saving humanity 2nd ed ebook
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SAVING
HUMANITY
Copyright © 2013 Franco Bartolini
The right of Franco Bartolini to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright
Act 98 of 1978.
All rights reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction in other ways and storage in data banks. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted without permission given by the Author.
Second Edition May 2013 in paperback
Project by New Voices Publishing Serviceswww.newvoices.co.za
ISBN: 978-0-620-44347-0
Disclaimer:New Voices Publishing makes every effort to protect the integrity of its authors, however opinions expressed within the pages of the publications are those of the authors, and do not necessarily represent the views of New Voices Publishing.
SAVING
HUMANITY
SECOND EDITION
Franco Bartolini
4 SAVING HUMANITY
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 5
Chapter 1 • PREJUDICE AND PERSPECTIVE 9
Chapter 2 • CAUSES FOR CONCERN 14
Chapter 3 • OVERPOPULATION, WOMEN’S PLIGHT
and ECONOMICS 20
Chapter 4 • REASONS FOR, AND EFFECTS OF HAVING 29
CHILDREN
Chapter 5 • UNDERSTANDING THE NUMBERS WE CAN 38
CONTROL
Chapter 6 • THE FUTURE LOOKS BLEAK, IN THE 21ST 59
CENTURY
Chapter 7 • ECONOMIC GROWTH, MYTH or MIRAGE 64
Chapter 8 • CAN HUMAN SAVE THEMSELVES ?? 70
Chapter 9 • MORE READING 79
Chapter 10 • APPENDIX 80
INTRODUCTION 5
INTRODUCTION
Old people, or anyone who can remember the sixties, often
compare today’s way of life with the so called “good old days”.
Young people may be a little sceptical and suspect: memory fatigue,
and not wanting to let go of bygone youth. However, the good old
days were really quite a different way of life.
There were no computers, no cell phones, no internet and no TV
in some areas, but we had drive-ins; and pollution, traffic jams,
parking and refuse dump sites were more manageable.
There were no fears of: climate change, depletion of resources,
energy crises, unemployment, and overpopulation. Also, unlike
now, people had confidence in, and could plan for the future.
These days, it is frightening to constantly be reminded of the
damage done to the environment in which we live by the many
crises facing humanity. Moreover, this damage is not of a passing
nature, like an earthquake or a flood which will pass and then the
earth will recover. These are long lasting and irreversible disasters
like, for example, the forests of the equatorial belt, the lungs of the
earth, which have been nearly wiped out in a few generations. It
took thousands, or millions, of years for the forests to develop and
grow before people started cutting the trees on such a mindlessly
destructive industrial scale.
Humanity needs those trees, not just as wood, but to support plant
and animal life, biodiversity and to clean the air we all breathe, we
cannot hold our breath until the trees grow again.
6 SAVING HUMANITY
There are many other disasters facing humanity right now, such as
rising sea levels, pollution poisoning of all forms of life, the energy
crisis, global warming, which threatens the whole environment and
the food production needed for billions of people, and many others.
Many nations are also experiencing economic and political chaos,
and these can precipitate unemployment, rocketing food prices
and misery on an unprecedented scale, uncontrolled migrations by
millions of people, and even free-for-all anarchy.
These are not pleasant prospects to contemplate and they are also
difficult to imagine. Generally people regard these issues with awe,
or as being too big for individuals to solve. Older folks, callously,
often say that it will be up to the younger generations to deal with
them.
I have grandchildren, I am very concerned about the sorry state of
the world they will inherit, and I wish I could do more for them.
The best I can do here is to point out the fundamental cause of
most of the evils afflicting and endangering our planet and show
that not only governments, but also; and especially individuals can
contribute to saving humanity.
It is beyond my ability and scope to deal with all the proofs and
technicalities of the issues afflicting our environment. That
information is widely available; on the internet, for example, and
at universities there are thousands of entries by specialists on all of
the individual subjects.
The intention here is only to show how most of the awesome
INTRODUCTION 7
problems facing us are related to overpopulation and especially the
wall of silence around it.
Also to point out that by concentrating too much attention on
global warming and the economic crises, but no attention on
overpopulation researchers, decision makers, governments, and
the world media are trying to cure the symptoms and forgetting
about the sickness.
The planet may not be in peril; i.e., the sand, the sea, the earth,
the volcanoes, the mountains and some altered kind of climate will
survive.
However, 7 billion humans as well as most other animals and plant
life are in grave danger!!
As governments and world leaders at the UN sponsored COP 1
conferences have selfish and conflicting nationalistic agendas; it
is no longer wise merely to: report what they do and say, believe
them, or do what they recommend, which might be good for one
or a few nations only.
For journalists and reporters there will never be a more glamorous
or worthwhile opportunity than to thoroughly investigate the
current issues and dangers, uncover the true root causes, then
using their available resources such as newspapers, internet,
television and radio, break the silence and explain to the world,
in words and in ways that everyone can understand, the priorities,
the responsibilities, the sacrifices, and the necessity to challenge
1 COP is conference of the parties
8 SAVING HUMANITY
cultures, customs and religions in order to attempt to reverse the
current deadly overpopulation trends.
But while nothing was said; in the past 43 years, from 1968 to
2011, the world population doubled: from 3.5 to 7 billion, and
governments, world leaders, religions, corporations and the news
media continue to avoid the subject like the plague and maintain
the mafia-like conspiracy of silence.
This total lack of honest leadership has distorted and confused the
understanding and the debate. As OP 2 is now a highly controversial
issue, who can people trust for advice and guidance??
Not the usually credible sources! They have shown to be afraid
to speak and to have selfish agendas. So, hoping not to sound
presumptuous, I hope this book might help.
Finally however, regardless of any advice, each of us is individually
responsible to take wise decisions, act in our best interest, and that
of our: family, children, grandchildren, environment and planet; It
is our privilege and our duty; we must never ask, or allow others to
do it for us.
2 OP is overpopulation
CHAPTER 1 9
Chapter 1 • PREJUDICE AND PERSPECTIVE
Since Malthus3 in the 1800’s, until Ehrlich in the 1960’s; there
has been much controversy about overpopulation; Paul and Anne
Ehrlich’s book, “the population bomb” was ridiculed because the
unforeseen “green revolution” and massive amounts of foreign
aids, fuelled by massive use of fertilizers derived from cheap oil,
delayed (NOTE: not saved us from) the coming to pass of most of
the disastrous famines predicted in the book.
After the sixties, the OP issue went silent, nobody dared to talk
about it any longer, the very necessary debates were distorted by
all sorts of unnecessary and out of context issues i.e.:
• Racial: Black people objected to whites telling them to have
fewer children, it interfered with their human rights, and they
were suspicious of the motives.
• Religious: Catholics, Moslems and other pro-life groups were
against contraception, family planning and any other mean to a
sustainable population, especially abortion.
• Cultural and traditional: When promoting family planning many
people, especially Asian and African objected to interference
with their traditions and culture.
During this silent period, however, the world population doubled to
7 Billion by 2011; and, in the world news-media there are ominous
signs that the doomsday predictions in Dr Ehrlich’s book, albeit a
3 Malthus is Reverend T R Malthus (see Wikipedia)
10 SAVING HUMANITY
few decades later, may soon actually come to pass.
In July 2012, at a summit about family planning in London, the
British prime minister, without actually mentioning the OP issue, or
the “overpopulation” word, explained that there can be no future
without family planning, empowering women and a sustainable
world population.
It appears that the OP issue and the “overpopulation” word remain
controversial and sensitive; however, the word must be said loudly
and freely! And the consequences, also understood!
Frantz Fanon, in his book Black Skin, White Masks said:
“Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When
they are presented with evidence that works against that
belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create
a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive
dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core
belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything
that doesn’t fit in with the core belief.”
The discomfort created increases with the importance of the issue
at hand, and the strength of the conflict between the dissonant
thoughts or beliefs.
It is, therefore, important to keep an open mind and be sure that
our core beliefs are valid, true, based on scientific evidence and
NOT on mistaken prejudices. More so, when contemplating the
state of the planet, our and our family’s survival, our nations and
humanity’s future: – our core beliefs must be true.
CHAPTER 1 11
Some light forms of prejudice, for example, mindlessly supporting
your home town football team even though they are hopeless, can
be forgiven; however, disregarding or denying global warming; or
accepting global warming but denying overpopulation cannot be
forgiven!
In 1966, when the world population was 3.4 billion, i.e., less than
half the current 7 billion, showing amazing foresight and his usual
mastery of speech, Martin Luther King said:
“Unlike plagues of the dark ages or contemporary diseases we
do not yet understand, the modern plague of overpopulation
is soluble by means we have discovered and with resources
we possess. 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 victims.”
Now that the problem is so much bigger and so much more urgent
we all should share Sir David Attenborough’s concern: “How
can I look my grandchildren in the eye and say: “I knew what was
happening to the world and did nothing”!
People who are as yet unconvinced of the looming apocalyptic
suffering, famines, in-fighting and civil war for food and resources
that the current unchecked population growth is triggering, needs
to review the facts and all related issues from different perspectives.
The word “perspective” has many meanings, and it is useful to look
at some; it can mean: a view, a type of drawing, a viewpoint, an
opinion, a persuasion, a philosophy, and so on...; there are also
12 SAVING HUMANITY
prejudicial or objective perspectives; so we need to be careful when
we look at, or try to understand things; the way we usually look
at or see them may not necessarily mean that we fully understand
them.
A good way of exploring perspectives is to use “Google Earth”, a free
Google facility for maps and satellite views of the earth. By zooming
in and out on a computer screen the view or the perspective changes
from: eyes out in space to eyes a few meters from ground level.
From a zoomed-out view it is possible to see the whole earth on the
screen, we can rotate it in all directions, see the continents, and we
know that we are looking at the real planet we are living on.
We should pose to appreciate this privilege!! Not so long ago,
all people on earth were under the impression, or the prejudicial
perspective, that the earth was flat.
Now, slowly zooming in the perspective changes, we can
progressively see: continents, countries, borders, dots indicating
the position of towns and so on; however, as we get nearer and
we can see more details, we can no longer see the whole planet;
and so, zooming further in we continue to see more details: towns,
roads and buildings we recognize; we can clearly see our home and
garden details; but as we progressively see more fine details we lose
sight of the outlines of the bigger picture at the outer perimeter of
the screen.
The point I wish to make is that things can, and should be seen from
different perspectives to try and understand the WHOLE picture.
CHAPTER 1 13
The Google Earth exercise showed that we can see the BIG picture
and not the DETAILS, or we can see the details and not the big
picture, BUT WE CANNOT SEE THE WHOLE PICTURE AT THE SAME
TIME, i.e., without changing perspectives.
When dealing with one family, one small community, one town or
anything specific close to us it might be necessary to ZOOM IN and
analyse the origin, history, trends and status of things. However, in
emergencies, it is necessary to ZOOM OUT, assess the big picture,
and decide what can urgently be done to restore, repair or minimize
damage.
