It is currently estimated that there is sufficient oil in the world to last for about another 40 years, based on the present known supplies and the current rate of consumption. Because this is a strictly limited supply it is inevitable that it will eventually be totally consumed. The cost of oil and oil products will therefore continue to rise. In the next 5 years we may well be paying $5 a gallon for gasoline, in another 20 years $10 or even more. The shortage of gasoline will probably become the first clear warning to most of the people in the industrial nations, that we are depleting our non-replaceable resources. Here in the USA it will demand a complete change in every aspect of our daily life. To many of the third world countries where the motor car is not the universal method of travel, the impact will be much less. In some places it will have almost no effect at all. In Europe many of the villages and towns were built long before the development of the automobile and can still support a pedestrian life style, or function effectively using some form of public transport. Property development here on the USA has been designed around the motor car for over sixty years. In many of our towns and cities life will be extremely difficult without the automobile, in most country and suburban districts it will be impossible and as a consequence we may well see the value of property in these areas plunge to unforeseeable levels.

We have seen test vehicles being developed using electrical power, but then we have to ask ourselves if there is enough of the specific metals available to make the somewhat exotic systems for storing the electrical energy. The vehicles also have to have their storage systems recharged at regular intervals and this will consume power produced from other resources. Solar powered test vehicles have been produced, but have shown such poor performance compared to an ordinary automobile as to be impractical, even when operated in the sunshine of Australia. Fuel cells have been suggested as an alternative source of power for personal transport, but here again they consume energy and materials, and have not yet proved an economical alternative. We have to face the hard fact that once the world’s oil reserves are depleted, it is unlikely that there will be adequate fuel of any kind to enable us to own any form of personal vehicle.  Indeed the past century may well go down in history as the days of personal transport.

We have been extremely wasteful of our reserves of oil and used them as if they were limitless. During the past years there has been little attempt to use oil economically or to try and stretch the supply as far as possible. A few years ago automobiles began to be more fuel efficient until the onset of the SUVs, but since then we have seen the consumption increase. The automobile industry, reacting to its customer demands, has given much more attention to styling, speed and power than to fuel efficiency. In Europe, where taxes push the cost of gasoline to more than double that in the USA, cars generally have much smaller engines and consequently achieve much higher MPG figures.

It appears unlikely that any alternative fuel for our automobiles will be found that can be manufactured in sufficient volume to satisfy the demand. We have seen the possible use of alcohol distilled from corn and other vegetable sources, but this immediately raises the question of where they can be grown, and will the land be available after we have provided enough food to supply our ever growing world population. This is one area where it is very obvious that the number of people in the world will have a very dramatic effect on the life-style of us all. When all our resources are stretched to the limit to provide food, water and housing, there will be little available for the more frivolous aspects of life.

The use of gasoline or diesel fuel for the transport of goods is the common method of shipping products and materials around the country. When these sources of energy are depleted it is difficult to see what alternatives can take their place. Natural gas can be used but that too is a limited and non-replaceable resource and will ultimately come to an end. Rail offers an alternative transport method using electrical power, but although electricity can be obtained from renewable resources, the question remains as to whether we can produce enough from these sources for all our needs. This is where we will surely see an impressive growth in atomic energy. The objections to the use of atomic power will disappear when it becomes the main source of electricity.

Another major transport user of oil products is the airplane. In less than a century this has developed from a rather impractical invention into a major form of travel. Millions of people and hundreds of tons of goods are carried each year by the airlines, in a fast, safe, system. Our planes however consume millions of gallons of fuel. There is no suggestion that any alternative fuel supply can be provided when the oil resources are depleted. Hydrogen has been briefly mentioned, but that demands a great deal of electrical power to generate and store. We must begin to recognize that as the oil supply becomes reduced we will first see a steady increase in the cost of flying until eventually it will be out of the reach of the ordinary man. This will finally lead to the almost total cessation of air travel.

With no gasoline for the automobile and no fuel for the airplanes, we will have to turn to other forms of transport that do not rely on the world’s oil supply. There will without doubt be a resurgence of the steam train, fueled by the limited but more plentiful supply of coal, but this will inevitably become depleted and also raise questions regarding pollution, and the steps required complying with environmental requirements that may then eat into other resources. Unless it is possible to find sources of energy that today are totally unknown, it appears likely that we will have to revert to some very fundamental means of transport. Here again the number of people in this world will determine exactly what can be done.

