There is irrefutable evidence that the human race is racing headlong to oblivion due to its unbridled growth.

Archaeologists have determined that homo-sapiens appeared first in the southern part of the African continent about 160,000 years ago, and after 100,000 years of perilous migration, our ancestors reached Europe 60,000 years ago. After another 50,000 years had passed, agriculture began.

That was just 10,000 years ago, following the final collapse of the last ice age, and Earth now appears to be in the early stages of the 5th (current) warming phase indicated in the Vostok ice core, which, like the previous four, could span thirty thousand years, with many fluctuations. Those are very long times in terms of a personal life span but they're mere blips in the life of the planet.

About 58,000 years after humans appeared in Europe, while North America was busy with the war of 1812-14, the world's population had grown to One Billion People.

                  That’s Billion, with a ‘B’, a large number of people indeed.
                  But it was a long, slow climb from a perilous beginning, for
                  those 58,000 years, before the Earth’s population reached
                  that One Billion level.

A mere 120 years later… in 1930, while we were wrestling with the great depression, the number of people in the world had doubled to Two Billion

A scant 45 years after that…in 1975, while the OPEC oil crisis held us in its thrall, and notwithstanding the slaughter of millions of people in the Second World War and the Korean and Vietnam wars, the world’s population had again doubled, to Four Billion and the rate of growth continues to accelerate relentlessly.

Just 24 Years later, In 1999 while we were focused on Y2K the population had increased by another 50% to Six Billion

                  That was 58,000 years for the First Billion; 120 years
                  for the second billion; 45 years for the next two billion
                  and 24 years for two more, to increase the population
                  to Six Billion People.

                                    In 2007, it reached Seven Billion.

Less than twenty years from now, when babies born this year will be young adults the world will be inhabited by Nine Billion People, and when our offspring are middle-aged in 2050, the population of their world will be about Ten Billion

Meanwhile, billions of people, especially those in under-developed countries, unwittingly follow the command that God is said to have given to Noah and his sons, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth" (Genesis 9: verse 1:) That command may have been relevant in Noah’s time, but its need is long past. Human beings, like rabbits, have demonstrated a devastating propensity to multiply exponentially without being ordered to do so.

But it's not just "We the People." The issue is compounded by our wants and needs; by our insatiable consumption and by our transportation toys that swell in number along with us..

In 1910 there were about 8000 Cars in the world. By 1967 that number had swollen to more than 200 Million Cars and Trucks. In 2007 it jumped to 600 Million and is predicted to double to 1.2 Billion Cars and Trucks By 2030

But it's not just people and cars! In 1960 there were 76,500 Aircraft in the USA. By the turn of this century (in the year 2000) that had grown by a multiple of 3 to 220,000 Aircraft in the USA alone

                  So… By 2025 We can look forward to a population of
                  Nine Billion People; more than One Billion Cars and
                  Trucks and more than A Quarter of a Million Aircraft
                  in the world, plus power-boats, snowmobiles etc.

By our unbridled proliferation, our voracious appetites and our unbounded exploitation of knowledge and technology, we are on an inexorable march to make the Earth unfit for human habitation. We eat everything we can devour, far beyond our needs. We gnaw away at the Earth, extracting its minerals, and leave behind a trail of waste. We tear down the forests and reshape the wood for shelter, leaving barren land behind. We suck oil and gas out of the Earth’s innards, burn it, and mindlessly pump the residue into our air and water. And as we increase in number, the tempo of this ravenous excess likewise increases.

                  Like worms in an apple, we are destroying the host that
                  supports us, yet some among us myopically focus on CO²
                  as the villain and turn a blind eye to the root cause, of the
                  threatened disaster; the spiraling growth in population.

Meanwhile, growth, globalization and productivity are universal mantras in business and industry. As technology advances, more and more stuff is being produced by fewer and fewer people. Tens of thousands of employable people are idled almost daily and replaced by robots and computers. It’s conceivable that in time, those who make computers and robots will be the only people gainfully employed. Poverty, idleness and frustration will afflict most others.

Along the way, as our numbers swell and the competition for food and living space becomes more intense, we’ll inevitably stumble into an ever-increasing succession of racial, religious and inter-continental wars. We’ll fight to survive by killing each other, even as we continue to reproduce.

How long can the Earth sustain this madness? Already, in a churn of emigration and immigration, people are scurrying from country to country to find living space (never mind parking space for their cars) yet the next doubling of the population will occur within the lifetime of our children. In the face of that mushrooming mass of people, changing light bulbs to save energy is either the trivial product of small minds, or ludicrous political posturing, or both.

Of course, our planet will not become a barren wasteland in the next thousand years, with or without global warming; for in the time frame of the solar system, a thousand years is like a flea bite on an elephant’s rump.

                  But as sure as night follows day, when the Earth can no
                  longer support its swollen load of human flesh, our race
                  will expire and the planet will continue without us, perhaps
                  for millions of years on the long journey to its ultimate end..

Panic mongers who threaten us with a seven metre surge in sea level and searing temperatures thousands of years in the future, seemingly fail to realize that the population explosion will render their predictions irrelevant. The human race will almost certainly succumb to extinction long before the passing of those many thousands of years, so no one will be here to know or care.

If benign acceptance of unbridled population growth persists, it can only reinforce the unpleasant truth that the world’s future faces less risk from CO² or from nuclear energy that we fear, than it does from sexual energy that we cherish, and that men take pills to prolong.

                  If we stay on our present course and continue to do what
                  comes naturally, we will simply fuck ourselves into oblivion
                  and the Earth will spin on merrily without us.

Certainly, we must give thought to the threat from increasing CO² and other Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere, but we face terminal peril if we ignore the greater threat posed by the sheer weight of numbers in our burgeoning population; or if we lack the political and collective will to do something about it.

The Earth can support only a finite number of people, so if we allow the population explosion to continue unchecked, over-population will ultimately write finis to the human race.

                              Will we ever find the political courage to
                                reverse the Population Explosion?

Read On         

Ch. 6        
Alpha and Omega        

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