A general from the Pentagon was interviewed. I believe the correspondent meant to ask him, “What is the biggest problem facing the United States?” Instead, the correspondent asked him, “What is the biggest problem facing the world?”
The general’s eyes popped open, and he said, “Population growth.”
The general added that wars will be started over there not being enough jobs and resources to support an overpopulated world. Wars over land wasn't the problem. Jobs and resources were the problem.
With all the good intentions of the United Nations, private and religious organizations to feed the children of the world, especially in Haiti and Africa, does it occur to anyone that there are too many people to feed year after year after year? “No! That is evil talk,” we are told.
We hear, “Hey, where’s your love of children? Jesus Christ said to feed the hungry and help the poor. Do you want to go to Hell by not doing it?”
When I mentioned overpopulation, two friends said almost the same thing to me. “Are you a Nazi terminator?”
Similar to the right to practice the Second Amendment (to have guns) or practice abortion (to subtract babies), people of planet Earth also say they have the right to spiral the growth of mankind until there is no place left to stand figuratively speaking.
A few countries complain, such as Russia, that they don't have enough people being born.
One of the themes of the Zombie movies is that the Zombies came into existence because the Earth was disgusted with the abuse of its resources and having too many people standing around. The Earth knew it had to ‘thin the herd’ in order for the world to continue. So Zombies emerged to trim the population.
The theme of the book, "Make Room! Make Room!," is about an overcrowded world. "Make Room! Make Room!" became the storyline for the movie called "Soylent Green." In "Soylent Green," too many people make planet Earth overheated, low on resources, and ultimately the population has to turn to cannibalism to feed the masses. As a way to manage resources and endure, reducing the amount of people grown is never considered in the movie.
In real-world terms, I saw a news report that India hasn't considered population control for its population problem.
What about when jobs, space, and resources run out? Christians know something is wrong with the shifting identities in the population and the loss of jobs, but they can’t connect the dots by having some people have less children. Why? In the Bible, Genesis 1:28, is the command for men and women to “Replenish the earth.” The Bible verse is an open canal to “Have all the children you want.” The Bible verse reads:
"God blessed the humans by saying to them, 'Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it! Be masters over the fish in the ocean, the birds that fly, and every living thing that crawls on the earth!'"
Here is the conversation stopper: “Every baby is evidence that God wants the world to continue.” Try an argument against that statement.
Additionally, most people are biologically programmed to have progeny. So the spiral keeps going until a crisis. How is the population crisis being handled now? Keep feeding people. Have telethons. Keep throwing money at starvation. Give the unfortunate clean water and food, but giving water and feeding new-born babies and their parents is endless. The population crisis grows.
At the conclusion of his HBO show on June, 16, 2017, Bill Maher pointed out that jobs for retailers and workplaces like malls are being eliminated. The people we have don't have enough work. Why keep increasing the number of people? Maher makes a practical point but is hated for it.
Why haven’t humanitarian organizations been more successful in stopping the poor from having too many children? That unspoken goal is having too much common sense.
The downside of religions that support ‘the sanctity of life’ is no thought given about turning off the spigot of babies being produced and filling the world.
Abortion is supposed to be de facto population control, but it hasn’t worked out that way. For example, abortion clinics are almost always built near poor neighborhoods.
The irony of abortion is that it was for unwanted pregnancies; keeping the population of a family under control. Instead, there are more people born where abortions are available. Someone in the United States may argue, “Oh, the increase is only because of the financial government incentives to have more children.” If that is true, why isn’t there a limit on the number of children families can have to receive financial assistance? “God forbid you from saying that out loud. There is the Nazi and hatred in you again.” Such name calling puts an end to starting a conversation about a growing crisis on the horizon.
The popping population is the ignored elephant in the room (sometimes near real elephants in India and Africa). Overpopulation in areas where resources are scarce is a topic you can’t often broach without receiving some hellfire.
There is an interesting tidbit about the elephant in the room that few acknowledge. Real elephants on the planet are losing their habitats to growing human populations. Except for zoos, real elephants will all but disappear from planet Earth. Let not population growth make them irrelephant (pun intended).
When mankind runs out of habitats for itself, will mankind begin to disappear, too? Could be. If we apply our God-given intelligence, we should find a balance with Nature.
Bill Sweet
Spindrift Research