THINNING OF THE HERD

We tend to forget that we are just another animal species.  We invent Gods in our own image or to fill our own need, thereby anointing ourselves Demigods.

But in reality, we are the current manifestation of a long line of primates dating back 3.2 million years.  

   

We are a wonderful creature, when compared to the rest of the animal kingdoms.   We have conquered the earth, the water and the air; and weaponized each of them.   Our technological and architectural advances are a testament to our own development. 

But we are still, basically, animals, and our population growth is out of control. 

 Around 1804 the world human population reached one billion.   Approximately 130 years later the world population doubled to two billion.   Now, in less than 100 years, we are approaching a world population of eight billion (last year (2019) the human world population increased by eighty-one million.) See World PopulationClock  

In the animal kingdom, in general, nature keeps a balance of predator and prey; but when one species exceeds that balance in an environmental area, nature tends to regulate the herd with a pandemic, taking out the old, the weak and the infirm. 

Nature has been trying to regulate our population growth for the last hundred years; but our medical and technological advances have been able to defy pandemics – as we will this one.

    

Perhaps, after we move beyond this pandemic, we should look at the root cause of pandemics in general; which is density of population, caused by uncontrolled population growth.

  

I am not proposing an enforced one child restriction like China; but we should make available, and educate the world youth in birth control methods.    We should be acknowledging the realization that having more than one child increased pollution in our environment in an unsustainable way.  We need to quit glorifying large families.  Of course, we will have to get past the bronze age teachings of religions, which always lags science and reason by thousands of years. 

We are the most intelligent species on this earth; but perhaps our arrogance in our abilities to control and confront nature will be our downfall. 

the Ol’Buzzard