Most creatures on this planet spend their lives fighting for survival, but there is one exception - humans. We consider ourselves to be superior to all the others based on our ability to reason, communicate, invent and have dominion over the rest. However, in direct contradiction to all this cleverness, is our determination to drive ourselves to extinction. It is worth noting that no other creature on the planet shares this death wish. We are supposed to be blessed with foresight, but to all appearances, we aren't using it as we breed ourselves out of existence.
While we turn a global blind eye to population and ignore exponential equations and extrapolation, clever, socially isolated scientists and billionaires are working on ways to send humans to colonize Mars and even further afield. Firstly, would you really want to live on a barren red planet? Secondly, there's no place like home and, thirdly, those scientists and billionaires aren't planning on taking a whole lot of people with them. Can you imagine eight billion people fitting into, say, five to ten space vehicles? No, you can't. The resources required to achieve it, let alone in time, simply don't exist. For such a huge population, the idea is simply unfeasible.
So, let's grow up and stop blaming the burning of fossil fuels, et al, for climate change, shall we? Those fossils fuels are being burned to sustain the energy needs, industry and travel needs of eight billion people. The number of cows farting out methane is also based on the number of them being bred to feed the non-vegetarian humans of this world. Let's also consider the rocket launches, and their associated fuel use, to send satellites into space to feed our addiction to mobile phones and the internet. Aren't you just a little bit amazed that when a news bulletin shows you images of people in war torn parts of Africa (also courtesy of satellites), where the fleeing residents and rebels are equipped with mobile phones even though they are, apparently, poor?
I also see, via news reports, young, healthy, properly clothed (that is, not in rags) African men overloaded in boats crossing the Mediterranean to escape to a better life. Some boats include women and children, of course, and some are genuine refugees, but access to the internet in these countries has, I believe, given the people in these poorer countries, an idealized view of life in Europe and elsewhere. Europe is buckling under the deluge of them. It is one thing to help immigrants, it is quite another to create economic chaos in your own country so that your own people will need to flee it to get work in the long run.
At base, this comes down to massive overpopulation as well. Of course, there is a struggle to survive in many African countries. It's because it is overpopulated and there is also massive corruption. The overseers of such countries may appear on the media in their tailor-made suits or military uniforms loaded with braid and masses of medals, but no one is actually doing much of anything and that is why they are always having coups, which keep Medecins Sans Frontiers busier than a department store on Christmas Eve. Coups also just take power from one bunch of corrupt politicians and gives it to another.
Now, getting people to breed less in Africa is a very big ask and I don't really need to spell out why. China and India really need to get their acts together and address their population issues, by which I mean, they need to make a plan to stabilize their populations. It will require rigorous education programs, incentives and financial disincentives. All countries should do the same thing before it gets to the very unpleasant situation of people killing each other for food.
If you don't see that happening in the next thirty to forty years, remember that you are supposedly the species at the top of the evolutionary scale and you have foresight. I have had people abuse me on Facebook when I have responded to posts regarding population. I have been moderate and have only suggested people think about where the world population is heading, suggesting couples do not exceed three children. No one wants a one child only policy, such as the one that failed in China. I have had women telling me off, saying they can have as many children as they want, it's not my business. Well, yes, it is my business. It's everybody's. They don't live on another planet, and I share this one with them. The worry is that these people, who do not think of the world they are creating for their offspring, are the ones creating more just like them.
I'm not a dictator, I can only suggest that people think. It is circumstances that will eventually dictate to us as a species. Do you think that, if you were invited on one of those rockets taking a very few to a space colony, that there wouldn't be a hierarchy? It sure won't be Utopia and no one is going to let you breed more than the oxygen supply will support.
I know this is a contentious post but I'm just SO tired of hearing about fossil fuels being the reason for climate change. The latter is the follow on, the result, of sustaining a population that really can't afford to grow bigger until it finds a more efficient way to produce energy. Even if we do, do you want to end up living in a high rise such as the one shown on Facebook the other day in Huangzhou, that houses up to twenty-two thousand people? Do you want the whole world to be as crowded as China and India?
Do you want to crowd the planet so much that other species become extinct? Oh, sorry, that's already happening. Do you want to beauty of this exceptional planet to be sacrificed for our not very exceptional and transient species? I'm just grateful I've been able to live here while there is still magnificence left. If you dream of living in a totally artificial environment to the one that you evolved to fit, go for it, but please leave this Earth intact.
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