The global human population is rapidly approaching the firm ceiling for how many of us Mother Earth can sustain. Since the planet’s natural resources are fixed and finite, so is the total number of resource-consuming human beings the Earth can bear at any given time. If we fail to pursue whole-hearted, systematic, and decisive collective action to curb the growth of the human population, then we are headed for a disastrous Malthusian catastrophe of biblically proportioned famines and plagues (not to mention widespread consequent social upheavals) that will wipe out large portions of humanity and cause immeasurable suffering for the survivors.
Two centuries after Thomas Malthus, such dogmas are still treated as unquestionable, axiomatic fact in many circles, even after major developments in agricultural technology and relevant scholarship powerfully challenging such assumptions. In my own denomination, the United Methodist Church, the liberal faction has (so far) successfully fought to keep in place a denominational statement asserting that “the growing worldwide population is increasingly straining the world’s” natural resources, and that “the reduction of current world population growth rates” is now so “imperative” that in their own private family-planning choices, couples “have the duty to consider the impact on the total world community of their decisions regarding childbearing.” Some left-leaning evangelicals have suggest that God’s commandment to humanity to “be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28) no longer applies today, in light of overpopulation talking points such as those noted above. Even Pat Robertson infamously defended the People’s Republic of China’s brutal one-child policy, given fears of that nation’s population becoming “completely unsustainable.”
Beyond the Christian world, powerful organizations and interests (which are often also actively pro-abortion) shape U.S. and global policies, as well as K-12 educational curricula, based on warning against the disasters that will allegedly befall us if we do not dramatically curb population growth.
But is the science really on the side of overpopulation scaremongering?
Here is a new op-ed in the New York Times (of all places!) arguing no. Dr. Erle Ellis, a scholar of biology, geography, and environmental science points out that since prehistoric times, humans have used ever-increasingly sophisticated technologies and social arrangements “to extract more sustenance from landscapes than would otherwise be possible.” He argues that as long as we have appropriate resource management and technological development, we have nothing to fear from overpopulation.
Here is a summary of a recent study finding that if current trends continue, the world population should peak at about 8.7 billion around 2055 and then start declining in “the Big Shrink.”
According to a CNN report, the U.S. birthrate is now at a record low, and has been below replacement level since 2007.
Other developed nations who have had lower birth rates for longer are already facing serious demographic crises. After all, a shrinking active workforce plus an aging population is hardly the best formula for a strong, growing economy.
These are all good things to point out the next time you hear someone treat as established fact the talking points of overpopulation alarmism.
Comment by Pudentiana on September 17, 2013 at 11:11 am
We have not only the problem of a diminishing population, this effects life at both ends. We have become so selfish that we don’t allow humans to be born and we treat those at the end of life as though they can’t leave soon enough. Our minds have certainly become darkened and we are the people who have lost our vision and will perish.