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Our
Crossroads
The Human Species is at a crossroads. Here I will put the two extremes
possibilities, while recognising that in real life we are more likely to go
somewhere in the middle.
Extinction
Professor Frank Fenner suggests that Homo
sapiens will not be able to survive the population explosion.
Professor Fenner is emeritus professor of microbiology
at the Australian
National University. He is an extremely eminent scientist;
certainly not a person whose views can be easily ignored.
He thinks that our “increasing population”, “unbridled
consumption” and “anthropomorphic global warming” will cause our extinction,
probably within 100 years.
He expects wars to be fought over basic needs like food
and water. We have already had wars
fought over oil.
I hope that professor Fenner is wrong although I agree
that we face the dangers he mentions.
I note that one model used for the prediction is Easter Island. On
this isolated island, a thriving Human population wiped out most of the other
species of the eco system and when discovered by Europeans was reduced to less
than a tenth of the peak population, with the people living in abject
poverty. However they were not extinct
although it seems likely that this would have happened eventually without
outside intervention.
Survival
The alternative is to get world population growth under control, to restrain our consumption and to
greatly reduce our use of fossil fuels.
If the rich nations will help the poor ones to improve
their education and standards of living, perhaps using the example of the
Indian state of Kerala as a model of what can be done, the population growth of
the poorer countries can be stopped.
Another major thing that will be needed is for
developed nations like Australia
to get rid of all deliberate incentives
to try to get people to have more children.
With a slowly reducing world population to a
sustainable population target level, world co-operation and peace with the
strong helping the weak, our species can become capable even of colonising the
planets of other stars, and indeed become one worthy of doing this.
Foreign Aid
Of course if the richer countries are to help the poor
ones in a big way, people will ask how they are going to afford it.
Currently the world spends about 1.5 Trillion Dollars
a year on armed forces. Foreign aid by
governments is about a tenth of this, but the things included as aid often
include military aid and aid tied so closely to the donor country as to be almost
useless. Perhaps over half of all
government aid is wasted.
Private aid tends to be more effective although it is
still far from perfect.
The obvious answer to the question of how to help
other countries starts with reversing our aid and our military priorities.
Sources
http://www.physorg.com/news196489543.html
World Military Spending
http://www.globalissues.org/article/75/world-military-spending#WorldMilitarySpending
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