overpopulation to the maxxx

It is fact that all the contributers to this blog are aware of the dangers and problems facing the world with overpopulation, and in some cases, a severe lack thereof; but it is those that are completely unaware of the impending population explosion that we should be concerned about. There are billions of people on this planet who either don't know, don't care, or don't realize the impact of humans to the environment and the global community. This is all clearly known. Scientists talk about overpopulation quite often, there are countless websites, journals, magazine articles, newspaper stories, television broadcasts and books devoted to the subject of overpopulation and the dangers it poses on the planet, but that simply isn't enough. People actually need to DO something about it.
Some countries, such as China, have woken up to the issue of overpopulation and have restricted their citizens to having one child per couple. While this has been successful in part to preventing an estimated 400 million births, it was mostly a government forced effort. These people didn't only have one child to truly help the planet and prevent overpopulation, they had no other choice. While on the surface it seems to be working to reduce the future population of China, it is actually causing different problems that could become more severe then overpopulation. The ratio of boys to girls is becoming severely imbalanced, because boys are considered more valuable in the Chinese culture. The futures of these boys being able to find wives is growing slimmer and slimmer, which can eventually lead to a fast decline of population in the nation, and possibly an eventual collapse. Also, there have been reports of the wealthiest citizens of China having two, three, and four children, because they can simply AFFORD to pay the fines imposed on having multiple children. This shows a lack of care in the ultimate goal of slowing world population increase.
Do these people really simply just not care about the exploding population? Personally, I think its less of a "lack of care" and more of a "lack of knowledge" on the subject. Children, all around the world, need an increase in education. And not just in reading, writing, and arithmetic. I hear small children talk about what they want to be when they're older, when they want to be married, and how many children they want to have, and often, I hear little girls wanting anywhere between two and six children. If we started educating our youth in elementary school about the horrendous population problems now, the future generations could be actively controlling the population, VOLUNTARILY.
It is a hard task to spread this idea through the world, especially in areas that are in severe poverty, or areas where having many children is simply part of the culture. However, this is a global problem that needs to be addressed, and action MUST take place. I agree with the policies of educating the women and young girls, giving them the choice and teaching them to have respect for themselves as equals to men in deciding things about their own bodies, families, and lives. Many argue that the whole child policy and reducing the numbers of children people have is ruining the cultures of many countries, where having many children is expected, and almost required. I don't agree with this idea. I think the GLOBAL CULTURE should be looked at, and taken care of, otherwise there will be no cultures left because humans destroyed the world.
Education is key to helping relieve the population stress on the globe. While the planet is relatively large compared to most planets out there, we really shouldn't push the levels of population any further. Some people said to spread out to places less populated, but what does that do to the animals, plants, forests, and simply nature in general? Global warming will be at a rise, trees, rivers, grasslands, deserts and arctic tundra will be traded in for apartments, houses, office buildings, factories, roads and railroads. Is this what we want? This isn't what I want. I want the world to be beautiful and not covered inch to inch with people. I want to live comfortably and not have too many children, that way my quality of life isn't dragged down by a bunch of bratty little kids who care more about Barbie dolls and transformers then the world population anyway. I also think that adoption should be widely promoted, thus, children already on the planet can get a safe, clean, loving home to live in, and not shoved around more orphanages. To families that adopt children, they should get rewards in ways of financial aid and monetary incentives, seeing as people will do anything for money. We need to make a great effort to help those already on the planet, and not ADD more. Teenagers should not be having children. Education also plays a key element in this as well. Teenage girls should be respecting themselves, and know that they shouldn't be having babies, therefore, they shouldn't be doing things that could lead to babies.
Although I think it is a pompous attitude to have, I must admit that the United States is a great influence on the entire world, and we as a nation should really set the bar for the beginning of a population overhaul. Education at an early age about the problem and ways to solve it, adoption incentives, education about family planning, and making family planning and contraceptives available to everyone should be ways to start locally controlling the problem. And instead of invading other nations to force them to follow our ideas, we should approach other countries and share our tactics, and work together as a global community to solve this issue of global overpopulation.



Many say it cannot be done, it is simply a task too large to get the entire planet involved. What I say is this: if you want it bad enough, you'll find a way to do it.



-Sincerely,
lisabivs!