A Practical Peacemaker Ponders . . .

One of the biggest challenges to maintaining a peaceful and livable planet is overpopulation. World population has more than doubled in my lifetime and, according to a report cited by the BBC, we have a net gain of over 200,000 people per day! Per day, and that’s after the number of people who died that day have been subtracted!

Unfortunately, we don’t acquire any additional farmland to feed those people, so with each day that passes, the situation becomes more critical. We are already well over a sustainable number of people on this planet, and millions do not get enough food. What can an individual do?

We desperately need more volunteers to have no children or stop at one child. This is not an anti-child viewpoint; having one or none means children already born have a better chance at survival. Those of us who love children the most, therefore, need to think very carefully about our own childbearing decisions if we are at that stage of life and, no matter our age, to initiate conversations with potential parents about the dire situation we face. 

Some of us may feel the problem lies with those in poor countries having large families. However, if you compare resource use of a child born in the United States with, say, one born in India, the American child consumes 30 times the resources of the Indian child! That means an Indian couple would have to have 30 children before it would equal the impact of one child here.

Not only is each American child costly to the planet, he or she is also costly to parents in terms of dollars. When I wrote my book The Practical Peacemaker two years ago, I cited a study that placed the expense of raising a child from birth to age 18 at $197,000. That doesn’t count any college expense. Last week a new government report was issued that placed the figure for a middle-income family to raise a child born in 2008 at a whopping $221,000!

The Biblical adage of “Be fruitful and multiply” has been followed too frequently by too many people. We can no longer automatically encourage and support childbearing as desirable for everyone. Those who love children might consider adoption, or finding ways of spending time, perhaps even their livelihood, with children.

It is also helpful to reduce our meat consumption, because the most efficient use of farmland to feed the most people is in raising plant foods like grains, beans, and vegetables, rather than livestock. No matter how we view overpopulation, it is an issue that, barring major wars and disease epidemics, won’t go away.