Overpopulation

 

I’ve been exposed to a lot of wisdom during my life, and I’ve spent a lot of time worrying about the world's problems. Ever once in a while I come up with a really good idea, only to discover that lots of other people have figured it out before, and have expressed it much better than I. The posts about my cousin Steve’s preference for ambivalence and earning your oxygen are examples. 

Most of my great ideas are just common sense, or go along with conventional wisdom, but lately I’ve been reminded of an idea that is not popular, and actually goes against conventional wisdom. I first heard it from my mother when I was a small child. She said “there’s just too many people in the world.” 

She was a social worker and saw a lot of abuse of the welfare system. That may have colored her opinions. 

It seems plain to me, every time I go out in public, which is less often since I’ve retired, there’s so many people. They’re lined up at the grocery store. The roads are congested with cars, even when there’s not a traffic jam. Apartments are jammed together, and still there’s not enough of them, so homeless people are living out in the cold, in tents, without jobs, or enough food, and I don’t even live in a heavily populated area. Many people in the world are suffering from lack of space, food, and other resources, and that leads to disease, starvation, and social unrest. 

There’s a dark cloud of smoke over every city, from the burning of fossil fuels. That was a problem at the Olympics in Beijing because the air was so polluted the athletes couldn’t breathe. Animals are becoming extinct and forests are being cut down. Global warming is leading to wild fluctuations in the weather, melting of the polar ice caps, and rising sea levels which will gradually sink many island communities and coastal areas. 

It seems obvious to me that this is all due to overpopulation. There’s too many people.  We’re contaminating the world and depleting our resources. What amazes me is that no one seems to be willing to confront the problem. Every night the weather man reports on  the warming temperatures, the increase in droughts, tornadoes, hurricanes and reminds us that we’re burning too many fossil fuels. International bodies have been formed to come to agreements  on switching to renewable energy sources, to commit to goals for becoming carbon neutral. Nations negotiate to settle internal and external disputes caused by overcrowding without actually naming it as the cause. Multiple organizations provide food and shelter for the hungry and homeless. We donate money to keep the elephants and the gorillas and the polar bears from becoming extinct because humans are encroaching on their habitat. 

At the same time there is a lot of opposition to any type of population control. Religious groups are almost unanimous in opposing birth control. Economists theorize that economies must grow to be healthy. They worry about Japan and Europe which have declining populations. We were horrified when China limited the growth of families. 

Studies have shown though that population control works. In overpopulated countries couples often have more children so that there will be someone to take care of them when they’re old.  However when women are given access to birth control they are freed up to work and be productive and the economy benefits. 

I don’t understand it. There seems to be a taboo against attributing our problems to overpopulation. Is it religious, cultural? I’m not saying our problems would be over if we had less people, but I think they would be a lot easier to solve.