The Population Problem--Again

The following problems all have one thing in common:

1. Extinction of plant and animal species on land
2. Depletion of the oceans' fish due to overfishing
   
3. Air and water pollution
4. Demand for energy that has consequences such as oil spills
5. Global warming, which in turn is caused by

• Rainforest destruction
• Greenhouse gas emissions

All these things are ultimately caused by, and are being made worse by, TOO MANY PEOPLE. More people means more energy used, more pollution and more trash created as our waste, and more land used for housing, shopping centers, etc.

The human species has been too successful on this planet, at the expense of other species. We are crowding out other species because we are destroying habitat to create human homes and farms. We are making the planet uninhabitable because of our waste products.

The world's population was less than 2 billion in 1920. Forty years later, in 1960, it had grown by 50%, to 3 billion. After another forty years (2000) it had doubled to 6 billion.* So the rise is exponential. Can anyone see the danger here?

We can't blame the very populous countries like China and India. China has limited its families to having only one child and India has made progress in limiting its population growth.

We can't blame African or South American countries.

People in America feel that, if they can afford to do so, they should have all the children they want. And they feel we have plenty of space in America.

This is not so. Even American population growth has its consequences. Yesterday's U.S. farms are today's shopping malls and subdivisions. We are straining water resources in much of the West. For example, Los Angeles' water demand for years now has meant that that city essentially steals water from lakes and rivers far to the north, and these lakes and rivers are drying up because their water is piped to Los Angeles. Other desert cities like Las Vegas also have to have their water—a lot of it, in the case of Vegas—brought from far away.

Also, every American added to the world's population places a greater strain on the world's ecosystem than a human anywhere else, because nowhere else in the world—not even in Europe—do people consume as much energy—as much of everything—and create as much waste as an American does. America, with just 5 percent of the world's people, uses 25 percent of the world's resources.

A fundamental change is needed in how we view human fertility. We must stop congratulating parents when they have seven or six or five or even four children. From the standpoint of the welfare of the planet, such uncontrolled fertility is downright immoral, and we need to begin to view it that way and exercise "social control" (if not law, as in China) to discourage over-reproduction. I feel the government should stop incentivizing the bearing of children as it does with the current income tax deduction. At least the deduction should apply only to the first one or two children.

Of course we also need to have the Catholic Church stop discouraging birth control. An optimistic sign is that, in some areas of South America, women may defy both their husbands and the Catholic Church and travel great distances to get family planning advice.
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* Source: Wikipedia, s.v. world population.

Update, November 25, 2011
Predictions now call for another billion people (to 8 billion, from the 7 billion reached very recently) to be added by the year 2024. Of course this, like any prediction, is based on a certain scenario, certain assumptions. It is actually not a worst-case scenario and in fact assumes a decrease in the world-wide fertility rate.

Population increases not only because of the number of births but also because of increasing life expectancy.

As to the Catholic Church and contraception, here are some interesting statistics for the current use of contraception by religious group:
Evangelicals, 74%
Mainstream Protestants, 73%
Catholics, 68%

So, the notion seems to be correct that a majority of Catholic women in the US (and this would hold for other developed countries) ignore their church's teachings on birth control. However, note that the number is still lower than for other religious groups. And, if I had statistics for heavily Catholic countries such as those in Latin America, I'm confident that they would show that the rate of use of family planning methods is lower in those countries.

Only 2% of Catholic women use "natural family planning (periodic abstinence, temperature rhythm, and cervical mucous tests)," according to statistics reported by Population Connection. This finding is reasonable since those methods are not very effective.

Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein