The Earth Runneth Over - Musings on Birth, Death, Nature and Population Control

      Two Sundays ago we had the first beautiful day we have had in a long time...sunny and warm and just about perfect.  So we packed a picnic lunch, piled in the car and drove to Salt Springs State Park.

     Salt Springs is a rather rustic park in Northeastern Pennsylvania.  It's full of old growth Hemlock's, a variety of wildlife and some moderately challenging trails.  As we hiked, we paused occasionally to catch our breath as the beauty of nature (and some pretty steep trails) threatened to steal it away.  Then, tired and hungry, we sat by a lovely creek and listened to the sounds of water tumbling over rocks as we ate lunch.  All-in-all it was a beautiful day.

     I hope to spend more of my days in this way...exploring our beautiful natural world and having fun with my family.   There are still so many scenic, unspoiled places out there, but they are disappearing and rather quickly.  Can we continue to take them for granted?  Dare we assume that they will still be there for my children to bring their children to?  I wonder.

     While we were hiking we stopped to read the few educational plaques that were posted along the trails.  I already knew that when this country was settled, most of what is now the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania was covered with forests much like the one I was standing in.  William Penn named the Commonwealth Pennsylvania for a reason ( it means Penn's Woods).  What I didn't know was that in the last 100 years of human progress, population growth and industrialization, the forests of Pennsylvania have been reduced to 1/10th of 1 percent of their original size.  Think about that for

a moment.  In only 100 years, human progress has almost completely obliterated Pennsylvania's forests.     

     I was stunned when I read these facts.  The earth is billions of years old and in only 100 years we have managed to plow under almost every tree in Pennsylvania in the name of progress?    Do we not realize that trees and plants create the oxygen we breathe.  Are we oblivious to the fact that if we keep progressing at the current rate we will destabilize our environment to the point that the earth will no longer be capable of sustaining life?

    At www.overpopulation.org they agree with my suspicion that "(s)ome people don't seem to know that the earth's resources are finite.  Or they believe that God or technology will take care of it."  Unfortunately, I think this is an accurate depiction.  Many of us fail to even contemplate, let alone comprehend, the extent of our dependence on our natural environment.  Sadly we also fail to recognize our negative impact on it or to take responsibility for preserving it.

     What is it that we think we are going to do when we run out of land for new Wal-Marts and sprawling suburban developments?  Will the State Parks and National Parks be sold off to developers?  I heard a story on NPR just yesterday that leads me to believe that the answer to this question in yes, at least in Benton Harbor, Michigan.

       Benton Harbor is the poorest town in Michigan.  With 17% unemployment and a median household income in the teens, the families have little to speak of but they treasure the natural beauty of their local 70 acre park.  The land, donated in the 70's as "a gift to the children of the future" with the stipulation that it never be developed and remain a park, is now threatened by developers.  Whirlpool Corporation, who owns other land nearby  has already started development of their new golf course and they insist that using 1/3 of this park land to add on the last three holes is in the best interests of the current poverty-stricken residents.  They are trying to say that the construction jobs created by the project (temporary jobs that most of the locals will not qualify for) and the long-term employment opportunities (such as golf caddy positions) will somehow help to lift the locals out of poverty.  Not only are these pie-in-the-sky claims unfounded, but the residents are having one of their few pleasures stolen right out from under them in the process.  Will the rich folks on the greens be willing to putt around their poorer neighbors picnics, weddings and frisbee games?  

     I think we all know the answer to that.  There's an old saying that "you can rub and you can rub...but you just can't polish a turd."  I think that applies quite nicely here.  The developers are simply trying to dress up there own desire for material gain in glittering humanitarian promises.  I'm not fooled, but unfortunately it seems that local politicans in Benton Harbor have been and the developers are likely to get their way.

     Our natural environment needs to be protected.  It provides us with the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat, not to mention the physical and emotional health benefits that research is beginning to show us occur when we spend time in or near natural green spaces.  I love the suburbs and convenient shopping as much as the next person, but I think we need to stop and rethink things just a bit.  Cutting a hole in the woods to build your new home (or golf course) was all well and good in the old days when there were far fewer of us, but the human population has grown at an alarming rate.  What will we do when there is no longer enough agricultural land to grow enough food to feed everyone?  Where will the burgeoning population find housing...will the suburbs and rural areas be covered with taller and taller high rise apartments?  Or are we living in a crazy, fantasy-world dreaming of a future living on space stations with food replicators ala Star Trek?

