On this planet earth of ours, as beautiful as it is, problems abound. We have shortages of fresh water, our climate is altering in ways we cannot seem to agree upon, ice caps are dwindling and our breathable air continues to absorb immense quantities of pollution. Those are just the main problems; the media darlings that we frequently hear about but there are so many more. In fact, earths many troubles are a direct result of the highest intelligent life that inhabits it, human beings. Humankind is responsible for these ecological atrocities because we are not able to manage our population in any reasonable manner.
Upon entering the nineteenth century, there was a serious mortality rate for babies and children; so many not achieving adulthood. Gown ups were in just as tough against mortality with epidemics and disease killing them off in the tens of millions, not to mention drought induced famines which took many lives. Occasionally mother earth would hiccup and a nightmarish disaster would ensue from earth quakes to floods killing human’s in masses. Often unheard of illnesses would scour the planet wiping out many people of all ages but it seems the young were always vulnerable. The result of this was a stabilizing effect on the population. The earth was never at risk of running out of her valuable resources in the least.
The United States Census Bureau has estimated that in the year 1 AD, the total global population was approximately one hundred seventy million as compared to the year 1804 when it had been raised to approximately the one billion mark. By 1927, the population had increased twofold to two billion people with the third billion being added just 32 years later in 1959.
From this point in time the population increased by a billion people in each of 1974, 1987 and 1999 to hit the six billion marker. In 2009 we were at a population level of 6.8 billion souls and the projection is that by the year 2050 the world will have reached 9.4 billion people. Compared to an average yearly population growth of about five hundred thousand people per year in 1804, today that figure rises to an astounding eighty million inhabitants each year!
Judging from the previous calculations anyone can see that old mother earth was managing to regulate her population quite well on her own and then we humans started making our presence felt beginning in the 1900’s. We began building flood controls like dams, advances in the medical sciences and pharmaceuticals to fight early childhood mortality and to ward off disease were discovered. More children and infants were surviving into maturity and adults began living longer due to life saving medical procedures and drugs like penicillin and other antibiotics enabling the sick to live on. Human life spans were lengthened quickly with most developed nation’s life expectancy now more than seventy five years and several upwards of eighty two years of age. Imagine, an individual born eighty two years ago surviving today and playing with their grand kids!
At the rate the population is increasing, it will double from today’s level to about 14 billion people by the turn of the twenty second century. It will be nearly impossible to sustain that size of human population based on today’s standards of resource management. The planet cannot sustain all of its people as it is now, so massive changes in efficiency levels of finite resources need to occur for there to be any chance of coping with the massive numbers of people predicted.
Taking a look at this from a different perspective may help. The accepted belief is that if a couple is limited to just two kids, the population will not increase. This simply is not factual since prior to the death of the parents, their offspring will now be having their own two kids and therefore there are now four! Add the elevated life expectancy and many couples will be alive to see their own great grand children – one couple has now created six offspring altogether. That initial populace of two has now reached eight! The simple fact is that since life spans are increasing, so too are the number of generations that continue to live on and in doing so increases the population sharply.
There are some researchers who think that the number of inhabitants will stop rising as the level of literacy and prosperity also rises and the population will stabilize at around the ten billion marker. This kind of thinking is very naïve coming from men of science. The population level will only even out when the amount of births balances with the amount of deaths in that same year. There has been a decrease in the rate of births between the year 2001 and 2009, dropping from twenty two to twenty per thousand people. While conversely, the rate of deaths has dropped from 9 down to 8.2 per thousand during that same time span.
The rate of deaths also takes into account child and infant deaths that will be swiftly reduced because of governments focusing to make it a reality. The amount of deaths are dropping and the birth rate might not match that same decrease. The quantities of reduction births are restricted since yearly about forty million marriages occur with approximately two hundred million unions in that population who are potential parents to be. Last year [2009], the total number of infants born was expected to be more than the one hundred forty million mark.
