The beautiful cover art on this issue was originally printed on the cover of the October 1969 issue of the magazine that featured a story titled, “Multiply and Subdue the Earth…” For this special flashback article, the original has been reprinted on our website.
At that point in time, the author, Susan O’Toole, described the problem of overpopulation as “unpleasant and dangerously underrated.” She also discussed one of the biggest concerns of overpopulation (at the time), which was how everyone was going to be fed. She cites Dr. Paul Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb who predicted in his book published in 1968 that massive famine will overtake the human population, “certainly in the early 80’s” and that it was then, “too late to take action to save many of those people.” According to the National Geographic Society however, the reason that mass starvation did not take as many lives as Ehrlich predicted in the 80’s and even still today, was because of “The green revolution—a combination of high-yield seeds, irrigation, pesti- cides, and fertilizers that enabled grain production to double.”
In this right, we figured out a way to dismantle the mass famine “bomb” Ehrlich predicted but not without consequence to the Earth’s environment. According to a paper published by the Pesticide Safety Education Program at Cornell University in 2008, modern farming practices produce eroded soil which “clogs streams, rivers, lakes, and reservoirs, resulting in increased flooding, decreased reservoir capacity, and destruction of habitats for many species of fish and other aquatic life.” It also mentions that excessive erosion “threatens productivity over the long term.” This begs the question of whether or not the green revolution has just been a temporary fix and if modern farming practices are going to be sustainable for our still growing population in the future. O’Toole quickly dismisses farming the sea and colonizing the moon in the 1969 article but it is becoming clear that outside of the box ideas such as these is what we may have to start considering to keep our children’s mouths fed. A more prominent problem of overpopulation in 2011 as opposed to 1969 is how the population is distributed over years of age. According to the “State of World Population 2011” report published by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), “While women are on average having fewer children than they were in the 1960s, our numbers continue to rise.” and “Globally, people are younger—and older—than ever before.” The problems this age spectrum causes however, is very different in the developed versus the still developing countries of the world. Low fertility rates in the richest countries is a concern for “sustained economic growth and the viability of social security systems,” while in the poorest countries, high fertility rates, “hamper development and perpetuate poverty” the UNFPA says.
Despite some scary revelations in this report, the UNFPA has a very optimistic attitude, their motto being “We are 7 billion people with 7 billion possibilities.” Our species’ awareness of this ‘growing’ problem is most de#nitely more prevalent than it was in the 60’s. Hopefully we can continue to develop technologies that are not only quick fixes for the problems caused when mother nature pushes back, but that are sustainable for thousands of years to come. As the UNFPA says, “our world of 7 billion can have thriving, sustainable cities, productive labour forces that can fuel economic growth, youth populations that contribute to the well-being of economies and societies, and a generation of older people who are healthy and actively engaged in the social and economic affairs of their communities.”
