Saving humanity 2nd ed ebook

SAVING

HUMANITY

Copyright © 2013 Franco Bartolini

The right of Franco Bartolini to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright

Act 98 of 1978.

All rights reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction in other ways and storage in data banks. No part of this publication may be reproduced or

transmitted without permission given by the Author.

Second Edition May 2013 in paperback

Project by New Voices Publishing Serviceswww.newvoices.co.za

ISBN: 978-0-620-44347-0

Disclaimer:New Voices Publishing makes every effort to protect the integrity of its authors, however opinions expressed within the pages of the publications are those of the authors, and do not necessarily represent the views of New Voices Publishing.

SAVING

HUMANITY

SECOND EDITION

Franco Bartolini

4 SAVING HUMANITY

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 5

Chapter 1 • PREJUDICE AND PERSPECTIVE 9

Chapter 2 • CAUSES FOR CONCERN 14

Chapter 3 • OVERPOPULATION, WOMEN’S PLIGHT

and ECONOMICS 20

Chapter 4 • REASONS FOR, AND EFFECTS OF HAVING 29

CHILDREN

Chapter 5 • UNDERSTANDING THE NUMBERS WE CAN 38

CONTROL

Chapter 6 • THE FUTURE LOOKS BLEAK, IN THE 21ST 59

CENTURY

Chapter 7 • ECONOMIC GROWTH, MYTH or MIRAGE 64

Chapter 8 • CAN HUMAN SAVE THEMSELVES ?? 70

Chapter 9 • MORE READING 79

Chapter 10 • APPENDIX 80

INTRODUCTION 5

INTRODUCTION

Old people, or anyone who can remember the sixties, often

compare today’s way of life with the so called “good old days”.

Young people may be a little sceptical and suspect: memory fatigue,

and not wanting to let go of bygone youth. However, the good old

days were really quite a different way of life.

There were no computers, no cell phones, no internet and no TV

in some areas, but we had drive-ins; and pollution, traffic jams,

parking and refuse dump sites were more manageable.

There were no fears of: climate change, depletion of resources,

energy crises, unemployment, and overpopulation. Also, unlike

now, people had confidence in, and could plan for the future.

These days, it is frightening to constantly be reminded of the

damage done to the environment in which we live by the many

crises facing humanity. Moreover, this damage is not of a passing

nature, like an earthquake or a flood which will pass and then the

earth will recover. These are long lasting and irreversible disasters

like, for example, the forests of the equatorial belt, the lungs of the

earth, which have been nearly wiped out in a few generations. It

took thousands, or millions, of years for the forests to develop and

grow before people started cutting the trees on such a mindlessly

destructive industrial scale.

Humanity needs those trees, not just as wood, but to support plant

and animal life, biodiversity and to clean the air we all breathe, we

cannot hold our breath until the trees grow again.

6 SAVING HUMANITY

There are many other disasters facing humanity right now, such as

rising sea levels, pollution poisoning of all forms of life, the energy

crisis, global warming, which threatens the whole environment and

the food production needed for billions of people, and many others.

Many nations are also experiencing economic and political chaos,

and these can precipitate unemployment, rocketing food prices

and misery on an unprecedented scale, uncontrolled migrations by

millions of people, and even free-for-all anarchy.

These are not pleasant prospects to contemplate and they are also

difficult to imagine. Generally people regard these issues with awe,

or as being too big for individuals to solve. Older folks, callously,

often say that it will be up to the younger generations to deal with

them.

I have grandchildren, I am very concerned about the sorry state of

the world they will inherit, and I wish I could do more for them.

The best I can do here is to point out the fundamental cause of

most of the evils afflicting and endangering our planet and show

that not only governments, but also; and especially individuals can

contribute to saving humanity.

It is beyond my ability and scope to deal with all the proofs and

technicalities of the issues afflicting our environment. That

information is widely available; on the internet, for example, and

at universities there are thousands of entries by specialists on all of

the individual subjects.

The intention here is only to show how most of the awesome

INTRODUCTION 7

problems facing us are related to overpopulation and especially the

wall of silence around it.

Also to point out that by concentrating too much attention on

global warming and the economic crises, but no attention on

overpopulation researchers, decision makers, governments, and

the world media are trying to cure the symptoms and forgetting

about the sickness.

The planet may not be in peril; i.e., the sand, the sea, the earth,

the volcanoes, the mountains and some altered kind of climate will

survive.

However, 7 billion humans as well as most other animals and plant

life are in grave danger!!

As governments and world leaders at the UN sponsored COP 1

conferences have selfish and conflicting nationalistic agendas; it

is no longer wise merely to: report what they do and say, believe

them, or do what they recommend, which might be good for one

or a few nations only.

For journalists and reporters there will never be a more glamorous

or worthwhile opportunity than to thoroughly investigate the

current issues and dangers, uncover the true root causes, then

using their available resources such as newspapers, internet,

television and radio, break the silence and explain to the world,

in words and in ways that everyone can understand, the priorities,

the responsibilities, the sacrifices, and the necessity to challenge

1 COP is conference of the parties

8 SAVING HUMANITY

cultures, customs and religions in order to attempt to reverse the

current deadly overpopulation trends.

But while nothing was said; in the past 43 years, from 1968 to

2011, the world population doubled: from 3.5 to 7 billion, and

governments, world leaders, religions, corporations and the news

media continue to avoid the subject like the plague and maintain

the mafia-like conspiracy of silence.

This total lack of honest leadership has distorted and confused the

understanding and the debate. As OP 2 is now a highly controversial

issue, who can people trust for advice and guidance??

Not the usually credible sources! They have shown to be afraid

to speak and to have selfish agendas. So, hoping not to sound

presumptuous, I hope this book might help.

Finally however, regardless of any advice, each of us is individually

responsible to take wise decisions, act in our best interest, and that

of our: family, children, grandchildren, environment and planet; It

is our privilege and our duty; we must never ask, or allow others to

do it for us.

2 OP is overpopulation

CHAPTER 1 9

Chapter 1 • PREJUDICE AND PERSPECTIVE

Since Malthus3 in the 1800’s, until Ehrlich in the 1960’s; there

has been much controversy about overpopulation; Paul and Anne

Ehrlich’s book, “the population bomb” was ridiculed because the

unforeseen “green revolution” and massive amounts of foreign

aids, fuelled by massive use of fertilizers derived from cheap oil,

delayed (NOTE: not saved us from) the coming to pass of most of

the disastrous famines predicted in the book.

After the sixties, the OP issue went silent, nobody dared to talk

about it any longer, the very necessary debates were distorted by

all sorts of unnecessary and out of context issues i.e.:

• Racial: Black people objected to whites telling them to have

fewer children, it interfered with their human rights, and they

were suspicious of the motives.

• Religious: Catholics, Moslems and other pro-life groups were

against contraception, family planning and any other mean to a

sustainable population, especially abortion.

• Cultural and traditional: When promoting family planning many

people, especially Asian and African objected to interference

with their traditions and culture.

During this silent period, however, the world population doubled to

7 Billion by 2011; and, in the world news-media there are ominous

signs that the doomsday predictions in Dr Ehrlich’s book, albeit a

3 Malthus is Reverend T R Malthus (see Wikipedia)

10 SAVING HUMANITY

few decades later, may soon actually come to pass.

In July 2012, at a summit about family planning in London, the

British prime minister, without actually mentioning the OP issue, or

the “overpopulation” word, explained that there can be no future

without family planning, empowering women and a sustainable

world population.

It appears that the OP issue and the “overpopulation” word remain

controversial and sensitive; however, the word must be said loudly

and freely! And the consequences, also understood!

Frantz Fanon, in his book Black Skin, White Masks said:

“Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When

they are presented with evidence that works against that

belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create

a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive

dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core

belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything

that doesn’t fit in with the core belief.”

The discomfort created increases with the importance of the issue

at hand, and the strength of the conflict between the dissonant

thoughts or beliefs.

It is, therefore, important to keep an open mind and be sure that

our core beliefs are valid, true, based on scientific evidence and

NOT on mistaken prejudices. More so, when contemplating the

state of the planet, our and our family’s survival, our nations and

humanity’s future: – our core beliefs must be true.

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/37728.Frantz_Fanon

http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/949036

CHAPTER 1 11

Some light forms of prejudice, for example, mindlessly supporting

your home town football team even though they are hopeless, can

be forgiven; however, disregarding or denying global warming; or

accepting global warming but denying overpopulation cannot be

forgiven!

In 1966, when the world population was 3.4 billion, i.e., less than

half the current 7 billion, showing amazing foresight and his usual

mastery of speech, Martin Luther King said:

“Unlike plagues of the dark ages or contemporary diseases we

do not yet understand, the modern plague of overpopulation

is soluble by means we have discovered and with resources

we possess. What is lacking is not sufficient knowledge of

the solution but universal consciousness of the gravity of the

problem and education of the billions who are its victims.”

Now that the problem is so much bigger and so much more urgent

we all should share Sir David Attenborough’s concern: “How

can I look my grandchildren in the eye and say: “I knew what was

happening to the world and did nothing”!

People who are as yet unconvinced of the looming apocalyptic

suffering, famines, in-fighting and civil war for food and resources

that the current unchecked population growth is triggering, needs

to review the facts and all related issues from different perspectives.

The word “perspective” has many meanings, and it is useful to look

at some; it can mean: a view, a type of drawing, a viewpoint, an

opinion, a persuasion, a philosophy, and so on...; there are also

12 SAVING HUMANITY

prejudicial or objective perspectives; so we need to be careful when

we look at, or try to understand things; the way we usually look

at or see them may not necessarily mean that we fully understand

them.

A good way of exploring perspectives is to use “Google Earth”, a free

Google facility for maps and satellite views of the earth. By zooming

in and out on a computer screen the view or the perspective changes

from: eyes out in space to eyes a few meters from ground level.

From a zoomed-out view it is possible to see the whole earth on the

screen, we can rotate it in all directions, see the continents, and we

know that we are looking at the real planet we are living on.

We should pose to appreciate this privilege!! Not so long ago,

all people on earth were under the impression, or the prejudicial

perspective, that the earth was flat.

Now, slowly zooming in the perspective changes, we can

progressively see: continents, countries, borders, dots indicating

the position of towns and so on; however, as we get nearer and

we can see more details, we can no longer see the whole planet;

and so, zooming further in we continue to see more details: towns,

roads and buildings we recognize; we can clearly see our home and

garden details; but as we progressively see more fine details we lose

sight of the outlines of the bigger picture at the outer perimeter of

the screen.

The point I wish to make is that things can, and should be seen from

different perspectives to try and understand the WHOLE picture.

CHAPTER 1 13

The Google Earth exercise showed that we can see the BIG picture

and not the DETAILS, or we can see the details and not the big

picture, BUT WE CANNOT SEE THE WHOLE PICTURE AT THE SAME

TIME, i.e., without changing perspectives.

When dealing with one family, one small community, one town or

anything specific close to us it might be necessary to ZOOM IN and

analyse the origin, history, trends and status of things. However, in

emergencies, it is necessary to ZOOM OUT, assess the big picture,

and decide what can urgently be done to restore, repair or minimize

damage.

It is also necessary to ZOOM OUT when dealing with general

world trends, and be aware that conditions in our home town may

be totally different from world trends; but world trends or even

random events may directly or indirectly affect our future.

For example, a crop failure or a draught in the grain-growing belt of

the USA may directly trigger food price increases and hoarding, but

also indirectly it can cause famines and deaths in areas of the world

that have become chronically dependent on food aids

14 SAVING HUMANITY

Chapter 2 • CAUSES FOR CONCERN

The lifestyles of people on earth in the 21st century vary greatly

from extreme wealth to extreme poverty. Wealth, of course, can

buy more comfortable lifestyles, however, the bare necessities

needed to sustain life, like water, food, air, shelter and security, are

the same for all of us, and are now increasingly under threat for all

of us.

Globally, most of the modern calamities facing us, eventually, will

destroy wealth and all the bare necessities of life, too. We have

been unwittingly responsible for them, living with them for many

past decades, and as we carry on as usual they are increasing in

intensity, seriousness, visibility, and we are becoming increasingly

aware of their accelerating and damaging symptoms.

Deforestation, pollution, and poisoning of all food chains, climate

change, AIDS, wars, global warming, the energy crisis, depletion

of fish in the sea, and of most other natural resources, fresh water

shortages, melting glaciers and rising sea levels, unemployment,

slavery and denial of human right to women, illegal migration,

frightening contagious diseases, poverty, starvation, advancing

deserts, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and ordinary

ones, dictatorships, resurging piracy, terrorism, mountains of waste,

choking traffic congestions in all the cities of the world, the 2008

economic crisis and the latest global investment fraud by banking

and governments are among the state-of-the-art crises we have to

live with every day.

CHAPTER 2 15

Governments, and other organisations are scrambling to find

solutions, and the media reports all these good intentions stated

by the world leaders. However, despite large sums of money and

resources allocated to these problems, nothing seems to have

worked so far; and there are no credible ideas or actions planned

that could urgently and effectively reverse these trends.

Also, for the 20 years after the 1992 Rio earth summit; and 33

years after China’s adoption of the one child per family policy; the

overpopulation issue is still being avoided like the plague. This

conspiracy and the mafia silence about it are delaying the wide

recognition of the link between OVERPOPULATION and all the

apocalyptic state-of-the-art-crises listed above.

This elusive all important link, yet to be acknowledged worldwide,

is the recognition that the fundamental root cause of all the state-

of-the-art-crises listed above is OVERPOPULATION.

If true, it should be good news to governments and organizations

that for the past 20 years, i.e., since the 1992 Earth Summit

conference in Rio de Janeiro, have attended United Nations

sponsored globetrotting COP conferences all over the world,

produced mountains of paperwork, and achieved NOTHING. Good

news, because: whereas it is impossible to remedy the long list of

crises one-by-one; it would be much easier and feasible to reduce

overpopulation and thereby solve all the crises at the same time.

Degradation of the earth’s living environments probably started

with the industrial revolution, and has been accelerating ever since.

Awareness by increasing numbers of people started in the mid 20th

16 SAVING HUMANITY

century, and lately there seem to be real concern about global

warming, and PANIC about the latest economic crisis – which is not

the worst thing that can happen to humanity.

Mankind is not a homogeneous group of people that can act with

a common goal; we are a large group of nations, each promoting

its own interest, with different values, level of wealth, priorities,

cultures and religions. But even if we could act as one, the world does

not have the time or the gigantic amounts of resources necessary to

reverse any one or more of the imminent disasters facing humanity,

especially while all the other crises are overwhelming us, and the

world population continues to grow by 80 million people every

year.

Many animal species, when faced with stress, droughts or food

shortages, do not reproduce, they wait until things get better

before doing what nature has programmed them to do, i.e., to carry

on their species. Mankind could learn something here.

Since there are serious threats of imminent catastrophes to the

environment which provides humanity with the basic necessities to

sustain life, why are we reproducing in such large numbers? What

right have we got to have more children, our own blood, and when

we die, leave them to deal with all these deadly crises, and such an

uncertain future?

The extinction of humanity may only be a way off possibility,

but shortages of food are not uncommon; in Africa and other

underdeveloped areas of the world year after year on TV everyone

has seen the effects of famines and poverty as food help from

CHAPTER 2 17

developed countries was distributed to starving people and

children; yet we grow by 80 million more people every year.

As global warming and water shortages are already affecting food

production, and as developed countries, with increasing problems

of their own, may not have money or food help to give, the reality

for many millions of people, if not billions, who received food aid

to avoid famines, could be much worse than what we have seen

thus far.

Moreover, with food prices rocketing, the prospects for millions of

people, who barely managed to buy food so far, are: food shortages,

starvation may be famine, and death.

One more depressing cause for concern is that mankind has a bad

reputation when it comes to avoiding disasters. Even when they can

be seen coming, we seem unable to avoid them, some examples are:

the credit crunch, General Motors’ inability to adapt to the world’s

changing needs, the depletion of fish in the sea, deforestation, and

so on. Everyone can see these things coming, but no one wants to

change their habits until it is too late.

However, the consequences of the failure to stop the environmental

damage that can be caused by overpopulation will firstly be

catastrophic on an unimaginable scale, and if it proves irreversible,

as it is likely to be, it could mean prolonged agonizing slow death

for most people on earth.

If it proves true that past behaviour is the best predictor of future

behaviour, the present and all future generations are doomed.

18 SAVING HUMANITY

However, it is not impossible that some sanity may prevail.

There is also no need to reinvent the wheel. China is a shining

example of what can be done to control people’s numbers and,

enrich the population and the country. Although some liberties have

been curtailed, the results are a nation rich from hard work, proud,

improving standards of living, a slowly decreasing population, a

disciplined strong nation, and promising future prospects.

Unlike many other developing regions, where they have freedom

to, and reproduce at will, with a resulting way of life consisting of

poverty, diseases, no modern infrastructures, massive corruption,

unemployment, famine, depravation, and desperate mass migration

to wealthier regions, hopeless future prospects, and often death.

A last depressing cause for concern is that although some developed

regions have slowed the population growth to acceptable levels,

where a disciplined and sustainable lifestyle could be possible,

there are billions of poor people from developing areas who are

waiting for, and wanting to migrate to these more affluent areas

where, sadly, there cannot be life support for everyone.

People in developed areas are beginning to warn that 3 Billion

people in poor areas unable to either make a good living or

feed themselves are likely to attempt to migrate to Europe and

any other part of the world where life is better. But life is better

probably because, among other things, they are more developed

communities, and they reproduce at a much lower rate.

History has shown that using legal and humanitarian methods,

CHAPTER 2 19

it is very difficult to deny entry to poor people looking for help.

However, as the numbers increase and conditions in the third

world deteriorate, it is very likely that there are going to be horrific

conflicts between poor people trying to migrate and countries that

cannot allow masses of foreigners to overwhelm their land.

20 SAVING HUMANITY

Chapter 3 • OVERPOPULATION, WOMEN’S PLIGHT and ECONOMICS

Evolution, or creation, or however we got here; among all other

forms of life, plants and other animal species; produced mankind.

Compared to other animals, humans have been capable of greater

achievements; we have been able to dominate all the other

animals, to modify our living space so as to optimise our comfort,

to manufacture machinery to: do our heavy and unpleasant work,

transport us on land water and in the air at speeds that no natural

animal can do, instantaneously communicate worldwide and

deliberately reproduce at a much faster rate than required for the

survival of the specie.

Like all other animals we come with primordial instincts which

helped us compete and survive, but unlike other animals we have

developed higher levels of intelligence and tool-making skills which,

by comparison, have helped to make us so successful.

We have also succeeded in accumulating, storing and applying

knowledge which could not be passed on as instincts, and we have

adopted arbitrary value systems which help us to do either what

we regard as good things or whatever other things we want to do

in life.

For our existence we cannot claim any credit; it is totally due to

our planet, the conditions which support life on it, the wonders

of nature which support reproduction and provide food, and the

beauty of nature which provides enjoyment.

CHAPTER 3 21

For our successes we credit our intelligence, our tool-making

abilities or technology, the ability to accumulate knowledge and

wealth, our arbitrary value systems, and finally, the ability to use

intelligence to control our primordial instincts and/or modern

habits, where necessary.

For our failures, especially in modern times, we really need to

review our arrogant concept of success, our limitations and our

value systems, how we use intelligence to recognise prospective

dangers and our failure to do what is necessary in time to prevent

disasters.

There are many examples of failures to apply our overrated

intelligence to control our instincts: Alcoholism and other

substances abuse, obesity, wars, AIDS, the credit crunch, global

warming, and the mother of all other failures: the out-of-control

human population explosion.

In all cases, our intelligence can clearly define the problem and

provide a workable solution. However, although we are aware that

allowing these conditions to fester can lead to disasters; we seem

unable to do what is necessary in time to stop the damage and save

the day.

Mankind now desperately needs to use intelligence and discipline

to control our primordial instinct to reproduce, and our modern

misguided trend to choose to have too many children.

The understanding, vision, courage, discipline and leadership of

the Chinese people needs to be acknowledged here and worldwide.

22 SAVING HUMANITY

Many critics fail to understand the gravity of the crisis, and the

urgency to deal with overpopulation accelerating out of control.

Whereas their one child per family policy, adopted 30 years ago in

China, may violate some human and political rights, and change

their demographics-age-profile, the welfare of mankind, and finally,

the survival of humanity should, as they have done in China, take

precedence.

Overpopulation has been with us for over a half century, but we are

carrying on living, working, buying houses, having children, trying

to accumulate wealth and enjoying our grandchildren, while we fail

to sound alarm bells in the face of the greatest threat to the survival

of mankind.

Too many misguided people everywhere, but especially in

underdeveloped areas, it must be said, are still unwittingly

continuing to aggravate the destruction of the very environment

on which humanity depends, by denying women a voice, their

freedoms, their human rights and often forcing them to have too

many children into an overcrowded and unsustainable world.

Tragically, overpopulation may be difficult to recognise, unlike

a volcanic eruption, tsunami, or earthquake, the symptoms of

overpopulation are usually only visible as separate crises with

different names such as: global warming, chaotic traffic jams in most

cities, mountains of man-made waste, pollution, deforestation, the

energy crises, unemployment, political and social turmoil, depletion

of fish in the sea and all vital resources, economic meltdowns, and

so on.

CHAPTER 3 23

However, the link and correlation with these environmental issues must be recognised by considering that if overpopulation could be reduced – the gravity of all other crises would also proportionally be reduced; i.e., as things were in the middle of the 20th century.

There are many world leaders, scientists, religious and concerned people who must be well aware of the connection between overpopulation and all the other state-of-the-art evils.

Yet they all keep silent; WHY??? I can only suspect that: the pressure by business or religious interests, or the controversiality of the issue, or the cowardice of political leaders who fear that population regression may increase unemployment and civil unrest; and, not wanting to be the ones who triggered a global depression, they continue keeping the mafia silent about overpopulation and the plight of women, and prefer to focus all the attention on global warming. Voltaire said that: The comfort of the rich depends upon an abundant supply of the poor.

It is also surprising that the scientific community monitoring climate change fails to inform the world that there is no way that any, or all the governments and countries together can reverse global warming; especially if the world population continues to increase by one billion every 12 years; and every world leader continues to promote impossible economic growth.

Human rights, women’s plight, pre-arranged marriages and F G M 4

At some stage in human evolution, while man was improving his

4 female genital mutilation

24 SAVING HUMANITY

surroundings, he probably developed a keen taste for worldly possessions such as his: shelter, fire-place, chairs, tables, a comfortable bed and warm covers, and all sorts of home appliances, tools and weapons for his exclusive use and comfort.

As men started to hunt and live in groups, women and children may have naturally seemed to belong to him or be his possessions, as it seems to be with other animals in nature; where one male exclusively mate with a number of females by denying other males access to them, even if it means fighting them off.

This male instinct of possessing the exclusive rights to mate with, what are regarded as, “own females” seem to have resisted civilization and it is still with us to-day; however, unlike other less intelligent animals who fight other strong males, man prefers to disempower and enslave his own weaker females by many reprehensible, coward and legalized criminal means, including:

• In parts of Europe women were denied the vote until the last century.

• In the workplace women are still earning lower pay for the same work.

• In Middle Eastern countries young women are prevented from going to school by their own family to comply with their cultural ways.

• Very often young children are promised into polygamous marriage to older men; the girl has no right of refusal, cannot own property, but becomes the property or the slave of the

husband and his family.

CHAPTER 3 25

• Women are expected to hide their face and body at all times

in public, and cannot drive a car or move freely without a male

member of her family with them.

• Women must obey and serve the husband, cannot refuse to

do anything the husband orders her to do, and for any minor

transgression they are severely beaten or punished.

• Perhaps the most unforgivable depravity of all, in African and

middle Eastern areas, women are subjected to F G M, to deny

them any pleasure from sexual encounters, and prevent girls

from desiring sex, especially with other men. This barbaric

practice destroys the normal functioning of the organ, is always

painful and smelly, easily infected and can finally cause diseases

and death.

Whereas, the reasons for all these assault on women rights are

given as: culture, tradition, religion and “our way of life”; with laws

in place to enforce the practices, I suspect that it was premeditated,

implemented and kept in place for the convenience of, and to satisfy

the lust of men: it allows for unchallenged, unrestricted, loyal and

unlimited sex on demand, and with more than one woman, without

the need to corral and prevent the women from straying, or to fight

other males off.

As a show of absolute power, barbarism, inhumanity, and to terrorize

women who might want to contemplate disobedience, in July 2012

on world-wide television a woman accused of adultery was shot 9

times by a Taliban in a public area of Afghanistan surrounded by

many other approving men. Perhaps this time these inhuman men

26 SAVING HUMANITY

were trying to show a more humane modern improvement on the

usual more traditional practice of stoning women to death.

The tradition of pre-arranged marriages might at first appear to be

a lesser atrocity; however, apart from the human right violations,

the arrogance and cruelty of men, the callousness of the families

involved, (it is usually very young girls that are given to much older

men into a life of abuse and slavery); pre-arranged marriages violate

human nature’s ways of evolution, i.e., the natural laws of attraction,

the right of mutual selection, and the survival of the fittest.

The current social status of modern women, as compared to that

of men, in different parts of the world varies from:– equality with

minor residual injustices, but a generally fair relationship with men

in the western world; to:– total denial of human rights, enforcement

of cruel uncivilised ways of life, bullying, abuse and slavery; in

many parts of: Africa, India, the middle east, and in many other

underdeveloped areas; also, secretly and illegally, even in immigrant

communities living amongst the most civilized nations of Europe.

When overpopulation, women’s rights abuse, and poverty occur

together, their interrelationship and combination of the 3 evils

always produces: extreme injustices, unendurable suffering,

depravation, diseases, famines, and ways of life for which death can

only be a welcome relief.

Conversely, by alleviating any-one of the 3 evils, also helps the other

2, and improves human life.

CHAPTER 3 27

Economics of the 21st century

Whereas, many people may not notice or talk about overpopulation

and the plight of women; everyone is aware of, forced to notice,

talks about, is afflicted by and worries about economics.

Our modern civilization and the livelihood of 7 BILLION people,

with different needs and different cultures, are based on the sale of

goods and services, for money. We need money for survival, and we

get money by selling goods and services; that is, as long as we can

sell them. Here again, mankind may have been very successful at

manufacturing goods and services, but not so smart to: recognise

what’s good for us, and to take action to avoid deadly trends that

will slowly kill us.

Sometime in the 20th century we started mass producing goods

and services faster than we could sell them, but as chance would

have it, the population also increased and so did the demand for

more goods and services. It was called growth (we will talk more

about growth later) and everyone was happy. Business people then

proceeded to plan, organise, and manage the mass production of

things for sale on rational, intelligent and scientific ways in order to

maximise production.

Again the ingenuity of mankind proved too successful. Despite

runaway population growth, supply still outstripped demand. This

time, in order to continue selling, goods and services were given

out on credit to people without money who promised to pay at a

later date in small repayments.

28 SAVING HUMANITY

That kept sales going for a while, but in order to continue selling

more, instead of waiting for spontaneous demand to engage, a

whole science and industry of advertising and sales people was set

up. Now highly paid skilled professionals compete inventing new

ways to sell all sorts of, often luxury, goods and services on credit

to people who don’t really need them.

The extension of credit, especially for expensive things such

as: houses, cars, etc., may have been the only way people could

buy such things. However, the practice was abused, and in a few

decades, it mutated into one of the most addictive and destructive

epidemic form of collective behaviour that afflicted and destroyed

private people lives, banks, and governments worldwide.

So much credit was given out that it nearly created a total economic

freeze, which caused panic, and governments to attempt to remedy

the credit crunch with yet more credit, this time given to the

people who created the credit crunch in the first place. All that, in

combination with the state-of- art evils listed before are jeopardising

and threatening the security and lives of most people on earth.

Having seen that humans are good at applying intelligence to

technology, but often not so good at knowing what’s good for

them, let us look at the motivation for having so many children.

CHAPTER 4 29

Chapter 4 • REASONS FOR, AND EFFECTS OF HAVING CHILDREN

Plants and animals in nature are programmed and equipped to

reproduce in large numbers to protect each of the different species

from extinction; so that when there are many deaths, the species

can restore the balance with many births.

Originally, our human ancestors probably reproduced and died like

the other species; however, we were more successful than other

species; we developed weapons to deal with other species and

shelters to keep us safe, we developed social structures to use the

power of many people, we invented civilization, we developed

remedies to cure our illnesses, and we made regulations that

prevented the killing of humans.

Consequently, there is no longer a natural balance to keep our

numbers in check, and even though there have been two world wars

and many other smaller ones, the world’s population has increased

from 1.2 BILLION at the start of the 20th century to 6 BILLION at

the end of it; i.e., a 5 fold increase in 100 years. Currently, with the

laudable exception of China, there are no laws or regulations to limit

the number of births in line with the reduced numbers of deaths.

The ever growing evidence, i.e., the long list of symptoms of

overpopulation, or state of the art evils indicates that we would

be well advised to urgently start making ”user friendly regulations”

to firstly reduce, and then maintain a number of people which the

planet can tolerate and sustain.

30 SAVING HUMANITY

Failure to regulate our numbers will continue to damage and finally

destroy the ability of our planet to support humanity. Nature does

not have user friendly ways. The earth will continue to travel in

space with or without us.

Reasons for having children

In our civilization people have rights: life, liberty, many others, and

different ones in different cultures, of course, all cultures support

the right to reproduce as nature wants.

The UN Universal Declaration of Human Right regards the family

as the centre of the community and it has granted each family

the right to have as many children as they see fit. As families have

always done so, and since women rights are abused in the family;

that right seems out of place and an added burden on the women.

Also, in many underdeveloped regions of the world, where:

overpopulation, poverty, draught, corruption and conflicts have

reduced the families’ ability to provide all the basic human rights

to the children they produced, the UN has made NO provision for

anyone else to do it either.

Consequently, In East and West Africa, there are now millions of

displaced starving people dependent on food aids. Also, as there

appears to be insufficient money donated to buy food aids for all

the needy hundreds of thousands (the usual donor countries seem

to suffer from donation fatigue and their own internal problems),

but could be many more, of mostly women and children will die for

CHAPTER 4 31

lack of food, shelter, medical aids and armed conflicts.

Perhaps, in the interest of reducing suffering, even if only

temporarily, the UN human rights commission should revoke the

right and freedom of people to have as many children as they like.

That would be for the benefit of all, and also, for the conservation

of the earth’s limited resources.

Worldwide, we all share the same: air, water, energy, food, space,

all sorts of materials and resources; and we produce CO2, sewage,

waste, pollution and global warming. Therefore, since there are so

many of us, every time a child is born, every other person on earth

becomes poorer by the small amount of resources the child will

use, and by the costs of cleaning his or her waste.

Coming from a grandfather who greatly enjoys, and would like to

protect, two grandchildren, this will sound callous. However, as

the total world’s population increases by 80 million people per

year every year, the new people endanger everyone in this already

seriously overpopulated world.

Whereas, intelligence, rational planning, ingenuity, and scientific

management are afforded to the production and sales of goods

and services, the same cannot be said when dealing with our most

important function, i.e., setting up a family and having children.

Often children are unplanned. They are just the product of marital

or casual sexual encounters. Even in marriages children may be

unwanted but tolerated to avoid abortions. Some religions abuse

their function and unduly interfere with the preferences of families

32 SAVING HUMANITY

to have fewer pregnancies, and in the so-called third world, where

patriarchal cultures dominate women submit to the man’s wishes

and produce large families as the accepted norm.

Having many children has been used for the aggrandisement of

one’s own: family, community, tribe, nation, religion or race. This

practice might have worked during evolution, and it was tried by

Hitler and Mussolini; it was also the stated intent of Libya’s Col.

