I have been erasing the first line of this post for many times not being sure of what to write, how to start, and how to make the point without creating a lunatic controversy...so I think I decide to be a bit tunnel-visioned and simply write.
As we all know, the earth population is hitting almost 7 billion individuals and it is predicted that, with the current population growth rate, in 3 decades, there is a chance the earth would be filled by 9 billion individuals. That is a crazy statistics that we have approximately 30% growth within 3 decades. Please observe the graph below for comparing the speed of populating on earth.
Source: http://econosystemics.com/AphetaBlog/?p=9 (please check this site) It started slow as the population was less, but the more the population is, definitely the more the speed would increase. This is what Thomas Robert Malthus had mentioned in his theory on population. I have touched a bit on this on my posting titled Earth: Population vs Food vs Health Folks, we have been using the earth resource in massive chunks and even though we try to save this planet with all the initiatives starting from planting more trees, replacing fuel with solar system, running family planning program all over the world, do you think it would have the capacity to compensate the speed of population? We see this issue every day in our lives. We know it's there, but we always turn our head away from the reality for the simple reason that we don't have the capacity to digest the final outcome. We feel safe in our own imagination that there are authorities who are taking care of the world issue and all we have to do is simply get up in the morning, work, eat, get married, and make more children to fill this earth because that is what has been happening for millenia. And what is the symptoms of this overpopulation issue? I am not asking anyone to do a research on the internet or to any institution which provides the data, all I am asking is just simply go out of your house and see the street beyond. When you walked on that street 20 years ago, was it as crowded as when you walk on it now? How crowded is it now? Have you ever heard your grandmother or grandfather or your mother or father saying "This food doesn't taste as good as it was anymore." Does this sentence sound familiar to you? Have you ever asked "WHY?" or you simply don't care. For new parents out there who are happy to have a new born baby, have you considered what food are you giving to that growing child? Do you realize the effect of wrong food to the growth of the child? Have you ever thought, just once, where my child would be in 20 years time? Where are you going to squeeze them, folks? Where? These days, the moment you get married and the moment you realize that your wife is pregnant, the first thing you have to do is to book a place at the best Kindergarten and Elementary School as soon as possible because by the time the child is born and reach 6 or 7 years, there might not be seats for them to study and even if they have, the fee might soar to an unimaginable limit. I am not talking about revolution because the possibility for that is almost 0%. All I am asking is PLEASE don't turn your head away from what is happening to us. We are walking towards an abyss, slowly but sure and if we are not standing at the brim of the abyss now, our children would. PLEASE think of one illustration, if you have 1000 hungry men and you put only 10 plates of food in front of them, what would happen? Those 1000 hungry men would be us, the human beings, and those 10 plates of food would be the Earth Resource that we could utilize. Just imagine that before you plan to make 4 or 5 children. Just imagine that before you plan to make a football team out of your own children. Earth resource does NOT... I repeat, Earth resource DOES NOT multiply as speedy as us human.
- There won't be humans on earth if there is no clean water to drink.
- There won't be humans on earth if there is no enough food provision (and remember that food has been industrialized that harmful chemicals might be involved in the making process which would eventually harm our body because our body is God-given and it's not that easy to adjust to the foreign chemicals. It's just flesh & blood).
- There won't be humans on earth if greed has taken over the mind of the people in order to survive. Some people collect money that is enough to support his offspring up to 7 generation. YES, you would have the money, you would have the gold, or whatever investment you have. How if you have USD 1 billion cash in your hand and yet you don't have 1 ounce of rice or 1 loaf of bread to buy as there is no provision? Money is important. I don't want to be a hypocrite saying it's not important. You need that to survive, but not blind-folded, folks. Open your eyes to the surrounding. Your time is still safe, how are your children times?
- There won't be humans on earth if there is no space on earth where humans could stretch his legs to rest (unless we could start exploiting the places on earth which up to date has no inhabitants, which means, we would no longer have desert, we would no longer have forests, we would no longer have any body of nature to run from city hustle & bustle simply to unwind ourselves, and which means that we might have to use our Earth Poles to build apartments and schools and supermarkets and initiate migration program to those areas in order to provide space for our offspring).