In the past century there has been amazing progress made in the clinical world resulting in an increase in life expectancy from approximately thirty years to eighty years of age. That trend now appears to be stabilizing somewhat. Nevertheless, humans have begun a new stage in trying to extend life beyond today’s averages. Advances in technology and scientific research means that we are honing in rapidly on organ and body part replacement from stem cell discoveries and biotechnology research and investigation. These breakthroughs are expected to be the next big phase in human development causing a giant leap forward for extended life in human beings. Some believe that the first people to live for two hundred years are already alive now on earth.
That said, though a women could live for two hundred years, this does not mean she will be able to bear children for any longer than she can now. She will still likely be having her first infant at around age thirty. His means that when life expectancy hits the two hundred year range, in all likelihood there could well be seven generations of family alive at the same time. Think of the huge numbers of people this will mean who would be trying to subsist on the planet. We may as well give in to the fact that finding some stability in the rate of deaths corresponding to the number of births will not occur any time soon – not in this century anyway. Our population will only continue to rise until a stable situation is realized.
We need to recognize now and not later that a population crisis is building and we must deal with it in the present rather than in the future when it will be too late. World governments cannot make an y legal sweeping changes in order to manage or regulate the growth of our population; it just would not fly from a political perspective. Point of fact is that many nations lack the population base as it stands to develop economically and socially from an increase in tax base. From the perspective of the average Joe and Jane, much can be done and is in fact underway in the form of social consciousness for a green planet and tree planting, conserving resources and reducing consumption of finite assets.
Who knows how population control will be dealt with on a global scale? Heck, there could be a mass population revolt to promote liberalizing abortion laws, urging one child families, same sex marriage acceptance and even more childless y choice promotion. However it happens, family planning should be an issue that is at the forefront of every nations agenda to create awareness of the looming problems of overpopulation so planning can commence to avert any impending crisis.
Some seem to think that an increase in population will be a windfall for humankind, an advantage rather than a predicament. As mentioned earlier, economies suffer when birth rate decreases and economists warn of financial disaster as demand wanes and profits vanish from industries. Baby making must be reasonably equalized so our economies do not suffer, this is true. A growing population is vital for any nation’s financial feasibility. However, food manufacturing and production might not be adequate to sustain an increased populace and many could starve, culling the herd so to speak. This question remains to be answered, but answer it we must.
One answer might be to submit to and accept that our population will grow unchecked for the next hundred years or so and accept this as fact and embrace it as an advantage. By seeing it as a positive development we can fire up our human resources to manage our earthly resources, food and water in particular, so our ever increasing population will be sustained. We must at once both supervise and alleviate the effect of an ever increasing populace on our worn out mother earth, and quickly.
We absolutely need to curb our current level of abuse so as not to upset the fragile equilibrium of our planet and risk setting off radical alterations in the amount of rain we receive and the climactic differences that could result in chaos on earth. Government must act as if they were mobilizing a war effort to provide support, subsidies and endorsement for alternative energy solutions, water supplies need to be enhanced and protected through harvesting our rainwater and the desalinization of ocean waters. Funding must be provided for research into novel ways of elevating our food production NOW. A lot of these infrastructure ideas will take a few years and some a few decades to culminate in productive earth assets. The sooner our politicians begin to concentrate their attention on the programs the better since time is not our ally in this endeavor. We must act now to avoid any future lack of products and services and to thwart prices from going through the roof and fee gouging to take place.
Our very existence is at stake and dependent on government foresight that will enable an oversized population to avoid famine and starvation. And as individuals we can collectively or singularly make all attempts to heal the damage we have inflicted on old lady earth due to global warming and assist her in dealing with an infestation from so many humans.
Anti Aging, Anti Aging Theories, Health And Aging, Longevity
Wed, Jun 30, 2010
Anti Aging, Anti Aging Theories, Health And Aging, Longevity