I’ve been watching the coverage on the earthquake crisis in Haiti this evening, which makes one aware of the dire straits of the country even without this new disaster – poverty, disease, deforestation. It’s really a depressing state of affairs. It puts me in mind of something I’ve been thinking about more and more since I retired six years ago and began to do more world traveling. Our discussions of global warming or the related issue of dependence on fossil fuels focus on things like renewable energy sources, fuel efficient automobiles, new as of yet undreamed of technologies. But we don’t talk much about the most basic of things – population control. Living in the U.S. where we are so well appointed, even in the midst of a big financial crisis, our view of things is skewed by our fortunate circumstances. But if you go where I’ve been lately [China, Peru, Mexico, Egypt, Kenya, Tanzania], one’s perspective changes dramatically.
There are simply way too many human beings in the world already, and the numbers are rising geometrically. Cities like Beijing, Mexico City, Chung King, Cairo, Nairobi, are clogged with smog, traffic, and oppressive overcrowding. And the left hand side of that graph above is ominous. For example, Haiti has a fertility rate approaching 5 and an infinitesimal GDP. This, to me, is the central problem of the world right now – population control. It doesn’t matter how small we make our cars or how well we harness the wind if we don’t actively control population growth. And as the graph above shows clearly, it’s the poorest countries that are breeding like rabbits, compounding their own problems at a suicidal rate. The very idea that our government discouraged birth control for the last eight years except for abstinence only programs may be worse than all the other Bu$hCo atrocities combined. Here are a few graphs to ponder related to this issue:
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