Gaddafi to invade Europe without a shot being fired. The current

tragedy of rickety boats crossing to Italy, Europe and Australia,

where they are often sent back is another example of the tragedies

of overpopulation.

In some cultures now, boys and girls of school going age have

children to demonstrate male virility and female ability to have

children. In tribal cultures, or where polygamy is the norm, chiefs

and/ or persons of importance with multiple wives have tens or

even hundreds of children.

Tragically, the highest birth rates are prevalent in the poorest areas

of the world where they aggravate poverty, famines, human right

abuse, suffering and depravation.

In more developed urban areas families are usually smaller. Men

and women have working careers, and large families are not easily

affordable or manageable; these areas are usually targeted by poorer

immigrants, but there cannot be a living for the millions in need.

Not too long ago farmers needed many children to work in the

farms. Governments at war needed young men as cannon fodder,

CHAPTER 4 33

and even now, while trying to remedy the serious consequences

of a population explosion, every economy needs more people as

purchasing fodder, to buy the vast quantities of goods and services

mankind can produce.

Ironically, as too much money was spent earlier on credit, many

now struggle with repayments, and apart from limited numbers of

rich people, fewer and fewer average people can afford to buy.

Consequently, it would be reasonable to suspect that the need for

purchasing fodder is one of the main reasons for the deliberate

silence or for saying little about the damage already done by and

the future dangers of overpopulation and growth.

The conclusion here is that very few people plan, have valid reason

for, consider the effect, the responsibilities and consequences of

having children; or try to imagine whether the new person to be

born would agree to be born in the environment provided, or would

agree to be born at all.

Our inability to rationally and adequately plan, prepare, and provide

all the resources and care necessary for our children must be one

of mankind’s greatest failures. Also, comparing the ways birds and

other animals prepare, commit and care for their young against the

mindless way some humans reproduce, it would be reasonable to

conclude that animals are more intelligent and more humane than

humans.

Effects of having children

Having children in the 21st century should be treated with due

34 SAVING HUMANITY

respect and understanding of all: the demands, responsibilities,

the sequence of events set in motion from conception to finishing

school, the prospective resources available to the family for this

new person for the next 20 years, and the type of world he or she

will inherit in which to start a new family and a new life.

If the prospects are not good, like in many third world areas where

poverty, famine and depravation are currently the way of life, it is

irresponsible, callous and should be seen as a crime to add more

people of one’s own blood to suffer or die in those conditions.

However, if reasonable prospects, resources and care are available,

ideally in an extended family, children can be wonderful, and

grandchildren even better.

Regardless of the quality of the journey, each person passing

through life will leave behind his body, family, material possessions

and footprints, indicators of his presence on earth:

• The carbon footprint, an arbitrary indicator of how much

energy, and resources were used by the person and related to

CO2 emissions, and

• The progeny footprint, another arbitrary indicator (which I have

just invented) of how many descendants the person produced

which in turn will leave more footprints, and produce more

descendants which in turn will leave more footprints, and so on.

With few exceptions most new lucky children will grow up to be

ordinary, good people doing ordinary things, marrying and having

children, then grow old and die. However, the footprints of each

CHAPTER 4 35

person passing through will have an impact on all other inhabitants

of the earth.

In 1804 when the earth population was about ONE BILLION, every

child born, or even every ten children born had little influence on

the rest of humanity.

However now, it is necessary to repeat and understand that: as we

have grown to more than SEVEN BILLION people, the environment

that we all need to survive, i.e., the thin layer of top-soil of the

earth that provides all our needs is under severe stress and fast

deteriorating.

Now it is fair to say that every time a new child is born, (one of

the 220 000 net daily increase) we all become poorer by a small

amount, and humanity also slightly more in danger.

Now let us see how the number of children produced by each

ordinary family affects the family, the community, the country and

finally humanity.

The next chapter, with different examples and different charts, will

illustrates the effects of having different numbers of children per

family, over an arbitrary period of 200 years or 10 generations;

this is in order to compare the impact over time that the various

different numbers of children per family, (a right and a choice totally

under our, or each family’s control) have on overpopulation and the

welfare of humanity.

36 SAVING HUMANITY

Here, to investigate the economic consequences of having different

numbers of children, we consider two scenarios: one of families

consistently [over generations] having one child per family and the

other of families consistently having four children per family, and

then examine the effects or general trends with regard to wealth

and poverty.

Firstly, looking at: families with one child only per family: consider

two families, i.e., four people produce one child per family, i.e.,

two people or one couple, or another new family. In addition to

any wealth this new couple may accumulate during their life, at

the death of the four old parents, the new couple or family would

inherit the wealth of two families, i.e., two houses, two cars, two

fridges, or two whole estates.

We can continue to consider the child born of this enriched couple,

forming a couple with a single child from another enriched family

and producing another single offspring and so on. Every time at

the death of the four old previously enriched parents, the last

family would inherit all the previously accumulated wealth of the

preceding two families. I hope that it can be seen that the fewer the

children the more the wealth accumulates to the new generations.

In Europe, in the last few decades, apart from the wealth generated

from selling good products and services, the general low birth rate

has also contributed to individual and national enrichment.

Secondly, looking at: families with four children per family: here

two people, one family, produce four children, and successive

couples will also produce four children per couple. In this case,

CHAPTER 4 37

at the death of each old couple or family elders, each of the four

children, will inherit one quarter of the older family’s wealth, and

each successive generation will always inherit one quarter of the

always decreasing fraction of the original wealth. In overcrowded

underdeveloped areas, overpopulation aggravates poverty; i.e., the

greater the number of children the greater the poverty.

At the end of the 19th century, when the world population was

1.2 BILLION, it was relatively easy for young people to leave large

families as migrant individuals and go and generate their own wealth

or fortune in faraway places; but in the 21st century, with 7 BILLION

people competing to make a living, rising unemployment, illegal

migration, and economic chaos; for migrant individuals generating

wealth, anywhere, has become impossible.

38 SAVING HUMANITY

Chapter 5 • UNDERSTANDING THE NUMBERS WE CAN CONTROL

Most people speak vaguely about having and raising children.

Mothers may discuss the difficulties of bringing up three children, or

how nice it was to grow up on a farm with five brothers. Newlyweds

may be undecided about having many, or no children. Grandmothers

may impatiently ask, “When am I going to get grandchildren?” and

so on. Academic studies on population give precise average figures

of say 2.6 children per woman, or say 1.8 % per generation growth

rate.

At school nobody teaches children how to plan families so; it is

difficult to decide what to do, or even to understand what’s

happening around us.

Therefore, since planning a family should be done with some

understanding of the consequences of our actions, in order to

illustrate and help visualise the different outcomes for each different

number of children, the charts in the following pages show scenarios

with all the descendants of each family in each chart consistently

having the same number of children for 200 years, or 10 generations,

so that the comparisons are fair over a long period of time.

Since we have total control on the number of children we produce,

each of us is finally responsible for the welfare of our family; not the

government, not religions, not our culture; only us.

This information will show what impact a specific number of

children has over different numbers of years on the family, the

CHAPTER 5 39

community and the world. It will also help to decide what kind of

progeny footprint each of us will leave behind, and our contribution

to humanity.

In the following charts the left hand (LH) column represents number

of years i.e., 10, 20, 30… ten years per cell, covering 200 years or

10 generations.

The numbers in each cell indicates the number of people, i.e., two

people or one couple or family, 128 people or 64 families and so on.

Each cell is repeated eight times in the same column to represent a

lifetime of 80 years, and each successive column, representing the

new generation, is moved down 20 years on the LH time scale, to

show that they were born when their parents’ age was between 20

and 30 years old.

The right hand (RH) column shows the horizontal sum of all the

people alive, including all generations, for the corresponding year

on the LH side time scale column.

Hopefully, these charts will help to visualise how increases or

decreases in the number of people on earth occur in relation to the

real number of children in each family, and also, most importantly,

the unavoidable long time delays required obtaining any desired

change to population numbers; especially when trying to reduce

numbers.

To add new people to the world it takes 9 months; whereas, to

reduce the numbers of people after they are born (without killing

anyone, of course) it can take 80 years.

40 SAVING HUMANITY

(References to the number of children per woman in different

countries are from the United Nations, and the latest CIA total

fertility rates charts) 5

In the calculations below:

1.2 Billion was the earth population in the year 1900;

The power(5) refers to the number of generation, or terms of 20

years per century. The charts are in the following order:

• Six children per family: There are 6 countries with average

fertility rates of 6 or more children per woman; at this rate the

number of people trebles every 20 years; it can also be seen

that after 100 years, the original 2 people would have grown to

240. But the frightening point I wish to make is that after 200

years the original 2 people would have grown to 58320 people.

In other words, if every family on earth, during the 20th century

had 6 children, by the end of the millennium, there would have

been 1.2 Billion x 3 (5) = 291.6 Billion people on earth instead

of the actual 6 Billion.

• Four children per family: There are 40 countries with average

fertility rates of 4 or more children per woman; in these

countries the population doubles every 20 years, and it can be

seen that after 100 and 200 years the population would grow to

60 and 1920 respectively from 2 people. Again, if every family

during the 20th century had 4 children, in the year 2000 the

world population would have been 1.2 x 2 (5) = 38.4 Billion

5 CIA world factbook Fertility rates - //www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2127rank.html

CHAPTER 5 41

instead of the actual 6 Billion.

• Three children per family: There are 61 countries with average

fertility rates of 3 or more children per woman. By the same

reasoning, if all families on earth had 3 children, the population

would increase by 1.5 times every 20 years and it can be seen

that after 100 and 200 years the population would grow to 24

and 185 respectively from the original 2 people; please note

that this growth is still unsustainable and greater than the

actual for the last century. The actual growth rate that increased

the size of humanity from 1.2 to 6 Billion in the last century

was only 1.38 every 20 years; i.e., less than 1.5 times every 20

years.Or every couple or family reproduced themselves 1.38

times per generation.

A real family can only have either 2 or 3 or any whole number of

children, not fractions. However, to be clear, it is important to

notice that the actual “average” statistical number of children

per family–that increased the world population from 1.2 to 6

Billion during the 20th century was 2 x 1.38 = 2.76 children

per family; (i.e., less than 3.) Please note that if during the

last century every family on earth had 3 children; the total

population at the turn of the millennium would have been 1.2 x

1.5 (5) = 9.11 Billion instead of 6.

• Two children per family: There are 130 countries with average

fertility rates 2 or more children per woman, and 93 countries

with less than 2 children per woman. If every woman on earth

would have 2 children, the population would neither increase

42 SAVING HUMANITY

nor decrease; the new generations would replace the old ones

that die; and the number would remain constant. That would

be the Ideal condition if the earth were not overpopulated.

But, the world urgently needs to reduce numbers!!! So, since

we cannot have fractions of one child, and 2 per family will not

reduce the population the only option left is 1 child per family.

