If we wanted to bring about the extinction of the human race as quickly as possible, how might we proceed? We could begin by destroying the planet’s atmosphere, making it incapable of supporting human life. We could invent bombs capable of obliterating the entire planet, and place them in the hands of those desperate enough to detonate them. We could bioengineer our main food sources — rice, wheat and corn — in such a way that a single disease could bring about catastrophic famine. But the most effective measure, counterintuitive as it may be, would be to increase our numbers. Population is what economists call a multiplier. The more people, the greater the likelihood of ecological collapse, nuclear war, plague. As Alan Weisman’s “Countdown” amply demonstrates, we are well on our way. Some seven billion people are alive today; the United Nations estimates that by the end of the century we could number as many as 15.8 billion. Biologists have calculated that an ideal population — the number at which everyone could live at a first-world level of consumption, without ruining the planet irretrievably — would be 1.5 billion. Weisman’s jeremiad amounts to a world tour of our overpopulation misery. Read the entire NYT review of Alan Weismans book: Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth? nytimes/2013/10/13/books/review/countdown-by-alan-weisman.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Posted on: Tue, 15 Apr 2014 00:00:01 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015