After many years of observation and research, medical science has at last recognized obesity as a symptom of illness in the human body. For long term survival in a state of good health, they advocate that everyone should control their obesity to achieve a lean body.
A nation which is overpopulated, can be compared to an obese human body. Just as a human being has to control his/her fatness for maintaining good health, a nation has to control its population size for the well-being of its subjects. A nation can be defined to be a LEAN NATION if its population is so small that its citizens do not have to live in cramped quarters, and it can leave plenty of space for nature to thrive on its own without being trampled by humans. Lean nations are best equipped for long term survival. Unfortunately, today there are very few nations which are still lean.
China's population is already over 1.5 billion and India's over 1 billion. The total human population has been estimated to have crossed the 6 billion figure in October 1999.
Many Americans are unaware of the population problem in their own country. We believe it is a problem in China, India, but not here. But our population is increasing rapidly also through the double whammy of births and immigration, and has almost doubled since 1965. We see people in China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh suffering because they let their populations get too large. We should learn from their experience, and take steps not to fall in the same trap ourself, but we are not doing it. USA has the dubious honor to be the next billion people country, but we should try very seriously to never receive this honor.
We are already seeing the symptoms of overpopulation in the USA. We now see congested traffic in many places 24 hours/day every day. In the 1960s even if you searched with a microscope you could not see a beggar in the USA. Now everybody says that USA is at an economic pinnacle, and yet we see beggars in all big cities. Also, for the first time in history, at the beginning of January 1999, most large airports in USA looked like third class waiting rooms in large railway stations in India.
We are seeing another indication that the USA is already overpopulated unfold in front of our eyes day by day at the dawn of this 21st century. The prices of gasoline, aviation fuel, heating oil, and natural gas are all going up, and innocent Americans and Europeans are blaming OPEC countries of price gouging. The people in most of these OPEC countries are poor and their regimes corrupt. Over the last 30 years, the price of crude oil has been kept very low by the powerful rich countries through military might and political maneuvering. During this long spell of unreasonably low crude oil prices, I have read many articles written by famous politicians and scientists proclaiming (often in an arrogant tone) that crude oil is gradually becoming irrelevant to modern technology. If the OPEC countries increase crude oil prices, they say that the West will develop alternate energy sources that will make their crude oil unnecessary. Saudi Arabia, the largest oil producer, is their frequent whipping boy, they warn the rulers of this country to pay attention for their own good. But everyone knows that this is plain bravado, as in reality no new viable methods have been discovered for large scale energy production, and our demand for crude oil and natural gas is going up significantly every year, mostly driven by the ever increasing human population. The USA now imports more than 60% of its oil needs. The ever increasing demand is bound to catch up with the supply some day, which is the reason why we are seeing prices go up. Now, we see President Clinton appeal to OPEC countries almost daily to increase crude output and reduce prices.
Technology is always like a double edged sword. It always brings in undesirable pollution and unexpected side effects. One technology that the scientific establishment is striving to develop is controlled thermonuclear fusion and other related nuclear technologies. Unfortunately, there are strong indications that these nuclear technologies, even if they are perfected, are likely to be accompanied by a shadow of very dangerous pollution that may make the planet unsuitable for life. Besides the hope of all these alternate technologies is the reality that our present day civilization is very highly dependent on crude oil and natural gas. Except for a few items like nuclear reactor technology, most of our technologies today need huge quantities of products derived from crude oil and other fossil fuels, to function. That's why our current civilization is actually crude oil civilization (or fossil fuel civilization to be slightly general) and there are no indications today that it can be sustained for too long at the present huge levels without these resources.
Many of my friends tell me constantly ``Professor Murty, why do you worry? You probably don't know that the USA has very huge reserves of crude oil that they are keeping secret. They will unleash them after the oil fields in the OPEC countries dry up!''. I have no way of verifying the truth of these statements. But I believe that it is foolish to argue that we should let our population grow unchecked in anticipation of such secret reserves or future energy technologies that the highly inventive human intellect may develop. Instead, I think it is prudent to plan to reduce our energy demands by developing a serious plan to check our population growth. Let me quote a Telugu proverb:
dIpamunnappudE illu chakkabeTTukOvAli.
Its meaning is ``get the house in order while the lantern is on''. The problem is getting bigger with each passing year, and it is high time that we pay attention to it.
People frequently ask me ``The head of our religion says that using artificial means of birth control like the pill, condom, vasectomy, tubectomy etc. is a sin for which we can go to hell after death. What should we do?'' Unfortunately, most religious leaders are unwilling to open their eyes to the reality of today. Their only knowledge comes from reading documents prepared by their predecessors a very long time ago when human population was very low and nature appeared endless and indestructible. Also like most other human beings, these religious leaders are obsessed with growth because they want to boast that their followers number in the billions, that they are the dominant religion in the world, and they may also want to benefit from the large contributions that may flow from the increasing number of followers; even though this type of greedy behavior is unbecoming for a religious leader. When people ask me this question, I tell them to use their own judgment. God created nature too, why would He want the nature he created to be completely destroyed by the growing human population? I sincerely believe that under the conditions prevailing today, God would greatly appreciate it if each of us individually adopt and follow the Grow Fewer Children motto by whichever techniques are convenient for us to use.
The population problem in the world is now so serious, and no one seems to know how to tackle it, that in desperation I have decided to add a fourth line to the chant from RugvEda that I quoted in Section 1. Here is the complete chant.
asatO mA sadgamaya
tamasO mA jyotirgamaya
mrutyO mAmrutaM gamaya
adhika saMtAnO mA mita saMtAnah gamaya.
The meaning of the fourth line is
From excessive fertility lead us to limited fertility.