Reuse and Recycle

Let’s face it, with the exception of little bits of debris dragged through the Earth’s atmosphere by her gravitational field, everything we have is basically matter that has been recycled; the water we drink has probably been everywhere in the globe at one point or another, and already been drunk by countless other creatures. Minerals, proteins, and other substances vital to our survival comes from bio-matter that has already been processed by thousands upon thousands of people and animals before us.

This leads to a simple, inescapable truth; our resources, though renewable to an extent, are in no way unlimited, or inexhaustible.

The Normal Problem

Poverty and hunger today isn’t due to a lack of resources, but rather because these existing resources are poorly distributed. There are several reasons for this;

-The planet’s varied climate means that some parts of the globe are fertile, with abundant flora and fauna to support the occupants, while others border on wastelands, where survival requires a great deal more effort.

-Existing borders formed by countries forms a “we” and “they” mentality; Canada will, naturally, share some of its resources with less privileged countries via charities and even some federal programs, but this does not mean that we have given up enough to have a noticeable impact upon our own economy, or comfort.

-Within a country, particularly those whom use capitalism as an economic model, money is (generally,) given in proportion to the amount you contribute to the rest of the population, be it via business, entertainment, or military enlistment. This is meant, in part, as a model to keep a society thriving, and growing; if you are going to receive the same amount of money no matter how much (or how little,) you work, then you may be inclined to just hang on the coattails of society; how many people would feel like mopping floors in an elementary school if their survival didn’t depend on it?

Naturally, those who either have superior skills, or find themselves in a more advantageous position to profit, will end up with a great deal more money than the rest of society.

Simple enough, right? The answer would be to somehow enforce productivity, and still ensure that every man, woman and child on the planet leads fairly prosperous lives, regardless of their job, geographical position, etc.

But what happens when we “run out”?

Population

Yes, as stated previously, our food and water supplies are essentially renewable; were they not, we would have all starved thousands of years ago. The problem, therefore, is what will happen when the resources that the planet can offer is no longer sufficient to support our rising population, regardless of how much we spread it around?

Unless we want to go through long periods of starvation, we would need to ensure that at least half the planet’s natural resources were in a state of recycling at any one time, to guarantee we’d have a relatively steady supply of food.

Our planet is only so large; it has only so much to go around, and as the human population rises sharply, those resources continue to dwindle. We might not have noticed quite so much because the populations of many animals species have plummeted since we invented guns, (I’m sure it’s just a coincidence,) leaving less competition for resources. But, at the rate our population is rising, eventually there will simply be too few of us.

Of course, first we should ask why our population seems to be on such a rise…

Prosperity

Yes, despite the poverty and world hunger, the human race is nonetheless one of the most dominant on land; ironically, what we have to fear most in the way of predators is each other. How many species can say that?

With plentiful resources, it’s only natural that our species reproduce; all talk of valuing a family aside, it’s a basic impulse that helps perpetuate the human race; it’s the reason we haven’t died out. We will continue growing in numbers as long as there are, for most of us, enough resources to support such growth; of course, there have been some factors that have slowed this population rise. In our path to becoming prosperous and rich, many couples are having very few children, or even no children at all. Despite this, however, babies are being born, and at a greater rate than older humans are dying, which of course leads to the next point…

Longer Life Spans

Due to advances in medical care, nutrition, and being surrounded with less stress, humans are living longer and healthier lives. This is, of course, a good thing; I, personally, would rather live to one hundred than to fifty. Nonetheless, there is a small downside to this occurrence; namely, there are a great deal more humans around, with the birth rate far outpacing the rate of deaths.

Indeed, as the baby boom generation slowly inches towards the age of retirement, there will come a time when the younger generation finds themselves supporting an extremely large number of elderly men and women; thanks to nursing homes, private care, and doctors, natural selection has been kicked out of the equation.

War

It’s a bit ironic that some of our largest leaps forward in technology and sociology have been either while in competition with another nation, or even in out-and-out war. The threat of death and destruction is more than sufficient to get human beings leaping into action; scientists turn their attention to keeping one step ahead of the competition, countries become more unified (if the war is successful,) and after the battles have died down, there is generally a massive population surge.

The reason for that is simple enough; being reminded of one’s own mortality spurs one to try and reproduce as much as humanly possible, to keep your genetic code in the gene pool. With the possible exception of a truly devastating war, it’s likely that conflicts from here on in will only serve to give our population small boosts, as soldiers returning home settle down and work on having families with their spouses.

So… What Can We Do?

Assuming that our population does reach this too-large number, there are several possible solutions. The first is already implemented, to an extent, in China; a limit upon the number of children that can be had in a single family. Of course, the fact that this is a limit on children and not births just means that we have a higher percentage of abandoned girls, as many Chinese families prefer to have the economic support from birthing a boy. Still, properly implemented, such a restriction could slow, or even reduce, the strain on our resources.

The second, a bit more outlandish, is colonizing other worlds; of course, this would require several massive advancements in life support systems, propulsion, navigation, and probably recreational facilities. Still, giant generational ships, implementing similar birth control restrictions until they reach some new, inhabitable world, is a possibility; assuming, of course, that some method of faster-than-light or cryogenic stasis technology is not first discovered.

The third, which is somehow both more and less unbelievable, is discovering some manner to make use of resources in our own solar system; with minerals, gases, abundant solar energy and who knows what else scattered across the other planets and asteroid belt, it may be possible to devise a method to convert the inanimate ores and gases into biomatter, which could be used to help support our civilizations; this might require some method of manipulating atomic and molecular structures, however, which is at the moment out of our grasp.

The fourth is not so much a solution as a possible outcome; it’s likely that some organized nation will work to horde the available resources to themselves, taking it by force if necessary. If the rest of the world reacts with similar displays of force… well, let’s just say overpopulation won’t be an issue any longer…