Welcome to the next installment of "The End of the World!" This continuing series explores different Armageddon scenarios and covers the what, when, where and how of the event. This time around we'll be looking at the insidious end-of-society scenario called overpopulation. Just as in the last column, I'll be presenting scientific evidence but please keep in mind, this will be mostly speculation and is in no way a promise or prediction of future events. Also, as in the previous article, this work is being written purely as entertainment and any self-destructive activities or doomsday cult proceedings are not condoned nor are they the responsibility of the author or the magazine.

I'm fairly certain everyone is familiar with the concept, but for the sake of being thorough I will explain it. Overpopulation is basically when the number of people in an area is greater than the local ability for the land to sustain them (also called "carrying capacity"). Carrying capacity is a relatively modern way of measuring an areas ability to sustain life, and differs greatly from the previous methods that had only considered population density. Carrying capacity takes into account the impact that people have on the land and not just how many of them you can squeeze into an acre. So how can too much of something be a bad thing? And what happens if it is?

People are animals. Aside from agreeing with this statement solely because of the behavior of someone you know, I think most people generally accept that humans are intelligent animals. Being intelligent and clever is not a passport for acting outside of the rules of nature, however. In the animal kingdom, populations are balanced by a number of different factors. When you remove the limiting factors, the animal species in question starts to have an impact on the environment (typically it is the exhaustion of their food supply but it could be other things as well). It is not long before the number of animals exceeds the carrying capacity of the land and deaths occur. If you don't accept that humans are animals, at the very least you must have noticed we play by the same rules (reproduction, food and water consumption, desire for shelter and safety, etc.). When there are too many humans in an area and the land is not able to sustain them, people bring in additional resources from other locations (distributed carrying capacity?).

The United Nations, in October of 1999, said the world population reached a staggering 6 billion. It took mankind from before recorded history until the year 1850 to hit its first billion individuals. The second billion came some 80 years later (1930) and the fourth billion came 45 years after that (1975). The current estimate says a new person is born every 3 seconds (250,000 per day or 94 million per year). Put another way, there are 25 births per 1000 people. Conversely, there are 9 deaths per 1000 people as a global average. Sheer volume can be a problem but it is really more about the way people live than the number of people (with those living in the "developed" world doing the most harm per capita). For example, Americans comprise only 5% of the world's population but use 30% of the resources and generate more trash per person than most other countries. Statistically, from childhood, these same Americans will generate 6 million pounds of waste materials during their lifetimes. A little simple math generates a very large number that is quite daunting and is yet another spin-off issue of the greater problem.

In our efforts to expand and develop we have destroyed and consumed much of the environment, but this may only be the beginning. The hacking, slashing and clear-cutting of woodlands and rain forests has created a situation that may not be reversible. In particular, many believe that enough of the Amazon rain forest has been destroyed to make recovery nearly impossible, with the likely result being its complete destruction. This forest was, and is, a major carbon dioxide filter for the earth, which means its loss cannot be good, with the exact ramifications uncertain. Undoubtedly there will be more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and we all know that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and a major player in global warming. This destruction has come in the name of development and growth.

Should slower-developing countries have to stop their development because the already-developed countries have used up all the slack? This is a point that is argued by third world countries repeatedly. Countries such as the United States even go so far as to consume the resources from other countries, expanding its environmental impact beyond its own borders (not to mention the additional consumption due to transportation) and further consuming some of the growth potential of its less-developed neighbors. In all fairness, others share the weight of this issue as well. For example, the Netherlands is also a big external consumer, having to import most of its fuel and power needs from its neighbors, having far exceeded its own carrying capacity.

As the population continues to grow so does the chance for new disease, or mutations of ones that we have already defeated. Lack of adequate sewage, decrease in air and drinking water quality, and miscellaneous other problems will assuredly have adverse effects on the population. Compressing people into an ever-shrinking area of land makes matters worse. Disease can and will spread rapidly in this situation. Well, then we will just spread out, right? That will work to a certain extent, but a lot of land is not suitable for housing or urban sprawl. This also ignores the environmental impact that the human animal would have on the rest of the kingdom. No matter how much we like to disconnect ourselves from the lesser species, we are all part of the same circle. The animals, the plants and the insects all play important roles. Once they are gone, despite the advances in cloning, it is likely they will be gone for good.

Another side effect of the human plague is the over-consuming by the world's fisheries. If this continues unabated, our "end of the world" will extend to the oceans as well as the loss of several key sources of food forever. As it stands today, fishing comprises a full percentage point of the global economy. Even if you only look at the economic ramifications, it is catastrophic. Another interesting statistic: Nearly one-quarter of all marine life caught worldwide is thrown back dead (usually due to by-catches from nets). This over-fishing can be seen as more than just a loss of a food source, it could be a loss of an entire ecosystem. With the disappearance of some of these species it is unknown what effect it will have on the food chain.

