Spring Break
Mounting concerns on over population
Robert Barry
Issue date: 2/3/04 Section: Commentary
Television talk show host Larry King once asked the world's smartest man, Stephen Hawking, "What worries you the most?" The great physicist responded, "My biggest worry is population growth, and if it continues at the current rate, we will be standing shoulder to shoulder in 2600. Something has to happen, and I don't want it to be a disaster." As is often the case with Hawking, there is some wisdom in his words. One doesn't need an IQ above 200 to realize that world overpopulation is an issue of growing concern that has the potential to make human life pretty miserable in the not so distant future.
First, some facts and numbers: The earth currently has a recorded population of just over six billion, while 12 years ago it was just over five billion. The global population growth is about 76 million per year and the total number of humans on earth has doubled in the past 40 years. Birthrates do happen to be on the decline, but on the flip side, life expectancy is climbing.
To paint a more visual picture of the situation, under our current rate of reproduction, there should be nearly 11 billion people in the world by the year 2050. According to the World Overpopulation Awareness Organization, this means that the global food supply would need to be tripled in order to meet the most basic of needs. Furthermore, this would require a 1,000 percent increase in the total energy expended in food production. Strangely enough, production of grains per capita has been declining since 1983 due to a 20 percent decline in per capita cropland, a 15 percent decrease in irrigation water and a 23 percent drop in the use of fertilizers.
But forget about future consequences and think for a moment about the everyday effects of overpopulation. America's schools are crowded and teachers have their hands full due to the size of the current adolescent generation, which is the largest in history. Perhaps it is no coincidence that one out of four schools cannot meet the "requirements" imposed by President Bush's No Child Left Behind plan. With the number of agricultural producers diminishing and the demand steadily rising, the price of foodstuffs is on the rise, especially health food, of which supermarket chains are carrying less and less. We need not even take into account the correlation between growing population and rising crime rates.
What this all boils down to is that we cannot, as a species, waste much more time without coming up with some semblance of a solution to the problem. While the number of humans continues to rise with no limits, the total amount of resources our earth has to offer started as a constant, and can only decrease.
A friend of mine once said in jest, "I dream of a world where birth control is in the drinking water and you need a prescription for bottled water." While his "solution" is crude at best, it is a step in the right direction. Population control is not exactly a popular topic of discussion these days but it is something that drastically needs serious meditation.
The fundamental problem here is that it would be near impossible to impose some method of population control, especially in the United States, without causing some individuals to feel that their rights have been seriously violated. After all, people should be allowed to have as many children as they feel necessary. Furthermore, the one-child policy China has followed for some time now does not seem to have done them much good. With a population of 1.2 billion, one in every five humans lives in China.
Something as simple as small fiscal incentives could make a difference and get a good deal of people giving the issue some serious thought. Perhaps the government could offer retirement pension benefits to those who had fewer than three children. This would give a perfectly humane premise for Americans to consider limiting the number of children they have on their own.
Whatever the best solution may be, it is past time for humanity to start considering how it plans to survive when in a few centuries there won't be any space left for it. We must alter our course or what we are headed for is the opposite of evolution--quite reasonably, our extinction.
Sources:
http://geography.about.com/library/faq/blqzlargecountry.htm
http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/LUC/ChinaFood/data/pop/pop_6.htm
http://www.overpopulation.org/
http://www.nytimes.com/
First, some facts and numbers: The earth currently has a recorded population of just over six billion, while 12 years ago it was just over five billion. The global population growth is about 76 million per year and the total number of humans on earth has doubled in the past 40 years. Birthrates do happen to be on the decline, but on the flip side, life expectancy is climbing.
To paint a more visual picture of the situation, under our current rate of reproduction, there should be nearly 11 billion people in the world by the year 2050. According to the World Overpopulation Awareness Organization, this means that the global food supply would need to be tripled in order to meet the most basic of needs. Furthermore, this would require a 1,000 percent increase in the total energy expended in food production. Strangely enough, production of grains per capita has been declining since 1983 due to a 20 percent decline in per capita cropland, a 15 percent decrease in irrigation water and a 23 percent drop in the use of fertilizers.
But forget about future consequences and think for a moment about the everyday effects of overpopulation. America's schools are crowded and teachers have their hands full due to the size of the current adolescent generation, which is the largest in history. Perhaps it is no coincidence that one out of four schools cannot meet the "requirements" imposed by President Bush's No Child Left Behind plan. With the number of agricultural producers diminishing and the demand steadily rising, the price of foodstuffs is on the rise, especially health food, of which supermarket chains are carrying less and less. We need not even take into account the correlation between growing population and rising crime rates.
What this all boils down to is that we cannot, as a species, waste much more time without coming up with some semblance of a solution to the problem. While the number of humans continues to rise with no limits, the total amount of resources our earth has to offer started as a constant, and can only decrease.
A friend of mine once said in jest, "I dream of a world where birth control is in the drinking water and you need a prescription for bottled water." While his "solution" is crude at best, it is a step in the right direction. Population control is not exactly a popular topic of discussion these days but it is something that drastically needs serious meditation.
The fundamental problem here is that it would be near impossible to impose some method of population control, especially in the United States, without causing some individuals to feel that their rights have been seriously violated. After all, people should be allowed to have as many children as they feel necessary. Furthermore, the one-child policy China has followed for some time now does not seem to have done them much good. With a population of 1.2 billion, one in every five humans lives in China.
Something as simple as small fiscal incentives could make a difference and get a good deal of people giving the issue some serious thought. Perhaps the government could offer retirement pension benefits to those who had fewer than three children. This would give a perfectly humane premise for Americans to consider limiting the number of children they have on their own.
Whatever the best solution may be, it is past time for humanity to start considering how it plans to survive when in a few centuries there won't be any space left for it. We must alter our course or what we are headed for is the opposite of evolution--quite reasonably, our extinction.
Sources:
http://geography.about.com/library/faq/blqzlargecountry.htm
http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/LUC/ChinaFood/data/pop/pop_6.htm
http://www.overpopulation.org/
http://www.nytimes.com/