• One child per family: There are only 2 countries on earth that

average 1 child per family or less; but if all countries did: after

an initial settling period, the population would decreases at the

rate indicated in the chart i.e., it would be halved every 20 years

or every generation. This is the model China has been trying

to adopt; they have not halved their population yet because it

was never strictly enforced; but this is what is needed to reduce

the earth’s population until a sustainable number is reached. In

a sustainable world, people could go back to having the ideal

2 children per family; so as to avoid the population starting to

grow again.

CHAPTER 5 43

Please note: The previous calculations are intended only as an

indication of the differences, over time, resulting from say 6 or 4 or

2 children per family, numbers considered to be quite normal for a

family.

As the significance of the number of people dying changes with the

different number of people born, for simplicity the calculations do

not account for it.

However, the following charts do account for the people dead.

44 SAVING HUMANITY

The LH column represents number of years i.e., 10, 20, 30… ten years per cell, covering 200 years or 10 generations. The numbers in each cell indicates the number of people, i.e., two people or one couple or family, 128 people or 64 families and so on. Each cell is repeated eight times in the same column to represent a lifetime of 80 years, and each successive column, representing the new generation is moved down 20 years on the LH time scale.

The RH column shows the sum of all the people alive, including all generations, for the corresponding year on the LH side time scale column.

CHAPTER 5 45

Six children per family

Years

Total number

of people

0

10 2

20 2

30 2 6

40 2 6

50 2 6 18

60 2 6 18

70 2 6 18 54

80 2 6 18 54 80

90 6 18 54 162

100 6 18 54 162 240

110 18 54 162 486

120 18 54 162 486 720

130 54 162 486 1458

140 54 162 486 1458 2160

150 162 486 1458 4374

160 162 486 1458 4374 6480

170 486 1458 4374 13122

180 486 1458 4374 13122 19440

190 1458 4374 13122 39366

200 1458 4374 13122 39366 58320

210 4374 13122 39366

220 4374 13122 39366

230 13122 39366

240 13122 39366

39366

39366

46 SAVING HUMANITY



CHAPTER 5 47

Four children per family

Years

Totals

No of

people

0

10 2

20 2

30 2 4

40 2 4

50 2 4 8

60 2 4 8

70 2 4 8 16

80 2 4 8 16 30

90 4 8 16 32

100 4 8 16 32 60

110 8 16 32 64

120 8 16 32 64 120

130 16 32 64 128

140 16 32 64 128 240

150 32 64 128 256

160 32 64 128 256 480

170 64 128 256 512

180 64 128 256 512 960

190 128 256 512 1024

200 128 256 512 1024 1920

210 256 512 1024

220 256 512 1024

230 512 1024

240 512 1024

1024

1024

48 SAVING HUMANITY


The RH column shows the sum of all the people alive, including all generations, for the corresponding

year on the LH side time scale column.

CHAPTER 5 49

Three children per family

Years

Totals

No of

people

0

10 2

20 2

30 2 3

40 2 3

50 2 3 4.5

60 2 3 4.5

70 2 3 4.5 6.8

80 2 3 4.5 6.8 16.3

90 3 4.5 6.8 10

100 3 4.5 6.8 10 24.3

110 4.5 6.8 10 15

120 4.5 6.8 10 15 36.3

130 6.8 10 15 23

140 6.8 10 15 23 54.8

150 10 15 23 34

160 10 15 23 34 82

170 15 23 34 51

180 15 23 34 51 123

190 23 34 51 77

200 23 34 51 77 185

210 34 51 77

220 34 51 77

230 51 77

240 51 77

50 SAVING HUMANITY



CHAPTER 5 51

Two children per family

Years

Totals

No of

people

0

10 2

20 2

30 2 2

40 2 2

50 2 2 2

60 2 2 2

70 2 2 2 2

80 2 2 2 2 8

90 2 2 2 2

100 2 2 2 2 8

110 2 2 2 2

120 2 2 2 2 8

130 2 2 2 2

140 2 2 2 2 8

150 2 2 2 2

160 2 2 2 2 8

170 2 2 2 2

180 2 2 2 2 8

190 2 2 2 2

200 2 2 2 2 8

210 2 2 2

220 2 2 2

230 2 2

240 2 2

52 SAVING HUMANITY



CHAPTER 5 53

One child per family

Years

Totals

No of

people

0 2048 1024

10 2048 1024 512

20 2048 1024 512

30 2048 1024 512 256 3840

40 2048 1024 512 256

50 1024 512 256 128 1920

60 1024 512 256 128

70 512 256 128 64 960

80 512 256 128 64

90 256 128 64 32 480

100 256 128 64 32

110 128 64 32 16 240

120 128 64 32 16

130 64 32 16 8 120

140 64 32 16 8

150 32 16 8 4 60

160 32 16 8 4

170 16 8 4 2 30

180 16 8 4 2

190 8 4 2 1 15

200 8 4 2 1

210 4 2 1 7

220 4 2 1

230 2 1 3

240 2 1

1 1

54 SAVING HUMANITY

More to Be Said About Numbers of Children

There are so many issues and so much to be said about numbers

of children that one is left open mouth flabbergasted at the way

the subject is avoided even when it is crying for attention. We

need to look at some entities that instead of helping to educate,

understand and resolve world affairs, actually confuse, keep silent,

lie, and generally aggravate difficult or desperate situations.

• The Bible / God said: go forth, multiply and fill the earth;

(this is only one of dozens of translations), and it is used as

an excuse for overpopulation. Not wanting to challenge or be

disrespectful about the origin of this mandate, we can at least

say that: the earth was empty when God said go fill the earth,

that: humanity did not noticed that the job was done by early

in the 20th century, and that: the earth can only sustainably

support a number of people not greater than: one third the

current number of people on earth6.

• Governments, are staffed by politicians that only seem to care

about their: political careers, perks, tenures, popularity and

power; and for that they are prepared to lie, cheat, and make

promises which they know they cannot keep. They only give

tax rebates and benefits to families with the greatest number

of children, and ignore the dangers of overpopulation. Their

avoidance and silence about the issues of overpopulation and

empowerment of women gives the impression that there are no

problems in these areas.

6 http://www.rientrodolce.org/

CHAPTER 5 55

• Human Right Commission at the UN, some say that there are

too many UN officials that while representing poor nations,

live luxurious lives in New York, but produce little of real help

to humanity; the HRC, however, does more harm than good.

By granting families the right to have as many children as they

want, without informing the families, in poor and overpopulated

areas, of the deadly consequences of too many people they have

condemned many new children to either: a life of deprivation,

and starvation or: death. They have also condemned young

girls, many of whom are also just children, to spend many

years pregnant, giving birth to far too many children for their

bodies’ endurance, while also caring for the ones already born,

and doing all the house work, and procuring fire wood, water

and food, and working in fields to produce food. What about

the human rights of the children and of the mothers who are

actually kept as slaves.

• Churches, all the ones who favours large families, and are

vehemently against all form of contraception, especially the

Catholic Church that imposes celibacy to all its priests and bishops,

condemning them to an unnatural way of life; and the plight of

having to give all sorts of marital advice, of which they have no

experience, to people who already have normal affectionate and

sexual life relationships. Having grown up Catholic, and knowing

that sometimes they have done some practical good; I have to

say that on balance they have now become a force of evil. They

have repeatedly denied requests to allow contraception; they

have infiltrated areas of governments where they lobby, horse

56 SAVING HUMANITY

trade and generally oppose any attempts to set up medical help

for young women or family planning clinics, and condemn them

to have back streets abortions when they don’t know where to

go to for help. Unlike the HRC at the UN that allows total freedom

to have too many children, the Catholic Church wants to control

what men and women do in their bedrooms, a subject foreign to

them, but which they still want to control in order to maximize

the number of children born.

• News-media, journalists are the people who could save the

day; that could have saved humanity decades ago, they are

trained, equipped and experienced in conveying messages and

explaining clearly the whole picture, with all the necessary back

up data. For decades just silence, only in the last months or years

they have mentioned in passing that overpopulation might be

a problem, and that we have reached 7 Billion people; but no

commentary, just a cold statement as if it was about the day

temperature for that town. There are many good investigative

journalists, but they prefer to report on past events, not

future predictions; to do that one needs courage. Not much

courage would be needed to predict that a heavy truck running

downhill without brakes would end up in a big smash; just as

not much courage would be needed to predict that runaway

overpopulation as we are experiencing now can only end up in

unimaginable catastrophes, but they don’t say it; may be one

needs courage and imagination, and they lack both.

• A typical example of reporting bias: Some of the major

international news-stations in 2012 reported that in China

CHAPTER 5 57

there is a looming big problem caused by the one child per

family policy imposed by the government. In remote areas of

China, less in the towns, pregnant women, using ultrasound

machine want to know the gender of the child they carry. If

they are told that it is a girl they will find ways to abort the

pregnancy; that, of course, has skewed the population profile,

there are now schools with mostly boys and very few girls. This

is not objective reporting, and a major media house should not

allow these blunders, unless it is intentional brainwashing. The

laudable foresight of the Chinese government who imposed the

one child only policy on their people 30 years ago is NOT!! The

cause of the skewed demographics, rural Chinese people were

NOT told to kill all the girls, they are doing so because of some

misguided uncivilised cultural preference for boys common

throughout the world. The rapid modernization of society has

not permeate all corners of society, even in the midst of the

most advanced communities there are still cultural residues of

the past that resist civilization.

• Rulers’ self aggrandisement With reference to the Wikipedia

and CIA list of states with their respective fertility rates 7,

those lists show the number of children per woman in 223

states; the average in each country varies greatly from 7.5

children per woman to less than one, that is valuable and

interesting information. As shown in the charts in this book,

where the number is less than 2 the population decrease, so

that, the 92 countries with average numbers smaller than 2

7 Wikipedia List of fertility rates http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_fertility_rate

58 SAVING HUMANITY

are already reducing their population; whereas the 130 others,

with numbers greater than 2 are increasing their population;

and 60 with numbers greater than 3 are rapidly increasing. Of

those 60 states: 40 have fertilities rates of 4 children or more;

and 6 states have 6 or more; 50 are underdeveloped African

and middle East states, and in some countries the population

survives only if they receive food aids. The world keeping

silent about overpopulation has not served Africa well;

many non-democratically elected rulers, and others with few

natural resources, encourage large families because of ancient

cultural beliefs that many children bring wealth, power and self

aggrandisement by population numbers.

• COP conferences at all these annual conferences, 17 so far, there

are hundreds of delegations, and hundreds of head of states,

discussing the damage done to the planet and negotiating:

carbon quotas, carbon taxes, the effort required by various

states, the amount of aids to be paid by so called rich states to

poor ones, and generally how to save the earth; yet, although

it would seem logical that the more the people, the more

the consumption, the more the pollution and the more the

damage; overpopulation has never been on the agenda. How

can humanity trust its leaders??

