Soylent Green is made out of people!

Little Black Box
    By Alex DeMille

Move over, Y2K. There's another cheesy buzzword that's about to usurp your paranoia-inducing power: Y6B. Y6B refers to the year, or more precisely the day, that the earth's population hit six billion. That day was estimated to be Tues., Oct. 12, when the six billionth child popped out of one of 370,000 wombs that gave birth that day, in Sarajevo. This child, like every child born each day, had a 50 percent chance of being Asian. Each child also is likely to be poor. What does this mean for the world at large? Shrinking resources. Decreased standards of living. Famines, plagues, and war. Another surge in the number of Ivy League college applicants.

The population surge is really appalling when you think about it. The world population has increased by 20 percent since 1987. That's one billion more people in 12 years—that's a lot of folks. For the time being, America is just fine. Our economy is doing well, we manage our resources properly, and the general standard of living is on the rise. But there are other factors to consider. Remember this summer's drought that caused the regulation of many states' water supplies? What would have happened if there were twice as many people vying for the same water? This is a reality that is not too far off.

SHAWN CHENG/YH

Third-world countries are suffering the most from the population explosion. Most of the earth's teenagers live in third-world countries; in a few years, when they are adults and have children of their own, the population will increase by exponential rates in places that cannot even support their current populations.

Countries like China have taken an active role in fighting the population explosion with legislation that limits each couple to only one child. This law seems alien and oppressive to many Westerners, but it is a real necessity in a nation as huge and dense in population as China. Yet nations with less powerful governments, such as India, have no similar legislation. Soon, India's population will surpass China's and become the largest on Earth.

Overpopulation will probably be one of the greatest catalysts for conflict in the coming century. Perhaps our wars of political vengeance and land seizure will seem petty to the 21st-century warrior, who will fight for such basic commodities as water and food. Maybe our ultimate downfall will not be the result of some technological monstrosity (à la nuclear holocaust,) but merely our expanding presence. Cold statistics are used to justify deer hunting. If deer weren't hunted, resources and living space would be spread so thin that even more of them would die. Such a disturbing calculation can be turned against our own race. If the population trend continues, in 100 years Earth will house 12 billion people living in deplorable conditions. However, according to one ecologist, if the population dropped to two billion by 2100, everyone would have a comfortably high standard of living.

These facts are not easy to reconcile. How does one speak of people in terms of billions and still maintain a sense of humanity? Are better living conditions worth the cost of 10 billion future lives? And how does one enact regulatory measures in third-world nations with governments too weak to enforce them? The prospect of population control is staggering, and by all reasonable accounts unsolvable. People will continue to procreate, multiply, and spread. Poor countries will become poorer as their populations grow exponentially and any vestige of resource management will crumble as people fight for basic necessities like food and water.

Of course, an optimist could argue that our technology will keep up with our numbers and that mankind will find a way to subsist and survive. But this is not true. The Green Revolution is over. We aren't growing any more food than we were in 1983. Genetically-engineered food has only gotten us so far. Widespread famine is almost inevitable, and with that comes the possibility of an even more destructive outcome: world war. Yes, with the new millennium around the corner, doomsday predictions have been popping up at a sickening rate. Yet a famine war is a real possibility if third-world political structures remain as weak as they are. While the six-billionth child is at once a testament to mankind's progress, she is surely also a sign of its doom.

Recent Herald Columns by this Columnist:
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• News media: just a bad action movie, 10/1/99
• Pining for a real conspiracy, 9/17/99
• Coping with foolishness after Columbine, 9/3/99

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