Approaching seven billion (they say the world's population hit 6,666,666,666 people yesterday, May 10/08), human numbers are finally pushing into the territory of which Malthus so direly warned. Oil production has passed its peak and the price has soared over $100/barrel. World grain production is decreasing and the prices of rice and wheat have skyrocketed, even setting off riots. The ocean's fisheries are being depleted, global temperature is rising grimly, and I could go on in this vein for a long while.
It's all about the tragedy of the commons. Live for the moment. Grasp as much as you can, and to hell with the others. We just don't care about the common good and, hence, about the future.
A century ago, thinkers felt that with a new era of cheap energy and mass production, a golden age of enlightenment would surely follow. Those dreams quickly ran onto a reef.
Today our society is characterized by conspicuous consumption, superficiality, vanity, materialism and mindless entertainment. Those are the icons we worship. Instead of kindness, we have apathy. Instead of charity, we have greed. Instead of planning, we have instant gratification. Instead of caring, we are self-absorbed. Instead of sharing, we grasp for more. Instead of consideration, we have vanity and narcissism. Instead of ethics, everything is condoned. Instead of honour, we have "who cares."
Technology has made astonishing advances over the past 100 years. But we humans have not progressed one iota in improving society and how we interact with each other. We should be ashamed. Our outlook needs to change, for without that we will not be able to grapple with the huge problems we face; the Malthusian Devil will swallow us.
(Thanks to Rick Audet for his photo, posted at Flickr.com.)
Thomas Malthus was a demographer who in 1800 predicted that human population was increasing so rapidly it would outstrip the Earth's resources. Famine and catastrophe would inevitably follow. But the calamity that Malthus predicted never arrived. Remarkably, the production of food—not to mention a cornucopia of consumer goods—has kept pace with population growth. And the standard of living, on average, has improved significantly.
So why was Malthus wrong? First, he did not count on the ability of new-world frontiers like North and South America to absorb people and provide resources. More crucially, Malthus vastly underestimated the power of human ingenuity, namely science and technology. Plant genetics, fertilizers and pesticides have increased crop yields enormously; synthetic materials have led to mass-produced clothes; and automated production lines have manufactured countless consumer goods.
But there is an ominous chill in the air, for the Devil is finally knocking. He didn't come in through the front door, for the world is not suffering for lack of resources, as was predicted. Furthermore, human ingenuity will continue to find ways of making do. Take energy, for example. When oil reserves become short, they will be replaced by solar, wind, nuclear, hydrogen, clean coal, and—if we are desperate enough—even dirty coal.
Instead, the Devil has snuck in the back door. He is quietly and surely contaminating our environment and destroying the natural ecosystems on which life depends. We humans are incredibly motivated to produce the necessities (not to mention our luxuries), but there is no motivation to clean up behind us. It's an inconvenience.
That's why everywhere we look, there is pollution. And now there is global warming, which we are incapable of stopping. With pollution and environmental degradation having reached global scale, the outlook is grim, especially since the number of pollution-creators continues to grow robustly.
Over the years, I have come to realize that the fundamental cause of virtually all the planet's many woes, is, simply, too many humans. In my lifetime, global population has increased by over four billion people!
To make things even worse, the environmental footprint of each person has also grown.
Beaches and woods where I played as a boy are now pavement and houses. The price of oil has soared to $100 per barrel, and now grain prices are skyrocketing. My wife and I left southern Ontario because of air pollution and incredible traffic gridlock, both directly caused by too many people.
The tipping point that Thomas Malthus and Paul Ehrlich warned us about is finally lurking just around the corner. Yet no one talks about it. We studiously ignore the ever-growing population ... while the freight train steams ever faster toward the cliff.
[Photo courtesy of AntyDiluvian]
Approaching seven billion (they say the world's population hit 6,666,666,666 people yesterday, May 10/08), human numbers are finally pushing into the territory of which Malthus so direly warned. Oil production has passed its peak and the price has soared over $100/barrel. World grain production is decreasing and the prices of rice and wheat have skyrocketed, even setting off riots. The ocean's fisheries are being depleted, global temperature is rising grimly, and I could go on in this vein for a long while. 