Finally, however, repeating from the introduction, each of us is

individually responsible to stay informed and to take the decisions,

and act in our best interest, and that of our: family, children,

grandchildren, environment and planet; It is our privilege and our

duty; we must never ask, or allow others to do it for us.

CHAPTER 6 59

Chapter 6 • THE FUTURE LOOKS BLEAK, IN THE 21ST CENTURY

As we straggle through the latest economic crises of 2008–2012

no one knows for certain when things will change, or how they

will change. Although there is some hope, there is also fear that

this time it could prove to be a more serious event than just an

economic down cycle. For now, however, everyone is anxiously

waiting for things to get better, so that the cyclic upswing can start

bringing back economic growth, and everyone can start to make

money again.

As nice as it may sound, it may not be good for the welfare of

humanity. All the plagues afflicting our planet are still very actively

with us and any growth in economic activity will exacerbate the

environmental damage which is caused by the normal daily activities

of 7 BILLION people going about trying to earn a living.

As stated earlier, mankind is good at producing and trying to sell

goods and services. However, many of these goods and services

may not be good for mankind.

Tool making ability and ingenuity have enabled mankind to produce

many useful gadgets which have greatly improved people’s lifestyle

and comfort, such as machinery to overcome men’s limitations,

wonders in transportation and communication, and many gadgets

which automatically perform tasks which were previously a burden

for men and women.

60 SAVING HUMANITY

However, not all this technology was beneficial, for example

weapons and luxurious gadgets, to a large extent, used up scarce

resources and increased the division between wealth and poverty.

After the developed world markets were saturated by necessary

and useful things which people could afford, a culture and a taste

for luxury goods that could be bought on easy repayment terms

was ingeniously created and kept going by many questionable

processes of marketing.

Consequently, much of the recent economic growth, and with

it the livelihood of millions of people manufacturing and selling

these conveniences, was based on cultivating people’s taste for

unnecessary luxury things, which were often bought on credit by

people who could not afford them in the first place.

Now governments, terrified by the prospect of a prolonged

slowdown and social unrest are trying to force growth by borrowing

more money giving it to banks, and hoping for the best. It seems

that lack of wise leadership prompts repetition of past mistakes.

However, it would be best for all to remember that:

• Governments don’t generate wealth, people do. Politicians

make promises when running for office but often don’t keep

them. People should not be gullible, but should take more

responsibility for their beliefs and actions.

• Underdeveloped communities cannot afford most of the luxury

commodities that developed economies are trying to sell.

CHAPTER 6 61

• After this economic recession, developed communities,

impoverished by unemployment and investment losses, who

are having difficulties buying necessary things and even food,

will avoid buying luxury goods on credit.

Therefore, since the banks have become afraid to lend, and few

people can afford to buy the things that the economy needs to sell,

it will be difficult to stimulate growth by free market forces alone,

and most of the money given to banks will only help to pay for their

past mistakes.

Governments can only force the economy to move with public

works projects, which will create some employment, but all the

money and the interest, will have to be repaid by the taxpayers.

From 2008 to 2012, governments, banks, business, investors, brokers

and ordinary people have been surprised by gravity. Everybody

thought that the old saying, “What goes up must come down” would

not apply to their money. Also, with so much money moving around

there has been so much stealing, fraud and speculation with other

people’s money that no-one can be trusted anymore.

Now, even though the scandals, dishonesty and crimes will

continue to surface, the debtors must repay the money back; and

must do so at the worst possible time, i.e., when economies are in

the doldrums, and the financial advisors, thieves, fraudsters and

speculators are running rampant.

It was folly to borrow so much money while the going was good,

and despite economists providing complicated explanations, my

grandmother could have told us so in plain words.

62 SAVING HUMANITY

The way things are going worldwide, it is possible that economies

may continue indefinitely to deteriorate; but unemployment, civil

unrest and illegal migration will continue to increase; nobody and

no government can satisfy the demands of angry mobs that have

been lied to: by keeping silent about bad news, and by promises

that could not be kept.

The reason that the no growth scenario is so frightening for

everybody is that: there have never been so many people!!!

The current total number of unemployed is probably greater than

the total number of people on earth in 1930. At the time of the

great depression there were just over 2 BILLION people on earth;

and unlike now, there was low cost abundance of all resources

necessary for growth; we are now 7 BILLION, i.e., 3.5 times more,

and the sources of the most basic necessities of life i.e., food,

water, transport, energy and security have never been so scarce,

complicated, or remote from us. If any of the fragile links in our

complicated food preparation and delivery chain fails, what can the

millions of people in large towns do when they need to eat, drink

or move???

Mankind is neither ready nor able for such contingencies. Most of

us would not know how to get food except in supermarkets, and

would be totally stranded and helpless without fuel, electricity,

transportation or water in the taps.

Although, many people are well versed in economics, either learned

at school or experienced in everyday life, no one has any experience

of economics during periods of human population regression. There

CHAPTER 6 63

has never been a time when the number of people has significantly

decreased.

The world is currently experiencing global economic crises, many

have lost their jobs, companies are going bankrupt, property values

have fallen, investments have lost value, and with so many people

out of work there is always the risk of large scale civil unrest.

However, the world population, stubbornly, continues to grow by

80 million people per year.

The whole world is still thinking, planning and living as usual, in the

growth mode. The no growth mode is too terrible to contemplate;

hence extreme sums of money are being borrowed and spent in a

desperate attempt to artificially cling to the way of life we used to

know.

Also, despite the concern about global warming, evidence of

the depletion of all things we need to survive, the unstoppable

growth of undisciplined unruly masses of unemployed people, an

estimated TOTAL WORLD DEBT OF $ 500 TRILLION, that cannot be

repaid, recent reports of water and food shortage and price rises,

and the widespread acceptance that our way of life cannot go on

much longer; all world governments, big business, the media and

economic leaders continue to talk about restoring growth; to try

and carry on a bit longer – because they are enjoying a good life,

and because no-one knows how to reverse the state-of-the-art

deadly plagues; deal with the future and restore hope.

64 SAVING HUMANITY

Chapter 7 • ECONOMIC GROWTH, MYTH or MIRAGE

For the last few years, but especially these days in mid-2012, the

world’s most wanted thing by all is “ECONOMIC GROWTH”, as the

world seems to be falling apart around us, heads of state, economists,

businessmen, poor, unemployed and ordinary people are rightly

terrified of the future; most are depressed at the prospects, and

some panic to the point of committing suicide.

Terrified world leaders waste hundreds of billions Euros in the

misguided hope that by rescuing banks, banks can then “STIMULATE

GROWTH”; and that growth will in turn help to pay back gigantic

debts entered into by: criminal-credit-givers-and-takers working in

the very same banks, which were largely responsible for creating

the current frightening economic quagmire.

The excuse for this madness is: the apparent laudable quest to

bring back the good old days with thriving economies and wealthy

nations. But the more likely motive is that they want to stop the

spiralling disintegration of the world’s economies during their

watch, while they are at the controls in positions of power.

However, considering that the best brains nations can deploy

have been unsuccessful trying to “STIMULATE GROWTH” since

long before 2007, and that it was GROWTH STIMULATION, i.e.,

the credit given at sub-prime rates, that created the last global

economic disaster in the first place; trying to FORCE GROWTH this

time, with all prices rising and people becoming poor, will be just

as impossible as old people trying to grow young again.

CHAPTER 7 65

GROWTH cannot be manufactured or forced! It is a living natural

phenomenon that takes place spontaneously only when many

conditions and ingredients in the surrounding environment are

conducive to it, as they were after WW2 8, and as we shall compare

them to conditions now.

CONDITIONS AFTER WW2

In 1950 while the Marshall plan was helping Europe to repair the

war damage, and re-start European economies again, the world

population was 2.5 billion people, about 1/3 the number of people

now, i.e., 7.05 billion in 2012. 2.5 Billion, many of whom were

living in farms, rural, or semi urban areas not far from the earth and

vegetation where food could often be found or planted.

In addition to re-building all the destroyed European towns and

building new, there were unlimited opportunities for improving the

lifestyle of people with non-luxury goods and services, essential

home appliances, such as washing machines, stoves, refrigerators,

and all sorts of useful machinery to do tedious and hard work

previously done by hand.

Many new homes had to be built for a world population that has

been growing at an average rate of 70 million people per year.

And in Europe, as wealth was growing, many people had to do the

life improving transition from outside to inside plumbing. These

conditions accelerated in the 60’s until the first oil price increase

in 1973.

8 World War II

66 SAVING HUMANITY

Resources for all these activities such as wood, metals, minerals,

land and water were plentiful and cheap, skilled labour and

manufacturing facilities also available from the war effort, energy

and oil also very cheap, and the demand for workers in urban areas

was so great that many rural young people left the farms to the old

folks, often never to go back to work there again.

New materials, such as plastics, were invented and vehicles and

really useful, non-luxury things were manufactured and sold;

because people could afford them, and people really needed them

without the need of advertising pressure.

Unlike now, unemployment was not a problem, on the contrary;

many countries in need of skilled labour invited and paid for

travelling and initial accommodation to welcome migrant workers.

Growth was not planned, paid for, artificially promoted or forced; it

just happened spontaneously while entrepreneurs were supplying

what was needed to satisfy the demands of society.

CONDITIONS IN 2012

As the economic meltdown, that started with the discovery of

large bundles of debt from USA sub-prime loans spreads all over

the world, aggravated by speculators in dishonest banks, and the

increasing number of nations at risk of not being able to repay their

huge debts; the world population, in 2011, topped 7 billion people

i.e., three times as many as at the end of WW2.

CHAPTER 7 67

It has been scientifically proven, and it can be verified, that all these

people, and all the industrial activities needed to feed us, give us

shelter, transport us, satisfy all our needs and keep us happy are too

great a burden for the fragile thin crust of earth we occupy.

There is widespread acceptance that we need to drastically reduce:

water usage, depletion of fish and vital resources, and CO2 producing

activities. That is, if humanity has to survive the climate change that

will destroy food production, and many other necessities of life.

In addition to the above-said ecological impossibilities of long term

growth; the logical impossibility that growth can only take place if

the purchasing fodder, i.e., the world population with disposable

income, also grows; and that cannot happen, there are already too

many people for the earth to support; unlike conditions in 1945

there are at least 3 more obstacles to future growth:

1. The cost of prime finite resources: such as oil, minerals, metals,

water, food, land and so on are now high and increasing as they

become scarce.

2. The world’s economic order is showing signs of collapse; almost

all nations have debts larger than what they can repay; billions

of people are unemployed; and others, either have difficulties

buying, or cannot afford food at all; the people with disposable

income and all the home appliances they need, continue

spending money in nonessential luxury goods, but there is

already oversupply of luxuries; hence, apart from maintaining

food production, replacement of goods and essential services,

there will be insufficient demand for providing the additional

68 SAVING HUMANITY

goods and services required for stimulating growth.