It is also necessary to ZOOM OUT when dealing with general
world trends, and be aware that conditions in our home town may
be totally different from world trends; but world trends or even
random events may directly or indirectly affect our future.
For example, a crop failure or a draught in the grain-growing belt of
the USA may directly trigger food price increases and hoarding, but
also indirectly it can cause famines and deaths in areas of the world
that have become chronically dependent on food aids
14 SAVING HUMANITY
Chapter 2 • CAUSES FOR CONCERN
The lifestyles of people on earth in the 21st century vary greatly
from extreme wealth to extreme poverty. Wealth, of course, can
buy more comfortable lifestyles, however, the bare necessities
needed to sustain life, like water, food, air, shelter and security, are
the same for all of us, and are now increasingly under threat for all
of us.
Globally, most of the modern calamities facing us, eventually, will
destroy wealth and all the bare necessities of life, too. We have
been unwittingly responsible for them, living with them for many
past decades, and as we carry on as usual they are increasing in
intensity, seriousness, visibility, and we are becoming increasingly
aware of their accelerating and damaging symptoms.
Deforestation, pollution, and poisoning of all food chains, climate
change, AIDS, wars, global warming, the energy crisis, depletion
of fish in the sea, and of most other natural resources, fresh water
shortages, melting glaciers and rising sea levels, unemployment,
slavery and denial of human right to women, illegal migration,
frightening contagious diseases, poverty, starvation, advancing
deserts, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and ordinary
ones, dictatorships, resurging piracy, terrorism, mountains of waste,
choking traffic congestions in all the cities of the world, the 2008
economic crisis and the latest global investment fraud by banking
and governments are among the state-of-the-art crises we have to
live with every day.
CHAPTER 2 15
Governments, and other organisations are scrambling to find
solutions, and the media reports all these good intentions stated
by the world leaders. However, despite large sums of money and
resources allocated to these problems, nothing seems to have
worked so far; and there are no credible ideas or actions planned
that could urgently and effectively reverse these trends.
Also, for the 20 years after the 1992 Rio earth summit; and 33
years after China’s adoption of the one child per family policy; the
overpopulation issue is still being avoided like the plague. This
conspiracy and the mafia silence about it are delaying the wide
recognition of the link between OVERPOPULATION and all the
apocalyptic state-of-the-art-crises listed above.
This elusive all important link, yet to be acknowledged worldwide,
is the recognition that the fundamental root cause of all the state-
of-the-art-crises listed above is OVERPOPULATION.
If true, it should be good news to governments and organizations
that for the past 20 years, i.e., since the 1992 Earth Summit
conference in Rio de Janeiro, have attended United Nations
sponsored globetrotting COP conferences all over the world,
produced mountains of paperwork, and achieved NOTHING. Good
news, because: whereas it is impossible to remedy the long list of
crises one-by-one; it would be much easier and feasible to reduce
overpopulation and thereby solve all the crises at the same time.
Degradation of the earth’s living environments probably started
with the industrial revolution, and has been accelerating ever since.
Awareness by increasing numbers of people started in the mid 20th
16 SAVING HUMANITY
century, and lately there seem to be real concern about global
warming, and PANIC about the latest economic crisis – which is not
the worst thing that can happen to humanity.
Mankind is not a homogeneous group of people that can act with
a common goal; we are a large group of nations, each promoting
its own interest, with different values, level of wealth, priorities,
cultures and religions. But even if we could act as one, the world does
not have the time or the gigantic amounts of resources necessary to
reverse any one or more of the imminent disasters facing humanity,
especially while all the other crises are overwhelming us, and the
world population continues to grow by 80 million people every
year.
Many animal species, when faced with stress, droughts or food
shortages, do not reproduce, they wait until things get better
before doing what nature has programmed them to do, i.e., to carry
on their species. Mankind could learn something here.
Since there are serious threats of imminent catastrophes to the
environment which provides humanity with the basic necessities to
sustain life, why are we reproducing in such large numbers? What
right have we got to have more children, our own blood, and when
we die, leave them to deal with all these deadly crises, and such an
uncertain future?
The extinction of humanity may only be a way off possibility,
but shortages of food are not uncommon; in Africa and other
underdeveloped areas of the world year after year on TV everyone
has seen the effects of famines and poverty as food help from
CHAPTER 2 17
developed countries was distributed to starving people and
children; yet we grow by 80 million more people every year.
As global warming and water shortages are already affecting food
production, and as developed countries, with increasing problems
of their own, may not have money or food help to give, the reality
for many millions of people, if not billions, who received food aid
to avoid famines, could be much worse than what we have seen
thus far.
Moreover, with food prices rocketing, the prospects for millions of
people, who barely managed to buy food so far, are: food shortages,
starvation may be famine, and death.
One more depressing cause for concern is that mankind has a bad
reputation when it comes to avoiding disasters. Even when they can
be seen coming, we seem unable to avoid them, some examples are:
the credit crunch, General Motors’ inability to adapt to the world’s
changing needs, the depletion of fish in the sea, deforestation, and
so on. Everyone can see these things coming, but no one wants to
change their habits until it is too late.
However, the consequences of the failure to stop the environmental
damage that can be caused by overpopulation will firstly be
catastrophic on an unimaginable scale, and if it proves irreversible,
as it is likely to be, it could mean prolonged agonizing slow death
for most people on earth.
If it proves true that past behaviour is the best predictor of future
behaviour, the present and all future generations are doomed.
18 SAVING HUMANITY
However, it is not impossible that some sanity may prevail.
There is also no need to reinvent the wheel. China is a shining
example of what can be done to control people’s numbers and,
enrich the population and the country. Although some liberties have
been curtailed, the results are a nation rich from hard work, proud,
improving standards of living, a slowly decreasing population, a
disciplined strong nation, and promising future prospects.
Unlike many other developing regions, where they have freedom
to, and reproduce at will, with a resulting way of life consisting of
poverty, diseases, no modern infrastructures, massive corruption,
unemployment, famine, depravation, and desperate mass migration
to wealthier regions, hopeless future prospects, and often death.
A last depressing cause for concern is that although some developed
regions have slowed the population growth to acceptable levels,
where a disciplined and sustainable lifestyle could be possible,
there are billions of poor people from developing areas who are
waiting for, and wanting to migrate to these more affluent areas
where, sadly, there cannot be life support for everyone.
People in developed areas are beginning to warn that 3 Billion
people in poor areas unable to either make a good living or
feed themselves are likely to attempt to migrate to Europe and
any other part of the world where life is better. But life is better
probably because, among other things, they are more developed
communities, and they reproduce at a much lower rate.
History has shown that using legal and humanitarian methods,
CHAPTER 2 19
it is very difficult to deny entry to poor people looking for help.
However, as the numbers increase and conditions in the third
world deteriorate, it is very likely that there are going to be horrific
conflicts between poor people trying to migrate and countries that
cannot allow masses of foreigners to overwhelm their land.
20 SAVING HUMANITY
Chapter 3 • OVERPOPULATION, WOMEN’S PLIGHT and ECONOMICS
Evolution, or creation, or however we got here; among all other
forms of life, plants and other animal species; produced mankind.
Compared to other animals, humans have been capable of greater
achievements; we have been able to dominate all the other
animals, to modify our living space so as to optimise our comfort,
to manufacture machinery to: do our heavy and unpleasant work,
transport us on land water and in the air at speeds that no natural
animal can do, instantaneously communicate worldwide and
deliberately reproduce at a much faster rate than required for the
survival of the specie.
Like all other animals we come with primordial instincts which
helped us compete and survive, but unlike other animals we have
developed higher levels of intelligence and tool-making skills which,
by comparison, have helped to make us so successful.
We have also succeeded in accumulating, storing and applying
knowledge which could not be passed on as instincts, and we have
adopted arbitrary value systems which help us to do either what
we regard as good things or whatever other things we want to do
in life.
For our existence we cannot claim any credit; it is totally due to
our planet, the conditions which support life on it, the wonders
of nature which support reproduction and provide food, and the
beauty of nature which provides enjoyment.
CHAPTER 3 21
For our successes we credit our intelligence, our tool-making
abilities or technology, the ability to accumulate knowledge and
wealth, our arbitrary value systems, and finally, the ability to use
intelligence to control our primordial instincts and/or modern
habits, where necessary.
For our failures, especially in modern times, we really need to
review our arrogant concept of success, our limitations and our
value systems, how we use intelligence to recognise prospective
dangers and our failure to do what is necessary in time to prevent
disasters.
There are many examples of failures to apply our overrated
intelligence to control our instincts: Alcoholism and other
substances abuse, obesity, wars, AIDS, the credit crunch, global
warming, and the mother of all other failures: the out-of-control
human population explosion.
In all cases, our intelligence can clearly define the problem and
provide a workable solution. However, although we are aware that
allowing these conditions to fester can lead to disasters; we seem
unable to do what is necessary in time to stop the damage and save
the day.
Mankind now desperately needs to use intelligence and discipline
to control our primordial instinct to reproduce, and our modern
misguided trend to choose to have too many children.
The understanding, vision, courage, discipline and leadership of
the Chinese people needs to be acknowledged here and worldwide.
22 SAVING HUMANITY
Many critics fail to understand the gravity of the crisis, and the
urgency to deal with overpopulation accelerating out of control.
Whereas their one child per family policy, adopted 30 years ago in
China, may violate some human and political rights, and change
their demographics-age-profile, the welfare of mankind, and finally,
the survival of humanity should, as they have done in China, take
precedence.
Overpopulation has been with us for over a half century, but we are
carrying on living, working, buying houses, having children, trying
to accumulate wealth and enjoying our grandchildren, while we fail
to sound alarm bells in the face of the greatest threat to the survival
of mankind.
Too many misguided people everywhere, but especially in
underdeveloped areas, it must be said, are still unwittingly
continuing to aggravate the destruction of the very environment
on which humanity depends, by denying women a voice, their
freedoms, their human rights and often forcing them to have too
many children into an overcrowded and unsustainable world.
Tragically, overpopulation may be difficult to recognise, unlike
a volcanic eruption, tsunami, or earthquake, the symptoms of
overpopulation are usually only visible as separate crises with
different names such as: global warming, chaotic traffic jams in most
cities, mountains of man-made waste, pollution, deforestation, the
energy crises, unemployment, political and social turmoil, depletion
of fish in the sea and all vital resources, economic meltdowns, and
so on.
CHAPTER 3 23
However, the link and correlation with these environmental issues must be recognised by considering that if overpopulation could be reduced – the gravity of all other crises would also proportionally be reduced; i.e., as things were in the middle of the 20th century.
There are many world leaders, scientists, religious and concerned people who must be well aware of the connection between overpopulation and all the other state-of-the-art evils.
