Saturday, December 14, 2013

Critical Mass Again

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The superior power of population is repressed, and the actual population kept equal to the means of subsistence, by misery and vice. —Robert Malthus' third principle.

There is certainly an abundance of misery and vice with in the human race. There is the misery caused by poverty and warfare, and greed is certainly a vice. In the 1921 song Ain’t we got fun?* that satirizes the economic conditions of the Roaring Twenties, the song writer penned,
"There's nothing surer
The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
In the meantime, in between time
Ain't we got fun?"

These words seem even more applicable to our world today. This glaring inequality has even prompted Pope Francis to speak out very forcefully against the unseemly acquisition of wealth by a few and for economic reform, for a fair distribution of this wealth. Yet those who are amassing absurd amounts of money appear to lack a sense of social justice as they remain inured to the pleas for reform.

As I pointed out in my last blog, there are several threats to the world's food supply that may not be addressed in time to meet the needs of a world population that continues to expand at an alarming rate. Nature will not tolerate this imbalance indefinitely in spite of what science will try to do to forestall the inevitable. Have we set in motion a juggernaut, or several, that will overwhelm us?

My crystal ball is broken so I cannot with any degree of accuracy foretell the future of humankind. I can, however look back over time for possible responses by Nature to our current situation, and I see just coming over the horizon what might prove to be the cause of the death of our species—an MDR organism. By our over-use of antibiotics we have created several Multiple Drug Resistant bacteria. History has shown us how virulent and lethal a bacterium or a virus can be. There was the Black Death of the Middle Ages that killed one third of the population of Europe. There was the worldwide flu pandemic in 1918 during which millions died. There is currently waiting in the wings Ebola, SARS, Avian Influenza, MDR tuberculosis and organisms yet to be identified. Over crowding and international travel have both been identified as creating the means for rapid transmission of a potentially lethal organism.

Have we as a species reached a critical mass of humanity? Are we at or beyond the tipping point? (See my blog of December 10.) It is obvious to a great many well-informed people that we cannot continue the path we have set for ourselves and hope to survive. The remediation that is being called for will require sacrifices that we do not seem willing to make. The future of the species is in our hands. What will we do with it?

* "Ain't We Got Fun?"  Music by Richard A. Whiting, lyrics by Raymond B. Egan and Gus Kahn.

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