Cancer can not survive without a host.  In small numbers it goes basically undetected but as its numbers increase the effects begin to break down various systems of the host.  Eventually the cancer becomes so large in numbers the host can no longer survive and dies, and with it so does the cancer.

Are we the cancer of the Earth?

In the last 50 years the world population has more then doubled from 3.3 billion to 7.3 billion people.  At our current population the environment is already noticeably stressed.  Estimates show that the world population could reach 9 billion by 2050.  Even with breakthroughs in science how many people can the earth support?   10 billion?  15 billion?  500 billion?  At what point will we realize we cannot go on the way we are and how badly damaged will the environment be by then?  Will it be too late?

Cancer Cells have no idea that there ever increasing numbers will eventually kill there host, along with them.

Are we smarter then a cancer cell?

Evidence of how fast the population is growing is not hard to find. In Toronto Canada there are so many new condos going up it’s not uncommon to find 3 construction cranes close together. 

The city of Bradford 65km to the north of Toronto has seen hundreds of acres of new housing built over the last 10 years, the edge of which can be seen in the distance of this photo. In the next 2 years housing will cover all of the empty field shown.

Tapping the brakes on world population

Raising a child is one of the greatest and most fulfilling basic things in life and no one should be denied the experience, however our current mind set that large families our enviable has to change and changing our mind set and values takes time.  If the average family had only 1 or 2 children the world population would begin to decline. Even if the average amount of children per family were 2,  the population would no longer increase.  No one should be told how many children they are allowed to have but through education and government incentives on a national and global level people need to be encouraged to have smaller families.  Our increasing population is by far the single greatest threat to ourselves and the environment, it is also the easiest thing to fix.

Currently in Canada the government is still encouraging large families and offers thousands of dollars in tax savings for every child you have, in effect paying Canadians to have more children. What would happen if the government announced over the next ten years these tax savings would not change for the first child, be reduced by one half for the second child and nothing for any additional children? Would Canadians reconsider how many children they are going to have?  If not, what if the money the government saved from this was given as a form of tax credit to the families that just had one child or no children?  It’s hard to say right now what and how much it would take in government incentives to get the average family size down to a sustainable level and no doubt incentives would vary between countries.  Could there be other benefits to this kind of government policy?  Would financial incentives to have less children also possible reduce the number of unwanted or abused children?  Would having less children result in better care for the ones we have?   The sooner we start, the more time we have to learn and adjust and the easier the transition will be.

Governments also need to do more when it comes to contraception. Young people need to be educated before the age they become sexually active.  Affordable methods of contraception need to be made available to everyone and more research into new reliable methods needs to be done. The number of unplanned or unwanted pregnancies needs to be reduced as close to 0 as possible.

Not only do we need time to adjust to the idea of smaller families, what about the economy? How would a slowing population growth effect the economy?  Doe’s  our current economy rely on the pyramid system requiring more and more people every year to keep going?  By a slow and gradual reduction in population growth we can hopefully avoid any major economic disasters.

We can no longer think that we can sit back and as long as we recycle, conserve energy, use green products and green companies that everything will be  fine.  The fact is unless we can start to control our population now all other efforts are for nothing.  In the 5 minutes  it took you to read this article there are over 700 more people on earth. By this time tomorrow there will be another 200,000.

Dave Lister

listerlogic.com

(photo of Earth courtesy of NASA)