Oil is also the source of the fuel for the many ships that move the millions of tons of goods safely and cheaply across the oceans of the world, and there is no alternative that can be obtained from our renewable resources in the quantities required. This problem is rarely mentioned when the depletion of the oil supply is discussed. Coal was used for many years to fuel the steam boilers in the early ships and could possible still be used for this purpose. Of course the coal supply will eventually become exhausted and can only be considered as a temporary measure. It seems that we may well have to return to wind as our primary source of power at sea. A very more advanced method of using the wind than the old square rigged ships, but essentially we will be back to the era of sail. Atomic power can be used to power the larger vessels, but this will be much more costly and will hardly be practical for the smaller ships. The lack of oil for this work will probably become one of the most critical fields and the results will spread into almost every aspect of life.

The chemical industry is also one of the major consumers of oil and products derived from oil. We therefore have to accept that in the future we may see the end of many of the plastics, solvents and other items derived from this source. In some cases alternatives may become available. We can all use paper bags once again rather than plastic to haul our groceries, we can return to the plantations for our source of rubber rather than the synthetic rubber produced from oil. But there are many materials, such as most of the plastics that will be difficult to obtain from our replaceable resources. For example no more vinyl siding for our homes, it will have to be replaced with wood, which then eats into another resource. So once again there is no simple or easy answer and if the world’s population is not controlled we will be totally unable to provide the resources necessary to maintain our current way of life.

The ramifications here are enormous and "life without plastics" seems almost impossible. However a less sophisticated life style was possible before the days of the automobile and before the use of plastics from oil became common place. It appears very likely that we will have to return to these simpler days, at least until industry and science has developed alternative materials made from our replaceable resources. However it is now very clearly obvious that these resources are limited and food, shelter and the necessities of life will without doubt have to take first place. The number of people in the world will determine whether we will have any resources left over for such items as personal transport and other non-essential items. The present world population is already stressing our resources to and producing more pollution than nature can handle.

Another major use of oil is for the generation of power. Early power stations used coal as their source of energy, but the demand for the reduction of smokestack emissions coupled with a simpler delivery system, made many change over to oil as an alternative. Some could probably return to coal, but for many power stations there is no alternative and they will be forced to shut down during the coming fifty years. Similarly we have to realize that natural gas is a limited resource, and the power systems that rely on this as a source of energy are also slated to grind to a halt in the not too distant future. Atomic energy will doubtless fill the void until other systems are developed, but it is extremely unlikely that anything can replace oil for cost and ease of use.

Millions of homes, offices and factories are heated with oil or natural gas. We have already seen the steady increase in the costs of these fuels, which will undoubtedly continue. Unfortunately there seems little possibility of developing any alternatives. Certainly electrical heating can be installed but unless the world’s population can be drastically reduced it is unlikely that sufficient power can be generated from our replaceable resources. Wood was used for years when the world population was very much smaller and is still a viable method of heating, but this would very quickly decimate our forests. We now see corn being used as a fuel, but here again when we have to make the choice between food and fuel; it is unlikely that heating will be found to be the most important function. The shortage of heating fuel may ultimately cause a population shift towards the warmer climates of the south, with only those people necessary to grow the crops remaining in the colder northern areas. Here again there are many areas of research into efficient thermal building design that may eventually make this move unnecessary

Eventually all our non-replaceable resources will come to an end. Many can be extended far into the future by the effective use of recycling. For example if our supply of iron ore was depleted today, we could find enough scrap iron and steel to maintain industry for many years. Oil however cannot be recycled. The exhaust gasses from a car cannot be recombined to provide more gasoline, the effluent from a chemical plant cannot be returned in the form of oil. One of the more important tasks ahead of us is to develop an action program that will review every possible use of our oil supplies and ask what we can do to extend their life. We also have to ask if there is an alternative material we can use when the oil supply is finally exhausted. If none can be found, then we must understand how we will continue to function without the service or material that it provided.

 Chapter 8.      Water, Electricity and Pollution.

Water, Electricity and Pollution are so closely intertwined that it is practically impossible to consider any one of them individually. Electricity pumps our water supplies, yet a great deal of electricity is generated using oil or natural gas as the fuel and this inevitably produces pollution. Some electricity is powered from our dammed up rivers that also provide drinking water for our cities and irrigation for our crops. Electricity powers the oil pumping and refining systems, yet the emissions from our power stations and industry pollute the water supply.

Here again there is no simple answer to any of the problems that are inherent in this situation. However before the supply of natural gas and oil begins to falter we will have to develop other methods of generating electricity. We will also have to seek new sources of energy that will be required if we are to keep the water flowing to our cities as long as possible. Two facts cannot be disputed. First the supplies of gas and oil are finite and even if new sources are discovered, they will be exhausted within the lifetime of many of us. Second, the continuously growing population is bringing that day ever nearer. In other words we have less and less time to plan the lifestyle that will allow our children to live with the reduced, fixed amount of energy available from replaceable resources. This planning of course becomes much more difficult as the population grows, because this amount of energy cannot be increased.

