Stop Human Overgrowth: Cry of a Generation

Human ingenuity on its course of evolution gave birth to Industrialization (generating surplus through the use of finite energy i.e. coal, oil) which had a profound effect on the socioeconomic and life conditions of human beings. Historians agree that the Industrial Revolution was one of ‘the’ most important events in history. It paved the way to establish corporations and advancement in sciences, technology and other accessibility. The result was that human species thrived and grew exponentially in numbers in this evolutionary process.

The real focus however is the un-doubtable fact that the ‘Infinite’ growth model is the backbone of the capitalist economy which in-turn is the support system of this exponentially grown and growing human population and all of it rests upon ‘Finite’ energy, which is Hydrocarbons. Most of us know that we have long reached ‘Peak Oil’ production levels and have seen the greatest of the nations go to the depths of violations to exploit and secure their positions on oil and other resources. Most of us know that the major corporations of the world which have major, if not absolute influence on governments are themselves in a tizzy to remain competitive within their own realm of competition pressing constantly on production and consumption to sustain, further exploiting oil, natural resources and our environment. The bottom line is that we live in a world which because of the sake of its cancerous growth model is over-tapped, over-exploited in every imaginable way. A vicious cycle which is growing!

Everything is churning faster and faster in our present world which is designed to increase in pace. Everyone says that the world has changed more in the last few centuries than it had in its entire history. What more is sure is that the rate of growth is ‘exponential’ which ascertains that just the coming few years would be different than the last 10 and so on.

“The Greatest Shortcoming of the Human Race is our Inability to Understand the Exponential Function.”
                                                                                                          Dr. Albert A. Bartlett
(Prof. Emeritus, Department of Physics, University of Colorado at Boulder)

There are over 7 billion people in the world now, a population which is exponentially growing in a finite resource world. I do not want to be an anarchist but feel that the support mechanism (Oil) is on a trend of being obscure which has the potential of taking its toll on the most fundamental of Human needs that we take for granted in life. I strongly believe in human ingenuity and the innate benevolent nature that we possess. However, human ingenuity can only operate within the laws of physics (Basing the fact that no other energy resource has come up to replace the function of oil ‘as is in our present economy’) and the fact that we do not remain benevolent if there was to be an invasion on our resources.   

Stop thinking that Human Overpopulation Danger is a Myth
Yes, all human beings can be cramped up like chickens in a box but can that sustain life, No. The term ‘Ecological Footprint’ describes that the amount of land space required to support one human life is immensely larger than the amount of physical space occupied by one human body and "Carrying capacity" of the world is a real concept. The fact is that the biosphere can support only a given number of humans in terms of sustainable life.

The water needs of a single person vastly outpace the physical space that person occupies. The entire population of Los Angeles, for example, needs literally thousands of square miles of water basin space to capture all the water that's pumped into their artificial city. It's not hard to imagine that the food needs of a single person exceeds many square meters of land which also needs water for production. On top of that if you take out the petrochem support in growing foods, you will be left with flash farming which would require not meters but many square miles per person. Lets say that flash farming situation does not arise, consider the following; In America, India and China, underground water aquifers that produce the food is plummeting rapidly. Many aquifers will be dry by 2040, including the Ogallala Aquifer that stretches from Texas to South Dakota and provides irrigation for the breadbasket agricultural hub of America.

Nature also needs a large, functioning ecosystem to dilute, process and transform the waste products of humanity. Nearly every river that empties into the oceans creates a massive "dead zone" of chemicals, heavy metals and pharmaceutical runoff. It is a fact that almost all natural ecosystems are being majorly affected and many even completely dying because of exceeding human filth.

In the end I need you to think about a phenomenon that occurs in bacteria culture produced in a petri dish. When the bacteria starts to outgrow in number in relation to the amount of space in the perti dish it gets agitated and its activity further increases all of which denote to being under pressure for survival which is not healthy.  In the modern world every sustainable aspect of human population which is still growing exponentially is directly related to industrialization with Capitalism being the rule of the time. What this means is that we as the incumbents of modern economy have to remain in a constant tizzy to actively ‘compete’ in the ever so rapidly competing and exploiting world in order to sustain. There is nothing much wrong with this ‘rat race’ other than the fact that the we are consuming our resources more rapidly not thinking of the repercussions and that our parents, grandparents and their grandparents had less quality of life in terms of smart phones and other such luxuries but more quality in environment, health, morals, ethics and much more peace of mind than we do.

Related Article: Fulfilling Future Food & Water Scarcity - A Mission Impossible