The healthcare industry has greatly contributed to humanity by improving the standard of life. With a remedy for almost every health problem, the feeling of security among humans is at its highest. The progress in healthcare further enhances this feeling. It promises increased efficiency levels, increased employment, higher income and purchasing power. The higher potential of a human seems to ease the path to success. This view, according to me, is extremely myopic. By looking at the long-term impact of this industry at a deeper level, one will realize that it is the primary cause of the high growth rate of the human population.
How can caring for our health reduce the potential of the society to sustain itself? When we take remedies for the myriad number of diseases, we are deceiving nature and increasing our life expectancy from what it is supposed to be. With a longer life and an ever-increasing population, the world’s resources are being depleted at an astounding rate. This would inhibit the future generations to meet their own needs. Today, due to the progress in medicine, most of us feel secure. This feeling of security also allows us take the responsibility for more children, who can lend us a helping hand in our endeavors for greater wealth. What we don’t see is that a time will come when the world is saturated with humans and depleted of resources. Already, the rate of population growth is decreasing and is approximately half of what it was by 1970. Once the world is saturated, no one will be able to satisfy his or her personal ambitions. Without any ambition, life would lose its meaning. There is no going back then.
Tracing the population growth curve in the last two centuries, one will realize that it was about 1928 when the first instance of an increased population growth can be identified. During the same year when the world’s first antibiotic, Penicillin was prepared. Since then, innumerable antibiotics have been supplied to the masses. However, the excessive dependence on medicines has made the bacteria genetically stronger through mutations. This is why the rate of population growth is declining. According to the website worldometers by the United Nations, the population growth should only be 0.09% in 2100 meaning an addition of only 10 million people to a total population of 11.2 billion.
The statistics about resource depletion seem to be scarier than they have ever been. According to the website ‘the world counts’, 80 tons of wastewater is produced for every ton of steel produced. The energy used for mining is enough to supply 80% of the world’s electricity use. Furthermore, the website predicts that by the year 2030, the world might only have 10% of rainforests left. With such dwindling resources, what will remain of the human race? All such facts point towards an imminent apocalypse.
For times immemorial, the general motive of humanity has been to prepare the future generations to be successful. While thinking about the prosperity of their children, parents should give thought to the number of children. They should realize that having more children would not increase the chances of success. Rather, having more people in the world would decrease the resources available per capita. It is rightly said that prevention is better than cure. The only solution to the problem of population growth is to prevent the possibility of any situation requiring cure. For such a solution, people should refrain from having more children as it would make everyone worse off in the long run.
I firmly believe that in order to sustain the human race there should be no population growth at all or, preferably, negative growth. Humanity needs a situation where the natality rate is lesser than the mortality rate. I say this because all the predictions about depleting capacity are based on the current pattern of population growth. All of them indicate an increasingly limited world. The last drop of oil is predicted to last till 2050. The last lump of coal is predicted to burn by 2090. The world will never be the same place without such essential commodities. Only when we move out of the current population pattern, will we find a way out from this problem. However, most of the actions, which can be taken to change the pattern, have serious consequences.
If governments remove subsidies from healthcare, the underprivileged would lose their efficiency and, in all probability, their lives. This will serve as a serious blow to the overall level of employment and affect all labour-intensive industries such as construction, agriculture, mining, and food service. Such consequences may lead to a disaster in the economy. Besides affecting the economy, removing subsidies from healthcare will pose an ethical dilemma: whether to support the denizens of the present or the future. Any decision in favour of one could be catastrophic for the other. If governments introduce some variation of the one child policy introduced by China, it would go against the wishes of the public by limiting their freedom. Therefore, such an action is not possible in any democracy. It is only possible in authoritarian political structures. The staunchly liberalist world population will detest the bare thought of such a solution.
The best solution to avoid any kind of dissatisfaction is to subsidise contraceptive devices and educate everyone about the danger of over-population. This solution can have a major impact on the rate of population growth. However, the government will have to bear the cost of subsidies and the education campaigns. Any reluctance to bear the cost will damage even the smallest chance we have to sustain the planet and the human race.
It is high time for everyone to realize that the society will have to bear the consequences of its choices. It is the responsibility of the youth to support the government in such an endeavour. After all, they are the major stakeholders in this situation. In addition, they are most potent to have a real impact on the population trend. To solve this problem, immediate action by the global society is imperative. Unity is necessary in this adversity. It will be in everyone’s best interest to reduce consumption and production and save for the future.
Sources:
http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/
http://www.theworldcounts.com/counters/environmental_effect_of_mining/environmental_impact_of_steel
https://www.ecotricity.co.uk/our-green-energy/energy-independence/the-end-of-fossil-fuels
Do you think funding other means of entertainment in underprivileged areas (such as subsidised movie theatres) would be a much more effective option since the most common reason cited by the economically disadvantaged large families is the lack of other means of entertainment? In a country like India, where talking about 'sex' is a taboo, many people lack basic sexual education and thus are reluctant to use contraceptives even when they are provided with them.