     We all seem to be in a state of denial.  Living in a somewhat well-to-do suburb, I 've taken to observing the members of my community a little more closely lately.  Many of my neighbors are still driving their gigantic SUV's despite the almost $4.00 per gallon gas prices.  Housing development has slowed a bit, but there are several new developments being built with houses that just keep getting bigger and bigger.  People are heating and air-conditioning 4000-5000 square feet to house 2 working adults who are never home, or to allow ample space for their family of 4 or 5.  I like my personal space too, but really, does each person need 1000 square feet of space to themselves?  Most of the members of my community are still going about their business as usual, dangerously unaware of the impact they are having on the environment, seemingly ignorant of their dependence on the world they are destroying.

     To be fair, it is true that many of us are beginning to wake up...my neighbors included.  We are trying to do what we can to "think green."  We've cut down on how many napkins and paper towels we use and throw away, we wash and re-use our plastic baggies, we recycle our newspapers and our cans.  This is all wonderful and I'm glad to see it.  But we are all missing one very important point - that there are just too damn many of us.

     As usual, Europe is way ahead of us in acknowledging this fact.  And, of course, they have already begun to do something about it.  European birth rates have decreased and the European population is actually expected to decrease by about 70 million by the year 2050.  Unfortunately, U.S. birth rates have failed to follow suit and Asia and Africa still have very high birth rates.  According to www.about.com, the current world population growth rate is 1.14%.  This means that the earth's population will double in 61 years.  While, according to the BBC News, the rate of population growth is slowly declining, the overall population is still growing. 

    Birth rates that remain high are a problem, not because they are the main cause of the population explosion on Earth (decreasing death rates can take credit for that), but because, declining death rates combined with high birth rates leads to overwhelming population growth.  Balancing falling death rates with lowered birth rates is the only way the math makes sense if we want to ensure a place for the human species on this planet.

     Why have most developed nations recognized the need to decrease birth rates, while the U.S. seems to remain oblivious?  I'm not sure.  I look around at my daughter's softball games and I see middle-class family after middle-class family with 4, 5, 6 or more children.  Is it oudated biblical advice to be fruitful and multiply that is egging them on or is it just that many who come from large families want the same for their kids...a full house.  A house full of children may be a romantic notion, but it may also be a notion whose time has passed.

     Beyond the romance, others will argue that we can't decrease our birth rates because we need more young people to help support the growing numbers of elderly we have thanks to modern medicine.  There is some truth to this argument.  Some countries, including Japan, are having trouble with this already.  Even in the U.S., where we have made little effort at controlling our population growth, we are faced with worries of insufficient Social Security funds.  We cannot ignore the short-term difficulties that come along with declining birth rates, but the long-term necessity heavily outweighs them.  Smarter financial planning on the part of both families and governments can help to get us through the rough patch while we wait for birth and death rates, and old to young population ratios, to balance out.  It might not be easy, but the the alternative is unacceptable.  Unchecked population growth will eventually lead to the inhabit-ability of our planet and the demise of many species, including the human race.

     I understand that no one likes to be told what to do or how to live less than Americans.  We hate it when the government invades our personal lives.  But if we keep going on the way we are, there will come a time when governments, including ours, will have no choice.  If we don't want to end up like China with laws against having more than one child, we have to start policing ourselves.  We need to think a little bit harder about the world around us, to accept our dependence on it and to recognize our impact on it.  We need to start making choices that will help to preserve our natural world...not just because we want our children to have woods and parks to hike in with their children, but because our well-being and our very survival depend upon it.

    

Comments

[Shilpan]

Lori -

It is tragic that we've lost touch with reality. I also love nature as you do. I often visit the Tallulah falls in Northeast Georgia. It's peaceful to walk and listen to the running water sound, to watch birds flying. I'm just amazed at the fact that you pointed out about the destruction of forests in just 100 years.

Shilpan

[Shilpan]

Lori,

I just stumbled your post.