Yet they all keep silent; WHY??? I can only suspect that: the pressure by business or religious interests, or the controversiality of the issue, or the cowardice of political leaders who fear that population regression may increase unemployment and civil unrest; and, not wanting to be the ones who triggered a global depression, they continue keeping the mafia silent about overpopulation and the plight of women, and prefer to focus all the attention on global warming. Voltaire said that: The comfort of the rich depends upon an abundant supply of the poor.
It is also surprising that the scientific community monitoring climate change fails to inform the world that there is no way that any, or all the governments and countries together can reverse global warming; especially if the world population continues to increase by one billion every 12 years; and every world leader continues to promote impossible economic growth.
Human rights, women’s plight, pre-arranged marriages and F G M 4
At some stage in human evolution, while man was improving his
4 female genital mutilation
24 SAVING HUMANITY
surroundings, he probably developed a keen taste for worldly possessions such as his: shelter, fire-place, chairs, tables, a comfortable bed and warm covers, and all sorts of home appliances, tools and weapons for his exclusive use and comfort.
As men started to hunt and live in groups, women and children may have naturally seemed to belong to him or be his possessions, as it seems to be with other animals in nature; where one male exclusively mate with a number of females by denying other males access to them, even if it means fighting them off.
This male instinct of possessing the exclusive rights to mate with, what are regarded as, “own females” seem to have resisted civilization and it is still with us to-day; however, unlike other less intelligent animals who fight other strong males, man prefers to disempower and enslave his own weaker females by many reprehensible, coward and legalized criminal means, including:
• In parts of Europe women were denied the vote until the last century.
• In the workplace women are still earning lower pay for the same work.
• In Middle Eastern countries young women are prevented from going to school by their own family to comply with their cultural ways.
• Very often young children are promised into polygamous marriage to older men; the girl has no right of refusal, cannot own property, but becomes the property or the slave of the
husband and his family.
CHAPTER 3 25
• Women are expected to hide their face and body at all times
in public, and cannot drive a car or move freely without a male
member of her family with them.
• Women must obey and serve the husband, cannot refuse to
do anything the husband orders her to do, and for any minor
transgression they are severely beaten or punished.
• Perhaps the most unforgivable depravity of all, in African and
middle Eastern areas, women are subjected to F G M, to deny
them any pleasure from sexual encounters, and prevent girls
from desiring sex, especially with other men. This barbaric
practice destroys the normal functioning of the organ, is always
painful and smelly, easily infected and can finally cause diseases
and death.
Whereas, the reasons for all these assault on women rights are
given as: culture, tradition, religion and “our way of life”; with laws
in place to enforce the practices, I suspect that it was premeditated,
implemented and kept in place for the convenience of, and to satisfy
the lust of men: it allows for unchallenged, unrestricted, loyal and
unlimited sex on demand, and with more than one woman, without
the need to corral and prevent the women from straying, or to fight
other males off.
As a show of absolute power, barbarism, inhumanity, and to terrorize
women who might want to contemplate disobedience, in July 2012
on world-wide television a woman accused of adultery was shot 9
times by a Taliban in a public area of Afghanistan surrounded by
many other approving men. Perhaps this time these inhuman men
26 SAVING HUMANITY
were trying to show a more humane modern improvement on the
usual more traditional practice of stoning women to death.
The tradition of pre-arranged marriages might at first appear to be
a lesser atrocity; however, apart from the human right violations,
the arrogance and cruelty of men, the callousness of the families
involved, (it is usually very young girls that are given to much older
men into a life of abuse and slavery); pre-arranged marriages violate
human nature’s ways of evolution, i.e., the natural laws of attraction,
the right of mutual selection, and the survival of the fittest.
The current social status of modern women, as compared to that
of men, in different parts of the world varies from:– equality with
minor residual injustices, but a generally fair relationship with men
in the western world; to:– total denial of human rights, enforcement
of cruel uncivilised ways of life, bullying, abuse and slavery; in
many parts of: Africa, India, the middle east, and in many other
underdeveloped areas; also, secretly and illegally, even in immigrant
communities living amongst the most civilized nations of Europe.
When overpopulation, women’s rights abuse, and poverty occur
together, their interrelationship and combination of the 3 evils
always produces: extreme injustices, unendurable suffering,
depravation, diseases, famines, and ways of life for which death can
only be a welcome relief.
Conversely, by alleviating any-one of the 3 evils, also helps the other
2, and improves human life.
CHAPTER 3 27
Economics of the 21st century
Whereas, many people may not notice or talk about overpopulation
and the plight of women; everyone is aware of, forced to notice,
talks about, is afflicted by and worries about economics.
Our modern civilization and the livelihood of 7 BILLION people,
with different needs and different cultures, are based on the sale of
goods and services, for money. We need money for survival, and we
get money by selling goods and services; that is, as long as we can
sell them. Here again, mankind may have been very successful at
manufacturing goods and services, but not so smart to: recognise
what’s good for us, and to take action to avoid deadly trends that
will slowly kill us.
Sometime in the 20th century we started mass producing goods
and services faster than we could sell them, but as chance would
have it, the population also increased and so did the demand for
more goods and services. It was called growth (we will talk more
about growth later) and everyone was happy. Business people then
proceeded to plan, organise, and manage the mass production of
things for sale on rational, intelligent and scientific ways in order to
maximise production.
Again the ingenuity of mankind proved too successful. Despite
runaway population growth, supply still outstripped demand. This
time, in order to continue selling, goods and services were given
out on credit to people without money who promised to pay at a
later date in small repayments.
28 SAVING HUMANITY
That kept sales going for a while, but in order to continue selling
more, instead of waiting for spontaneous demand to engage, a
whole science and industry of advertising and sales people was set
up. Now highly paid skilled professionals compete inventing new
ways to sell all sorts of, often luxury, goods and services on credit
to people who don’t really need them.
The extension of credit, especially for expensive things such
as: houses, cars, etc., may have been the only way people could
buy such things. However, the practice was abused, and in a few
decades, it mutated into one of the most addictive and destructive
epidemic form of collective behaviour that afflicted and destroyed
private people lives, banks, and governments worldwide.
So much credit was given out that it nearly created a total economic
freeze, which caused panic, and governments to attempt to remedy
the credit crunch with yet more credit, this time given to the
people who created the credit crunch in the first place. All that, in
combination with the state-of- art evils listed before are jeopardising
and threatening the security and lives of most people on earth.
Having seen that humans are good at applying intelligence to
technology, but often not so good at knowing what’s good for
them, let us look at the motivation for having so many children.
CHAPTER 4 29
Chapter 4 • REASONS FOR, AND EFFECTS OF HAVING CHILDREN
Plants and animals in nature are programmed and equipped to
reproduce in large numbers to protect each of the different species
from extinction; so that when there are many deaths, the species
can restore the balance with many births.
Originally, our human ancestors probably reproduced and died like
the other species; however, we were more successful than other
species; we developed weapons to deal with other species and
shelters to keep us safe, we developed social structures to use the
power of many people, we invented civilization, we developed
remedies to cure our illnesses, and we made regulations that
prevented the killing of humans.
Consequently, there is no longer a natural balance to keep our
numbers in check, and even though there have been two world wars
and many other smaller ones, the world’s population has increased
from 1.2 BILLION at the start of the 20th century to 6 BILLION at
the end of it; i.e., a 5 fold increase in 100 years. Currently, with the
laudable exception of China, there are no laws or regulations to limit
the number of births in line with the reduced numbers of deaths.
The ever growing evidence, i.e., the long list of symptoms of
overpopulation, or state of the art evils indicates that we would
be well advised to urgently start making ”user friendly regulations”
to firstly reduce, and then maintain a number of people which the
planet can tolerate and sustain.
30 SAVING HUMANITY
Failure to regulate our numbers will continue to damage and finally
destroy the ability of our planet to support humanity. Nature does
not have user friendly ways. The earth will continue to travel in
space with or without us.
Reasons for having children
In our civilization people have rights: life, liberty, many others, and
different ones in different cultures, of course, all cultures support
the right to reproduce as nature wants.
The UN Universal Declaration of Human Right regards the family
as the centre of the community and it has granted each family
the right to have as many children as they see fit. As families have
always done so, and since women rights are abused in the family;
that right seems out of place and an added burden on the women.
Also, in many underdeveloped regions of the world, where:
overpopulation, poverty, draught, corruption and conflicts have
reduced the families’ ability to provide all the basic human rights
to the children they produced, the UN has made NO provision for
anyone else to do it either.
Consequently, In East and West Africa, there are now millions of
displaced starving people dependent on food aids. Also, as there
appears to be insufficient money donated to buy food aids for all
the needy hundreds of thousands (the usual donor countries seem
to suffer from donation fatigue and their own internal problems),
but could be many more, of mostly women and children will die for
CHAPTER 4 31
lack of food, shelter, medical aids and armed conflicts.
Perhaps, in the interest of reducing suffering, even if only
temporarily, the UN human rights commission should revoke the
right and freedom of people to have as many children as they like.
That would be for the benefit of all, and also, for the conservation
of the earth’s limited resources.
Worldwide, we all share the same: air, water, energy, food, space,
all sorts of materials and resources; and we produce CO2, sewage,
waste, pollution and global warming. Therefore, since there are so
many of us, every time a child is born, every other person on earth
becomes poorer by the small amount of resources the child will
use, and by the costs of cleaning his or her waste.
Coming from a grandfather who greatly enjoys, and would like to
protect, two grandchildren, this will sound callous. However, as
the total world’s population increases by 80 million people per
year every year, the new people endanger everyone in this already
seriously overpopulated world.
Whereas, intelligence, rational planning, ingenuity, and scientific
management are afforded to the production and sales of goods
and services, the same cannot be said when dealing with our most
important function, i.e., setting up a family and having children.
Often children are unplanned. They are just the product of marital
or casual sexual encounters. Even in marriages children may be
unwanted but tolerated to avoid abortions. Some religions abuse
their function and unduly interfere with the preferences of families
32 SAVING HUMANITY
to have fewer pregnancies, and in the so-called third world, where
patriarchal cultures dominate women submit to the man’s wishes
and produce large families as the accepted norm.
Having many children has been used for the aggrandisement of
one’s own: family, community, tribe, nation, religion or race. This
practice might have worked during evolution, and it was tried by
Hitler and Mussolini; it was also the stated intent of Libya’s Col.
Gaddafi to invade Europe without a shot being fired. The current
tragedy of rickety boats crossing to Italy, Europe and Australia,
where they are often sent back is another example of the tragedies
of overpopulation.
In some cultures now, boys and girls of school going age have
children to demonstrate male virility and female ability to have
children. In tribal cultures, or where polygamy is the norm, chiefs
and/ or persons of importance with multiple wives have tens or
even hundreds of children.
Tragically, the highest birth rates are prevalent in the poorest areas
of the world where they aggravate poverty, famines, human right
abuse, suffering and depravation.
In more developed urban areas families are usually smaller. Men
and women have working careers, and large families are not easily
affordable or manageable; these areas are usually targeted by poorer
immigrants, but there cannot be a living for the millions in need.
