ENC: More people, more problems…

In this part of Brother Ian, we take a look at the things that are going on in the world that some folks seem to miss, no matter how important those things might be.

One of the Ten Things (in the menu bar above) is what I believe is the critical piece in sorting out any problem we face: “The world is limited in how many humans it can feed & support. We have too many, already.”

Family planning is no draconian thing; it gives the people who are born a chance at the earth’s resources. The math is easy: if the number of people exceeds what resources are available, people will suffer and, as the UN reports, die (some 24,000 every day of starvation – see here how many died today). If a terrorist blew up a stadium with 25,000 folks, the world would be aghast; yet nearly 11 million people will die of starvation this year, with hardly a whimper.

I would like to add the words of Dr. Martin Luther KIng, Jr. in 1966 to this:

Recently, the press has been filled with reports of sightings of flying saucers. While we need not give credence to these stories, they allow our imagination to speculate on how visitors from outer space would judge us. I am afraid they would be stupefied at our conduct.

They would observe that for death planning we spend billions to create engines and strategies for war. They would also observe that we spend millions to prevent death by disease and other causes. Finally, they would observe that we spend paltry sums for population planning, even though its spontaneous growth is an urgent threat to life on our planet.

Our visitors from outer space could be forgiven if they reported home that our planet is inhabited by a race of insane men whose future is bleak and uncertain.

There is no human circumstance more tragic than the persisting existence of a harmful condition for which a remedy is readily available. Family planning, to relate population to world resources, is possible, practical and necessary.

Unlike plagues of the dark ages or contemporary diseases we do not yet understand, the modern plague of overpopulation is soluble by means we have discovered and with resources we possess.

What is lacking is not sufficient knowledge of the solution but universal consciousness of the gravity of the problem and education of the billions who are its victims. …

While some countries have minister-level positions to deal with population issues, and some countries have negative population growth (less people at the end of the year than at the first – Spain and Portugal come to mind), it’s time to push this to the front of the the discussion, if we hope to have a chance in the decades ahead.

So, that’s why I mention & agitate for that discussion here & now…so that we’ll have a chance. For you, for me, for the kids….

In loving light –
Brother Ian