.
THE
POPULATION
FUTURE
.

.
Unlike plagues of the dark ages or contemporary diseases we do not understand, the modern plague of overpopulation is soluble by means we have discovered and with resources we posses. What is lacking is not sufficient knowledge of the solution but universal consciousness of the gravity of the problem and education of the billions who are its victim. -Martin Luther King, Jr., 1929-1968

(This page lists possibilities, not predictions.)

As the human population increases, we can expect the four horsemen to thunder in to equalize things. (War, Famine, Disease, and Pestilence.) To do nothing, in the present situation--or too little--invites them in.
. . The Horsemen would not be an evil image to the Hindu; a la Shiva, the Destroyer. As much a rescuer, he makes room for new things by getting the old ones out of the way. When a space is saturated, it's the only way, and will happen whether we like it or not. (When I'm an old one, I plan to not like it!)

If we do nothing, or too little, we can expect:

  1. Food shortages, obviously; but before that--and causing that--problems with:
  2. Water. Runoff of agricultural chemicals, and seepage into aquifers. Lack of safe cheap dump-sites and sewage systems. Runoff from old mines, old dumb-dumps.
  3. Soil. Food-crop contamination from mercury, dioxin, pesticides.
  4. Air. UV, ozone, acid rain, greenhouse effect, and desertification. Somewhat synergistically!
  5. Man-made radiations. Electromagnetic? Nuclear waste. (Please: "NEW-cle-rr")

  6. Health. All the results of all the above, plus

    1. Allergies, more debilitating and widespread than at present.
    2. Epidemics. "Human monocrop". Think this is far-future? Right now, we've logged terrible increases in disease, even in the U.S.
      1. The U.S. incidence of Asthma increased Three-fold in just the last 20 years!
    3. Malnutrition. ...results in poor education, too.
    4. vastly increased need for workforce merely to care for above, rather than productive work.

    5. (and care/pay for all above.)

    6. Skip down to "New Disease Threats". [put this below]
  7. Social upheavals.
    1. Vastly increased crime. From the underprivileged and from the over-corrupted.
    2. Hate-groups, as the low-IQ +/or little-educated look for someone to blame.
    3. Increased tendencies toward war, because of 3b, and greed or desperation for the ever-shrinking resources and territory.
    4. insanity resulting from urban-crowding stress, toxicity, neglect, poverty, unwanted children.
    5. increased attempt to "escape" thru drugs and cults.
    6. Economic Depression. An end of our "rope" to avoid inflation. Even greater disparity between rich and poor. Skyrocketing cost of energy. (unless...)
    7. Political Chaos. Tendency toward right-wing; with resultant loss of individuality, freedoms.

    So, just when we get delivered a lot of work required to fix things, we get delivered a lot more required work to keep things from completely falling apart. At some point, we can't.

    Expanding on above:
    1. Eco-influence. All of #1, and
      1. Loss of predators that control the balance of things, so humans have to try to make up for it ALL. But we can't, so -- explosions of pests: rodents, insects (including new ones).
      2. More loss of land to freeways, housing, salt/alkali, ocean-rise.
    2. increased tendency to over-graze, causing erosion.
    3. over-fishing leads to collapse of more fisheries. (Fish populations, or extinctions.)
    4. deforestation. Desertification. Ocean-rise.
    5. increased numbers ( and percentage) of poor who'll have less sewerage. Epidemics of cholera, anthrax, return of the plague, etc.
    6. more alien species.
    7. Space. Orbiting-junk hazard to new orbiters. That makes it too expensive to keep our data-systems going. That's the signal that we've given up on survival.
    .
    NEW DISEASE THREATS.
    1. Besides Lyme, a new tick-borne: Human Granulocytic Erliciosis
    2. Hanta Virus. Recent to U.S. Rodent-borne.
    3. various Hemoraggic Fevers, including Ebola! The scariest! Odds worse with pop density.
    4. Dengue (BreakBone Fever). One strain kills 30% of children hit. Asian Tiger Mosquito (introduced in 1990).
    5. The "Flesh-eating" bacteria. It, in turn, is infected with a virus! Together, they're very potent.
    6. Malaria. With global warming, it's spreading north.
    8. Legionella.
    9. Enterococcus. Fast becoming drug-resistant, because of overuse. Kills 70,000/yr. Staphylococcus is next.
    12. Oh, did I mention AIDS? It's evolving even as you read this.

    "Controlled", but returning now:

    1. Influenza. I mean a BIG one, a la 1918! It killed 1/3 of those it hit.
    2. Cholera.
    3. Anthrax.
    4. Yellow Fever. Asian Tiger Mosquito.
    5. Tuberculosis. Air-borne; becoming drug-resistant.
    6. Yellow Fever. Vaccine not in production or use. Would run out in days.
    7. "Whooping Cough". Parents skip innoculations....
    8. Malaria: wasn't a human disease before populations rose with agriculture. Same with:
    9. Measles. W/o a few hundred thousand people in an area, Measles would go extinct.

    Potential to return:

  8. The Plague! Yes, it still strikes occassionally. It's only waiting for the right conditions.
  9. .
    As the population rises, there comes a time when facilities can't keep up; sewage is no longer treated. Fire and Police Departments are no longer adequately funded.

    There comes a time when people can't care about everything, even their own safety. Let's call it crime-fatigue. When society passes a certain level of common crime, people become inured to it, just like the boiled frog. When criminals know that cops cannot keep up with them, they feel freer and somehow more justified in their behavior. So crime expands and feeds upon itself in a vicious circle.

    Whatever the popular name for it becomes, it seems certain that there will be the phenomenon we'll call "berzerkers". I've predicted them for over a decade; now we've started to see them. These people are those who feel that they have absolutely nothing left to lose, so they want to show the world how serious their problem is. To call them crazies is to dismiss them. The blame for many of them is on the society that knew what was causing it... and did nothing.

    Ashley Montague spoke of healthy babies who were left in "Isolettes" (horrible word!) and the high percentage of those who were untouched there... who died there! It's my (hesitant) hypothesis that babies in "isolettes" whose psyche barely survives that treatment may grow up to be psychopaths and serial killers, or at least damaged in some way.

    Further, those babies who get only some minuscule degree of touch are uncaring of other people's needs. And further: with a modicum of touch, perhaps the result is the boring, unfeeling person. It's a matter of degree.

    How much better it would be if people had only one child, and lavished all their care, educational opportunities, and wisdom on that one. (I think what's been called "spoiled" is mostly a lack of nastiness & negativity.) That child, both while young and grown, would greatly, positively influence everybody he/she contacted in their life, especially their own single child.

    We would have a eutopia--a golden age--if we'd do that, but more likely it will continue to be hellish (world-wide average quality of life) because we didn't.

    No, I prefer to spell it "Eutopia", as the Greek perfix "EU-" means "good", making: "good place". It helps avoid the connotation that it is perfect and unattainable.)

    HOME PAGE
    Previous Essay: Population-Problem
    Next Essay: Pop-Crime. Are You The Criminal?