Billions and Billions

Billions and Billions

Go to Hiroshima of the Frogs

It was announced recently that the 6 billionth person was born into the world. The numbers of people born within this past century, are staggering. There have been more people born during this century than any previous one. How much suffering would there be if the Great Depression of the 1930's happened in today's world with so many people vulnerable to famine and starvation? Would the governments be able to provide for all of these people? It is disturbing to note that the earth has such a large population. How many people is too many people? If we look at the animal kingdom, species prey on other species, and populations remain fairly the same unless man has tipped the balance one way or another through industrialization or hunting. Man's presence in the environment seems to have no fail safe device for the overpopulation of people, however. Will we keep breeding and breeding until the capacity of the earth is full? Will there will be enough water and food ? Conditions may become much worse than during the the Great Depression. People need to stop having too many children. But how can we deprive someone of their right to reproduce?

Natural occurrences such as drought, hurricanes, earthquakes, and volcanoes take a large number of lives. Yet mankind is getting better and better at predicting these events and saving many lives. There are earthquake proof buildings, shelters from hurricanes and Doppler radar to predict floods, tornadoes and hosts of other conditions. Sickness and disease used to be another way Mother Nature kept populations in balance. In today's modern world, we have vaccines, hurricanes and Doppler radar to predict floods, tornadoes and hosts of other conditions. Sickness and disease used to be another way Mother Nature kept populations in balance. In today's modern world, we have vaccines and drugs. People today live nearly twice as long as they did in the beginning of the century. Mankind and its pursuit of progress has surpassed Mother Nature as controller of the planet's destiny. We have an awesome responsibility in today's modern world just to figure out how many people is too many people and what the capacity of our planet is. Perhaps, subconsciously, our collective brain has determined a way for our populations to remain just below the critical level. We may be taking lessons from the whales.