old because there's zero social security or hope for retirement, not to mention there's little access to birth control. It's not like they're choosing to have children for the same reason a middle-class American couple would- they're trying to survive.
Taking one issue and isolating it like this might be a fun writing exercise, but it's totally contrived and false; these issues are all interconnected. If you want to present yourself like you know what you're talking about, you could address demographics with economy, politics, education, environment, corruption, agriculture, aid, etc., and try looking at some actual population graphs from different countries and income brackets. That might shed more light on the situation than your doomsday scenario.
In 1950, the population of America was a little over 150 million. In 2009, the population was a little over 300 million. While the population of this developed country may have taken 60 years to double rather than 50 like the rest of the world, it still doubled.
Developed countries may indeed have lower birth-rates than sub-Saharan countries, but they hold a strong draw for immigration because they are developed, perhaps even from some of those poorer countries with such a low quality of life.
Continuing down the microcosm, California's population since 1950 has more than tripled, from around 10 million to almost 37 million. Talk about developed, California's economy is the 8th largest in the world.
Yes, developed countries tend to consume more natural resources, cause more waste, and have a larger impact on the environment. But *developing* countries, such as China and India, cause many more environmental problems.
China, India, and America, as the three most populated nations, are in among the top 5 contributors of greenhouse gases, with India coming in fourth behind Russia but ahead of Japan, which sits at number 5.
On the other hand, according to the Human Development Index the most developed nation of the world is Norway, which isn't even among the top twenty contributors to greenhouse gases. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) lists Australia as the most advanced country, and it ranks 16th on the list of greenhouse gas contributors.
Of the five most populated countries (China, India, United States, Indonesia, Brazil) only the United States is not considered a developing country. Of those countries, only Indonesia is not among the top twenty contributors to greenhouse gases.
Per capita, the worst contributor to greenhouse gases is America, which ranks 13th on the Human Development Index's list of most developed countries.
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