JPR – Earth Precepts Program 9
Host: This week, Pepper Trail continues our series on taking
responsibility for the Earth with the Earth Precept that states:
☼ Do not have more than two children
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Human reproduction is a
“hot-button” issue for many people, raising powerful personal and religious
issues, and so this is likely to be one of the most controversial precepts. It is also one of the most basic, dealing as
it does with our responsibility to share the biosphere, leaving some
space and resources for all the other species of the Earth.
The first warning about human
population growth was sounded in 1798 by the British mathematician Thomas
Malthus, who noted the potential for population to grow exponentially, while
food production only increased in a linear way. He saw famine and starvation as the inevitable result of unrestricted
population growth. In the 200 years
since, the world human population has increased six thousand percent, to
over 6 billion. And yet, the great famines that Malthus predicted
have, for the most part, not occurred, thanks to the amazing ability of the
human race to continually grow more food.
Unfortunately, there are many
signs that this cannot continue indefinitely.
First, there isn’t any more unused land to bring into cultivation. A recent world-wide analysis concluded that
98% of the land suitable for growing our staple grains – corn, wheat, and rice
– is already in use. Second, increased yields have been achieved largely
through the use of pesticides and fertilizers, at ever-growing economic and
environmental cost. Finally, in many
areas, agriculture has become so intensive that it is destroying the land
through erosion, salt buildup, and desertification.
Over 400 million people now
live in countries with less than a quarter of an acre of land per person – the
minimum needed to supply one person with a vegetarian diet. During the past 100 years
alone, almost 4.5 billion people were
added to the population of the earth.
That is more than all the people who existed in the history of the world
up to that time. Well over a million
people are added to the total every week, week after week after week.
If present birth rates hold
steady, the world population would reach 14.4 billion by 2050 and continue to
climb. However, if a birth rate of 2.0
was adopted immediately and universally, it would produce an essentially stable
world population of about 7.3 billion by 2050. It’s hard to imagine a more
important goal for us to reach in our quest to maintain a healthy, livable
Earth.
For residents of the United States,
there is perhaps no more environmentally costly decision than having a
child. The “ecological footprint” – the
amount of the biosphere’s productive surface area appropriated to support our
way of life – is about 24 acres for a resident of the United States,
compared to 2.5 acres per person in the developing world.
Our overwhelming success as a
species has placed human beings in a novel and paradoxical position: to truly love our children, we must have
fewer of them. To preserve life, we must
restrict our own fertility. It is not consistent with our responsibility to the
earth to have more children than will replace ourselves.
Next week, we’ll look at the
precept that warns us how life itself is in danger of becoming a commodity
monopolized by powerful special interests.
Until then, this is Pepper Trail.
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