Swarm: Exploding humanity

More birth control, more sterilization — plus more education and prosperity — these are urgently needed to halt humanity’s lemminglike rush toward misery.

Many senior West Virginians were born around 1930, when the world population was 2 billion and America had 123 million people.  By 2000, the global manswarm had passed 6 billion — tripling in a single lifetime — and the U.S. population had more than doubled past 280 million.  Today, the brand-new 2010 Census says America now has 309 million.

This relentless upsurge hardly touches West Virginia, which doesn’t grow. In the 1940 Census, both the Mountain State and Florida had 1.9 million residents. Today, our state remains roughly the same, but Florida has exploded to 18.8 million and will gain two more seats in Congress.

A major report in the January National Geographic says world population is projected to pass 7 billion this year, and may hit 9 billion by 2045.  The growth raises fear of mass starvation, epidemics, rampant childhood deaths, or wars caused by land-grabbing. The magazine warns:

“With the population still growing by about 80 million each year, it’s hard not to be alarmed. Right now on Earth, water tables are falling, soil is eroding, glaciers are melting, and fish stocks are vanishing. Close to a billion people go hungry each day. Decades from now, there will likely be 2 billion more mouths to feed, mostly in poor countries. There will be billions more people wanting and deserving to boost themselves out of poverty. If they follow the path blazed by wealthy countries — clearing forests, burning coal and oil, freely scattering fertilizers and pesticides — they too will be stepping hard on the planet’s natural resources.”

Overpopulation is the root cause of pollution and other environmental menaces ravaging the biosphere. Economic concerns also loom. Frans Willekens of a Dutch demography institute asks:

“In 2050, will there be enough people working to pay for pensions? The answer is no.”

Noticeably, little human growth occurs in prosperous First World societies, where well-educated people have brushed aside church taboos against birth control and keep family size small. But huge expansion continues in impoverished, less-educated, Third World countries, especially in Africa.

China imposed a drastic one-child-per-family crackdown and curbed its runaway upsurge. Bloating India has imposed decades of sterilization, paying low-income men a week’s wage as a bonus if they get quick vasectomies in mass clinics. These are ruthless measures — but necessary.

National Geographic warns that regions of the world will become hellish — “some parts of it are hellish today” — without major action.

WV Gazette