Letters to the Editor
-
It's interesting what it's hardest to imagine
I haven't read the book yet, but it sounds interesting. What's already interesting is to see what the most popular and least popular ways are to describe the potential results of overpopulation and overconsumption.
The most popular thing is to say that we are "endangering the Earth," implying that our environmental degradation could actually eliminate all life on the planet. As this book points out, that's really unlikely.
The second most popular thing seems to be to say we are "endangering our species," implying that all the billions of people, down to the last person, will die if we carry on with our polluting ways. This makes for an interesting thought experiment-- and I bet this book is a good read. But it also seems unlikely-- even in the worst imaginable disaster scenarios (nuclear winter, really bad global warming) won't there be a few ingenious and/or lucky people in some part of the world that is less affected, who survive? People are both numerous and crafty; somebody will make it.
Which brings us to the least popular, but most likely, result of severe environmental degradation: the fall of modern civilization, and its replacement by other cultures who would then see us primarily as the foolhardy architects of the largest die-off in human history.
Why is it harder to imagine this, than to imagine the end of the Earth itself?
-
Wild Populations Vs. Domesticated Populations
Humans in the wild, like all animals populate at rates necessary to maintain their genetic diversity. Each individual animal will move out of territory that is over populated and attempt to maintain their genetic diversity in what ever nitch they can find.
The only thing that has ever been shown to limit the fecundity of animals is domestication. Limiting mating opportunities and selective breeding results in breeding simply to maintain the population. Once an animal is domesticated competition and thusly fecundity is controlled.
Human domestication (living in cooperative city environments) uniformly leads to an overall reduction in human population.
If we seek preservation of "wild areas" the only certain method to acheive this without massive war, opression, and genocide is through mass modernization and industrialization of the people of the world.
Once individual human life is ensured with shared longevity the need for competition drops, and thusly the need for overpopulation to ensure survival disapears. The poor need multiple children to ensure their genes are carried forth, the rich (see working class industrialized domesticated humans), certain that their children are desirable enough have limited need for extra.
-
Sara Teasdale, meet Kern & Hammerstein
Their "Old Man River" expresses similar sentiments to her poem (and this book, etc.) in that Nature, in all her glory and ugliness, will "keep rolling along" despite the presence or absence of the human race. Genesis tells us that we were made to control and subdue the earth, yet earth keeps fighting back. The wages of original sin, I suppose.
-
Richard Pryor's take on the world without us
Does anyone remember the Richard Pryor routine where he talks about this? Is it available somewhere? He talks about visiting Pompeii and realizing that the earth doesn't care at all: it is *us* that is in trouble, not it.
-
Conflicting messages in Genesis
God in Genesis may have instructed man to have dominion over the earth, but he also very clearly commanded Noah to save every species.
-
In cities is the preservation of wildness
>>If we seek preservation of "wild areas" the only certain method to acheive this without massive war, opression, and genocide is through mass modernization and industrialization of the people of the world.
Yes! The book 101 Ways to Help Birds says, "Henry David Thoreau wisely understood that 'In wildness is the preservation of the world.' But on a planet populated with billions of humans, almost three hundred million right here in the United States, in cities is the preservation of wildness."
-
A Spiritual Awakening
By 'allowing' our minds to regret what has occurred, and fret about what hasn't we leave the moment. This creates a state of being unaware of our surroundings. This is the dilemma of modern mankind. We race through our lives, not taking the time, the essential time to be in the moment. As a result our minds are constantly transmitting instead of receiving. If we receive, we learn to live in harmony, if we transmit, we learn to conquer.
To save our planet, and the future of the human race will take a spiritual (NOT RELIGIOUS) awakening.
In this respect, which is the most crucial to long term survival, the non-ego animals have it down.
-
You all have to read more science fiction
Seriously.
-
@ David L. and Fender
Hey, we have an adopted child from Guatemala, and I'm both as concerned as you are about the overpopulation problem and completely at ease with the notion of brown-skinned, non-blue-eyed people taking over the planet (especially if they're even half as good-looking, charming and intelligent as our little girl).
But controlling overpopulation is not easy, and it's not entirely attributable to either racism or religious proscriptions against birth control. Remember that the one society that has actually tried this on a large scale is China, with the one-child policy. Doesn't anyone remember how the rest of the world assailed this as the most draconian, awful thing ever in the history of mankind? I thought it was intriguing, myself, but look at the long-term impact of this policy:
1. Two parents for every one child eventually means twice as many old people to be taken care of as young, able-bodied, wage-earning individuals to take care of them. You think Social Security's in trouble now, try carrying out a one-child policy in this country and see where it gets you 40-50 years down the road.
2. A variety of traditonal cultural norms (NON religious) favoring boys over girls, have resulted in (a) the widespread abandonment of Chinese infant girls (those who have not been adopted by infertile white couples in the West are still languishing in orphanages); and (b) a nation with 40 million more men than women, now entering their mid-20s and desperately looking for a spouse.
3. Rich people pay the government a "fine" in order to have an extra child so that they can have at least one boy; meanwhile, poor people either abandon their little girls or try to scrape by with only one daughter to care for them in old age.
I'm not saying we can't control the population, I'm just saying that imposing such a solution across a wide variety of different cultures and economic and social needs can have a wide variety of side effects you could not possibly have imagined.