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Facing Overpopulation - Part 2
 Guillermo Ramón Adames y Suari - PVNN
May 16, 2010
Overpopulation turned out to be far more interesting that I expected. First, there were the responses by some readers. I was not certain that many people had understood the gravity of the overpopulation problem. Problem is certainly my opinion. Second, I built up an example to intend to show what I was originally after in the first version of the article on overpopulation. Third: together with some students, I conducted a survey at the Universidad Iberoamericana. All of this in order to throw some light in the topic and hopefully develop consciousness. I will only focus on water supply.
The example. I invented a situation which goes like this: Just suppose that you have a river (any river in the world) the Mississippi, the Amazonas, the Nile, the Colorado River, the Lena or you name it. Any river. Imagine that the river starts at point A and just at point A you build up your home. Of course you are going to use the water. Down the river, after point A somebody else comes and installs himself with his family. They are going to use the water also. Then somebody else installs himself further along the river and so on and so forth. Multiply this process to the point in which the last person/family cannot either use or drink the water from all the previous users. What is left in the river is just polluted water. Not only dirty water bur pesticides, soap human and animal debris etc. On top of that, there is somebody very bright who is taking over the water supply to bottle it thus cutting the supply for the rest of the people… The situation is oriented to indicate that the water is limited to a number of people and that number cannot be increased. We cannot "invent" or "create" water. There is so much water and the more people there are, the less water there is left for the others. Even worse, the water even cleaned and processed thrown into the oceans is more and more salted: pesticides, fertilizers, food etc. makes water more and more salted. Desalting the water becomes more costly and more difficult. Yes we can clean the water, it but it is not the same. Please keep this simple idea of water supply in mind for the purpose of the survey.
The survey: In front of that "lack of water" situation: Who are we going to blame? Unless we recognize this as a problem that we ourselves have created, (human reproduction) somebody will be blamed for it. Specifically I cited as blamable possibilities: A) Government's mismanagement? B) Overpopulation? C) Corruption? D) Other. To my mind the idea is: the questioned person does not understand that it is a problem that has not been identified, i.e. there are far too many people on this earth, or in face of ignorance we blame the "reasons" in fashion. Government (to most citizens, governments policies are always to be blamed for anything) or corruption. Corruption on what? By whom? That could be the question. At the end of the questionnaire we asked: Do you know what are the obligations and responsibilities of the government with respect to the water policy? With the overpopulation policy? As if there were any!!! Nobody in the survey had an answer to this.
Human settlements were made worldwide around water sources. When cities started their foundations and construction, the water problem was not there. There were no needs to fit a water policy or a settlement policy. Take central Europe. Settlements in London or in Paris started more than 1,500 years ago. Do you imagine then in the Medieval Ages or before a "Ministry of Water Planning"? Rightly or wrongly, kings decided on everything. There was no legal system to challenge a king's word. Alternatively: Can you honestly blame a government which has been elected say, four years ago for today's water policy? Certainly they should do something but governments taking all the blame seems unfair to me.
To underline the recentness of the problem, the first worldwide conference on water that I recall was held at the UN-NY in 1974. Even more, in that conference people laughed as if drinkable water was unlimited. "That problem will take very very long before it actually happens". Then everybody answered with technological solutions: "Technology will solve it". Take a look at today's draught in Africa altogether or in Latin America. In Mexico we have had shortages of water in Mexico City and this is only the beginning.
Out of some 500 students, roughly 50% each sex, only 3 considered that overpopulation is a problem. This brings me back to the time of "flower power": In the 60's a bunch of hippies came out with a horrible word: "pollution". At the time everybody claimed that this lack of sense and LSD that had deviated the minds of those youngsters. Take a look at this "pollution" 50 years later. The only difference is that we can breathe dirty air but: can we be able to drink dirty water?
Guillermo Ramón Adames y Suari is a former electoral officer of the United Nations Organization. Contact him at gui.voting(at)gmail.com |
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