Population, consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions will continue to grow until we either face up to the fact that there are limits on our finite Earth or we are confronted by a catastrophe large enough to turn us from our current course.
I have written about population before. Most mainstream media sources still won’t touch the subject but it finally appears to be a subject worth approaching in some quarters. I have a feeling the “population question” will become more loudly discussed in the future.
Most of us don’t want to worry about population. If we can afford to raise a child, or many children, that should be the end of the discussion. Why should anybody care? I live in, and love, America. In America we are free to make those kinds of personal decisions. I don’t want to think that it is anybody else’s business either.
But there are other concerns if we care to think about ourselves as members of the human race. In fact, living in America means that our babies are going to be using up an enormous share of the resources available to all of mankind. We like to think that we are free to do that too, if we can afford it. If everyone in the world consumed as we do in the U. S., however, worldwide consumption would have to increase by nearly an order of magnitude. It is somebody else’s business I’m afraid.
At some point the unbridled growth in population and the cultural need to consume ever more resources as a mark of the good life will run headlong into the absolute finiteness of our supply of resources. At precisely that point we will have to answer the “population question” or we will be handed the default solution. It would be nice to think that we might find a cultural or social way out of this dilemma. I am not optimistic.
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