A NO-GROWTH IMPERATIVE

Is Homo sapien breeding its-self to the brink of disaster? Will human beings follow the dinosaur into extinction? Let's look at some facts related to each of these questions.

It took from the beginning of humankind's time on Earth to about 1850 for the world population to reach one billion--maybe two to three million years. Only about 80 years, roughly to 1930, was needed to add the next billion people. A mere 30 years was all it took for the next billion to appear, which brings us up to about 1960. Eighteen years later it is estimated we are now past four billions of people in the world and our numbers are still growing.

If the world population continues to grow for the next few years as it has in the recent past, there will be five billion people in ten years (1988), six billion by about 1995 and eight billion somewhere around 2014 (just 36 years from now!). In 550 years there would be one person for each square meter of land, and in 1620 years the mass of people would equal the mass of the world.

The really sobering fact is that world population is only increasing at a little under 1.9 percent per year. Incredible real growth can be the result of very small growth rates.

Consider what a doubling of the world's population in 36 years, or so, really means. It means that in the next 36 years we will have to provide food, clothing, housing, jobs - all of the necessities and luxuries of life - for TWICE the number of people alive today! For every New York City, we will have to have two New York Cities (or the present one will double in population).

It means we are adding about 200,000 people to the world's population a day! 1.4 million per week! 70 million a year! These are net figures; deaths have been subtracted out. If we compare these additions to past disasters, the following emerges: It has been estimated that 75,000,000 people died in the plague of 1347-1351 (perhaps the greatest killer disaster of history); we will add that many people to the world population in about 13 months.

The estimate for all of the people killed as combatants in wars in the past 500 years is 35,000,000; that number will be added to our spaceship Earth in about six months. The magnitude of the problem of growth begins to emerge as we look at these numbers, doesn't it?

How well are we taking care of the needs of the four billion who are alive today? If we look at today's record, we may get some idea of how well we will be doing when eight billion people live on this world of ours. Here, the figures are more tentative. We will present them and see why they are so imprecise.

Between 5,000,000 and 20,000,000 people each year die as a result of famine, starvation and malnutrition. Why don't we have better estimates? Two reasons, at least. What country wants to keep a record of and release to the world such information? And, most of those who actually die from malnutrition are listed as having died of some disease or other causes; nevertheless, they are malnutrition casualties.

If we cannot feed four billion adequately, how will we feed eight billion, or even five? "There's the answer," you say. "Starvation will keep the world population stable, once we really reach the world's food production limits." But I ask you what a world would be like in which famine is rampant. Would there be economic and political stability? Would the average person and his family and his friends live in security? Of course not.

Historically, when things have gone bad within a country, governments have sought war as a way of diverting attention away from those internal problems. Famine might present such a problem and war such an alternative. Will the future be different from the past?

For example, if famine strikes India, will that country, which has the fourth largest army in the world, sit idly by with that army while its people starve? Even if the leadership did not choose war, might not marauding hordes go out looking for food? Let's bring it closer to home. How many Americans would sit by and watch their children starve it there was food to be had anywhere in the world? Some, to be sure. Not all by any measure.

Growth is a key factor in nearly all of our present world problems. It is a factor in our national, state and local problems, also.

NO-GROWTH political, economic and religious ethics, policies and procedures need to be formulated and put into use with out delay. Yet, how many world political, economic and religious leaders speak urgently or meaningfully about the true consequences of growth? Few. If any. Because of this, not many citizens realize the problems of growth.

Adopting a serious no-growth stance is about like committing political suicide in the U.S. This would not be so if the people were properly informed about growth's true nature. Colorado's leaders speak of controlled growth - a euphemism for growth - and enact and support policies and projects which will virtually guarantee enormous growth in Colorado over the next few years. And, they do so while Denver's 'brown cloud' of pollution grows ever more evident and troublesome.

All paths lead to NO-GROWTH! The question is not whether no-growth will occur, but how. Will Homo sapiens find the determination and the means to stop growth or will natural curbing processes be asserted and disasters of unthinkable dimensions happen?

The answer (or answers) to the above question is (are) not far off. If humans are to make the choice, it must be made soon. The hour is late. If the problem of growth is left for nature to solve, no one can say when disaster will strike, but it will strike. Then it will be a question of whether humankind will survive - or not!