3. What probably started as a self preservation instinct, after the

invention of money and the teachings at business schools soon

mutated into greed, often confused with profit, and accepted

and legitimized into our society as a good thing, and as the

prime mover of economic growth. However, we now have

7 billion greedy people of whom very few have accumulated

vast wealth; many others selling their labour in employment

agreements and the rest in different stages of poverty.

The inequality of wealth distribution on earth, though not caused

by conspiracy or planned initially, has hugely increased in modern

times, mainly because of the power of very wealthy people and

corporations, who motivated by profit and/or greed, manipulate

the economy in such a way that they continue to enrich themselves

further.

Globalization and easy access to information are showing everywhere

the vast differences of lifestyles, i.e., extreme poverty, suffering

and famines, on one hand, and unnecessary waste, opulence, and

obscene demonstration of money power, on the other.

This knowledge combined with the never-fulfilled promises made

by politicians at election time has given rise to much of the civil

unrest in North Africa in 2011; and as the future seem to promise

increases of and deteriorations in: unemployment, poverty, cost and

shortages of water and food, depletion of fish in the sea, forests,

mineral and oil reserves; also as the militancy of unemployed, poor

and dissatisfied people increase, more unrest will follow. The state

CHAPTER 7 69

of affairs described seems to be more conducive to free for all

anarchy than to economic growth.

70 SAVING HUMANITY

Chapter 8 • CAN HUMAN SAVE THEMSELVES ??

This book has been re-written because the answer to this question

has changed in the last 3 years. Whereas, before the COP 159

conference in Copenhagen 2009 there generally was hope of

positive changes in CO2 emissions, and that the people of the world

would adopt a more energy wise and green lifestyle; the COP 15

conference, like all the previous 14, was a waste of time, people

continue to live recklessly, and still no-one is saying a word about

overpopulation.

The hopeful warnings of chapter 8 written 3 years ago, (shown in

the appendix) have changed into worrying doubts of any future

improvements; we don’t even know how people of the world

would react if they were made fully aware of the seriousness of the

situation without media and vested interest artificially confusing

the issue by challenging scientific data and clear evidence with

baseless opposing views, lies and out of context arguments.

It is very late, perhaps too late to reverse deadly processes which

may already have become irreversible; such as: global warming,

melting glaciers, and variation of the conveyor flow of ocean

currents. People may regard these planetary events as out of their

control or responsibility; also, no-one believe that any bad things

will happen very soon; but they would be wrong!! It is us, the people

who: produced so many more people, burned fossil fuels, and

produced more food than the earth can supply without depleting

the soil structure and creating deserts.

9 UN sponsored COP 15 conference in Copenhagen 2009

CHAPTER 8 71

As for when bad things will start happening, well, the news-media

may be useless predicting these things, but they are very good at

reporting these events as they happen, TV cameras are always on

hand to capture real shots being fired or real bombs exploding;

these real events don’t look very different from fictional stories

we are used to see on TV; however, we must not confuse them,

we have been provided with intelligence and we must recognise

that the seeds for civil war i.e., overpopulation, disparity of wealth

and power, shortages and high prices of basic necessities, poverty,

unemployment, corrupt economic systems and governments

are everywhere in the world!!! We must not believe that what is

happening in Syria cannot happen to all of us.

For the past two years bad things have already been happening;

unrest as a reaction to food price increase, corruption and disparity

of wealth and power started in 2011 in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and

Europe; with full blown civil war in Syria. Out of control illegal

migration is intensifying all over the world and as food prices rise

people around the world are demanding of politicians to keep the

untrue promises they made.

A better life for all was promised in exchange for electoral votes;

but with shortages of the most basic necessities of life such as:

water, food, etc. Also, with 80 million new mouths to feed every

year the promises cannot be kept!!! And it is anybody’s guess how

7 Billion people will react to it.

Now, for the original question: can human save themselves?? It is a

very important question, we all would like to know, but, can it be

72 SAVING HUMANITY

answered?? It will depend on what 7 billion people will do in the

future; that: cannot be predicted. However, if it is true that: past

behaviour is the best predictor of future behaviour, the future does

not look good; the answer has to be: NO it is too late.

Whereas, I truly believe that it is too late for everybody i.e., 7

Billion people to continue with life as we were used to live in the

20th century; I also believe that nature will find its own natural

equilibrium, that many people will suffer and die, and that many

others will survive; however, as it has been shown in tests with

rats in overcrowded cages, it will not be a just or civilized process!!

Many may rightly say that it wasn’t a just or fully civilized society in

the past either.

Anyway, from the mistakes of the past there are lessons to be

learned for the future; for however many survivors of : Civil unrest

and civil wars, peak population, peak oil 10, peak water, peak fish,

peak food, unemployment and illegal migrations, climate change,

air-water-land and all pollution, economic meltdown, people with

guns, etc.; that survived the brink of extinction and that have to

carry on living and perhaps make some new rules to avoid going

back to that brink, here are: things to do or to avoid doing, beware

of, or modify; in order NOT to make the same mistakes.

• Universal population control: All governments must strictly

enforce a no more than one child per family policy until

a sustainable population can be maintained; it should be

governed by the United Nations or by a universal agreement

10 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil

CHAPTER 8 73

to prevent single nations from cheating and breeding more for

self aggrandisement. It is far too late for voluntary reduction of

birth rates.

There is no time to argue, explain, educate and/or motivate

people who believe that children represent wealth, even

whilst people are dying of hunger around them, and the world

is disintegrating around all of us. This is a very controversial

issue, and one of the reasons no-one debates overpopulation.

However, after nature has found its equilibrium, people will

understand the stupidity of paying so much attention to our

health, diet, exercise, education, carriers and bank balance but

keeping silent, avoiding and denying the very thing that will kill

us.

The Chinese people have lived with the one child per family

policy for 30 years, and they are so much the better off for it;

although it was not strictly implemented, a lot of exceptions

were allowed for all sorts of humane reasons, it has a fertility of

less than 1.6 children per woman, i.e., a decreasing population;

and generally an improving nation growing in wealth. The

process of economically enriching the people and the country

by having fewer children is explained at the end of chapter 4.

• The current overbearing and intolerable influence of religion

on societies must be reviewed, regulated and controlled when

it becomes, as is happening now, a detrimental force of evil.

Whereas, everyone is free to practice any religion of its choice,

secular people must, also if they wish, be free from rules, social

74 SAVING HUMANITY

norms, lifestyles, actions and beliefs that some religions impose

on their followers, and that they want to force onto others by:

lobbying, cajoling, coaxing or blackmailing governments to

impose them by manipulating legislations. (American Catholic

Bishops in various US states are suing the US government to force

it to deny family planning and contraception to American women

by manipulating health care legislations. Also, the Catholic

Church in the Philippines is mobilizing their priests, nuns and

followers to demonstrate against family planning legislations

that the government wants to introduce, to reduce the high

birth rate and in line with United Nations recommendations.)

• Pardon all, or at least 50% of all outstanding debt that cannot

be repaid; that is: Estimates vary from $300 to 500 Trillion that

banks, governments and private entities owe, but that many

cannot even repay the interest on it. Whenever a creditor gives

money to a debtor, there is always an agreement specifying

how the debt is to be repaid; it is the responsibility of both the

debtor and the creditor to ensure that there is a reasonable

expectation that the debtor will be able to repay the debt. The

creditor is partly responsible for any default due to excessive

credit given!!!

If however, the creditor is always reimbursed for any bad debt by

his government, as it has happened in the recent past, the whole

original repayment agreement must also be no longer valid, and

the idea of pardoning the debt no longer so ridiculous. It cannot

be acceptable to taxpayers worldwide that they must repay all

the debts of the world; whereas, the debtors are happy they got

CHAPTER 8 75

the loan, and the creditors are happy they got reimbursed by

idiotic governments that had no mandate to use public money

that way. It is a normal day to day occupational risk for banks to

have to deal with bad debts.

• Women must be empowered, freed from their subordinate-to-

men status, granted legal and actual equality in the family and

in society; but women must grab it, own it and defend it. The

status of women is a measure of the level of civilization of a

society; societies, cultures or religions that abuse or enslave

women are backwards, cruel and uncivilised; stupidly, they

also do not take advantage of the intelligence, creativity and

contribution women could make to a society that regards them

as partners rather than slaves.

Women are instinctively programmed to avoid fights; with

their matriarchal non-aggressive nature they are ideally suited

for positions of high responsibility and authority; that would

reduce wars and conflicts that men are unable to avoid. Men

have had to fight for themselves and to protect women and

children throughout evolution, hence, whether in an attacking or

defending stance or situation men are instinctively programmed

to attack. Women must also be empowered and accepted as

equal because in a civilized society that lifted itself above, and

left Stone Age barbarism behind: IT IS RIGHT TO DO SO.

• The relative visible divide wealth to poverty in a world with

guns on both sides of the divide is perhaps the most dangerous

issue that can provide the spark for conflicts and civil war. The

76 SAVING HUMANITY

callous insensitivity and raw stupidity of flaunting wealth in the

presence of poverty might give the shallow rich man with not

much intelligence a sense of superiority, but more sensitive

people would recognize the dangers of such behaviour.

• Political power must be controlled, curtailed or removed from

those who can buy it. Large corporations, banks, and inept

politicians in governments have, for the past decades, done to

the world economic system what overpopulation has done to

the world’s ecology. But it was not just the brokers, bankers,

investment advisers, portfolio managers, and whom-ever else

was involved in circulating money in an ever expanding circle of

crooked and unauthorised investments of pooled bank money,

or the complicated schemes intended to hide fraud, stealing or

criminal transactions; it was also all of us, all the people of the

world who entrusted our money to these people, who asked to

get the best returns, and to make the most money possible for

us.

• Death penalty or appropriate punishments for serious crimes

without frivolous appeals. In an overpopulated world with

overpopulated prisons, poverty, and insufficient resources for the

basic needs of many non-criminal poor and displaced people; it

might be unjust and wasteful to provide life-long civilized: food,

shelter, security, medical, educational, recreational and often

legal facilities to hard criminals who are often unredeemable.

• Governments should be run by appointed professionals or

technicians, skilled in the areas of expertise they need to

CHAPTER 8 77

manage. They should not be elected politicians!! There are no

qualifications or experience requirements for politicians (they

only need to be good at making promises and lying for the

duration of their turn in government). The current democratic

party-system of elections has yielded only inept governments

that have increased the disparity of wealth, enriched themselves,

wasted money with luxuries and corruption, and financially

ruined many nations.

