our
untouchable population problem
by R T Douse
Some time this year our planet Earth will become home to seven billion
human souls. Realization of that
fact has set this former real estate appraiser to
remembering such basics as “total digestible units”
and
“carrying capacity of the land.”
These two concepts need to be recognized by everyone because, when you
really stop to think about it,
we are not too unlike cows on the
range! By that I mean our most basic needs are met by having
sufficient available fresh water and a plentiful food supply.
Unfortunately fresh water is already
in short supply in many parts of
our planet, and adequate food has already become a luxury for
almost
one billion of us.
Occasionally we will hear concerns expressed about “peak
oil,” that seemingly far away time when
oil and gas will become
precious to us and we will be forced (horrors!) to conserve the
stuff. Actually,
the time for conservation is already well
past. Did anyone pay attention when it flashed by?
Not
really.
Ever hear of “peak water?” I’ll
bet you
haven’t. But the fact is, good old fresh water is
disappearing
even faster than our remaining fossil fuel supplies.
With fresh water’s demise; so goes our food.
This might not
be perceived as much of a problem by the richest 1%, but the rest of us
will be in real trouble.
Before long, even the rich among us will
begin to suffer. Money loses its value when there’s
no
bread and milk to buy, and there’s not that many digestible
units
in even a large stack of hundred dollar bills.
To paraphrase a
famous patriot, “We shall all starve together, or we shall
certainly all starve separately.”
Okay, the word was
“hang,” but it doesn’t matter.
The result would
be the same.
Since it is well known that all major aquifers are being depleted at
alarming rates and there is now ample
evidence the glaciers many
countries depend on for their water are in retreat, one would think
people and
their elected representatives would be take notice.
This is a problem occurring right now with consequences
for us
all. And, it is a problem even the most skillful climate
change
deniers among us would find it
difficult to deny. It’s not
so much about climate change; it’s about human mismanagement
of
our planet.
It is not only fresh water we are losing. Our oceans are
losing
the proper pH necessary for corals and
plankton to exist. With
oceans on track to become too acidic to support life at the most basic
level
of the oceanic food chain, all fisheries will suffer. All
this is slowly but surely happening this very minute.
If the
human species are to continue, we must recognize what is happening and
why, and try to take
what remedial action we can in whatever time we
have left.
The root cause of this pending catastrophe is over population of the
human genome. There are simply
too many of us for the available
real estate to handle right now, and we continue to increase our world
population at the present rate of about 220,000 each and every
day. Sure, we can try to make more fresh
water for people by
building desalinization plants. We can try growing more food
with
petrochemical
fertilizer but, at best, this simply pushes the solution
down the road. And, it actually makes matters worse
by making
more room for more of us on planet Earth.
This is a huge problem that confronts our civilization. It is
occurring now. I certainly don't have the
answer to it, but the
problem must be addressed. My recent novel offers one
suggestion, but although it
it presently scientifically doable, it's not a choice humanity would
welcome. Our population problem may
well be the “Third
Rail” for any party conversation, but it’s a
conversation
we must have, and soon!
We must put aside petty bickering about
who’s to blame, and work together to find a rational and
moral
solution. Waffle time is up!#
R T Douse is the author of the contemporary science fiction adventure
story,, “The Next
– an omen,”
available from
Amazon.com in either paperback or for your Kindle.
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