Overpopulation Trouble Ahead

Reposted from October 23, 2011

Crowded Earth: World Population set to hit seven billion, "On October 31, the world’s population is officially scheduled to hit seven billion — a rise of two billion in less than a quarter century."The problem is not so much the extraordinary number of humans, but rather how we're managing our Earth's resources.

Naysayers label people who warn of the dire consequences of ignoring nature's warning signs as a bunch of "environmental wackos" who are attempting to subversively "social engineer" some form of political extremism. The facts are however that Earth does not have unlimited capacity.

Think of Earth as a "fish tank" for human life. Because that's what it is. The air we breath is contained by the upper layers of atmosphere. Air can be mucked up faster then Earth can filter pollutants out. Same with water, the land and just about anything else we need to live. We can extract too many minerals and fossil fuels at too fast a rate. It takes Earth millions of years to replenish.

Imagine what happens when you put too many fish in a tank w/o having the proper filtering equipment or enough untarnished healthy fish food. That pretty much is what this Earth is all about when it comes to the fate of us humans on this blue marble container in space we call home. Fish can't survive outside the tank and neither can we.

Another way to think about this is to compare the Earth to a living being. This is the way many ancient cultures did. Inside all of us bacteria thrive. They need our bodies to sustain themselves as much as we need them. W/O a healthy balance between the two, both become sick and die. Ergo the Earth along with it's humans as well.

The problem facing us is NOT so much regarding the number of humans. It is how we use our skills in order to sustain ourselves as our Earthly population grows.

For instance by avoiding building our McMansions & warehouses on once fertile croplands and orchards for the much needed growing of food stuffs in the future.

Another would be by restraining our use of nature's limited energy resources through more efficient equipment design or alternative means or better yet by the combination of the two.

Still others are * Avoid over fishing via less consumption

* Over packaging generates needless garbage
For one, think plastic bottles

* Eat less meat products.
Meat requires 16 lbs of grain just to produce 1 pound of meat.

* Energy efficient lighting
LED's use 1/10th the power a incandescent bulb consumesI could list countless other ways, but those are a few of the top ways we each can reduce our own personal consumption of Earth's resources.

Many will continue to say this is all BS. Call me a 'greenie', but I can not understand how anyone could not apply common logic to all of this. The Earth's ability to refresh itself in order to sustain life is limited. Our ability to repopulate, over use resources and mucky up the air, water and dirt is not. Something has to give.

Whether anyone wants to agree or not, the future will come.. with or without us being part of the equation. One need look no further then the millions of stars where life does not and cannot exist. In the big scheme of things we humans are just not that important to the universe. If we humans don't give a hoot about our own future existence, why should it?

You can argue with me, but you can't argue with scientific fact. We humans and our planet are an abnormality surrounded by a inhospitable 14 billion old universe.

SEE MORE @
National Geographic's series on Earth's billions of people