Not too long ago farmers needed many children to work in the
farms. Governments at war needed young men as cannon fodder,
CHAPTER 4 33
and even now, while trying to remedy the serious consequences
of a population explosion, every economy needs more people as
purchasing fodder, to buy the vast quantities of goods and services
mankind can produce.
Ironically, as too much money was spent earlier on credit, many
now struggle with repayments, and apart from limited numbers of
rich people, fewer and fewer average people can afford to buy.
Consequently, it would be reasonable to suspect that the need for
purchasing fodder is one of the main reasons for the deliberate
silence or for saying little about the damage already done by and
the future dangers of overpopulation and growth.
The conclusion here is that very few people plan, have valid reason
for, consider the effect, the responsibilities and consequences of
having children; or try to imagine whether the new person to be
born would agree to be born in the environment provided, or would
agree to be born at all.
Our inability to rationally and adequately plan, prepare, and provide
all the resources and care necessary for our children must be one
of mankind’s greatest failures. Also, comparing the ways birds and
other animals prepare, commit and care for their young against the
mindless way some humans reproduce, it would be reasonable to
conclude that animals are more intelligent and more humane than
humans.
Effects of having children
Having children in the 21st century should be treated with due
34 SAVING HUMANITY
respect and understanding of all: the demands, responsibilities,
the sequence of events set in motion from conception to finishing
school, the prospective resources available to the family for this
new person for the next 20 years, and the type of world he or she
will inherit in which to start a new family and a new life.
If the prospects are not good, like in many third world areas where
poverty, famine and depravation are currently the way of life, it is
irresponsible, callous and should be seen as a crime to add more
people of one’s own blood to suffer or die in those conditions.
However, if reasonable prospects, resources and care are available,
ideally in an extended family, children can be wonderful, and
grandchildren even better.
Regardless of the quality of the journey, each person passing
through life will leave behind his body, family, material possessions
and footprints, indicators of his presence on earth:
• The carbon footprint, an arbitrary indicator of how much
energy, and resources were used by the person and related to
CO2 emissions, and
• The progeny footprint, another arbitrary indicator (which I have
just invented) of how many descendants the person produced
which in turn will leave more footprints, and produce more
descendants which in turn will leave more footprints, and so on.
With few exceptions most new lucky children will grow up to be
ordinary, good people doing ordinary things, marrying and having
children, then grow old and die. However, the footprints of each
CHAPTER 4 35
person passing through will have an impact on all other inhabitants
of the earth.
In 1804 when the earth population was about ONE BILLION, every
child born, or even every ten children born had little influence on
the rest of humanity.
However now, it is necessary to repeat and understand that: as we
have grown to more than SEVEN BILLION people, the environment
that we all need to survive, i.e., the thin layer of top-soil of the
earth that provides all our needs is under severe stress and fast
deteriorating.
Now it is fair to say that every time a new child is born, (one of
the 220 000 net daily increase) we all become poorer by a small
amount, and humanity also slightly more in danger.
Now let us see how the number of children produced by each
ordinary family affects the family, the community, the country and
finally humanity.
The next chapter, with different examples and different charts, will
illustrates the effects of having different numbers of children per
family, over an arbitrary period of 200 years or 10 generations;
this is in order to compare the impact over time that the various
different numbers of children per family, (a right and a choice totally
under our, or each family’s control) have on overpopulation and the
welfare of humanity.
36 SAVING HUMANITY
Here, to investigate the economic consequences of having different
numbers of children, we consider two scenarios: one of families
consistently [over generations] having one child per family and the
other of families consistently having four children per family, and
then examine the effects or general trends with regard to wealth
and poverty.
Firstly, looking at: families with one child only per family: consider
two families, i.e., four people produce one child per family, i.e.,
two people or one couple, or another new family. In addition to
any wealth this new couple may accumulate during their life, at
the death of the four old parents, the new couple or family would
inherit the wealth of two families, i.e., two houses, two cars, two
fridges, or two whole estates.
We can continue to consider the child born of this enriched couple,
forming a couple with a single child from another enriched family
and producing another single offspring and so on. Every time at
the death of the four old previously enriched parents, the last
family would inherit all the previously accumulated wealth of the
preceding two families. I hope that it can be seen that the fewer the
children the more the wealth accumulates to the new generations.
In Europe, in the last few decades, apart from the wealth generated
from selling good products and services, the general low birth rate
has also contributed to individual and national enrichment.
Secondly, looking at: families with four children per family: here
two people, one family, produce four children, and successive
couples will also produce four children per couple. In this case,
CHAPTER 4 37
at the death of each old couple or family elders, each of the four
children, will inherit one quarter of the older family’s wealth, and
each successive generation will always inherit one quarter of the
always decreasing fraction of the original wealth. In overcrowded
underdeveloped areas, overpopulation aggravates poverty; i.e., the
greater the number of children the greater the poverty.
At the end of the 19th century, when the world population was
1.2 BILLION, it was relatively easy for young people to leave large
families as migrant individuals and go and generate their own wealth
or fortune in faraway places; but in the 21st century, with 7 BILLION
people competing to make a living, rising unemployment, illegal
migration, and economic chaos; for migrant individuals generating
wealth, anywhere, has become impossible.
38 SAVING HUMANITY
Chapter 5 • UNDERSTANDING THE NUMBERS WE CAN CONTROL
Most people speak vaguely about having and raising children.
Mothers may discuss the difficulties of bringing up three children, or
how nice it was to grow up on a farm with five brothers. Newlyweds
may be undecided about having many, or no children. Grandmothers
may impatiently ask, “When am I going to get grandchildren?” and
so on. Academic studies on population give precise average figures
of say 2.6 children per woman, or say 1.8 % per generation growth
rate.
At school nobody teaches children how to plan families so; it is
difficult to decide what to do, or even to understand what’s
happening around us.
Therefore, since planning a family should be done with some
understanding of the consequences of our actions, in order to
illustrate and help visualise the different outcomes for each different
number of children, the charts in the following pages show scenarios
with all the descendants of each family in each chart consistently
having the same number of children for 200 years, or 10 generations,
so that the comparisons are fair over a long period of time.
Since we have total control on the number of children we produce,
each of us is finally responsible for the welfare of our family; not the
government, not religions, not our culture; only us.
This information will show what impact a specific number of
children has over different numbers of years on the family, the
CHAPTER 5 39
community and the world. It will also help to decide what kind of
progeny footprint each of us will leave behind, and our contribution
to humanity.
In the following charts the left hand (LH) column represents number
of years i.e., 10, 20, 30… ten years per cell, covering 200 years or
10 generations.
The numbers in each cell indicates the number of people, i.e., two
people or one couple or family, 128 people or 64 families and so on.
Each cell is repeated eight times in the same column to represent a
lifetime of 80 years, and each successive column, representing the
new generation, is moved down 20 years on the LH time scale, to
show that they were born when their parents’ age was between 20
and 30 years old.
The right hand (RH) column shows the horizontal sum of all the
people alive, including all generations, for the corresponding year
on the LH side time scale column.
Hopefully, these charts will help to visualise how increases or
decreases in the number of people on earth occur in relation to the
real number of children in each family, and also, most importantly,
the unavoidable long time delays required obtaining any desired
change to population numbers; especially when trying to reduce
numbers.
To add new people to the world it takes 9 months; whereas, to
reduce the numbers of people after they are born (without killing
anyone, of course) it can take 80 years.
40 SAVING HUMANITY
(References to the number of children per woman in different
countries are from the United Nations, and the latest CIA total
fertility rates charts) 5
In the calculations below:
1.2 Billion was the earth population in the year 1900;
The power(5) refers to the number of generation, or terms of 20
years per century. The charts are in the following order:
• Six children per family: There are 6 countries with average
fertility rates of 6 or more children per woman; at this rate the
number of people trebles every 20 years; it can also be seen
that after 100 years, the original 2 people would have grown to
240. But the frightening point I wish to make is that after 200
years the original 2 people would have grown to 58320 people.
In other words, if every family on earth, during the 20th century
had 6 children, by the end of the millennium, there would have
been 1.2 Billion x 3 (5) = 291.6 Billion people on earth instead
of the actual 6 Billion.
• Four children per family: There are 40 countries with average
fertility rates of 4 or more children per woman; in these
countries the population doubles every 20 years, and it can be
seen that after 100 and 200 years the population would grow to
60 and 1920 respectively from 2 people. Again, if every family
during the 20th century had 4 children, in the year 2000 the
world population would have been 1.2 x 2 (5) = 38.4 Billion
5 CIA world factbook Fertility rates - //www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2127rank.html
CHAPTER 5 41
instead of the actual 6 Billion.
• Three children per family: There are 61 countries with average
fertility rates of 3 or more children per woman. By the same
reasoning, if all families on earth had 3 children, the population
would increase by 1.5 times every 20 years and it can be seen
that after 100 and 200 years the population would grow to 24
and 185 respectively from the original 2 people; please note
that this growth is still unsustainable and greater than the
actual for the last century. The actual growth rate that increased
the size of humanity from 1.2 to 6 Billion in the last century
was only 1.38 every 20 years; i.e., less than 1.5 times every 20
years.Or every couple or family reproduced themselves 1.38
times per generation.
A real family can only have either 2 or 3 or any whole number of
children, not fractions. However, to be clear, it is important to
notice that the actual “average” statistical number of children
per family–that increased the world population from 1.2 to 6
Billion during the 20th century was 2 x 1.38 = 2.76 children
per family; (i.e., less than 3.) Please note that if during the
last century every family on earth had 3 children; the total
population at the turn of the millennium would have been 1.2 x
1.5 (5) = 9.11 Billion instead of 6.
• Two children per family: There are 130 countries with average
fertility rates 2 or more children per woman, and 93 countries
with less than 2 children per woman. If every woman on earth
would have 2 children, the population would neither increase
42 SAVING HUMANITY
nor decrease; the new generations would replace the old ones
that die; and the number would remain constant. That would
be the Ideal condition if the earth were not overpopulated.
But, the world urgently needs to reduce numbers!!! So, since
we cannot have fractions of one child, and 2 per family will not
reduce the population the only option left is 1 child per family.
• One child per family: There are only 2 countries on earth that
average 1 child per family or less; but if all countries did: after
an initial settling period, the population would decreases at the
rate indicated in the chart i.e., it would be halved every 20 years
or every generation. This is the model China has been trying
to adopt; they have not halved their population yet because it
was never strictly enforced; but this is what is needed to reduce
the earth’s population until a sustainable number is reached. In
a sustainable world, people could go back to having the ideal
2 children per family; so as to avoid the population starting to
grow again.
CHAPTER 5 43
Please note: The previous calculations are intended only as an
indication of the differences, over time, resulting from say 6 or 4 or
2 children per family, numbers considered to be quite normal for a
family.
As the significance of the number of people dying changes with the
different number of people born, for simplicity the calculations do
not account for it.
However, the following charts do account for the people dead.
