Accents

Cut down overpopulation!

By 2050, my eldest grandchild Jetrone would be 62 years old. By that same year, the United Nations predicts world population will reach 9.2 billion with 5.2 of that coming from the whole of Asia. The Philippines will have 141 million, an increase of 46 million more Filipinos from its present 95 million. I draw attention to these figures to continue what I’ve been advocating for in the past two columns: the use of artificial birth control to cut down overpopulation.

July 11, World Population Day, had come and gone with no visible awareness in the homeland, or so I heard from the folks back home. World Population Day is an international day for every inhabitant of Mother Earth to observe, rather to be zealously concerned about. It was established by the UN Development Programme to mark the planet’s five billionth inhabitant born in Yugoslavia on July 11, 1987. The Earth was then home to five billion people. That was 23 years ago. The number has swelled to alarming statistics that entail serious consideration.

Some problems associated with or exacerbated by human overpopulation are:

Inadequate fresh water for drinking water use as well as sewage treatment and effluent discharge. Some countries, like Saudi Arabia, use energy-expensive desalination to solve the problem of water shortages.

Depletion of natural resources, especially fossil fuels.

Increased levels of air pollution, water pollution, soil contamination and noise pollution. Once a country has become industrialized and wealthy, a combination of government regulation and technological innovation causes pollution to decline substantially, even as the population continues to grow.

Deforestation and loss of ecosystems that sustain global atmospheric oxygen and carbon dioxide balance; about eight million hectares of forest are lost each year.

Changes in atmospheric composition and consequent global warming.

Irreversible loss of arable land and increases in desertification. Deforestation and desertification can be reversed by adopting property rights, and this policy is successful even while the human population continues to grow.

Mass species extinctions from reduced habitat in tropical forests due to slash-and-burn techniques that sometimes are practiced by shifting cultivators, especially in countries with rapidly expanding rural populations; present extinction rates may be as high as 140,000 species lost per year. As of 2008, the IUCN Red List lists a total of 717 animal species having gone extinct during recorded human history.

High infant and child mortality. High rates of infant mortality are caused by poverty. Rich countries with high population densities have low rates of infant mortality.

Intensive factory farming to support large populations. It results in human threats including the evolution and spread of antibiotic resistant bacteria diseases, excessive air and water pollution, and new virus that infect humans.

Increased chance of the emergence of new epidemics and pandemics. For many environmental and social reasons, including overcrowded living conditions, malnutrition and inadequate, inaccessible, or non-existent health care, the poor are more likely to be exposed to infectious diseases.

Starvation, malnutrition or poor diet with ill health and diet-deficiency diseases (e.g. rickets). However, rich countries with high population densities do not have famine.

Poverty coupled with inflation in some regions and a resulting low level of capital formation. Poverty and inflation are aggravated by bad government and bad economic policies. Many countries with high population densities have eliminated absolute poverty and kept their inflation rates very low.

Low life expectancy in countries with fastest growing populations.

Unhygienic living conditions for many based upon water resource depletion, discharge of raw sewage and solid waste disposal. However, this problem can be reduced with the adoption of sewers. For example, after Karachi, Pakistan installed sewers, its infant mortality rate fell substantially.

Elevated crime rate due to drug cartels and increased theft by people stealing resources to survive.

Conflict over scarce resources and crowding, leading to increased levels of warfare.

Less Personal Freedom/More Restrictive Laws. Laws regulate interactions between humans. Law “serves as a primary social mediator of relations between people.” The higher the population density, the more frequent such interactions become, and thus there develops a need for more laws and/or more restrictive laws to regulate these interactions.

I did not make up the foregoing. Above problems are completely footnoted by Wikipedia for reference.

The riches nature has endowed the Philippines continue to diminish. Take our overfished seas. We tell the fishers to throw back into the waters the gravid fish they’ve caught, those heavy with eggs, because those will multiply in the millions for them to go fish again. But what happens is that many fishers cook or sell the fish, gravid and all, because of the increasing number of mouths to be fed, not to mention the family’s other crying needs that have to be met – education and medical assistance.

Take our denuded forests. The kaingin system that eats up the rainforest has been denounced a long time ago. Some folks in the hinterlands learn to let the trees be, but others never learn or refuse to learn – because of need. Poor Juan de la Cruz resorts to cutting trees for his basic necessities: shelter and fuel in addition to food and clothing for his brood. Adding insult to injury, so to speak, are “corporate evil-doers” who contribute to soil erosion, deadly landslides, and killer floods with their lumber concessions and greed for profit.

The legendary underwater explorer Jacques Cousteau has made the conclusion for all of humanity to be wary: “Population growth is the primary source of environmental damage.” How population growth endangers the environment cannot be over-emphasized. Deforestation and quarrying supply the construction needs for the mushrooming subdivisions that, in turn, answer the housing needs of the exploding population. Thus, the environment groans with the demands we place on it from the microcosm of communities to the macro life of countries.

If we cannot stop the population from exploding, the keen competition for scarce resources, massive poverty, and large-scale deaths from hunger and malnutrition will ensue – scenarios that confound the mind. Thus, every conceivable way to achieve a sustainable environment must be pursued. Science is in intense pursuit toward this end, but the technological advances in food production can hardly keep pace with the number of newly-born the world has to feed, clothe, and shelter.

Mother Earth cannot feed, nourish, sustain the populace to comfortable levels beyond its capacity. It is not getting any bigger while the people keep breeding, overcrowding, and swelling in number. Thus, my persistent advice to our child-bearing Pedro, Pablo, and Juan, Maria, Juana, and Ana to obey the Earth’s 5th Commandment: You shall limit your offspring for multitudes of people are a burden unto the earth.

Some opponents of artificial birth control see no need to check population growth. Their reason: Nature will do it. Let nature take its course. Let the tsunami and the earthquake do it, huh. Or even man-made catastrophes, e.g., wars. Bombs can cut overpopulation by the thousands. Yap, quarreling human beings killing each other in wars. Haven’t we had enough of horrendous tales of loved ones lost or maimed in wars? That would be most sorrowful, don’t you think so, guys and gals?

Email: lagoc@hargray.com