Chapter 2. How Did We Into This Mess?
For many centuries the normal life span of most adults would today be considered quite short. A hundred or so years ago a man of 45 was considered old. Newborns had a poor chance of surviving the first few years of life with many fatal childhood sicknesses that are today considered little more than a nuisance. From time to time outbreaks of contagious diseases such as the "Black Death" and the "Plague" decimated the citizens of various countries and even influenza caused many deaths every year. Added to these catastrophes many minor accidents that today are completely curable, such as a broken bone or a bad wound, were more likely to result in death. All of these factors tended to maintain the growth of the world’s population within acceptable limits. The overall increase was small and the additional people were readily welcomed into society.
Even three hundred years ago, the population of the world used very few of the world’s non-renewable resources. Their way of life was largely rural and primarily involved only renewable materials. The farmer tilled his land using animals as the primary source of power. He kept cattle and sheep to graze the fields that were then laid fallow to regain their fertility. The manure from the cattle, horses and other animals was spread over the fields prior to plowing, to fertilize the new crops. Transport was limited on the ground to the human being and the horse, and similar animals. On water the sailing ship or rowboat carried all of the loads. Goods produced in any neighborhood were generally used within that local area, and on the whole the necessities of life did not rely on transporting goods from a central manufacturing area.
The major source of fuel was from renewable sources such as wood and in some countries dried animal dung. Small quantities of coal were used by those able to dig it out from nearby outcropping seams. Clay was used to make bricks, fired with wood from the forests. Mud and soil was used as the primary materials for adobe dwellings and together with timber, rock and stone provided all the necessary building materials. Some nonreplaceable materials, especially tin, copper and iron were mined to make tools, utensils and farm implements, but in very small quantities compared to the gigantic mines of today. Candles, made from animal fat, provided most of the illumination until lamps were eventually developed when oil became available, initially from the whaling industry. It was only towards the beginning of the 19th century that this overall picture began to change dramatically.
The use of iron, in particular for military weapons began the industrial revolution. The use of automation increased with the invention of the cotton and wool mills that were required to satisfy the growing demands for clothing from the increasing population. Even then power was still provided from natural renewable resources such as water wheels and windmills. The invention of the steam engine triggered off the growth in the demand for non-renewable resources and soon coal fired steamships and railways completely changed our way of life. Faster and cheaper transport opened up the country and eventually changed the nature of industry. Until this time it was slow, difficult and expensive to move goods and materials over more than a very short distance. As a consequence small plants had largely carried out manufacturing to supply a very limited area. Now large factories and mines could develop in centralized areas, as it became possible to easily ship products all over the world. They in turn generated a need for workers to operate the mines, the iron works and the factories. This triggered the steady move from the country villages to the urban and city areas, which continues in many countries even today.
The demands for fuel for the newly invented internal combustion engine triggered off the drilling and refining of oil to provide gasoline and together with the demand for coal began the major drain on the world’s resources. Electricity became readily available and in turn triggered off many new products, as well as a greater use of coal and oil to generate the power. These things eventually changed our entire life style. In the past, people walked to the local store each day for their food, and also grew much of their own food in their gardens and fields. Now they began to drive to the supermarket once a week for their supplies. This required a motor car to transport their food and a refrigerator in which to store it. In turn this demanded the gasoline and electricity to run them. These, and many other inventions, which were initially considered luxuries, quickly became an essential part of life. They increased the rate at which we began to use up our nonrenewable resources and in turn they increased the rate of pollution of the environment. The fumes from the refinery for the gasoline, the exhaust from the car, the gasses and the cooling water from the power station, not to mention the factories that made the materials for all of these products and employed the people who bought them.
Today each individual in the major industrial countries consumes many times more of the world’s resources than did our ancestors of a hundred years ago. This consumption is increasing faster than the number of people and so we have two interrelated factors. Not only is the world’s population increasing at an alarming rate, but the consumption of the world’s resources is increasing at an even faster rate, which in turn contributes to the increasing pollution. Consider the effect on the cost and availability of gasoline and the increase in pollution when the automobile becomes available to the masses of the peoples of China or India. We express our concern when the price of gasoline is increased by a few cents a gallon, but in a competitive society, it is only natural to expect the cost of a product that is in limited supply to steadily grow as the available supply diminishes. It is inevitable that we will continue to pay more and more for the fuel to operate our automobiles, until the world’s supply of oil is completely depleted.
Our economic system has also indirectly encouraged overpopulation. We have developed a competitive, capitalistic system that is solely based on profit. This has worked extremely well over the past two or three decades, but it has also, in the long term, only made the situation worse. A profit based system demands growth if it is to continue to operate efficiently. The investor is seeking growth in his investment, and this in turn demands that more and more people buy the services or products concerned. This very obviously cannot continue, without a growing population. For our long-term existence we will have to develop a "steady state" economic system to serve a "steady state" population. It is difficult to see how this will function. Attempts to develop alternative economic systems such as the socialist example have not proved totally successful. But when resources are limited, and the customer base is static, business cannot operate solely through competition and a free market. This may well become one of the more difficult problems to overcome when our population is stabilized.
The growth in scientific knowledge has certainly contributed both directly and indirectly to population growth. The increasing ability to cure many of the diseases that in the past caused thousands of deaths has been a very obvious factor. Smallpox, Malaria, Influenza and so on, that killed so many people every year, are now considered little more than a controllable nuisance. On the other side the increasing ability to control and limit conception has the potential of solving many of our population problems. Unfortunately in many countries birth control is socially unacceptable for a variety of reasons. Some religions will not accept the need to control our population, and among many races there is total ignorance and a lack of understanding of the seriousness of the situation.
Tradition and history materially affect this problem. For many years when individuals reached the age when they were unable to work, their very life depended on having a family around them to look after them, to provide food and lodging and the many other services necessary if they were to survive. From this requirement developed the need for large families to assure the survival into of at least a few members. In one of the third world countries a young friend I was visiting had limited his family to two children because he wanted to provide them with a sound education. He told me that his mother had called a family meeting a few weeks earlier at which she demanded "How dare you deprive me of the pleasure of having many grandchildren?" and from then on he was totally ostracized. This was a comparatively wealthy and well-educated family but the attitude is understandable as in that country there is no social security, and if the family is not there to look after the old people the only alternative is begging in the street.
We have reached this position in the history of the world because the human race developed it’s knowledge of science and technology so very much faster than nature expected, and has exceeded the ability of evolution to compensate for the subsequent increasing fertility. If nature could in some way reduce the ability of mankind to reproduce, to two children in the lifetime of every woman there would be no need to become concerned about our future. If nature cannot do this, then for the sake of the present population and those of the near future, man has to take over this task.
Nature may still have a trick or two to play on us. We have seen in the past few years the outbreak of HIV that has contributed to the deaths of millions of people We have also seen the effects of the Ebola virus and the growing concern over the West Nile virus. With the masses crowded together in many of our cities another such disease could involve many more millions of people. There is always the possibility of some major catastrophe that could dramatically change the future of mankind, be it an asteroid striking the earth, or some other major disaster, but in all honesty this is unlikely to occur.
Mankind is left with two options. We can ignore the ever-increasing population growth and hope that in some unknown manner it will eventually correct itself. We can accept the inevitable consequences if it does not, and they may well be disastrous. Or we can begin to take all possible measures now, attempt to limit the population growth and make our ultimate end controlled, dignified and as far into the future as possible.