44 SAVING HUMANITY
The LH column represents number of years i.e., 10, 20, 30… ten years per cell, covering 200 years or 10 generations. The numbers in each cell indicates the number of people, i.e., two people or one couple or family, 128 people or 64 families and so on. Each cell is repeated eight times in the same column to represent a lifetime of 80 years, and each successive column, representing the new generation is moved down 20 years on the LH time scale.
The RH column shows the sum of all the people alive, including all generations, for the corresponding year on the LH side time scale column.
CHAPTER 5 45
Six children per family
Years
Total number
of people
0
10 2
20 2
30 2 6
40 2 6
50 2 6 18
60 2 6 18
70 2 6 18 54
80 2 6 18 54 80
90 6 18 54 162
100 6 18 54 162 240
110 18 54 162 486
120 18 54 162 486 720
130 54 162 486 1458
140 54 162 486 1458 2160
150 162 486 1458 4374
160 162 486 1458 4374 6480
170 486 1458 4374 13122
180 486 1458 4374 13122 19440
190 1458 4374 13122 39366
200 1458 4374 13122 39366 58320
210 4374 13122 39366
220 4374 13122 39366
230 13122 39366
240 13122 39366
39366
39366
46 SAVING HUMANITY
The LH column represents number of years i.e., 10, 20, 30… ten years per cell, covering 200 years or 10 generations. The numbers in each cell indicates the number of people, i.e., two people or one couple or family, 128 people or 64 families and so on. Each cell is repeated eight times in the same column to represent a lifetime of 80 years, and each successive column, representing the new generation is moved down 20 years on the LH time scale.
The RH column shows the sum of all the people alive, including all generations, for the corresponding year on the LH side time scale column.
CHAPTER 5 47
Four children per family
Years
Totals
No of
people
0
10 2
20 2
30 2 4
40 2 4
50 2 4 8
60 2 4 8
70 2 4 8 16
80 2 4 8 16 30
90 4 8 16 32
100 4 8 16 32 60
110 8 16 32 64
120 8 16 32 64 120
130 16 32 64 128
140 16 32 64 128 240
150 32 64 128 256
160 32 64 128 256 480
170 64 128 256 512
180 64 128 256 512 960
190 128 256 512 1024
200 128 256 512 1024 1920
210 256 512 1024
220 256 512 1024
230 512 1024
240 512 1024
1024
1024
48 SAVING HUMANITY
The LH column represents number of years i.e., 10, 20, 30… ten years per cell, covering 200 years or 10 generations. The numbers in each cell indicates the number of people, i.e., two people or one couple or family, 128 people or 64 families and so on. Each cell is repeated eight times in the same column to represent a lifetime of 80 years, and each successive column, representing the new generation is moved down 20 years on the LH time scale.
The RH column shows the sum of all the people alive, including all generations, for the corresponding
year on the LH side time scale column.
CHAPTER 5 49
Three children per family
Years
Totals
No of
people
0
10 2
20 2
30 2 3
40 2 3
50 2 3 4.5
60 2 3 4.5
70 2 3 4.5 6.8
80 2 3 4.5 6.8 16.3
90 3 4.5 6.8 10
100 3 4.5 6.8 10 24.3
110 4.5 6.8 10 15
120 4.5 6.8 10 15 36.3
130 6.8 10 15 23
140 6.8 10 15 23 54.8
150 10 15 23 34
160 10 15 23 34 82
170 15 23 34 51
180 15 23 34 51 123
190 23 34 51 77
200 23 34 51 77 185
210 34 51 77
220 34 51 77
230 51 77
240 51 77
50 SAVING HUMANITY
The LH column represents number of years i.e., 10, 20, 30… ten years per cell, covering 200 years or 10 generations. The numbers in each cell indicates the number of people, i.e., two people or one couple or family, 128 people or 64 families and so on. Each cell is repeated eight times in the same column to represent a lifetime of 80 years, and each successive column, representing the new generation is moved down 20 years on the LH time scale.
The RH column shows the sum of all the people alive, including all generations, for the corresponding year on the LH side time scale column.
CHAPTER 5 51
Two children per family
Years
Totals
No of
people
0
10 2
20 2
30 2 2
40 2 2
50 2 2 2
60 2 2 2
70 2 2 2 2
80 2 2 2 2 8
90 2 2 2 2
100 2 2 2 2 8
110 2 2 2 2
120 2 2 2 2 8
130 2 2 2 2
140 2 2 2 2 8
150 2 2 2 2
160 2 2 2 2 8
170 2 2 2 2
180 2 2 2 2 8
190 2 2 2 2
200 2 2 2 2 8
210 2 2 2
220 2 2 2
230 2 2
240 2 2
52 SAVING HUMANITY
The LH column represents number of years i.e., 10, 20, 30… ten years per cell, covering 200 years or 10 generations. The numbers in each cell indicates the number of people, i.e., two people or one couple or family, 128 people or 64 families and so on. Each cell is repeated eight times in the same column to represent a lifetime of 80 years, and each successive column, representing the new generation is moved down 20 years on the LH time scale.
The RH column shows the sum of all the people alive, including all generations, for the corresponding year on the LH side time scale column.
CHAPTER 5 53
One child per family
Years
Totals
No of
people
0 2048 1024
10 2048 1024 512
20 2048 1024 512
30 2048 1024 512 256 3840
40 2048 1024 512 256
50 1024 512 256 128 1920
60 1024 512 256 128
70 512 256 128 64 960
80 512 256 128 64
90 256 128 64 32 480
100 256 128 64 32
110 128 64 32 16 240
120 128 64 32 16
130 64 32 16 8 120
140 64 32 16 8
150 32 16 8 4 60
160 32 16 8 4
170 16 8 4 2 30
180 16 8 4 2
190 8 4 2 1 15
200 8 4 2 1
210 4 2 1 7
220 4 2 1
230 2 1 3
240 2 1
1 1
54 SAVING HUMANITY
More to Be Said About Numbers of Children
There are so many issues and so much to be said about numbers
of children that one is left open mouth flabbergasted at the way
the subject is avoided even when it is crying for attention. We
need to look at some entities that instead of helping to educate,
understand and resolve world affairs, actually confuse, keep silent,
lie, and generally aggravate difficult or desperate situations.
• The Bible / God said: go forth, multiply and fill the earth;
(this is only one of dozens of translations), and it is used as
an excuse for overpopulation. Not wanting to challenge or be
disrespectful about the origin of this mandate, we can at least
say that: the earth was empty when God said go fill the earth,
that: humanity did not noticed that the job was done by early
in the 20th century, and that: the earth can only sustainably
support a number of people not greater than: one third the
current number of people on earth6.
• Governments, are staffed by politicians that only seem to care
about their: political careers, perks, tenures, popularity and
power; and for that they are prepared to lie, cheat, and make
promises which they know they cannot keep. They only give
tax rebates and benefits to families with the greatest number
of children, and ignore the dangers of overpopulation. Their
avoidance and silence about the issues of overpopulation and
empowerment of women gives the impression that there are no
problems in these areas.
6 http://www.rientrodolce.org/
CHAPTER 5 55
• Human Right Commission at the UN, some say that there are
too many UN officials that while representing poor nations,
live luxurious lives in New York, but produce little of real help
to humanity; the HRC, however, does more harm than good.
By granting families the right to have as many children as they
want, without informing the families, in poor and overpopulated
areas, of the deadly consequences of too many people they have
condemned many new children to either: a life of deprivation,
and starvation or: death. They have also condemned young
girls, many of whom are also just children, to spend many
years pregnant, giving birth to far too many children for their
bodies’ endurance, while also caring for the ones already born,
and doing all the house work, and procuring fire wood, water
and food, and working in fields to produce food. What about
the human rights of the children and of the mothers who are
actually kept as slaves.
• Churches, all the ones who favours large families, and are
vehemently against all form of contraception, especially the
Catholic Church that imposes celibacy to all its priests and bishops,
condemning them to an unnatural way of life; and the plight of
having to give all sorts of marital advice, of which they have no
experience, to people who already have normal affectionate and
sexual life relationships. Having grown up Catholic, and knowing
that sometimes they have done some practical good; I have to
say that on balance they have now become a force of evil. They
have repeatedly denied requests to allow contraception; they
have infiltrated areas of governments where they lobby, horse
56 SAVING HUMANITY
trade and generally oppose any attempts to set up medical help
for young women or family planning clinics, and condemn them
to have back streets abortions when they don’t know where to
go to for help. Unlike the HRC at the UN that allows total freedom
to have too many children, the Catholic Church wants to control
what men and women do in their bedrooms, a subject foreign to
them, but which they still want to control in order to maximize
the number of children born.
• News-media, journalists are the people who could save the
day; that could have saved humanity decades ago, they are
trained, equipped and experienced in conveying messages and
explaining clearly the whole picture, with all the necessary back
up data. For decades just silence, only in the last months or years
they have mentioned in passing that overpopulation might be
a problem, and that we have reached 7 Billion people; but no
commentary, just a cold statement as if it was about the day
temperature for that town. There are many good investigative
journalists, but they prefer to report on past events, not
future predictions; to do that one needs courage. Not much
courage would be needed to predict that a heavy truck running
downhill without brakes would end up in a big smash; just as
not much courage would be needed to predict that runaway
overpopulation as we are experiencing now can only end up in
unimaginable catastrophes, but they don’t say it; may be one
needs courage and imagination, and they lack both.
• A typical example of reporting bias: Some of the major
international news-stations in 2012 reported that in China
CHAPTER 5 57
there is a looming big problem caused by the one child per
family policy imposed by the government. In remote areas of
China, less in the towns, pregnant women, using ultrasound
machine want to know the gender of the child they carry. If
they are told that it is a girl they will find ways to abort the
pregnancy; that, of course, has skewed the population profile,
there are now schools with mostly boys and very few girls. This
is not objective reporting, and a major media house should not
allow these blunders, unless it is intentional brainwashing. The
laudable foresight of the Chinese government who imposed the
one child only policy on their people 30 years ago is NOT!! The
cause of the skewed demographics, rural Chinese people were
NOT told to kill all the girls, they are doing so because of some
misguided uncivilised cultural preference for boys common
throughout the world. The rapid modernization of society has
not permeate all corners of society, even in the midst of the
most advanced communities there are still cultural residues of
the past that resist civilization.
• Rulers’ self aggrandisement With reference to the Wikipedia
and CIA list of states with their respective fertility rates 7,
those lists show the number of children per woman in 223
states; the average in each country varies greatly from 7.5
children per woman to less than one, that is valuable and
interesting information. As shown in the charts in this book,
where the number is less than 2 the population decrease, so
that, the 92 countries with average numbers smaller than 2
7 Wikipedia List of fertility rates http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_fertility_rate
58 SAVING HUMANITY
are already reducing their population; whereas the 130 others,
with numbers greater than 2 are increasing their population;
and 60 with numbers greater than 3 are rapidly increasing. Of
those 60 states: 40 have fertilities rates of 4 children or more;
and 6 states have 6 or more; 50 are underdeveloped African
and middle East states, and in some countries the population
survives only if they receive food aids. The world keeping
silent about overpopulation has not served Africa well;
many non-democratically elected rulers, and others with few
natural resources, encourage large families because of ancient
cultural beliefs that many children bring wealth, power and self
aggrandisement by population numbers.
