Planet Earth today crossed the
burden of carrying 8billion people. Next year India will overtake China as
world’s most populous country. Millions of people exist in appalling conditions
with dwindling resources. Some may have seen the pictures of hellholes in major
cities across the world, but staying in these hellholes in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata
etc. is different matter and calling it home is where desperation begins. The scene
gets bleaker by the day. Meanwhile population increase is
seen by politicians as voters, religion as followers, while market see only consumers and liberal posers see controversy -they are stuck in extreme narration
of 21st century that sought to eliminate vulnerable sections in the
garb of population control. We have well passed all these, ofcourse that doesn’t
mean past narration
of authoritative control and elimination is being supported but those contexts
and dynamics have changed in last century. It is therefore mischievous to use
semantics of irrelevant (but learning lessons) contexts of last century to define and
control contemporary realities and challenges. It is also an attempt to control
narration by devious few to play benign arbitrators at the expense of millions
of people, vanishing species and dwindling resources. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change, identifies global population growth as one of the two biggest
drivers of growing CO2 emissions, “globally, GDP per capita and population
growth remained the strongest drivers of CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion in the
last decade”. It also warned that if population continues to grow, “it will be
much harder to limit warming to 1.5C”. Billions of years ago population explosion of Cyanobacteria
caused major extinction event that wiped out all the CO2 thriving lifeforms -ofcourse
it gave lifegiving O2. Now once again one specie -that is human being, is responsible
for unfolding extinction event.
Population AND per capita consumption
both are equally problematic. India faces both, on the one side we have irresponsible
elite section wantonly consuming -that equals the worst carbon footprint in the
world, while on the other we have population bursting at seams. I only see more and more crowd wherever I go. People fight
for water, food, air, land, seats and what not. For instance, though India has
16% of world’s population it has only 4% of water resources, and these too are controlled by few, contaminated, and now faces uncertainties of climate crisis. Water incidentally is also connected to primitive values of purity
and segregation, while millions have very limited access to even dirty water, hundreds and thousands die due to water borne diseases. While politicians, religions, market forces
and devious liberal pretenders can be silent on elephant in the room since it
suits their narrative control and existential needs, the least we can do is to
weaken this control and present the grim reality since these will impact the
most vulnerable, whether humans or other species. This celebration of
population as demographic dividend is a market sham fed to politicians, a
compromise, a myopic vision of future. The debate of ageing population as dire consequence
too is mischievous. As societies progresses and evolves -strictly not as
economic entities or consumers but as human beings, they will find futility in
consumption driven value systems and will naturally reduce want and seek to
contribute in meaningful way. With technological progress humans will be replaced
by robots/automation to perform menial repeatable dehumanizing jobs. There will
therefore be more space and time for other species and nature to regenerate and
thrive. Evolved aging societies shouldn’t allow population influx from overpopulated
regions/families unless it serves limited need as also are highly specialized. There
shouldn’t be any incentives for breeders. Many societies are facing this mismatch
of primitive value systems intruding and asserting into egalitarian intend. Societies
shouldn’t pay for mistakes or arrogance of others. Children are not god’s gift
they are planned by consenting partners. More than two progenies per couple/per
person is indeed a crime, an insolent middle finger to humanity and other
species. It intends to rob others of their space, air, water, food and all the precious.
Meanwhile semantics of 21st century shouldn’t be allowed to define contemporary
problems.
