Via this Treehugger post, I found a brilliant article entitled Too Many People, Too Much Consumption. I find myself wanting to quote much of the article, so I’ll settle on an excerpt from the opening:
Over some 60 million years, Homo sapiens has evolved into the dominant animal on the planet, acquiring binocular vision, upright posture, large brains, and — most importantly — language with syntax and that complex store of non-genetic information we call culture. However, in the last several centuries we’ve increasingly been using our relatively newly acquired power, especially our culturally evolved technologies, to deplete the natural capital of Earth — in particular its deep, rich agricultural soils, its groundwater stored during ice ages, and its biodiversity — as if there were no tomorrow.
The point, all too often ignored, is that this trend is being driven in large part by a combination of population growth and increasing per capita consumption, and it cannot be long continued without risking a collapse of our now-global civilization.
The main point of the article is that we, as a global civilization, need to have open discussion about population growth and its inevitable impact on Earth’s ecosystem. It points out several things that we have done wrong (such as building cities that pave over the most fertile land), how our thinking drives us to continue doing wrong (such as our reliance on consumption to drive the economy), and suggests that it might still be possible for us to save ourselves if we change. But if we fail to adapt our behavior then we will fall prey to the underlying homeostatic principles that govern ecosystems.
Sadly, the human animal is terrible at intentional change. That is, identifying some undesired truth about themselves and then changing their behavior, perspective, and mind. Of the people I know best, there are only a few that are any good at this and they seem to approach it from a religious angle. Given that their religions explicitly encourage population growth it seems unlikely that they would identify with the goals outlined by the authors of this article. And from a human perspective, imposing limits on childbirth goes against what evolution has distilled in us. The powerful emotional pain associated with being unable to give birth tears partners apart. Just imagine what it would do to a government.
So what can we do? Nuclear power seems like a better option than petroleum, but clearly it has its own limitations. Solar and other forms of power may help, but power isn’t our only issue. Maybe we need to farm off-planet and import food from space. Or if we’re going in that direction, perhaps we should just accept that we are the alien invaders described commonly in science fiction. We should spread into space, find suitable environments and/or seek to use terraforming technology. Hell, maybe we could find other alien species and eat them.
At my age, given the state of today’s medical technology, I might just be alive as the Earth reaches its limit. I’m curious (excited even) to see whether we can evolve intentionally, whether we become an extra-terrestrial species, or whether we slide into the dystopian future that seems to loom ahead. Or maybe all of the above…
