Now, reluctantly scientists involved in the global warming discourse have added population growth to the list of contributors. Al Gore, Bill McKibben, The Washington Post and others in the environmental community list population growth among the top ten issues we must tackle.
I have yet to see or hear, however, any approach that can reconcile a couple's profoundly personal decision to procreate with the impersonal bureaucratic approaches to population control. Nor have I seen, outside of China's long standing policies, any government advocate control of its own population. Rather the trend seems to be that industrialized countries focus on stemming growth in developing countries, reflecting paternalistic and nationalistic sentiment about curbing new births.
We are in such a bubble of denial. I wonder what event will precipitate a paradigm shift in the Nations' approach to population growth. It will not be reaching 7 billion or 8 or 9. It won't be a great famine or weather-related disaster. It won't be a flu pandemic. I wonder what will burst our bubble.
I wonder if it will be a photograph.
In 1969, we first saw the Earth. No longer did we depend on imagined artist's conceptions. We saw the real thing through a lens. As many have recounted, the real image of the earth brought out truths no mathematical or literary descriptions could.
Today, we depend on huge numbers, statistics, and analogies to envision our population. It would be impossible, in fact, to actually count the people on the Earth or to see them all at once. Perhaps some smart person can overcome these challenges and illustrate in a meaningful way --perhaps using the wonders of digital photography and video, peer networking and the (Semantic?) Web--how our Planet groans. If we can indeed all come to understand the same truth (just how big is 6.4 billion?), then we might have a starting point for this conversation.
