While driving home from a rehearsal tonight, I heard on the
radio a conversation about extinction. Specifically, about the recent death
oath of the last male northern white rhino, but also about the wave of species
extinctions happening in the world today.
I heard them talk about human impact, about loss of habit,
and climate change, and poachers, and a little about economic pressures. But
the host and guest of whatever this program was did not once mention human
overpopulation. You know, the fact that there are outrageously high numbers of
humans on this planet. There are WAY too many of us. As of the end of last
year, we are estimated at 7.6 BILLION humans. I never hear anyone talk about
this anymore. When I was a kid, and there were only about 4 billion of us, you
heard people talk about it. It was a growing concern. A problem. Well, apparently
no longer.
Here’s my real point. We humans do some horrible things to
each other, to other species (both animals and plants), and to the planet in
general. It would be great if we could stop doing bad things. But... WE’RE
PROBABLY NOT GOING TO STOP DOING BAD THINGS TO THE PLANET. But the one thing
that would make climate change and species extinction and all the other shit
less of a problem is to have A LOT few humans here on the planet.
Now, I’m not comfortable saying that we should just kill off
a bunch of people. But I am comfortable saying this:
Maybe we should stop treating every human birth like it’s a
magical miracle from heaven. And maybe we should stop treating every human
death as if it’s such a horrific tragedy that can be accepted. Maybe, just maybe,
we don’t need to fight and struggle to keep every human alive and reproducing. Oh
yeah! And maybe we don’t need that antibacterial hand sanitizer a dozen times a
day.
It’s as if we’ve decided that every natural check on
population just doesn’t pertain to us. We’re somehow special. Yep, so special
that we’re fucking over tons of other species just to prove the point. And the
thing is, if we keep going, we’re going to prove the opposite. That we humans can’t
make as many of ourselves as we want to.
Anyway... There are too many people already. We need to slow
down on the baby-making. A lot fewer humans could chop down some trees, and
kill some animals, and burn some fossil fuels, and even use that hairspray with
chlorofluorocarbons. All that wouldn’t be great for the environment, but the
earth could probably handle it. But 7½ billion humans doing that is insane. And
we don’t seem to give a fuck anymore. Just like America has pretty much
accepted that we’re okay with mass shootings and other such violence, we’ve “civilized”
humans have pretty much accepted that we’re going to make this planet unlivable
for ourselves and many other species.
Well, get ready, cockroaches. Your chance is coming.
