Not too long ago I heard a well-known, self-proclaimed Christian speaker tell a group of college students that the world was in a crisis and one of the big issues that he mentioned was over-population. He told the students that they probably weren't hearing this fact from the news and that what he was telling them was the truth; the world is in a crisis. The big problem that he believed we needed to help solve is the survival of the planet. Social gospel with no gospel mentioned at all. Wonder what he would say about this piece of information I read recently?
Square Miles of Land in Texas 261,914. Acres per Square Mile 640. Total Acres in Texas 167,624,960.
Population of the World (6 Billion) 6,000,000,000.
World Population per Texas Acre 36.
It would be possible to fit the entire population of the world comfortably within the State of Texas. Most people in the world live cramped together in densely populated cities. This would actually be a vast improvement for most people. Everyone has been taught in public school and the media that there is an overpopulation problem. The world is running out of land and food and etc. We have heard it all before. This idea has become common knowledge and most people believe it to be truth.
The real solution to the real problem is found in the real gospel.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
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4 comments:
The issue isn't square footage person - the issue is carrying capacity. Think about where all the food and water and fuel and product you consume and use come from - and where all the waste you generate goes.
We’ve already exceeded global carrying capacity. We are now in “overshoot”. (Visualize a car flying smoothly through the air after having been driven off a cliff.)
Global population is nearing 7 billion. Different theorists using different methods seem to end up agreeing that global carrying capacity is probably about 2 billion. (This assumes some level of social justice and a moderate, low by US standards, standard of living. More is possible if you accept a cattle car / Matrix-esque "life".)
In any case, we will get to that much-lower-than-7-billion number the hard way (wars, famine, disease, and their accompanying losses of environmental quality, freedom, and social justice) OR the less hard way (immediately and drastically reducing our population voluntarily). Yes, all of us, yes, everywhere. There is no scenario anywhere in which population growth is a "good thing" long term.
Yes a drop in population would cause problems, but none of those problems are as big as the problems, suffering, and environmental collapse that is certain to occur if we don’t.
It’s too late for any “us” vs “them” arguments or any belief that national boundaries will do much to help anyone in the long run. This is a global issue with local and nation-state consequences. For example, immigration is a consequence of overpopulation, not a cause of it. Likewise, global climate change is not impressed by national boundaries.
One of the key factors in this scenario is also our sense of time. This is a slow motion crash that requires immediate action, a bit like trying to steer a supertanker that's on a crash course by putting in consistent input over a multi year time frame, and the one effective input is for all of us everywhere to stop making babies. The supertanker analogy is also apt because it was the "one time gift" of oil that allowed us to get this far out on a limb, and peak oil has already happened.
No technological / "alternative energy" options have the capacity or can be ramped up fast enough to avoid major global calamity. That isn't to say we shouldn't do them. Aggressively shifting to alternative energy is necessary, just not sufficient.
As for God, I see no evidence that any divine intervention has been, or is going to save us from ourselves.
For more comprehensive analysis of all this I suggest
Approaching the Limits www.paulchefurka.ca
Bruce Sundquist on environmental impact of overpopulation http://home.alltel.net/bsundquist1/
The Oil Drum Peak Oil Overview - June 2007 (www.theoildrum.com/node/2693)
Bandura etc.
http://growthmadness.org/2008/02/18/impeding-ecological-sustainability-through-selective-moral-disengagement/
Albert Bartlett on the exponential function as it relates to population and oil:
http://c-realm.blogspot.com/2008/12/kmo-interview-with-albert-bartlett.html
...and of course the classic "Overshoot" by Catton
First - Bakakarasu misses the point. What profit is there for a man if he gain the whole world, but lose his own soul? My soul is worth more than my standard of living. This (I believe) is the point of Kevin's original blog post. If we really care about people we should be more concerned about their souls than about their standards of living.
Second, & much less important, I think that the argument that Bakakarsu makes that the earth is already overpopulated is demonstrably bogus. The reason that people in Burundi are starving is not because there are not enough resources to support them, but because evil men in that area destroy the resources before they can be used. There is, & for the forseeable future will be, plenty of resources to feed everyone on earth - if everyone on earth would choose to live by God's rules instead of doing what was right in their own minds.
But let me end by reiterating my original statement - the main concern of Christians should be for the souls of men.
Well said Scott. Thanks for expressing the point so well.
I agree with what Scott said as well. This is a political argument that has been going since the 60's. I heard a fellow college teacher stating similar concerns about population during a class. I did my research and talked with him about later. He had no idea about the facts. He had just heard that it was a doomsday problem and repeated it--in class!
Take a look at a book called "The Population Bomb" by Ehrlich. It used the same arguments to predict that the world would be devastated by increased population--in the 1980's! Turns out the pop. grew faster than he predicted and somehow we all made it.
I believe that the issue is freedom. Where people are free increased population is an opportunity for development and increases in standard of living. But where there is no freedom there must be rationing. God help us. It looks like we're headed down that path ourselves.
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