• COP conferences at all these annual conferences, 17 so far, there
are hundreds of delegations, and hundreds of head of states,
discussing the damage done to the planet and negotiating:
carbon quotas, carbon taxes, the effort required by various
states, the amount of aids to be paid by so called rich states to
poor ones, and generally how to save the earth; yet, although
it would seem logical that the more the people, the more
the consumption, the more the pollution and the more the
damage; overpopulation has never been on the agenda. How
can humanity trust its leaders??
Finally, however, repeating from the introduction, each of us is
individually responsible to stay informed and to take the decisions,
and act in our best interest, and that of our: family, children,
grandchildren, environment and planet; It is our privilege and our
duty; we must never ask, or allow others to do it for us.
CHAPTER 6 59
Chapter 6 • THE FUTURE LOOKS BLEAK, IN THE 21ST CENTURY
As we straggle through the latest economic crises of 2008–2012
no one knows for certain when things will change, or how they
will change. Although there is some hope, there is also fear that
this time it could prove to be a more serious event than just an
economic down cycle. For now, however, everyone is anxiously
waiting for things to get better, so that the cyclic upswing can start
bringing back economic growth, and everyone can start to make
money again.
As nice as it may sound, it may not be good for the welfare of
humanity. All the plagues afflicting our planet are still very actively
with us and any growth in economic activity will exacerbate the
environmental damage which is caused by the normal daily activities
of 7 BILLION people going about trying to earn a living.
As stated earlier, mankind is good at producing and trying to sell
goods and services. However, many of these goods and services
may not be good for mankind.
Tool making ability and ingenuity have enabled mankind to produce
many useful gadgets which have greatly improved people’s lifestyle
and comfort, such as machinery to overcome men’s limitations,
wonders in transportation and communication, and many gadgets
which automatically perform tasks which were previously a burden
for men and women.
60 SAVING HUMANITY
However, not all this technology was beneficial, for example
weapons and luxurious gadgets, to a large extent, used up scarce
resources and increased the division between wealth and poverty.
After the developed world markets were saturated by necessary
and useful things which people could afford, a culture and a taste
for luxury goods that could be bought on easy repayment terms
was ingeniously created and kept going by many questionable
processes of marketing.
Consequently, much of the recent economic growth, and with
it the livelihood of millions of people manufacturing and selling
these conveniences, was based on cultivating people’s taste for
unnecessary luxury things, which were often bought on credit by
people who could not afford them in the first place.
Now governments, terrified by the prospect of a prolonged
slowdown and social unrest are trying to force growth by borrowing
more money giving it to banks, and hoping for the best. It seems
that lack of wise leadership prompts repetition of past mistakes.
However, it would be best for all to remember that:
• Governments don’t generate wealth, people do. Politicians
make promises when running for office but often don’t keep
them. People should not be gullible, but should take more
responsibility for their beliefs and actions.
• Underdeveloped communities cannot afford most of the luxury
commodities that developed economies are trying to sell.
CHAPTER 6 61
• After this economic recession, developed communities,
impoverished by unemployment and investment losses, who
are having difficulties buying necessary things and even food,
will avoid buying luxury goods on credit.
Therefore, since the banks have become afraid to lend, and few
people can afford to buy the things that the economy needs to sell,
it will be difficult to stimulate growth by free market forces alone,
and most of the money given to banks will only help to pay for their
past mistakes.
Governments can only force the economy to move with public
works projects, which will create some employment, but all the
money and the interest, will have to be repaid by the taxpayers.
From 2008 to 2012, governments, banks, business, investors, brokers
and ordinary people have been surprised by gravity. Everybody
thought that the old saying, “What goes up must come down” would
not apply to their money. Also, with so much money moving around
there has been so much stealing, fraud and speculation with other
people’s money that no-one can be trusted anymore.
Now, even though the scandals, dishonesty and crimes will
continue to surface, the debtors must repay the money back; and
must do so at the worst possible time, i.e., when economies are in
the doldrums, and the financial advisors, thieves, fraudsters and
speculators are running rampant.
It was folly to borrow so much money while the going was good,
and despite economists providing complicated explanations, my
grandmother could have told us so in plain words.
62 SAVING HUMANITY
The way things are going worldwide, it is possible that economies
may continue indefinitely to deteriorate; but unemployment, civil
unrest and illegal migration will continue to increase; nobody and
no government can satisfy the demands of angry mobs that have
been lied to: by keeping silent about bad news, and by promises
that could not be kept.
The reason that the no growth scenario is so frightening for
everybody is that: there have never been so many people!!!
The current total number of unemployed is probably greater than
the total number of people on earth in 1930. At the time of the
great depression there were just over 2 BILLION people on earth;
and unlike now, there was low cost abundance of all resources
necessary for growth; we are now 7 BILLION, i.e., 3.5 times more,
and the sources of the most basic necessities of life i.e., food,
water, transport, energy and security have never been so scarce,
complicated, or remote from us. If any of the fragile links in our
complicated food preparation and delivery chain fails, what can the
millions of people in large towns do when they need to eat, drink
or move???
Mankind is neither ready nor able for such contingencies. Most of
us would not know how to get food except in supermarkets, and
would be totally stranded and helpless without fuel, electricity,
transportation or water in the taps.
Although, many people are well versed in economics, either learned
at school or experienced in everyday life, no one has any experience
of economics during periods of human population regression. There
CHAPTER 6 63
has never been a time when the number of people has significantly
decreased.
The world is currently experiencing global economic crises, many
have lost their jobs, companies are going bankrupt, property values
have fallen, investments have lost value, and with so many people
out of work there is always the risk of large scale civil unrest.
However, the world population, stubbornly, continues to grow by
80 million people per year.
The whole world is still thinking, planning and living as usual, in the
growth mode. The no growth mode is too terrible to contemplate;
hence extreme sums of money are being borrowed and spent in a
desperate attempt to artificially cling to the way of life we used to
know.
Also, despite the concern about global warming, evidence of
the depletion of all things we need to survive, the unstoppable
growth of undisciplined unruly masses of unemployed people, an
estimated TOTAL WORLD DEBT OF $ 500 TRILLION, that cannot be
repaid, recent reports of water and food shortage and price rises,
and the widespread acceptance that our way of life cannot go on
much longer; all world governments, big business, the media and
economic leaders continue to talk about restoring growth; to try
and carry on a bit longer – because they are enjoying a good life,
and because no-one knows how to reverse the state-of-the-art
deadly plagues; deal with the future and restore hope.
64 SAVING HUMANITY
Chapter 7 • ECONOMIC GROWTH, MYTH or MIRAGE
For the last few years, but especially these days in mid-2012, the
world’s most wanted thing by all is “ECONOMIC GROWTH”, as the
world seems to be falling apart around us, heads of state, economists,
businessmen, poor, unemployed and ordinary people are rightly
terrified of the future; most are depressed at the prospects, and
some panic to the point of committing suicide.
Terrified world leaders waste hundreds of billions Euros in the
misguided hope that by rescuing banks, banks can then “STIMULATE
GROWTH”; and that growth will in turn help to pay back gigantic
debts entered into by: criminal-credit-givers-and-takers working in
the very same banks, which were largely responsible for creating
the current frightening economic quagmire.
The excuse for this madness is: the apparent laudable quest to
bring back the good old days with thriving economies and wealthy
nations. But the more likely motive is that they want to stop the
spiralling disintegration of the world’s economies during their
watch, while they are at the controls in positions of power.
However, considering that the best brains nations can deploy
have been unsuccessful trying to “STIMULATE GROWTH” since
long before 2007, and that it was GROWTH STIMULATION, i.e.,
the credit given at sub-prime rates, that created the last global
economic disaster in the first place; trying to FORCE GROWTH this
time, with all prices rising and people becoming poor, will be just
as impossible as old people trying to grow young again.
CHAPTER 7 65
GROWTH cannot be manufactured or forced! It is a living natural
phenomenon that takes place spontaneously only when many
conditions and ingredients in the surrounding environment are
conducive to it, as they were after WW2 8, and as we shall compare
them to conditions now.
CONDITIONS AFTER WW2
In 1950 while the Marshall plan was helping Europe to repair the
war damage, and re-start European economies again, the world
population was 2.5 billion people, about 1/3 the number of people
now, i.e., 7.05 billion in 2012. 2.5 Billion, many of whom were
living in farms, rural, or semi urban areas not far from the earth and
vegetation where food could often be found or planted.
In addition to re-building all the destroyed European towns and
building new, there were unlimited opportunities for improving the
lifestyle of people with non-luxury goods and services, essential
home appliances, such as washing machines, stoves, refrigerators,
and all sorts of useful machinery to do tedious and hard work
previously done by hand.
Many new homes had to be built for a world population that has
been growing at an average rate of 70 million people per year.
And in Europe, as wealth was growing, many people had to do the
life improving transition from outside to inside plumbing. These
conditions accelerated in the 60’s until the first oil price increase
in 1973.
8 World War II
66 SAVING HUMANITY
Resources for all these activities such as wood, metals, minerals,
land and water were plentiful and cheap, skilled labour and
manufacturing facilities also available from the war effort, energy
and oil also very cheap, and the demand for workers in urban areas
was so great that many rural young people left the farms to the old
folks, often never to go back to work there again.
New materials, such as plastics, were invented and vehicles and
really useful, non-luxury things were manufactured and sold;
because people could afford them, and people really needed them
without the need of advertising pressure.
Unlike now, unemployment was not a problem, on the contrary;
many countries in need of skilled labour invited and paid for
travelling and initial accommodation to welcome migrant workers.
Growth was not planned, paid for, artificially promoted or forced; it
just happened spontaneously while entrepreneurs were supplying
what was needed to satisfy the demands of society.
CONDITIONS IN 2012
As the economic meltdown, that started with the discovery of
large bundles of debt from USA sub-prime loans spreads all over
the world, aggravated by speculators in dishonest banks, and the
increasing number of nations at risk of not being able to repay their
huge debts; the world population, in 2011, topped 7 billion people
i.e., three times as many as at the end of WW2.
CHAPTER 7 67
It has been scientifically proven, and it can be verified, that all these
people, and all the industrial activities needed to feed us, give us
shelter, transport us, satisfy all our needs and keep us happy are too
great a burden for the fragile thin crust of earth we occupy.
There is widespread acceptance that we need to drastically reduce:
water usage, depletion of fish and vital resources, and CO2 producing
activities. That is, if humanity has to survive the climate change that
will destroy food production, and many other necessities of life.