Shilpan

[M]

I'm just curious as to where you're seeing these huge families because they're a rarity where I'm from. I work at a grocery store currently, and can tell you this from experience: the families I run into are 1-3 people at most, with very few mothers who have 4-5 coming through and telling me that they have a hard time of it from other people. I think it's sad that having children is becoming something to be intolerant about, as if it has something to do with religion.

Older people aren't going to live forever. What happens when the baby boomers die?

"Overpopulation" strikes me as funny. How can we think that we're overpopulated when natural disasters like Myanmar are happening? Since 2000 there have been several natural disasters where thousands of people have been killed. Not to mention the genocide in Darfur, and the thousands of murders that happen in South America. And yet we think that we're overpopulating the Earth?

One thing I do agree on, though, is that we should take care of the Earth that we have, and stop trying to take so much. I don't know so much that we have limited resources... but I do think that there could be a lot more caretaking done than is being done now.

What do you think about home gardening, or else creating housing communities where a garden is part of the house that is sold? It would save on gas, it would help the environment, and it would save people money. They would just have to work together with their families to keep it up. But then, perhaps that would help us all learn how to work together. Who knows? It could work.

[Lori]

Shilpan,

Thanks for the remarks and the stumble!

M.,

I live in a suburb where most people are comfortable financially and where we also have a significant Catholic population. There are many families in my neighborhood who have several children. Hard for you to believe maybe...but it's true.

I apologize if my comment about biblical advice to multiply offends, but there are many people who do take the Bible quite literally without understanding that it is a document whose rules and advice made more sense in ancient times than they do today. The context of any document needs to be considered when weighing it's usefulness and applicability. And, it is a known fact that the Catholic church considers any form of birth control to be a sin against God. Our local Catholic families do tend to be larger than average.

As to overpopulation striking you as funny...perhaps you just need to read up on it a bit more. Most of us are unaware of the magnitude of population growth. The truth is that we have billions of people on this planet, so the thousands that are killed in wars or natural disasters hardly make a dent when they are counterbalanced with millions of births. You do understand that our current birth rates will lead to a doubling of our population every 61 years? Think about that for a little while...work out the math...does questioning the need to slow down population growth still strike you as funny? My guess is that, like most of us, you just haven't really taken the time to crunch the numbers.

Anyway, I understand that not everyone is going to agree with my opinions on things. I just find it hard to believe that people can shrug off and ignore startling facts as if the facts themselves were just opinions. Do a little research on-line; there is a lot of information on population that is quite interesting.

When I spoke of limited resources I was speaking of things like natural gas and oil. Sorry I didn't make that clear. The earth's stores of those are finite so they are, by definition, limited. Other resources, like clean water and agricultural land, are becoming more limited due to pollution, over-use and over-development.

Home gardening or housing communities that include gardens are a lovely idea. They would save money, and gas and bring people together and closer to nature which might be the biggest benefit of all. The more we interact with nature and the environment, the more likely we are to value and protect it.

[Stefanie]

I wanted to apologize. You submitted this post to my blog carnival, and I had forgotten to move it into the right folder in my mailbox, and so forgot to add it to this week's carnival. I will be adding it to next week's, and I apologize again!

[Lori]

Thanks Stefanie!

[Stefanie]

It saddens me, too, that nature is disappearing before our eyes. I look at the parking lots and the roads and try to imagine what it looked like before humans...

I think one way to help decrease birth rates are to teach about safe sex instead of complete abstinence. Teenagers like to rebel; if you tell them not to, they're that much more likely to do it. If they want to have sex, it doesn't matter what we say, they are going to do it anyway. I know that if my mom had said to me, "You know I would prefer you don't have sex until your 30, but since you will do it if you want to, whether I say no or not, I want you to be safe about it," I probably would have waited longer than I did.

At the very least, being open about sex with teenagers in school and at home will allow them to learn the dangers of unprotected sex, making it more likely that they will protect themselves. It may even keep them from having sex early on because there's no "rebellious" aspect left to it. I think it would help decrease the teenage pregnancy rate and birth rates over all...

Oh, and thank you for submitting the post to All Things Eco :)

[Lori]

Stefanie,

Thanks so much for the input. I agree with you completely on the sex ed issue...I have a post that addresses that issue among others called "The Trouble With Sex in America." We have so many antiquated ideas that help to cause the very behaviors they are looking to prevent.