Is the human race truly in peril? In the light of all of the above, I fail to understand how anyone can conclude that we do not have a problem especially when one considers that fact that the world's population is expected to increase by fifty-percent in the next fifty years; but the situation is far worse than that. All biological systems, irrespective of whether or not we are talking about a lake, a person, a river, a plant, an area of the planet or the entire planet, carry on life processes which include ingesting material, using it in some manner, and ejecting unwanted byproducts. Biological systems, by their nature, are resilient and have the ability to ingest varying amounts of pollutants or poisons without harm. However, each biological system has a finite capacity in this regard. There are three stages of pollution evident in biological entities; the green or healthy stage, the yellow or cautionary stage, and red or lethal stage.
In the green stage of pollution, pollutants are introduced into a biological system and are broken down into harmless chemicals and/or are expelled by the system's natural cleansing processes. The overriding characteristic of this stage is that pollutants are introduced at a rate where there is no net buildup within the system. The cleansing processes function fast enough to handle the influx of unwanted material.
In the yellow stage of pollution, pollutants are introduced into a biological system at such a rate that the cleansing processes cannot cope with the influx and a backlog of unwanted material begins to accumulate. The overriding characteristic of this stage is that if the rate of ingestion is slowed or stops, the biological system, of its own accord, will return to the green stage and no irreversible damage has occurred. However, if the influx continues, then this will drive the biological system into the red stage of pollution.
In the red stage of pollution, the yellow stage has persisted for so long that the resulting buildup of pollutants destroys or alters the biological systems natural cleansing processes. The overriding characteristic of this stage is that permanent damage has been done to the system that is irreversible unless someone or something external to the system takes action. The red pollution stage is critical for a biological system, because without outside intervention, death is assured.
If a person ingests poison, the correct antidote will cure him. If a lake becomes choked with algae and all life in it dies, the algae can be removed, the water treated, and living things reintroduced. These actions will restore the lake to its original vitality. If man acts in a timely manner and takes the proper corrective action, he can save almost all troubled biological systems from destruction. However, what if the biological system we are talking about is the world's oceans, or its atmosphere, or the entire planet itself. What will man be able to do to save himself when the entire planet enters the red pollution zone?
No intelligent person with a smattering of knowledge about what is going on in the world today believes that our planet is presently in the green pollution zone. On the other side of the coin, very few people believe our planet is in the red or lethal pollution zone. Therefore, it should be clear that most people would agree that we are in the yellow pollution stage; the real issue being how close are we to the red stage? I think the answer to this question is that we are too close for comfort and that we should be doing everything possible to reverse the direction we are heading. Furthermore, I also believe that if the population of the world doubles in the next fifty years, as predicted, we are doomed. This being the case, what can we do to save ourselves? It may already be too late to do that, but the only hope we have is to radically change how we think and how we behave.
Let's pretend for a moment that this nation has constructed a spaceship to colonize a planet in a distant galaxy which will take several human lifetimes to reach. The number of people sent on this mission would be limited by the physical space available and the spacecraft's biological ability to sustain its population of inter-planetary pilgrims. For survival's sake, the population level of our starship would have to be carefully controlled and the right to procreate indiscriminately would be suspended. Additional children would only be allowed to replace existing travelers who have died. Obviously, these restrictions would be willingly accepted by those brave enough to make such a dangerous journey and if not, those who could not live by such rules would not be allowed to go.
The above scenario is hypothetical, but having landed a man on the moon, the possibility of man colonizing other planets is not something that an educated person of today would judge to be impossible. This being the case, it is self-evident that the number of people on the starship would have to be kept under control so as to not overwhelm the crafts environmental and life support systems. If this is so easy to understand and accept in regard to our starship, why is so hard to understand that we are now at a point on this planet where restrictions on procreation are necessary to ensure our survival? We live on an object we call Earth and planet Earth, in truth, is nothing more than a spaceship we travel on, not to a far off planet, but to a questionable and uncertain future.