• Education must include all everyday practical life skills, such as:

running a house or apartment, budgeting and living on a fixed

income, controlling and managing debt, an understanding of

washing clothes, basic gardening and cooking, an understanding

of how to safely use electrical appliances and in house plumbing

and general safety around the house; so that each person, if

necessary, can look after him or herself. Also at school, there

should be guidance, standard check lists to test compatibility

and if necessary counselling for people who want to get married

or become a couple; and most importantly: The do’s and don’ts,

ideal conditions and recommendations for growing children;

and understanding and accepting the solemn responsibilities of

not teaching wrong values, bad habits and bad attitudes to the

children.

The world is a difficult place to live in, becoming more difficult by

the day; I hope the reader might have found it useful looking at

things from the writer perspective; it is not a good picture from any

angle or perspective but people should not avoid looking at it and

hope for the best.

78 SAVING HUMANITY

Whereas, it is good to be cheerful and positive, it is also necessary

to be alert, be aware of dangers, and plan our lives wisely.

Here is another perspective from a reputable good person

“The planet does not need more ‘successful people’. The

planet desperately needs more peacemakers, healers,

restorers, storytellers and lovers of all kinds. It needs people

to live well in their places. It needs people with moral courage

willing to join the struggle to make the world habitable and

humane and these qualities have little to do with success as

our culture is the set.”~ H. H. The Dalai Lama

CHAPTER 8 79

Chapter 9 • MORE READING

Population Matters http://www.populationmatters.org/

People and the planet http://www.peopleandplanet.net/

Rientrodolce http://www.rientrodolce.org/

Sustainable Population Australia http://www.population.org.au/

World food and human population (video)

http://www.panearth.org/world%20food%20and%20human%20

population%20growth/player.html

AAAS Atlas of population and environment http://atlas.aaas.org/

Population the elephant in the room

http://www.paulchefurka.ca/Population.html

Overpopulation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overpopulation

http://www.populationmatters.org/

http://www.peopleandplanet.net/

http://www.rientrodolce.org/

http://www.population.org.au/

http://www.panearth.org/world food & human population growth/player.html

http://www.panearth.org/world food & human population growth/player.html

http://atlas.aaas.org/

http://www.paulchefurka.ca/Population.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overpopulation

80 SAVING HUMANITY

Chapter 10 • APPENDIX

Old 2009 chapter 8 of Saving Humanity

(shown here to compare the change of views in 3 years)

Humanity can be saved by ordinary men and women, all of us,

only if, in addition to looking after our own interests, we stay

informed and care about the world around us, not just sport

and pleasure, but also events which are endangering us all.

The delicate balance of the natural life, systems, and

things we call our environment has already been seriously

damaged. Credible scientific observers are witnessing further

deterioration happening much faster than expected and also

predicting that unless we immediately stop what we are

doing, further irreversible damage will destroy the ability of

our environment to support life as we know it.

These are verifiable facts and they don’t get the urgent

attention everyone should pay to them. We are all distracted

by the lip service paid to global warming, and the knee-

jerk reaction of most governments to the economic crises.

However, the economic crises are not the biggest problem

facing mankind, and global warming cannot be reversed in

isolation from all the other catastrophes facing us including

and especially overpopulation.

It is too late to negotiate CO2 reduction targets. The Kyoto

protocol and all subsequent conferences have been a failure,

APPENDIX 81

there are no agreements and by the time one is reached

Holland and many other places will probably be under the

sea.

Whereas no problem can be solved until it is well defined it

appears that the world’s most pressing problems have not yet

been spread out on the same table, inspected, and rationally

allocated priorities and defined. It cannot be done, because

there are too many forces and interests pulling in all different

directions for rational decisions to be reached by the people

who have been, and are still, handling these matters.

These people represent governments, big business,

manufacturers of machinery which generates CO2, NGOs,

suppliers of the products which generate CO2, and all of them

with different agendas. They are the wrong people because

while their stated intentions are to save the world for the

benefit of all, each of their countries of origin have given

them strict instructions to safeguard their respective national

interests.

There has to be another way. It is suggested here that the

world media should adopt this quest for saving the world,

all conferences, discussions, defining the problems, setting

priorities, and finding solutions can be done on TV screens in

front of millions of people from different areas of the world,

taking as long as it takes.

The delegates would not need to travel to conferences.

Everyone could work from their home base. This issue should

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be seen as more important than any sporting event usually

covered by the world media.

The ordinary people of the world would have opportunities to

learn more about matters affecting us all, and to participate in

discussions, surveys and decision making about future actions

and changes necessary to reverse the looming catastrophes.

The more people participating, or observing, the more

suggestions, good ideas and solutions could be generated.

Having the media involved in publicly investigating,

researching these issues and informing the world at the

same time would be ideal, and would go a long way towards

generating solutions.

However, since this has not happened yet, some suggestions

about saving humanity will be respectfully offered here, based

on observations of firstly, a sustainable lifestyle in Italy in the

1940s, the end of an era with medieval origins and hundreds

of years of duration, and secondly, unsustainable lifestyles

everywhere in the world in the 21st century.

• Artificially stimulating economies in order to generate

growth is not a good idea. It can only be done with

borrowed money, it will generate limited wealth and

the interest will have to be repaid, the population will

continue to grow, it will damage the environment further,

and it will make the next credit crunch more severe.

• There is a need to undo the damage done by creating

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a worldwide culture of luxury goods and services. The

wealthy, among the 7 BILLION people, who have been

going after luxuries have used up a lot of resources and

caused a lot of damage.

• All people, from developed and undeveloped areas, must

be made aware of the damage to themselves and to the

world resulting from having too many children, and should

be offered advice and help with contraception, shown that

each person in a small family gets bigger portions of what

is available, and that with fewer people inheriting estates,

wealth concentrates and accumulates.

• Simplifying the way we live would relieve much of the

anxiety of city life in a big town in the 21st century.

Anybody with a wife and children, paying rent or a

bond, and losing a job in a recession, will experience,

together with the family, anxiety, fear and hardships.

Even with a job, it is often difficult to make ends meet,

with ever increasing prices and an uncertain future in

a very sick world. Comparing this lifestyle with that of

a peasant farmer in Italy or in Europe 70 years ago, we

can consider the advantages and disadvantages of both

worlds: peasant farmers manufactured their entire food

requirement on their little farms, and some more so that

by selling some, they could buy other things that they

needed. Compared to city life it must seem boring, but it

proved to be sustainable for hundreds of years, and there

was no anxiety or fear of the future. In an uncertain future

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with little economic growth people could enjoy the best

of both worlds, farm life would provide security, and a

connection to the internet, and other modern amenities

would provide a link to the modern world we know.

• Using alternative or renewable forms of energy is fun and

educational, can stir up creativity and inventiveness, and

can generate income. Solar cooking gives independence

from reticulated electricity and gas, is inexpensive, and

can save vast amounts of reticulated energy.

• The employed and business people able to make a living in

urban areas will continue to do so. However, unemployed

and old people can be employed and taken care of in

kibbutz-like settlements more cost effectively than in

artificially created public works.

These are just a few suggestions to start focusing on the

need to change the way we live. People always find their own

solutions, however wisdom is needed to define the problems

well.

When trying to define and understand the challenges facing

us it is necessary to do so with vision, honesty and truth, and

without fear or favour, even when examining or investigating

controversial issues. Also, it is important to be alert to

changing circumstances.

There are many organisations trying to save many things: the

whales, the forests, water and air from pollution, poverty,

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diseases, global warming and so on. Most of these groups

started in the seventies and eighties. In the early eighties

the writer was also involved in studying and combating

deforestation by manufacturing solar cookers to save wood.

For more than 30 years these organisations have been active

in trying to save the many things we either kill or damage.

However, with the sole exception of the ozone layer, after 30

years of trying they have all failed to save anything else. In

fact all other crises have become much worse and are now

accelerating out of control.

Why? The people involved are top class people, intelligent,

educated, able bodied young men and women. If no one has

succeeded after 30 years or more, it is reasonable to suggest

that the strategies needs to be reviewed, or the problems

need to be better defined.

There are at least three fundamental reasons for these failures:

• All the work and effort by each of the various groups

concerned with any issue was not coordinated with the

work of other groups, for example, people trying to save

the forests were not coordinating efforts with people

trying to save the whales.

• Conditions on earth have changed drastically in a short

time. From 1966 to 2009 the world population has

DOUBLED, from 3.4 to 6.8 BILLION people. Also, since

1985 when the Greenpeace Rainbow Warrior was bombed

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in New Zealand, the world population has increased by 2

BILLION. Old people may be right when they say that life

was better in the good old days.

• It is impossible to combat, or alleviate, any of the looming

catastrophes in isolation from the others, and without

considering overpopulation. Very few people, groups

or organisations concerned about environmental issues

are prepared to tackle overpopulation. It is therefore

impossible to solve any environmental problems if no one

is prepared to discuss the main cause of the problem.

All the good people who are trying to improve our survival

chances on this planet need not abandon what they are doing,

but they must understand that in order to change the 30 or

more years of failures routine, it will be necessary to discuss

some form of gentle population control.

Once steps have been taken to reduce the world population,

there will be no actual or visible change for many years (see

the charts and the Chinese example). During that time action

can be taken to reverse all or as many as possible of the other

problems. At least then the times to remedy all problems will

run concurrently.

When deciding on actions and priorities it is necessary to be

vigilant and not allow individual self interest to prevail over

the interest of the environment.

Also, it may be necessary to warn against political, ethnic,

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religious, racial, national or any other separately identifiable

group of people who may try to gain majority advantage by

producing more children than other groups.

When heads of state at a conference sign a document

committing the participants to a reduction of CO2 emissions

of some percentage by some deadline, they cannot know that

they can keep that promise as there are too many variables:

they don’t know how to do it, it will be difficult to measure,

and no one is going to sue them if after trying they don’t

succeed.

Furthermore, the commitment and the signature by that head

of state somehow relieves the rest of the countrymen from

worrying too much about it. It becomes the head of state’s

responsibility and the citizens carry on living as usual.

If we want to save ourselves we had better not leave it all

up to the politicians. Once everybody in the world has been

informed and warned about what’s at stake, it becomes

everybody’s responsibility to do something about it.

Mankind needs a radical change of mindset, from a trying

to make money rat race to a less ambitious, simpler survival

mode lifestyle similar to the mentality and lifestyle of

European peasants 70 years ago. At least until the population

becomes sustainable again.

This time it would be easier. We have better knowledge and

better technology. However, we would still require good power

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of persuasion, wisdom, courage, intelligence, discipline, will

power, humility, understanding and the humility and wisdom

to continue to learn many things we don’t know.

If we can master all these attributes and virtues, humanity can

attempt to save itself.

Saving humanity 2nd ed ebook

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Transcript of Saving humanity 2nd ed ebook