Population control will NOT save our environment; and why Stephen Hawking was right. [View all]

[Zalatix]

Overpopulation is not a new refrain; it was a subject of complaint even as far back as the Roman Empire. The problem is, you can have a small population of humans and still over-consume your way into a crisis or even ecological ruin and a catastrophic population crash. Malthusian theories can argue all day long about how much physical room the Earth has for human beings, but history shows one certainty: even 100 million is enough to ruin the ecosystem.

Take the deforestation that occurred on Rapa Nui aka Easter Island, for instance. Or better yet, look at deforestation patterns in Midieval Europe, from the 13th to 16th centuries, where the populace in the area never exceeded 150 million. There weren't a lot of humans there, at least compared to now, but they wrought much devastation on their ecosystem, with catastrophic consequences, such as famines and plagues that were fueled by the resulting waves of mass starvation and malnutrition.

Ironically, the mass deforestation was slowed down by the growing use of coal. Compared to Medieval times, coal was the first form of alternative energy, and petroleum was the alternative energy to whale oil. Alternative energy slowed the destruction of forests and saved the whales.

Of course, deforestation is still happening at a breathtaking pace, and the practice of using fossil fuels in place of trees is itself catching up with us in the form of pollution and global warming. At the same time the Malthusian crowd is again blowing the overpopulation trumpet.

Populations have swelled and declined, but regardless of the size of the world's population, or that of any one region, two things have always been constant: overconsumption and wastefulness.

No matter what size a given population is, overconsumption and wastefulness still make for an unsustainable society and will lead to the Malthusian sky falling on our heads.

The key to protecting our environment and global habitat is sustainability. We need a system of recycling that is as close to perfect as possible, and one in which we cut pollution to a bare minimum. We need to build consumer goods in a way that they can be recycled in an environmentally-friendly way, and build them to last. We need a society where few things go into the trash and almost nothing goes into landfills. We need a global agreement of hard and inflexible pollution REDUCTIONS, not just "cap and move pollution around to whatever nation can pay the pollution fee." We need to make use of solar energy, which can now be generated at night as well as during the day; the sun bathes the Earth in more energy PER DAY than modern society will use in centuries, and we need to harness a respectable portion of that. We must all become like Germany, who now uses more solar energy than the whole world combined. Composting must also become a religion, while research in nano-pesticides must begin so that we can ditch the use of chemicals. I could list the specifics all day long, but I think Democrats can get the picture. Waste not, want not, is an old but wise and very relevant saying.

Which brings me to Stephen Hawking, who once famously said that for our survival, we need to colonize other worlds. He's correct. This be a huge creator of jobs worldwide, and would result in access to more resources beyond Earth. Outer space is, potentially, the world's biggest jobs program, ever; it is likely to create an employee's market for anything from manual labor (think: asteroid miners in space suits, or people piloting mining drones) to jobs in the hard sciences and engineering. The prospect of putting factories on the moon, by itself, offers huge ecological benefits for the world. In the long term it will also solve the Malthusian problem of physical space.

However, there is an even bigger benefit to listening to Hawking's advice. The biggest benefit of all is that when it comes to long-term existence in outer space, you are forced to research and implement a system of total sustainability. Short term trips into orbit don't necessarily require sustainability, but people working in offworld factories and those taking trips to places like Mars will. Recycling of all resources is a must, as is the use of alternative and renewable energy. The sustainability issues that must be solved to achieve long-term space travel and colonization of inhospitable worlds will be of enormous benefit for us back on Earth.

There's another reason to shoot for sustainability over population control: whenever you hear about population control, it's YOU AND YOUR FAMILY who will be controlled. The Plutocracy will have no skin in the game at all; they won't use less resources or make any sacrifices, but YOU WILL. Malthusians are quick to say that it's the poor who overpopulate the most - problem is, they're talking about YOU, as in the person who is reading this and saying to themselves, "No, that can't be right". Yeah, it is right. It's all about controlling YOU so that the Plutocrats can have mansions the size of Los Angeles and flying yachts that rival the size of islands, along with all the resources such luxuries use.