In addition to the above-said ecological impossibilities of long term
growth; the logical impossibility that growth can only take place if
the purchasing fodder, i.e., the world population with disposable
income, also grows; and that cannot happen, there are already too
many people for the earth to support; unlike conditions in 1945
there are at least 3 more obstacles to future growth:
1. The cost of prime finite resources: such as oil, minerals, metals,
water, food, land and so on are now high and increasing as they
become scarce.
2. The world’s economic order is showing signs of collapse; almost
all nations have debts larger than what they can repay; billions
of people are unemployed; and others, either have difficulties
buying, or cannot afford food at all; the people with disposable
income and all the home appliances they need, continue
spending money in nonessential luxury goods, but there is
already oversupply of luxuries; hence, apart from maintaining
food production, replacement of goods and essential services,
there will be insufficient demand for providing the additional
68 SAVING HUMANITY
goods and services required for stimulating growth.
3. What probably started as a self preservation instinct, after the
invention of money and the teachings at business schools soon
mutated into greed, often confused with profit, and accepted
and legitimized into our society as a good thing, and as the
prime mover of economic growth. However, we now have
7 billion greedy people of whom very few have accumulated
vast wealth; many others selling their labour in employment
agreements and the rest in different stages of poverty.
The inequality of wealth distribution on earth, though not caused
by conspiracy or planned initially, has hugely increased in modern
times, mainly because of the power of very wealthy people and
corporations, who motivated by profit and/or greed, manipulate
the economy in such a way that they continue to enrich themselves
further.
Globalization and easy access to information are showing everywhere
the vast differences of lifestyles, i.e., extreme poverty, suffering
and famines, on one hand, and unnecessary waste, opulence, and
obscene demonstration of money power, on the other.
This knowledge combined with the never-fulfilled promises made
by politicians at election time has given rise to much of the civil
unrest in North Africa in 2011; and as the future seem to promise
increases of and deteriorations in: unemployment, poverty, cost and
shortages of water and food, depletion of fish in the sea, forests,
mineral and oil reserves; also as the militancy of unemployed, poor
and dissatisfied people increase, more unrest will follow. The state
CHAPTER 7 69
of affairs described seems to be more conducive to free for all
anarchy than to economic growth.
70 SAVING HUMANITY
Chapter 8 • CAN HUMAN SAVE THEMSELVES ??
This book has been re-written because the answer to this question
has changed in the last 3 years. Whereas, before the COP 159
conference in Copenhagen 2009 there generally was hope of
positive changes in CO2 emissions, and that the people of the world
would adopt a more energy wise and green lifestyle; the COP 15
conference, like all the previous 14, was a waste of time, people
continue to live recklessly, and still no-one is saying a word about
overpopulation.
The hopeful warnings of chapter 8 written 3 years ago, (shown in
the appendix) have changed into worrying doubts of any future
improvements; we don’t even know how people of the world
would react if they were made fully aware of the seriousness of the
situation without media and vested interest artificially confusing
the issue by challenging scientific data and clear evidence with
baseless opposing views, lies and out of context arguments.
It is very late, perhaps too late to reverse deadly processes which
may already have become irreversible; such as: global warming,
melting glaciers, and variation of the conveyor flow of ocean
currents. People may regard these planetary events as out of their
control or responsibility; also, no-one believe that any bad things
will happen very soon; but they would be wrong!! It is us, the people
who: produced so many more people, burned fossil fuels, and
produced more food than the earth can supply without depleting
the soil structure and creating deserts.
9 UN sponsored COP 15 conference in Copenhagen 2009
CHAPTER 8 71
As for when bad things will start happening, well, the news-media
may be useless predicting these things, but they are very good at
reporting these events as they happen, TV cameras are always on
hand to capture real shots being fired or real bombs exploding;
these real events don’t look very different from fictional stories
we are used to see on TV; however, we must not confuse them,
we have been provided with intelligence and we must recognise
that the seeds for civil war i.e., overpopulation, disparity of wealth
and power, shortages and high prices of basic necessities, poverty,
unemployment, corrupt economic systems and governments
are everywhere in the world!!! We must not believe that what is
happening in Syria cannot happen to all of us.
For the past two years bad things have already been happening;
unrest as a reaction to food price increase, corruption and disparity
of wealth and power started in 2011 in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and
Europe; with full blown civil war in Syria. Out of control illegal
migration is intensifying all over the world and as food prices rise
people around the world are demanding of politicians to keep the
untrue promises they made.
A better life for all was promised in exchange for electoral votes;
but with shortages of the most basic necessities of life such as:
water, food, etc. Also, with 80 million new mouths to feed every
year the promises cannot be kept!!! And it is anybody’s guess how
7 Billion people will react to it.
Now, for the original question: can human save themselves?? It is a
very important question, we all would like to know, but, can it be
72 SAVING HUMANITY
answered?? It will depend on what 7 billion people will do in the
future; that: cannot be predicted. However, if it is true that: past
behaviour is the best predictor of future behaviour, the future does
not look good; the answer has to be: NO it is too late.
Whereas, I truly believe that it is too late for everybody i.e., 7
Billion people to continue with life as we were used to live in the
20th century; I also believe that nature will find its own natural
equilibrium, that many people will suffer and die, and that many
others will survive; however, as it has been shown in tests with
rats in overcrowded cages, it will not be a just or civilized process!!
Many may rightly say that it wasn’t a just or fully civilized society in
the past either.
Anyway, from the mistakes of the past there are lessons to be
learned for the future; for however many survivors of : Civil unrest
and civil wars, peak population, peak oil 10, peak water, peak fish,
peak food, unemployment and illegal migrations, climate change,
air-water-land and all pollution, economic meltdown, people with
guns, etc.; that survived the brink of extinction and that have to
carry on living and perhaps make some new rules to avoid going
back to that brink, here are: things to do or to avoid doing, beware
of, or modify; in order NOT to make the same mistakes.
• Universal population control: All governments must strictly
enforce a no more than one child per family policy until
a sustainable population can be maintained; it should be
governed by the United Nations or by a universal agreement
10 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil
CHAPTER 8 73
to prevent single nations from cheating and breeding more for
self aggrandisement. It is far too late for voluntary reduction of
birth rates.
There is no time to argue, explain, educate and/or motivate
people who believe that children represent wealth, even
whilst people are dying of hunger around them, and the world
is disintegrating around all of us. This is a very controversial
issue, and one of the reasons no-one debates overpopulation.
However, after nature has found its equilibrium, people will
understand the stupidity of paying so much attention to our
health, diet, exercise, education, carriers and bank balance but
keeping silent, avoiding and denying the very thing that will kill
us.
The Chinese people have lived with the one child per family
policy for 30 years, and they are so much the better off for it;
although it was not strictly implemented, a lot of exceptions
were allowed for all sorts of humane reasons, it has a fertility of
less than 1.6 children per woman, i.e., a decreasing population;
and generally an improving nation growing in wealth. The
process of economically enriching the people and the country
by having fewer children is explained at the end of chapter 4.
• The current overbearing and intolerable influence of religion
on societies must be reviewed, regulated and controlled when
it becomes, as is happening now, a detrimental force of evil.
Whereas, everyone is free to practice any religion of its choice,
secular people must, also if they wish, be free from rules, social
74 SAVING HUMANITY
norms, lifestyles, actions and beliefs that some religions impose
on their followers, and that they want to force onto others by:
lobbying, cajoling, coaxing or blackmailing governments to
impose them by manipulating legislations. (American Catholic
Bishops in various US states are suing the US government to force
it to deny family planning and contraception to American women
by manipulating health care legislations. Also, the Catholic
Church in the Philippines is mobilizing their priests, nuns and
followers to demonstrate against family planning legislations
that the government wants to introduce, to reduce the high
birth rate and in line with United Nations recommendations.)
• Pardon all, or at least 50% of all outstanding debt that cannot
be repaid; that is: Estimates vary from $300 to 500 Trillion that
banks, governments and private entities owe, but that many
cannot even repay the interest on it. Whenever a creditor gives
money to a debtor, there is always an agreement specifying
how the debt is to be repaid; it is the responsibility of both the
debtor and the creditor to ensure that there is a reasonable
expectation that the debtor will be able to repay the debt. The
creditor is partly responsible for any default due to excessive
credit given!!!
If however, the creditor is always reimbursed for any bad debt by
his government, as it has happened in the recent past, the whole
original repayment agreement must also be no longer valid, and
the idea of pardoning the debt no longer so ridiculous. It cannot
be acceptable to taxpayers worldwide that they must repay all
the debts of the world; whereas, the debtors are happy they got
CHAPTER 8 75
the loan, and the creditors are happy they got reimbursed by
idiotic governments that had no mandate to use public money
that way. It is a normal day to day occupational risk for banks to
have to deal with bad debts.
• Women must be empowered, freed from their subordinate-to-
men status, granted legal and actual equality in the family and
in society; but women must grab it, own it and defend it. The
status of women is a measure of the level of civilization of a
society; societies, cultures or religions that abuse or enslave
women are backwards, cruel and uncivilised; stupidly, they
also do not take advantage of the intelligence, creativity and
contribution women could make to a society that regards them
as partners rather than slaves.
Women are instinctively programmed to avoid fights; with
their matriarchal non-aggressive nature they are ideally suited
for positions of high responsibility and authority; that would
reduce wars and conflicts that men are unable to avoid. Men
have had to fight for themselves and to protect women and
children throughout evolution, hence, whether in an attacking or
defending stance or situation men are instinctively programmed
to attack. Women must also be empowered and accepted as
equal because in a civilized society that lifted itself above, and
left Stone Age barbarism behind: IT IS RIGHT TO DO SO.
• The relative visible divide wealth to poverty in a world with
guns on both sides of the divide is perhaps the most dangerous
issue that can provide the spark for conflicts and civil war. The
76 SAVING HUMANITY
callous insensitivity and raw stupidity of flaunting wealth in the
presence of poverty might give the shallow rich man with not
much intelligence a sense of superiority, but more sensitive
people would recognize the dangers of such behaviour.
• Political power must be controlled, curtailed or removed from
those who can buy it. Large corporations, banks, and inept
politicians in governments have, for the past decades, done to
the world economic system what overpopulation has done to
the world’s ecology. But it was not just the brokers, bankers,
investment advisers, portfolio managers, and whom-ever else
was involved in circulating money in an ever expanding circle of
crooked and unauthorised investments of pooled bank money,
or the complicated schemes intended to hide fraud, stealing or
criminal transactions; it was also all of us, all the people of the
world who entrusted our money to these people, who asked to
get the best returns, and to make the most money possible for
us.
• Death penalty or appropriate punishments for serious crimes
without frivolous appeals. In an overpopulated world with
overpopulated prisons, poverty, and insufficient resources for the
basic needs of many non-criminal poor and displaced people; it
might be unjust and wasteful to provide life-long civilized: food,
shelter, security, medical, educational, recreational and often
legal facilities to hard criminals who are often unredeemable.
