‘The Elephant in the Room’ – Definition: An important and obvious topic, which everyone present is aware of, but which isn’t discussed, as such discussion is considered to be uncomfortable.
How could the solution be so simple and obvious yet not discussed? Is it somehow taboo to talk about the problem of human overpopulation? Yup! For a politician it surely is and so don’t wait for them to start the discussion for us – talk about an unpopular policy. We, the people, need to start this discussion all over the world – let’s help our leadership steer us in the right direction and stop wasting time with doomed to fail band aids to a list of growing problems. You need not be a liberal, a conservative, a scientist nor anything else to understand the message here and wish to join (free). Anyone able to read this in a language they understand and over the age of say twelve should be able to understand well enough to make their own decision.
First, let’s flip our perspective a bit. The last several decades of fighting pollution, greenhouse gases, deforestation, world hunger, disease transmission, climate change, extinction events and much more have focused on the problems at hand one at a time. How well has this worked out? Are the rain forests better off than they were forty years ago before they got adopted by well-meaning programs designed to save them? Nope. Let’s not create more buzz words for the affects themselves. Let’s not continue dividing our efforts across many programs – you give to the homeless and she gives to cancer research and uncle Joe gives to save the rain forests – we need to unite. Let’s stop reacting to the myriad of problems at hand and instead talk about the unified solution to all – managing the human populations. We must rightsize ourselves to fix most of the ills we are unsuccessfully fighting today. Our global population can be easily and painlessly reduced to a more proper size in a mere 200 years without affecting anyone’s life expectancy and still allowing two children per couple; or one child per individual – but we need to start now, before we grow much larger. Act now and get two children per family! Hurry, this deal won’t last long.
I think I’ll take the. . .Nope!
What would a future world, year 2200AD, with a human population of 2 billion look like? Are we going back to 1930AD so to speak – when we were last at 2 billion? Nope. Why would technology and lifestyle change? We cannot predict the technology or daily life of our descendants two hundred years from now but surely it will be more advanced in many ways. If we succeed then surely the traffic will be reduced and the road rage with it. There are many cities in the world today that have outgrown their infrastructure and need to replace much of it, from housing to waste to congested highways. The amount of money to make those things happen could be put elsewhere and they could instead repair and maintain as best able knowing that the need will dissipate in time. Those wanting more space should be able to find it and those wishing to live in a large metropolis will find that. We can’t think why it would not be more of the same only with the planet’s, and so our, health in a better place and with superior technology than today. In other words, nothing really beyond the obvious. If one wanted to imagine a near future that might be far beyond the obvious then try and imagine 2200AD without population control policies in place and so a human population after another 200 years of exponential growth.