SEARCH BLOG: ENVIRONMENT
At what point is enough too much?
China decided some time ago that one child per family was enough... because they already had enough people. India has not yet come to that conclusion although its population is almost the same as China's.
Are we emptying the larder as some think? This question has come up many times in the past and each time the answer by concerned scientists was that the world's ecosystem was about to collapse because of human pressure. The reality has always been that humans have either figured out how to obtain more food in a smarter way... for example fish farming... or have regulated local populations with famine and/or war.
India and China have shown that geographic constraints have not necessarily meant that the land could not support larger populations. And in the U.S., the population has grown to 300 million fairly obese citizens (and some thinner illegals) despite concerns of fewer individuals working in farming. We continue to hear reports of starvation in East Africa, but that's religious and political in origin.
So do we have a problem with over-population or not? Globally... no. Some areas... maybe. Some climatologists would like to see human population growth curtailed because they believe humans are going to cause the world to get warmer and some prime oceanfront property to disappear. But that is a debatable excuse for controlling human population. Besides, if that did happen, there would be more productive land for farming as the northern hemisphere experienced longer growing seasons. Moreover, in some nations, there is a trend toward declining population as greater life expectancy and greater wealth has refocused the population away from large families to pursue life's other pleasures. This is especially true in western Europe.
Still, there may actually come a time when enough is too much. We're just not there yet.