Topsoil erosion continues to be a world concern. Chemical toxicity (in the land and the water), loss of croplands to urban expansion, and soil erosion all combine to paint a fairly bleak agricultural future. Lose some of this land to cattle, some to desertification and still more to rising sea levels and things look even worse. "Bah! We make more than enough food to feed the planet several times over!" Well, this would be true if everyone was a vegetarian. As it stands, comparatively few people choose to subsist entirely on vegetable matter. If there was no other choice it would work out okay, but it would still involve the consumption of resources to ship the food to other areas and the associated waste by-products from moving it there. Also, just because vegetables are abundant now doesn't mean they always will be, and in this scenario the land suffers. The scary part is that there are merely a handful of staple food crops, such as corn, potatoes, lentils, grain and rice, that provide the bulk of the world's food. If something were to happen to even one of these crops (perhaps a plant disease or blight) then the impact would be significant, with major repercussions.

So what does any of this have to do with overpopulation? Overpopulation is the sickness, and global warming, pollution, disease, extinction, deforestation and desertification are some of the symptoms. When the population reaches a large enough number (especially a large number of resource-consuming, waste-producing, environment-destroying individuals) the planet will not be able to sustain us and we will choke on, drown in or become poisoned by our own waste. The mountains of garbage are real, the pollution can be seen in the air and the water, and the damage can be measured and quantified. This is one scenario that has some real potential to become the future. With food production lost, key animal species gone and the air and water poisoned, it is difficult to imagine the human species continuing. Technology alone cannot stop these things from happening. Avoidance requires a change in the way people live their day-to-day lives. If people aren't able to live in a section of land, historically, they have moved somewhere else. As the selection for viable living locations becomes smaller due to the changing environment, the inevitable outcome is anarchy. When people get hungry enough and several of their crucial needs are not being met they often resort to violence. Throughout history the use of force is recorded as a method for resolving an issue. Without doubt there would be a lot of violence and chaos involved in this "end of the world."

Oddly enough, there are actually several different groups of individuals with the mindset that man should consume all of the available resources, and population growth should not decline but should actually increase. It has even been postulated by some of these people that resources are "not finite," and the world can sustain a "not finite" number of people. This "not finite" state is achieved by manipulation of semantics and clever philosophy based on the inability to make an accurate count of individual resources. That is, because you cannot count the actual amount of, say ... marble in the world, that it is not finite because it is immeasurable. It is also not uncommon for these persons to use the financial costs of items to prove that resources are not being depleted. Some believe that the earth belongs to our species and all others are expendable. Many support these arguments by pointing out text from ancient documents that clearly state the world belongs to man. When thoughtful argument or proof to the contrary is provided it is summarily dismissed as simply untrue or reactionary "doom saying." Some of these groups are motivated by greed for paper with pictures of dead presidents. Still others have disdain for future generations of humans, believing that since they will not be alive when the trouble starts, why should they care. Believing people should do whatever they want regardless of the consequences because some higher power will sort everything out is another dangerous fallacy.

Overpopulation of the world is something some say is already occurring. Because of the way a relative minority of the world leads their lives and consumes the environment (20% of the world population consumes 80% of the resources and creates 80% of the pollution) the entire planet may be put into jeopardy. The only answer is to find a way to adapt and cooperate with the environment. Combined with education, a chance at prosperity and women and men both having access to birth control, the population issue will most likely resolve itself. Many people take note that the birth rate is already declining in the more developed countries, but life cycles and birth rates come in waves as generations reach the point of adulthood. The next batch of young humans (32% of the population in developing countries) is coming into their own now and the population may again make a jump. Let us hope that these younger people will have the wisdom to see that some changes are necessary. If not, then perhaps my speculations about overpopulation are not so unrealistic.

It is difficult to understand the motivations of those who have no regard for the planet that gives us life, sustains us and supplies us with an endless variety of life and limitless wonder. Sacrificing the earth, our environment, our home for paper is ludicrous in the extreme. These are my opinions on the matter, anyway. Feel free to look it up and do some research so you can decide for yourself. I would not wait too long, though. The end could be near.

If you enjoyed this article, hated it or are interested in the topic one way or another, please look into it. This was done as entertainment but the information is real and can be validated if you research the topic. After you're done, come back for another look at one of the possibilities for "The End of the World!"

The Piper ( piper@toosquare.com )

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