People talk of how approaching seven billion, or already exceeded it in 2011 of the world population. If you are vegan it is estimate about one acer per person. If you prefer the hunter/gather method. More like ten acres per person. So I am going to take a harder science at that and figured that with technology and more micro-climate awareness etc, it should come out to roughly five acres per person. How? Not all plants need to grow on the surface of earth. Multi-level farming is a fairly new method in terms of how much of it is being done on a large scale. Multi-level has been done for centuries in small gardens around the world. But tackling it for large scale populace is a different methodology. Right now, most of it in the United States is being done around large cities to decrease the amount of time, effort, and packing it takes to get food to the table. The closer you get, the better the food. Fully ripen food is better and more nutrious than partly ripe, under green, and hard like a baseball!
So for a planet that growing in human population (but many of the animals and needed bugs are not as of now, doing as well. Bees anyone?)
Besides the growing of things to eat, we also need room to take care of our waste, make drinking water (we are way past being able to drink from a stream. Even in the Himalayas tip top mountains there are pollutants! So many who believe that the only way to save the earth is not to have children. Well there is a problem with THAT. Most of those who chose not to have children tend to be well educated and are power brokers. Some use the reasoning that there are too many people to begin with. My argument is this, we are adapting. We are tackling the problem of how to live on a heavily populated world. I for one am optimistic that we will adapt well because we are survivors first. Co-creators is something that also comes naturally to our speices. Rather than being overly worried about our population numbers, I would be more concern about the man-men (and they do tend to be male) who chose a life of crime and terror control of where ever they live. Drug Lords, Mini Kings, and Zealots of the worst kind (I mean that in a multi-national way btw). What is really pushing the space issue is not so much the number of humanity, but how we share. There is a tremendous desire to OWN things first, share when there is only when there is plenty.
Bit by bit some cultures are changing in seeing that sharing is actually more profitable than keeping the best for yourself, in the long run. For example, multi-level farming (This video site DOES have Captions but they are a bit haphazard to read. If anyone knows a better site with similar information, LMK). Can you imagine a skyscraper being turned into a farming that can feed thousands of people? This site talks just about that. There are amazing benefits when used the right way.
Then there is a more argumentative suggestion too. Start Colonizing other planets. It is a natural progression for us. Something that will take a couple hundred years for us to be fluent in how we do this. There will be casualties as well, any actions to work in non-native soil tends to require the acceptance that death is part of the learning curve. That does not argue that we should not do it. Some might find it odd that a Catholic would argue for us to go to the moon and beyond. After all, don’t I believe that Jesus Christ is coming back one day? Would he gather the people on Mars, the Moon, or Jupiter and other places? Yes he will. What we really need to understand, is that we will be carrying home with us. So how can I argue for us to spend so much resources going off planet when we should take care of what we have right now and right here? It is this, going off planet is very much like having children. It is, in my mind, our birthright to explore. The main thing is to take what we have learned here as humans, and apply it as our best selves, out there as well as at home. Space Travel has had a profound impact on our understanding of who and whom we are. It is not a thing to be feared in that in pricing the blackness we will become less. In fact I have every faith we will find more and greater Glory to God than we can perceive right now. If only because we see it from a new window on to life.
Nancy Louise
Dusky Dawns 