I commented in reply to the 3 billion idea that my goal would
be for a population of about 500,000 people (hence this article, since I wanted
to elaborate). This number seems relatively small, and it is. Yet it would also
be a sustainable number, assuming we stopped acting like idiots and behaved as
if we really wanted to help each other, instead of, say, blowing each other
apart with drones, nukes, or genetic engineering (a short list of possibilities,
I realize, but you get the idea).
500 million is the number of people we had around 1,500 A.D.
a mere 500 years ago (rounding off a bit, but reasonably close to what I find from
various respectable sources, a time not long after the fall of Rome and near the
rise of the Roman Catholic Church). At that time, the earth's resources were
relatively intact, as were its ecosystems. Forests rose where deserts now lay
barren, oceans were clean, fish populations were alive and well, untold
thousands or tens of thousands more species of plants and animals graced the
land, air, and water, pollution was virtually unheard of (if the name even
existed), skies were clear, you could drink safely out of virtually any stream,
lake, or river over most of the world, you could hunt for a living the world
over, and so on. Of course there were diseases, wars, man's inhumanity to man
(not to mention women and children), a shorter lifespan due to general lack of
knowledge in medicine, political idiocy, and so on. I personally have no desire
to be teleported back to that time.
But now, with modern communications, a world knowledge base incalculably
larger than it was then, it is not hard to imagine a planet truly "graced with
life." Assuming of course that we are not in an irreversible tailspin from
climate change, radiation, or whatever (an assumption we need to make, if we
don't want to simply die of despair).
The pushers of the big numbers and the notion of having as
many kids as you possibly can, for no scientifically discernable reason, are
the high priests of superstition, also known as religious leaders, who want to
propagate their particular faith through numbers. And there are jokers like
William Buckley (who wrote "The Population Firecracker," in response to Dr. Paul
Ehrlich's "The Population Bomb"), certifiable loonies such as Ann Coulter and
other mouthpieces for "the upper crust," who for some reason think more money and
resource consumption will magically make our lives (or theirs) more worth
living. And there are always politicians and economists, two other
superstitious breeds, who see all growth as good, in spite of existence on a
finite planet.
Yet, I am seriously taking the side of "the big number
folks," though for a different reason and through different means. Namely, that
if we could drop the world population to 500,000, preferably by means of birth
control, vasectomies, safe and sensible sex--as opposed to the general madness
that prevails and permeates most of the world--we just might end up with a
sustainable population, one that could live indefinitely here on earth. (This
would require a revision of thought for many people, such as the idea that sex
is fun in and of itself, and need not be used solely for propagation or expanding
markets.)
If humans somehow make it for another million years, then we
would indeed have reached the goal I suggested in the title, and have allowed
or assisted 500 billion human beings more to come along, stretch their legs,
watch the clouds, follow sensible dreams that might even help other humans,
possibly colonize Mars (if we still felt the need), ward off incoming comets,
and, well, I can't even begin to imagine the beautiful world we could have, the
medicines that might exist, our ability to visit parts of what would be a
unfathomably beautiful planet, not fear for our security and so on. Some people
might even get to follow their bliss! Imagine that.
Of course there would be unforeseeable problems, and we might
eventually make a conscious group decision that the human experiment really isn't
worth it. On the other hand, if we did get that far, we might well improve on
the typical species duration and go way past the average four million years. Last
I heard, we had something like 3 billion years before the sun expands and consumes
earth and everything on it--but if we got even close to that, we could well be
headed toward one of those millions or billions of earth-like planets we now
believe are out there, right in our own solar system.
Thus it is that I say we need more people, lots and lots more,
but we must make a concerted effort to spread them out over time. It isn't hard
either. I had one biological son, for example, and if everyone did just that
(or had none, as many people are doing), our species would start plummeting
toward that 500,000 mark in relatively short time. I'm not as adept at
statistics as I'd like to be, but from what I've read, our numbers would start
dropping dramatically, and the U.N. would have to do their homework all over
again. But that seems a small price to pay for a habitable world that our
species could continue on, and perhaps even earn us the title we've already given
ourselves, Homo sapiens.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
