We are all floating along in space, on this earth together. We do not currently have the resources or capabilities to colonize a moon or another planet. We are, for the entire foreseeable future, stuck here. This is all we have.
For each of us to survive we need a definite amount of resources. We need food, drinkable water, clean air, and shelter from the elements – to name just a few. The Earth provides these resources for us, we consume them in order to stay alive, and the Earth replenishes them. So long as we consume resources at a slower rate than the rate at which the Earth produces them, our species will never run out of resources, and could live on indefinitely. However, if we consume these resources faster than the earth can replenish them, then we will – obviously – reach a point where not all of us will be able to get enough of what we need to survive.
The two factors that determine whether or not our species will have enough of these resources to survive are: Standard of Living, and Population. Standard of Living is a measure of how much we each consume. For example: although we only really need a few resources to survive (water, food, clean air, shelter, etc.), we may also want to have bigger homes, electricity, plumbing, sewage treatment, transportation, bigger meals, many different styles of clothes, etc. This all requires extra resources that need to be extracted from the earth in addition to that which are already being extracted to meet our basic survival needs.
The second factor in determining the amount of resources needed to be extracted from the earth is Population. Multiply the average amount of resources extracted for each person to achieve their Standard of Living, multiply it by the number of people alive, and the product is the amount of resources needed to be extracted in order for everyone to live the way they want to live. If this amount is smaller than the amount of resources the earth will replenish, then our lifestyle is sustainable and can continue on indefinitely. If it is larger than the amount the earth can replenish, then we will inevitably run out of resources, and either the average Standard of Living must decrease, or the population must decrease. Needless to say our gluttonous way of life here in North America could use significant downsizing. But quality of life can only be reduced so much. After all, we will always need the basics: clean water and air, food, shelter, and clothing. The larger, more important factor is population.
Overpopulation is the state of a species when it requires more resources to survive than its environment can sustain (as indicated by The American Heritage® Science Dictionary). Even the CIA World Factbook states “overpopulation” as one of the current issues concerning the environment world wide. We are now extracting more resources than the earth can renew, and our population is still exploding.
We can either choose to reduce our population ourselves, or we can choose not to. Choosing not to will result in massive numbers of deaths due to famine, lack of shelter, and dehydration. Since this would be a terrible and unnecessary tragedy, we should choose to reduce our population ourselves.
There are only two ways to reduce our population ourselves. We can either use active checks, or passive checks. Active checks involve killing off some of our population in order to reduce our numbers. This may include actions like: temporarily poisoning water supplies, spreading disease, burning life-sustaining crops to induce famine, and other violent forms of mass killing that would result in the death of billions of human beings. Active checks also include deaths that result from doing nothing about our growing population, and letting massive numbers of people die from starvation, dehydration, and lack of shelter.
Passive checks involve actions that limit the number of births. Since only women can give birth, and since they must give birth to two at least offspring in order to replace the previous generation, limiting the average number of child births per woman to less than 2 will result in a definite decrease in population. This may be achieved by producing free birth control devices and procedures world wide, making them easily available, and encouraging their use through media, cultural and religious pressure, and even government regulation.
Since encouraging the mass murder of billions of human beings is worse then telling womankind she must temporarily reduce the average number of her offspring to less than 2, we can rule out the first option in favor of the second, as they are our only two options.
Hence, we modern human beings ought to temporarily limit the average number of child births per woman to less than 2 worldwide.
One of the arguments of the opposition is that these calculations are all wrong, and that the Earth can in fact support many more billions of people.
And this is very well and true. But at what cost to our average standard of living? Remember, if the population is to increase, the Standard of Living must decrease.
So, let’s say we reduce the Standard of Living as far as is technologically possible. We are all crammed together like cows in tiny cages, too small to turn around in, with tubes to feeding us the bare minimum of food and water that we need to survive, and other tubes taking away our urine and feces. Living in these kinds of extreme conditions, human kind could continue to over-reproduce until our population reached 30 billion people, without anyone ever starving or dying due to lack of resources. And we could do this sustainably. But would it be worth the cost? Are we interested more in quantity of life, or the quality of it?
As you can see, dealing with the current resource problem by choosing to reduce the Standard of Living instead of the population, is really just putting the problem off until some later point in time, when the population is still increasing and the Standards of Living cannot be reduced any further.
If this way of dealing with overpopulation is carried to its logical conclusion, it would ultimately guaranty the lowest possible standard of living for the greatest possible number of people. This is the kind of foolhardy logic that results in a dystopia.
Another argument commonly brought up sounds something like this: “We don’t need to do anything more the check the population, because of such things as wars, natural disasters, disease, etc. Things like this are nature’s way or God’s way of keeping the population in check.
My problem with this is that they are simply wrong. I can’t say I blame them, for it is very hard to grasp just how many people are on this planet, and how many more are brought in every day. So, I will help you all understand why this logic falls short.
With just a little research I found that, WWI, WWII, The Vietnam War, and every hurricane that occurred in North America during the last century left a combined total of approximately 96,590,000 humans dead (including civilians). Let’s just round that up to a nice even 100 million dead due to tropical storms and three off the most deadly wars that took place in the last 100 years. With 250,000 new humans being born each day, it would take only 400 days, just over 1 year, to bring in as many new lives as were lost. (Several sources cited below).
You can see that, despite our best efforts, we have not yet found a way to kill ourselves faster than we are reproducing ourselves. Thus, relying on present active checks is not only inhumane, but also ineffective.
In conclusion, I have shown that we, as a species, are currently reproducing too fast for our environment to continue supporting us. I have shown why this trend cannot continue and that the only humane way out of this predicament is to temporarily reduce the global average number of childbirths per woman to less than 2.
