Enough is enough already

An Arkansas woman who gave birth to her 17th child in September, 2007, is expecting yet another in January, 2009. For her part, the mother said, she and her husband would love to have more.

The couple claimed that they do not plan pregnancies but instead have let God decide how many children they will have. I have never heard such hogwash in my life. That is about as stupid as some are heard to say, “The devil made me do it.” God has nothing whatsoever to do with planning that woman’s pregnancies. That decision is entirely hers and that of her husband. They could undergo the surgical procedures that would prevent further pregnancies from occurring again. She could take birth control pills and he could use a condom. Instead, they have chosen to overpopulate our already over-populated planet with more of their offspring.

To their credit, at present, they can afford to care for their children. The question that comes to the fore however is; can we as a global society afford to care for that many of their children? If they lived in Ontario where free medical care exists, the costs of delivering their children, medically caring for them as children and later as adults would, in my opinion, put a greater burden on the costs of Ontario that offers free medical care for those who live in that province. Further, they will consume more food than normal families. Their decision to have that many children is most unfair on their part when you consider how many millions of people a year die of starvation.

We as humans have an enormous problem when it comes to the expanding growth of the population of Earth. For most of human history, up to around 10 thousand years ago (generally accepted by scientists, although some place the time a few thousand years earlier) the human population remained stabilized at around 8 to 10 million. Then it began to grow exponentially. By the year 1900, the world population was 1.6 billion. A century later, the population of Earth was estimated to be about 6 billion. As of September 2008, the world's population is estimated to be about 7 billion. The world's population, with its current growth trajectory, is expected to reach nearly 9 billion by the year 2042. This is an average increase of 75 million per year; or about 205,000 per day, 8,500 per hour, 140 per minute and 2 or 3 birth each second.

Two hundred years from now, if some form of birth control isn’t universally accepted, the population of Earth could be as high as 24 billion people. Thus far, there has been approximately 50 billion people born on earth beginning approximately 10,000 years ago. To say that we are experiencing a population explosion; is a gross understatement.

Many claim that our earth can support many more people than expected in the future. But one must ask "How many more?" At what cost in human lifestyles and aggravated environmental problems will humans have to endure?

For example, thousands, mostly children, starve to death every day in different places around the world, especially in the sub-Sahara countries in Africa. Many thousands die every day from disease also. Consider also that as many as 50 million people died during the Second World War. And yet, despite those figures, there are greater numbers of humans born than those lost by hunger, disease and war.

What kind of world are our great-great-grandchildren going to inherit?

Is space colonization an alternative? If so, where could humans go? Can our planet export many millions of colonizers per year, necessary to ease population growth problems and environmental problems on our planet? Even if that could come about, the only place humans could survive on is Mars since there is water there and from water, one can make air which could become breathable if nitrogen could be included. Of course, everyone living on Mars would have to live in domed cities as not enough air could be created to cover the entire planet. Colonization to other planets is out of the question, The other planets in our solar system are inhabitable and the others around other stars are unreachable.

I believe that humans would be more successful in supporting themselves on our planet by expanding the areas where food can be grown. At present, that is a real problem.

The land surface of Earth is 150,000,000 square kilometres which equals 57,500,000 square miles. Surface land accounts for 30% of the Earth’s surface. The percentages of Earth's land surface can be divided into five different types: 20% covered by snow, 20% are mountains, 20% dry land such as deserts, 30% is good land that can be farmed and 10% of the land doesn't have any topsoil. This means that the only amount of arable land on our planet is approximately 45 million square kilometers or 28 million square miles. Each square mile has 640 acres therefore there are six million, six hundred and eighty-nine thousand acres of arable land on Earth. This not mean however that all of that land is actually used for growing vegetables, fruit, grain etc or used for feeding farm animals however I think I am safe in saying that that a great portion of it is used in this manner.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that in many mountainous areas on our planet where the mountains are not steep, people have for centuries grown food on man-made ledges that are built in some cases, right to the top of the mountains. When my wife and I traveled through Peru in 2005, we saw many of its mountains with such man-made ledges on them. Many of the ledges however were not being used. I have no idea as to why that was so.

The water area on Earth is approximately 361,800,000 square kilometres or 224,800,000 square miles which represents about 70% of total surface area of the oceans and lakes etc. Most of the water on Earth is in the oceans. The oceans have a surface area of about 361 million square kilometres (139,400,000 square miles), an average depth of about 3,730 m (12,230) ft, and a total volume of about 1,347,000,000 cubic kilometres which is 322,280,000 cubic miles.

These waters have a breakdown of five different categories: oceans, rivers, lakes, groundwater and ice. As an essential part of our daily diet, water is vital for the survival of our ecosystem. The world's oceans comprise of 97.3% of the total water on our planet and consists of 4 oceans: Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, and the Arctic. The current range for the volume of the world's oceans is from 1.3 billion cubic kilometers and it will still get larger and larger as time passes because of the melting of the polar caps. Edible fish and other marine life flourish in the oceans although some fish stocks are being depleted as the years go by.

The average human adult eats in one year, approximately, 1,154 pounds of vegetables, 1,136 pounds of dairy foods, 694 pounds of meat and fish, 34 pounds of poultry and 598 pounds of fruit --- for a whopping two and a half tons of food. In terms of weight, that is equivalent to eating an African white rhinoceros in one year. If the average adult lives 72 years, then that would mean that each adult eats 175 tons of food from the time he or she is 18 until they reach the age of 72. In terms of volume, that would fill 6.67 cubic yards per ton times 175 tons which would amount to 1,167 cubic yards during the 54 years the adult was eating food. It would take 4.37 box cars with a 40-ton capacity in each to place all of that food in those box cars for one adult during his or her life time. There are 305,000,000 adults currently living in the United States. If they all live to 72, they would consume over 669 thousand box cars filled with food during those years of their lives. With each box car being 40 feet, the train would be 4,497 miles (7,237 km) in length.

That is an enormous amount of food and considering the fact that I haven’t included the children of today and the fact that many children are also becoming adults every day, the food consumption in the USA is enormous. Consider what the food consumption in India and China is when you consider that each of those two countries have over a billion people currently living in them. Then add those figures and the U.S. figures with the food consumption with the rest of the world and you will understand why we as human beings and those who will follow us, are and will be facing a food shortage in the future

China has taken great strides to reduce its population by ordering that each couple can only have one child. If they have more, they are subjected to sanctions. In one sense, this is a good idea. Of course, if their child dies, the couple can have another child. Because most couples appear to want only boys, when girls are born, thousands of these newborn babies mysteriously die or are lost or whatever.

Pope Benedict XVI has stupidly declared that using condoms, birth control pills and abortions are sinful so those methods of birth control are not available to millions of his followers who foolishly adhere to those forms of church dogma and for this reason, millions of unwanted new births will continue to increase our already overpopulated planet.

Since it appears that we can’t slow down the growth of the population of our planet, (and the couple in Arkansas are of no help) we must find ways to feed everyone currently on Earth and those that follow us in the generations to come. This can be done by increasing the fish stocks in our oceans, seas and lakes, and by creating more arable land than is presently being used. It also means stopping the urban sprawl that is slowly creeping into farmlands. If steps to do this are not undertaken, many people on Earth in the future may die of starvation soon after they are born or alternatively, humans will have to build colonies in space to reduce the population on our planet. Both prospects are not desirable at all.