I just came across a very annoying, if not completely scary, news item. Out from Washington, D.C., where recently the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) held its annual meeting, the Agence French Presse (AFP) reported on a research presented in the scientific meeting.
The lead says: “A growing, more affluent population competing for ever scarcer resources could make for an ‘unrecognizable’ world by 2050, researchers warned at a major US science conference Sunday.”
It went on to say that the UN had earlier predicted global population to reach a staggering 7 billion this year and 9 billion by 2050, only 39 years from today. And this population increase will happen in poor countries in Africa and South Asia, said John Bongaarts of the non-profit Population Council.
The world, to be able to feed this many people, will have to produce in the next 40 years as much food it has produced in the last 8,000 years, according to Jason Clay of World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Wow! Produce all the food that has been produced in the last 8,000 years in the next 40 years just to feed the expected world population of 9 billion in 2050! Anyway you look at it, that’s simply staggering, nay, mind-boggling!
If this trend continues, Clay said, we’ll not recognize our planet by then.
Bottom line: we have to control the growth of the world population.
How do we compare in the Philippines? It’s been reported that this year the Philippines has reached a population of 92.5 million. This brings back to mind an article I read sometime in 1972 saying that if Filipinos eat the way the Japanese do (that is, nothing is wasted, for example, from a vegetable plant like cabbage, from leaves to roots), the Philippines could feed about 70 million. The presumption was that the Philippines would produce all its food requirements and will not share its production with others. Today, there are 92.5 million Filipinos and we’re importing much of what we eat.
Population experts say that we must minimize population growth, and the only viable means of doing this is through effective family planning. Now, this becomes problematic in the Philippines because what was supposed to be focused on this issue is the RH Bill, but the CBCP has been fighting it with all its might. I didn’t realize that the bishops are also population experts. Well, given the number of priests begetting children, they should somehow begin to understand that the increasing population isn’t easy to stop.
Nevertheless, the CBCP has withdrawn from its discussions with Malacañan regarding a counter bill since they don’t like the current RH Bill. Their reason? The discussions on the RH Bill in Congress is moving way too fast. Meantime, if the current rate of population growth of the Philippines does not go down, we will definitely breach the 100 million mark much earlier than 2050. And, to me, there’s no way you can stop that out of prayer like what the bishops want us to do.
Now, 2050 is only 39 years away. Those born today will be 39 by then and they’ll have a hell of a life to live. Our bishops today would probably have gone by then and so they wouldn’t live the kind of life to be lived in a decaying world in 2050. Hope most of them will still be around to experience the hell on earth that will be the order of the day. But they probably won’t live that long since the quality of life will worsen each year and to live that kind of life until 39 years from now is much like living very badly for eternity. None of us will last that kind of eternity. Even vampires would probably not tolerate it. Imagine, a world of 9 billion people hardly surviving an “unrecognizable” world. Living in such environment could drain one’s blood and life. And, yes, the vampires wouldn’t have supply of blood so they probably would also die.
Back to you and me. Knowing that this would be the kind of world there’ll be in 2050, are you still going to have more children who will be in their prime years in 2050 only to suffer in an unrecognizable planet? May be? For heaven’s sakes, what kind of parent are you?
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