Personal Responsibility

Every time the word sustainable gets used, which these days is a lot, it’s in reference to the supply side of life. What about the demand?

According to Population Connection (a toned down moniker for what used to be Zero Population Growth), global population in 1968 was 3.5 billion. Today it is 6.9 billion and at current rates by 2050 it will be 11 billion. And there’s no reason to believe it will slow down, much less stop. The seating capacity of this little space ship we’re on is finite. No matter how efficient and eco-friendly our methods of resource extraction and the production of goods and services become, on this track the demand will overcome supply.

Rain equals rabbits. By the forces of nature species population flows and ebbs in response to availability of resources. It’s happening all the time with all species and it’s so natural a course of things most of it we hardly notice. Unlike the way rabbits come and go however, if (when) we humans all bump up against our planetary limits, things will likely become very, very ugly. There’s war and famine and disease worse than we’ve ever seen on that horizon. This is not doom and gloom; it is pragmatic.

There are at least a thousand great reasons to have children, including the continuation of the species. There is one even greater reason to have no or fewer children: the flourishing continuation of the species… and the rest of life. It is as simple and compelling as that. We have turned to political and spiritual “leaders” for solutions and not only have those attempts failed, the consequences for some have been awful. The solution to our social, economic and environmental problems lies in taking personal responsibility for the quality of life we create by producing offspring.

I welcome your comments.

Gordon Bunker

Photo: NASA