• Governments should be run by appointed professionals or
technicians, skilled in the areas of expertise they need to
CHAPTER 8 77
manage. They should not be elected politicians!! There are no
qualifications or experience requirements for politicians (they
only need to be good at making promises and lying for the
duration of their turn in government). The current democratic
party-system of elections has yielded only inept governments
that have increased the disparity of wealth, enriched themselves,
wasted money with luxuries and corruption, and financially
ruined many nations.
• Education must include all everyday practical life skills, such as:
running a house or apartment, budgeting and living on a fixed
income, controlling and managing debt, an understanding of
washing clothes, basic gardening and cooking, an understanding
of how to safely use electrical appliances and in house plumbing
and general safety around the house; so that each person, if
necessary, can look after him or herself. Also at school, there
should be guidance, standard check lists to test compatibility
and if necessary counselling for people who want to get married
or become a couple; and most importantly: The do’s and don’ts,
ideal conditions and recommendations for growing children;
and understanding and accepting the solemn responsibilities of
not teaching wrong values, bad habits and bad attitudes to the
children.
The world is a difficult place to live in, becoming more difficult by
the day; I hope the reader might have found it useful looking at
things from the writer perspective; it is not a good picture from any
angle or perspective but people should not avoid looking at it and
hope for the best.
78 SAVING HUMANITY
Whereas, it is good to be cheerful and positive, it is also necessary
to be alert, be aware of dangers, and plan our lives wisely.
Here is another perspective from a reputable good person
“The planet does not need more ‘successful people’. The
planet desperately needs more peacemakers, healers,
restorers, storytellers and lovers of all kinds. It needs people
to live well in their places. It needs people with moral courage
willing to join the struggle to make the world habitable and
humane and these qualities have little to do with success as
our culture is the set.”~ H. H. The Dalai Lama
CHAPTER 8 79
Chapter 9 • MORE READING
Population Matters http://www.populationmatters.org/
People and the planet http://www.peopleandplanet.net/
Rientrodolce http://www.rientrodolce.org/
Sustainable Population Australia http://www.population.org.au/
World food and human population (video)
http://www.panearth.org/world%20food%20and%20human%20
population%20growth/player.html
AAAS Atlas of population and environment http://atlas.aaas.org/
Population the elephant in the room
http://www.paulchefurka.ca/Population.html
Overpopulation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overpopulation
80 SAVING HUMANITY
Chapter 10 • APPENDIX
Old 2009 chapter 8 of Saving Humanity
(shown here to compare the change of views in 3 years)
Humanity can be saved by ordinary men and women, all of us,
only if, in addition to looking after our own interests, we stay
informed and care about the world around us, not just sport
and pleasure, but also events which are endangering us all.
The delicate balance of the natural life, systems, and
things we call our environment has already been seriously
damaged. Credible scientific observers are witnessing further
deterioration happening much faster than expected and also
predicting that unless we immediately stop what we are
doing, further irreversible damage will destroy the ability of
our environment to support life as we know it.
These are verifiable facts and they don’t get the urgent
attention everyone should pay to them. We are all distracted
by the lip service paid to global warming, and the knee-
jerk reaction of most governments to the economic crises.
However, the economic crises are not the biggest problem
facing mankind, and global warming cannot be reversed in
isolation from all the other catastrophes facing us including
and especially overpopulation.
It is too late to negotiate CO2 reduction targets. The Kyoto
protocol and all subsequent conferences have been a failure,
APPENDIX 81
there are no agreements and by the time one is reached
Holland and many other places will probably be under the
sea.
Whereas no problem can be solved until it is well defined it
appears that the world’s most pressing problems have not yet
been spread out on the same table, inspected, and rationally
allocated priorities and defined. It cannot be done, because
there are too many forces and interests pulling in all different
directions for rational decisions to be reached by the people
who have been, and are still, handling these matters.
These people represent governments, big business,
manufacturers of machinery which generates CO2, NGOs,
suppliers of the products which generate CO2, and all of them
with different agendas. They are the wrong people because
while their stated intentions are to save the world for the
benefit of all, each of their countries of origin have given
them strict instructions to safeguard their respective national
interests.
There has to be another way. It is suggested here that the
world media should adopt this quest for saving the world,
all conferences, discussions, defining the problems, setting
priorities, and finding solutions can be done on TV screens in
front of millions of people from different areas of the world,
taking as long as it takes.
The delegates would not need to travel to conferences.
Everyone could work from their home base. This issue should
82 SAVING HUMANITY
be seen as more important than any sporting event usually
covered by the world media.
The ordinary people of the world would have opportunities to
learn more about matters affecting us all, and to participate in
discussions, surveys and decision making about future actions
and changes necessary to reverse the looming catastrophes.
The more people participating, or observing, the more
suggestions, good ideas and solutions could be generated.
Having the media involved in publicly investigating,
researching these issues and informing the world at the
same time would be ideal, and would go a long way towards
generating solutions.
However, since this has not happened yet, some suggestions
about saving humanity will be respectfully offered here, based
on observations of firstly, a sustainable lifestyle in Italy in the
1940s, the end of an era with medieval origins and hundreds
of years of duration, and secondly, unsustainable lifestyles
everywhere in the world in the 21st century.
• Artificially stimulating economies in order to generate
growth is not a good idea. It can only be done with
borrowed money, it will generate limited wealth and
the interest will have to be repaid, the population will
continue to grow, it will damage the environment further,
and it will make the next credit crunch more severe.
• There is a need to undo the damage done by creating
APPENDIX 83
a worldwide culture of luxury goods and services. The
wealthy, among the 7 BILLION people, who have been
going after luxuries have used up a lot of resources and
caused a lot of damage.
• All people, from developed and undeveloped areas, must
be made aware of the damage to themselves and to the
world resulting from having too many children, and should
be offered advice and help with contraception, shown that
each person in a small family gets bigger portions of what
is available, and that with fewer people inheriting estates,
wealth concentrates and accumulates.
• Simplifying the way we live would relieve much of the
anxiety of city life in a big town in the 21st century.
Anybody with a wife and children, paying rent or a
bond, and losing a job in a recession, will experience,
together with the family, anxiety, fear and hardships.
Even with a job, it is often difficult to make ends meet,
with ever increasing prices and an uncertain future in
a very sick world. Comparing this lifestyle with that of
a peasant farmer in Italy or in Europe 70 years ago, we
can consider the advantages and disadvantages of both
worlds: peasant farmers manufactured their entire food
requirement on their little farms, and some more so that
by selling some, they could buy other things that they
needed. Compared to city life it must seem boring, but it
proved to be sustainable for hundreds of years, and there
was no anxiety or fear of the future. In an uncertain future
84 SAVING HUMANITY
with little economic growth people could enjoy the best
of both worlds, farm life would provide security, and a
connection to the internet, and other modern amenities
would provide a link to the modern world we know.
• Using alternative or renewable forms of energy is fun and
educational, can stir up creativity and inventiveness, and
can generate income. Solar cooking gives independence
from reticulated electricity and gas, is inexpensive, and
can save vast amounts of reticulated energy.
• The employed and business people able to make a living in
urban areas will continue to do so. However, unemployed
and old people can be employed and taken care of in
kibbutz-like settlements more cost effectively than in
artificially created public works.
These are just a few suggestions to start focusing on the
need to change the way we live. People always find their own
solutions, however wisdom is needed to define the problems
well.
When trying to define and understand the challenges facing
us it is necessary to do so with vision, honesty and truth, and
without fear or favour, even when examining or investigating
controversial issues. Also, it is important to be alert to
changing circumstances.
There are many organisations trying to save many things: the
whales, the forests, water and air from pollution, poverty,
APPENDIX 85
diseases, global warming and so on. Most of these groups
started in the seventies and eighties. In the early eighties
the writer was also involved in studying and combating
deforestation by manufacturing solar cookers to save wood.
For more than 30 years these organisations have been active
in trying to save the many things we either kill or damage.
However, with the sole exception of the ozone layer, after 30
years of trying they have all failed to save anything else. In
fact all other crises have become much worse and are now
accelerating out of control.
Why? The people involved are top class people, intelligent,
educated, able bodied young men and women. If no one has
succeeded after 30 years or more, it is reasonable to suggest
that the strategies needs to be reviewed, or the problems
need to be better defined.
There are at least three fundamental reasons for these failures:
• All the work and effort by each of the various groups
concerned with any issue was not coordinated with the
work of other groups, for example, people trying to save
the forests were not coordinating efforts with people
trying to save the whales.
• Conditions on earth have changed drastically in a short
time. From 1966 to 2009 the world population has
DOUBLED, from 3.4 to 6.8 BILLION people. Also, since
1985 when the Greenpeace Rainbow Warrior was bombed
86 SAVING HUMANITY
in New Zealand, the world population has increased by 2
BILLION. Old people may be right when they say that life
was better in the good old days.
• It is impossible to combat, or alleviate, any of the looming
catastrophes in isolation from the others, and without
considering overpopulation. Very few people, groups
or organisations concerned about environmental issues
are prepared to tackle overpopulation. It is therefore
impossible to solve any environmental problems if no one
is prepared to discuss the main cause of the problem.
All the good people who are trying to improve our survival
chances on this planet need not abandon what they are doing,
but they must understand that in order to change the 30 or
more years of failures routine, it will be necessary to discuss
some form of gentle population control.
Once steps have been taken to reduce the world population,
there will be no actual or visible change for many years (see
the charts and the Chinese example). During that time action
can be taken to reverse all or as many as possible of the other
problems. At least then the times to remedy all problems will
run concurrently.
When deciding on actions and priorities it is necessary to be
vigilant and not allow individual self interest to prevail over
the interest of the environment.
Also, it may be necessary to warn against political, ethnic,
APPENDIX 87
religious, racial, national or any other separately identifiable
group of people who may try to gain majority advantage by
producing more children than other groups.
When heads of state at a conference sign a document
committing the participants to a reduction of CO2 emissions
of some percentage by some deadline, they cannot know that
they can keep that promise as there are too many variables:
they don’t know how to do it, it will be difficult to measure,
and no one is going to sue them if after trying they don’t
succeed.
Furthermore, the commitment and the signature by that head
of state somehow relieves the rest of the countrymen from
worrying too much about it. It becomes the head of state’s
responsibility and the citizens carry on living as usual.
If we want to save ourselves we had better not leave it all
up to the politicians. Once everybody in the world has been
informed and warned about what’s at stake, it becomes
everybody’s responsibility to do something about it.
Mankind needs a radical change of mindset, from a trying
to make money rat race to a less ambitious, simpler survival
mode lifestyle similar to the mentality and lifestyle of
European peasants 70 years ago. At least until the population
becomes sustainable again.
This time it would be easier. We have better knowledge and
better technology. However, we would still require good power
88 SAVING HUMANITY
of persuasion, wisdom, courage, intelligence, discipline, will
power, humility, understanding and the humility and wisdom
to continue to learn many things we don’t know.
If we can master all these attributes and virtues, humanity can
attempt to save itself.
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