Sonny’s Blog

I have a thought: I have observed that nature has 3 main mechanisms for culling overpopulation of a species, which are starvation, disease, and violence, in that order. Each is used in succession, and if the first one fails, the next is employed, often overlapping, until the numbers of individuals is returned to stable level.

Human population, for instance, have increased to staggering numbers. Using intelligence, we have overcome most starvation, disease, and violence. That’s not to say that we have totally eliminated all of these mechanisms, but rather we’ve managed to keep them under control well enough to reach a population 6.8 billion plus, and is still climbing rapidly. (US Census Bureau : http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html).

Current food production, if disturbed evenly, can just sustain 6.8 billion. (Wisenet.com: http://www.wisenet-australia.org/issue59/Feeding%20the%20world.htm ). Everyone knows about the advances in medicine that have saved many lives and, although not perfect, we have governments that keep people from being violent enough not to kill one another in extremely large numbers, such as in large scale wars.

So how much longer can we do this? With our intelligence, humans are the most adaptable creatures on earth. Can we keep our numbers growing at the current rate and continue to stave off natures population controls?