After reading this, you may no longer feel guilty about your secret (evil) desire to parent 3 children! I once believed that human population growth was one of the greatest threats to our species (and others') survival. I now believe the exact opposite!
The Facts of Population Growth
As we see here the growth rate is declining. We went through a period of intense growth and we are starting to reach maturity. In fact this pattern is extremely common in our natural world. It is one of the most common patterns all of us humans have personally experienced. The growth pattern of a baby...
The Meta-Human
The weight (population) of a baby (meta-human) over time before birth.
The growth rate of a baby (meta-human).
As we see these charts are nearly identical to the charts we see for population growth rates and overall size.
I discuss the idea of all of humanity birthing into a meta-human (as in a higher/second order human, formed by a merging of potential of all of humanity), if this interests you I go into more detail here.. Given my premises, and if we continue to follow these same trends; I believe we will be creating the "birth" of the meta-human around 2040-2060 (or possibly sooner)!
So, this assumes humanity should soon find homeostasis around 11-12 billion people.
"Isn't 12 billion people too much?!? 7 Billion is already too much!" - Thoughts
We Don't Have A Population Problem!
We Have a Land Use and Resource Management Problem
I propose in Our NeighbourGood a society where every family would have 1 hectare (2.4 acres) of land.
I received a comment:
"I don't think that over 7 billion people can be dispersed at that kind of population density."
I responded with something to this effect (this is also an inspiration for this post):
We are developing methods to reverse desertification. If we re-green many of our earths deserts we would be able to claim these lands for our living as well! Many of our deserts today were once lush tropical paradises until humans mistreated the landscape (often cutting down whole forests to build navies that end up at the bottom of the ocean). If we are able to create the desert, we are able to create the forest again! Just for fun, how humans created the Sahara desert!
So, let's imagine we are able to do that in its entirety and bring earth into a majestic paradise. There is a total of 51 billion hectares of land available on earth for human habitat (if we are creative enough).
I outlined in the proposal 1 hectare of land per family unit (roughly 1-5 people). So, this proposal could theoretically accommodate a maximum of 50-250 Billion people and could with today's usable land accommodate 12-60 billion people. Even if I'm being completely outrageous in my figures, it's still a far cry from the paltry 7 Billion we see today. We just have extremely ineffective and wasteful land-use practices at present. Just think of how much land is unused with our inefficient 'commercial' and 'residential' buildings where effectively they are unoccupied over half the day...
Each hectare of land would be heavily designed and manicured. (This proposal designates that roughly 1/2 to 3/4 of the land per hectare is meant to cultivate a mature forest). Just 1/2 of one acre (~1/5 of a hectare) of land has been demonstrated (with our still limited knowledge of effective land use) to entirely provide a family with its needs.. So, offering 2.4 acres per family would certainly fulfill this requirement and then some! Further, these homesteads are able to produce excess to support any city-dwellers with the highest quality produce available.
This proposal would not only create forests covering half the land mass 25 Billion acres, but also be able to accommodate 200-250 billion people if seen to it's maximum potential (this doesn't accommodate other life, so I would never propose this population growth, just demonstrating the potential to support life on our planet). At this point however, we would have learned the process to cultivate other planets as well. So, a creation for another time...
The Problem Is The Solution
- How do we replant our deserts into forests?
- How do we clean up all the plastic and pollution littering the landscape?
- How do we create majestic paradise gardens covering our planet?
We give land to people to make a paradise on. To do this, we're going to need people, billions and billions of people! If every inch of our planet had a ecologically-minded steward focused on increasing diversity, growing abundance and creating more beauty. Our world would within a few short years be transformed into a global paradise!
With a myopic perspective we can view population growth as a problem, and if we continue our consumption and destructive habits it will be.
Similar to the growth and consumption patterns of a growing baby, if the patterns didn't change the baby would die, taking its mother along. Fortunately, the patterns do evolve, and a birth occurs. This evolution is happening! Millions of people are beginning to realize that our present system has played out its role and is in need of a transition. That is what Our NeighbourGood is about, transitioning us into the new paradigm!
So, population growth isn't a problem to our ecological crisis. Population growth is a solution, as long as we implement it correctly!
What's This About Benevolent Suicide?
A crazy idea, I know! I hear far too often people talking about how terrible it is that there are so many people. But, who do they figure should be removed for their perceived balance to be restored? Well, many of these people are too kind at heart to commit murder, so I guess the only rational thing to do would be to... Read this post and realize that over-population is a myth. A dangerous myth that gives an 'ethical' backing for war, murder, and genocide. As people die others can sit back and consider it a benefit to humanity as a whole. As if we're trimming off the cancer cells... That is not the case, and this idea has to be replaced so that we can continue on our path to birthing a new paradigm!
Rieki