One Rainy Night

Lately, I have been thinking about the “apocalypse,” or when the world will end. There have been many terrible storms lately here, inclement weather not usual for the time of the year (having to bring in fake snow in the winter to CANADA!?), things like that. And although I believe that it is due to climate _change_, not global warming (which I think the media and special-interest groups are using as a buzzword to work people up and scare them,) I don’t think that the changes in the environment are indicative of a massive, catastrophic catastrophe that will happen and wipe out everyone on earth. The world naturally goes through warming and cooling periods (over the span of thousands of years,) and people just don’t understand that. There are those who have their eyes completely blinded to reality and say “There is no ‘global-warming,’ that’s why the tomato and orange crops in Florida were horrible this year, all the snow and cold weather. Not too warm, is it?” to which I facepalm in my mind. It is such a ridiculous argument, because what the issue is (that some people have yet to realize) is _change_ to the climate, not strictly warming everywhere. Places that are usually always balmy are getting snow, places that are usually freezing have been abnormally warm, higher rates of incidence for natural disasters (though some are refuting that, and saying that they are just better documented now)… it’s real.

I think that it is a combination of a natural causes (the Earth experiencing a warming trend) and humans exacerbating the problem. Major de-forestation, mass consumption of natural products, greenhouse-gas emissions, pollution (air, soil, water), it’s all just making things worse. It’s great that now humans are finally starting to realize the impact we are having on the planet, and how massive our ecological footprint is, but it’s almost at the point where we realized this too late. Now we’re trying to backtrack a bit, and it isn’t going to happen. I’m glad that we are making a more conscious effort to watch the size of our carbon-footprint (another buzzword,) and to recycle more and take better care of the environment, but you know what a big issue is?

Overpopulation, which was the original point of this post. At the rate we’re consuming the natural resources (especially fossil fuels,) there needs to be big changes if we want to continue on our species. The accelerated pace at which the human race is expanding is scary, because we are using up the worlds fresh water (a lot is going to watering livestock, and to grow food for livestock), natural resources (trees being torn down to make room for farmland or expansion of cities), and are at greater risk of having epidemics and pandemics wipe out millions of people.

I think that every five or ten years, for an entire year, no one can have children. That way, as people die all over the world each day from whatever causes they may be, we weed out the planet a little bit each time this happens. This way, we can slow down the pace at which we are popping out children all over the place, and give the Earth a little break.

Obviously, this would be impossible to implement, and some would find it morally or fundamentally wrong, I’m sure. But the Earth needs a break… we just aren’t dying enough to compensate for the massive amount of kids being born, especially in impoverished places.

Thoughts?

Tags: Future, Random thoughts