We rarely address one of the most serious threats to our environment - overpopulation.  For some reason, human life has taken on the presence as being the most sacred entity, more sacred than animals or the environmental cycles that have allowed us to evolve to begin with.  We forget that too many people upsets the balance of Gaia; our earth and its systems cannot support an exponentially expanding population.  Places such as Rawanda, Suda, and other parts of Africa show that population allowed to grow unabated can have devastating consequences. 

It is time that we begin to have open and frank conversations about overpopulation and what humans need to be doing to ensure there are enough resources for humans and that our ecosystems are able to remain stable and safe.  For thousands of years, humans kept the population of their tribes in check through various methods.  Evidence remains that when food was scarce, women used a variety of herbal methods to either prevent from getting pregnant or terminate pregnancy.  Such methods helped ensure the survival of those already living and prevented life from being brought into a situation in which it would suffer. 

Unfortunately, we have moved a long way from this.  Whether you’re pro-choice or pro-life, it is clear that most people do not question how having another child will affect the world.  A hundred years ago, a severely disabled child died shortly after birth.  However, we now live in an era of manufactured disability, where we purposefully bring children into the world who have severe disabilities, or save premature babies who are destined for a lifetime of medical complications and extensive care.  In addition, we have children without thinking about whether they will enter a world that will be able to support them when they are our age.  We assume that the planet will just always be here, that the ecosystem will continue to sustain us.  Unforunately, history has shown that human societies all too often eliminate their means of survival, resulting in a long and horrific decline. 

We have to start addressing the issue of overpopulation.  I do not ever want to live in a world where a government dictates whether we can have children or how many children we can have or whether we should be allowed to continue a pregnancy after we know a baby has Down’s syndrome.  I, like others, believe that these are incredibly personal decisions, despite their impact on society, that should never be dictated to us.  However, if we want to keep these decisions personal, then we have to start thinking before we act, before we have that next kid, before we become pregnant.  We are on a path to a world in which, if we don’t change our actions, even people living in wealthy nations such as the U.S. could suffer in the way people have in third-world countries.  Resources are not infinite.  Our population cannot be infinite either. 

Here is an interesting post by Richard Black, an Environment Correspondent, from the BBC News website.
news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/4585920.stm