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Humanity's weight

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By Richard Ruffin

British television presenter David Attenborough said that he could not think of a single human problem that could not be solved with fewer people.

Well, I can. How about management of information? Surely there would not be so many Gates, Jobs and Zuckerburgs born had there not been a pool of billions of human beings from which to choose in the first place.

But then again, perhaps one would not need all these thousands of smart phone applications and social messaging sites had the human population not mushroomed to the current 7 billion it is today, up from less than 3 billion when I was born.

How many people die trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea each year, month, week or day, on their way to a better life in Europe?

How many people die riding in the backs of trucks on their way to a better life in Europe?

How many more images of children clutching teddy bears crawling under barbed wire on their way to a better life in Europe can we see?

One of the things that education teaches us is that we should not bring more people into this world if we cannot be good parents, providing them with needed guidance, love and financial support.

But that guidance and financial support seem to be missing in large parts of the world.

How many more stories of children being raised in broken homes can one stand to hear?

There are currently enough people in the world to cause every social problem known to man. Refugees run wild, deforestation galore, climate change like never before. And among all this chaos, we have unmarried, unemployed persons with too many children trying to find some person or government official responsible for their current plight.

Last night I saw the dark side of humanity's track on this Earth.

A Southeast Asian nation was trying to deal with countless tons of garbage, while at the same time employing a faulty infrastructure to do so. The cleanup, somewhat successful, was a lesson in the sheer perseverance of the human spirit. It was also a lesson in what too many people leave behind.

This documentary would have made most people sick.

Take Seoul's subway. Have you ever experienced a crowded subway at peak commuting time? What comes into your mind when it becomes clear that sheer numbers of people have made it impossible to move? Does one simply fold in one's wings and allow the weight of the crowd to carry one up the stairs?

Fortunately, South Korea is one of the countries in the world where a declining population will eventually open much needed space ― space to breathe, space to relax. Space to breathe. Space to collect one's thoughts. Space to breathe.

But most countries, due to low standards of living and ignorance, continue to encourage people to have more babies.

Babies are great, but they must be provided with the requisite love, care and financial support, things that are in short supply in our overcrowded world.

In the meantime, politicians, economists and governments tell us to have more babies for "the sake of the economy," they say.

It is all they know ― or wish ―to do.

The writer currently lives in Thailand, where there is still a little room to breathe. His email address is rick.ruffin@gmail.com.



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