The huge rock we live on has everything we need to survive, including mechanisms for dealing with pollution. However, there is a finite amount of everything that is here and a limit to how much pollution our world can process. This means that to survive, we have to limit to how many of us are onboard the rock. Technology and the more efficient utilization of resources may be able to increase the sustainable population limit to some degree, but technology also has its limits and even if we do everything in the most efficient manner possible, a limit to how many people can live here will always be there. The undeniable truth is that if we allow too many of us to live on the rock, it will lose its capability of supporting us and we will die. To think this is not the case and that technology will always bail us out, is absurd. The real issue then, is not whether or not the world has a finite capacity to support the doings of man, but at what level of population will we reach the point of no return.
Presently, the world's population is six billion people. Industrialized nations use the most resources and produce the most pollution. The United States with three percent of the world's population, presently consumes about twenty percent of its resources. This consumption results in a similar percentage contribution to the pollution of our planet. The world is presently in yellow pollution stage and the question is, what stage of pollution will we be in if the other ninety-seven percent of humanity is raised to our standard of living? Is there anyone in their right mind that would hold that this wouldn't put us over the edge?
Scientists have calculated that to be safely in the green pollution zone, with all people enjoying the same standard of living as we have in the United States, world population should be no more that two billion people. Presently we are at three times that number and climbing rapidly. How deep into the yellow pollution zone does being three times over a sustainable level of population put us? Indeed, in consideration of these numbers, isn't it more reasonable to wonder if a population level of six billion people has placed us well into the red pollution zone? After all, aren't we already witnessing the die off of most other forms of life on our planet? Like a canary in mine, doesn't this tell us something?
As stated previously, I am old and do not have to worry about the answers to these questions. However, people younger than me do and unfortunately for them, people are still debating these issues instead of doing something about them. I started this travelogue by telling you that I thought there were two many people in the world. Pollution issues aside, this is also true because of quality of life issues. How good are our lives, when we work five days a week, and spend three hours of that same day trying to get to and from work in traffic jams? Is living the good life, hiding in your home or apartment in a major city because it is unsafe to breathe the air outside? Does life have very much value when it is difficult to find a rural road to drive down without homes lining every stretch of the way?
Beyond any doubt, we are in the yellow or cautionary pollution zone and moving deeper into it. This being the case, it is imperative that we take action now before it is too late. Indeed, if we are truly rational creatures as we so pride ourselves on being, then the prudent thing to have done was to address the problem when we first passed from the green pollution zone into the yellow one. Granted, no one knows when this occurred, so we did nothing when it happened. However, we now know beyond any doubt that we are over the line. To argue that there is no need for alarm or that we can forgo addressing the problem until we get a little closer to the red zone is absurd. But this is what the "naysayers" would have us do. They argue, there is no need for concern, not all scientists agree with these more "radical assessments", and the best thing to do now is nothing. In other words, they hold that if we ignore the problem, there is no problem or it will go away.
Recall if you will our starship and the interplanetary pilgrims aboard it. Would any of them be listened to by the others if they argued that they should allow more births because the yellow pollution zone was not really something that they should be concerned about. Of course not! If someone onboard the ship held that it was wise to allow pollutants to continually build up on the starship, they would be judged to be insane. Furthermore, if someone aboard the starship actually became pregnant when they weren't supposed to, that pregnancy would be terminated irrespective of the person's wishes. Doesn't this make sense and wouldn't this be the way things would be if our starship was a reality? Please understand that I am only making a point here. I do not believe that this draconian action is necessary to save this planet. However, what is necessary is to realize we have a problem and to educate people about what must be done to solve the problem.
We did not act when we entered the yellow pollution zone, not because we shouldn't have, but because no one realized what was happening. We now know what is happening and this being the case, there are no sound reasons for not taking action. To argue otherwise is lunacy and a death warrant.
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