YOU ARE HERE: Central Kentucky Home→Collections

Too many people live on this planet

July 12, 2012

More than 7 billion human beings now live on planet Earth.¿Way too many. Complex modern lifestyles are devouring resources at an alarming rate.

Ominous evidence is emerging that we are running out of easily accessible supplies of resources. Mankind is nearing a crossroads. The population and standards of living cannot keep rising indefinitely.

How many people can Earth support?¿Estimates of Earth’s carrying capacity are between 10 and 20 billion people. That size population would require some revolutionary changes from our world of today. Humanity is clearly on a course that is not sustainable.

Current demand is rapidly depleting current supplies of finite resources, while demand continues to rise. As someone has said, “Humanity is living off its ecological credit card.” I believe Mathis Wackernagel said that.

One of the most basic human needs is food. But mordern food production now faces rising oil and gas prices, which increase food costs at every level. Already, more than a billion people are undernourished. Every day almost 4,000 children die from waterborne diseases. Growth in human population directly correlates to growth in human suffering.

The more people, the more suffering. The human race has produced four times as many people in the last 100 years as we did in the previous 5,900 years. And consider what happened in the brutal 20th century. Two massive world wars. Several famines, disease epidemics, pestilence. Yet, global population still boomed from 1.6 billion in 1900 to 7 billion today. Indiscriminate population growth is not desirable. Earth simply cannot sustain several more billion people. We must become better stewards.

Roger D. Bowman

Danville

|

|

|