There can be little doubt that sooner or later we will outgrow our food supply – literally f— , sorry, copulate ourselves into overpopulation. We could go the way of Easter Island which supported a thriving civilization until the islanders ran out of resources and their civilization died.

Today the world’s population stands at around 6.5 billion, projected to rise to at least 7.2 billion in 2015. Just imagine how many of us will be here in 2050! This kind of population growth can’t be sustained but less sex is hardly the answer. The only problem with sex is that sometimes it causes children and too many kids without adequate resources means more ignorance, hunger and more kids. The cycle continues.

The basic tools for slowing or stopping population growth are simple: contraception, vasectomy, tubal ligation, sex education and education in general. Simple for us common folk but is it simple for the Catholic Church? Nope, the Pope and his priests know a sin when they see it.

Of course, eating meat on Fridays used to be a sin too, but the Pope looked at that one and said – what the heck , the farmers need to eat too. That was a good decision for the oceans, so how about now making a good decision for the world’s resources?

Unfortunately the Catholic Church remains a major stumbling block when it comes to any kind of population control involving birth control. It maintains abstinence is the only sinless way, but even a small army of priests have found that hard to follow. Some churches are literally going broke trying to pay for the sins of their past and present priests.

An organization that spans the globe and is still powerful in underdeveloped areas of the globe is a prime stumbling block in the fight against overpopulation. In doing that it inadvertently promotes hunger and continuing ignorance.

Pope Benedict even claimed in a recent speech that the use of condoms is not only a sin but also increases the incidence of AIDS! Benedict, oh Benedict, you’re really misfiring on this one! You must have failed your elementary science pretty badly to say that.

Fortunately for the world the Catholic church has lost some of the iron grip it once had. Even so, its sway in some of the poorest regions of the world is formidable and troubling.

It would be nice if dogma fed people, but food is better.

The popular, politically correct, solution is to grow more food and improve the distribution network. Good plan, but we’ve been talking about that for years and the hunger is still there, only more of it. What’s that definition of insanity again? Something about doing the same thing but expecting different results?

A far more practical and ethical solution is to decrease the world’s population through free birth control devices and education. While birthrates in most industrialized countries are already falling, they are more than counterbalanced by population growth elsewhere, especially where there is endemic poverty.

Will supply of condoms and education in birth control interfere with some cultural practices? I certainly hope so, if that will result in less ignorance, subservience and poverty. “Culture” is not cast in stone, it evolves and adapts to changing needs like everything else does.

Western women have the vote today, and their husbands get sent to jail if they’re caught beating them. These are both recent changes among many in our western culture, so where’s the problem?

History tells us that societies disintegrated through the destruction of resources. Easter Island is just one example where only huge, inscrutable human statues are all that remain of a once thriving civilization. The end came when too many people exhausted the island’s limited resources.

We could literally fornicate ourselves out of house and home… but what a way to go!