We may think "Oh, it's not gonna happen tomorrow, just sit back and relax." YES, we are correct. It is not going to happen today and it is definitely not going to happen in the next 2 years. It may not even happen during our lifetime but it SURE will happen if we don't try to slow down our growth rate. Our children, our grandchildren will face that sooner or later. Disease would spread easily as migration and urbanization has been a daily part of life. Infection of any disease could be easily spread to other places. Urbanization and migration are not the problem. In order to survive, human beings must do these. They have to earn money and better prospect exist in the cities and hence, urbanization becomes the sole choice. In order to have better income, migration to more prosperous countries become the choice. Why? One of the reason is because we don't have enough resource in our own places. It is not upon the governments or UN, folks because they have initiated many programs for this awareness. The question is back to us now. Are we ready to at least realize what is going on and take a baby step to fix it? For example, you have a very stubborn bull to run your bullock cart, what would you do? You would take a whip and whip it, right? Yes, and still if the bull doesn't want to move because it's stubborn, what would you do? Whip it again, YES... How long? If that bull have a notion in his mind that "I'd rather die than follow your instruction, idiot human.", what could you do? NOTHING. That bull is us, the human race, and the whip is all the awareness campaign & our own conscience. That whip is shouting literally inside our heads, but we are ignoring it for the simple reason that we don't have the capacity to open our eyes and see the bitter truth. We don't want to see that. Are we that helpless? We ARE NOT helpless. I REPEAT, WE ARE NOT HELPLESS.
I wish to share something about the time when I used to be very selfish about my own life. In the beginning, I didn't want to get married because of my own personal reason, but then I fell in love, I trusted and the entire course of my life turned 180 degrees from what I used to have. I dreamed of having twin boys after my marriage so crazily and take care of my own family, that's it. But God has turned everything again to other direction. It was not simply 180 degree turn, God was spinning me into uncontrollable spinning wheel which finally stop after I saw everything that I needed to see.
I don't know why it happened in my life but whatever it is, I should say that I have traveled to places where many are scared to go. I have seen poverty eat up a man's soul. I have seen poverty make a child learn to walk by holding a tree on the street side with no clothing at all covered with mud and dust. I walked just 1 meter from that child and yet, I could not do anything. All I could see was just his sister playing with some stick around and his mother washed the clothes not far from the pavement where her children were playing. I have seen children born with defects due to malnutrition. I have seen mother hitting her autistic child because she could not tolerate the noise he was making. She didn't understand that her child was an autistic because she is not educated and all she knew was that her child was naughty and she was hitting him like anything while the child was keep making noise and crying at the same time. I don't see this just once, but many times. The pain in the chest seeing this is not easy. It's like someone is squeezing your heart so hard that you can't breathe in or out and yet you can't ask for help because your voice is not coming out. It's a sadistic pain, folks and for every single painful sight, there is a reason behind it. Reasons that we might not easily comprehend. Reasons that we simply don't want to care because it is too ugly truth to see. We can't be a one-man hero. It's not going to happen. But one thing that we all have to keep in mind is that WE ARE NOT PASSENGERS ON THIS SHIP CALLED EARTH. We can't simply sit there, putting our headphones, enjoying the drinks & snacks and be completely unaware of what is happening. WE ARE THE CREW ON THIS SHIP. If not us, NO ONE would take care of this place where we are standing. Think logically, Realize where you are standing, and Act with your heart. If we love children so much, at that point we would definitely realize what to do. It's no longer a gentle reminder, folks... It has been a glaring red-flamed Warning Sign. Let's decrease the speed we are going, have a look at the surrounding, and try our best as little as we could to make a better community because no matter how small you think you are, there is still something you could give away without losing it for yourself because not everything is a matter of material. Further Readings: http://neuroanthropology.net/2010/01/25/le-bresil-au-xixeme-et-xxieme-siecle/ http://www.worldbank.org/depweb/english/modules/social/pgr/
Reference: http://melyawatyrenggayya.blogspot.com/