We have to accept the fact that within the lifetime of many us living today, we will consume all of the oil and most of the natural gas that exists on this planet. Whether that time is 40 or 50 years is really quite immaterial. In spite of the extremely vocal opposition against the use of atomic energy, this may well be the only source of power that will be readily available for some time to come, and will probably have to fill the gap until other sources are developed. What is vitally important is for us to accept the hard fact that eventually our civilization will have to function using only the replaceable sources of energy that exist in the world. The rate at which these resources can be replaced is finite and there is little or nothing that man can do to change this.

We have to determine just how many people the world can sustain based on this rate of replacement. The only sources of replaceable power are from the sun, wind, rivers, the earth and the ocean. With oil and gas totally depleted, and the end of the supply of coal and possibly atomic power rapidly approaching, we have to calculate just how much electricity we can generate from these sources. Eventually they will be the only sources of power readily available. The estimates to date vary wildly and more work needs to be carried out to provide reasonably accurate figures. For example it has been proposed that wind power alone can produce all the energy needed by the USA, but the estimate does not say what population level this figure is based on. We also have to recognize that like many other natural sources of energy, wind power is not constant but varies according to the weather. This then infers that some form of power storage will have to be developed to assure a stable supply, and we have to consider the inter connections that will be required between the various "wind-farms". We also have to know the land area required for the wind power system, including power storage, and just how much this will leave for growing food, timber and other necessary supplies.

Tidal power has been tried experimentally for many years but has to date never proved economically feasible. With the increase in the price of natural oil and gas and their eventual depletion, this may change and tidal power may offer a sound source of energy. One British scientist claims that by constraining the waters between the North of Scotland and the Orkney Isles, enough tidal power could be generated to supply all of the U.K. This however remains to be proven. Solar power offers a potentially clean source of energy, but here again, up till this time it has not provided an economic alternative to fossil fuels, and requires a comparatively large land area for its installation. Here again, as the cost of fossil fuels steadily increases, solar power may appear a much more practical option.

As with wind power, the variability of solar energy, not only between day and night, but with clouds and sunshine, demands that an appropriate power storage system be developed if the supplies are to remain constant. The connections between the generation sites and the storage system then become of utmost importance. The storage systems complicate the issue, and to date several systems have been tried but no truly efficient method of storing energy in large quantities has been developed. For example In the UK pumped water storage was tried experimentally. Excess power was used to pump water into a lake high up in the mountains of Scotland. When power was required the water was taken from the lake, generating hydroelectric power. High speed flywheels operating in a vacuum have been suggested as a storage system, or using the excess electricity to generate hydrogen that can then be used to power internal combustion machines. At the moment however there is no unanimous decision as the best method of storing power.

We must also accept the fact that in the far distant future, unless we are careful in the recycling of our scrap materials, there may be insufficient copper, steel or other metals to make the generators and the power lines. In that case, unless science has invented some alternatives we may eventually have to function without electricity. However this is so far into the future that for the moment we will not even consider this problem, although it shows the need to recycle all our materials to keep that day as far away as possible..

Water is required by our society for many purposes, but two are absolutely essential. To provide the moisture that is necessary to grow our crops, and to provide clean drinking water. There is no worldwide shortage of water but it is unevenly available and to move water from one place to another requires a considerable amount of energy and in the near future all of this energy will have to come from our limited renewable resources. Some of our most important farming districts lie in areas with a limited water supply, and are currently irrigated from underground aquifers demanding the use of considerable energy for pumping the water. In order to increase food production these aquifers have been pumped relentlessly and as a consequence are severely depleted. In these areas we may no longer be able to provide the power required to draw water from these deep wells and we will have to limit our use to the amount of water that nature can provide in the form of rain. In many cases we will soon totally deplete the deep aquifers and it will take many years for them to regenerate. Inevitably these actions will reduce the amount of food that we can continue to grow in these fields.

In some of the dryer areas of the world, it is only through the use of large amounts of energy that the major centers of population are provided with water. Israel for example has dramatically drawn down the aquifer that for centuries provided water, and new sources have had to be developed including the de-salination of sea-water. In some of the Arabian states this is the only method of producing drinking water, and it is difficult to see how this can be continued when the supplies of oil and natural gas that power these systems are exhausted. These problems have come about simply because of the tremendous growth in the population of these areas.

In this country, the water supply for the city of El Peso has relied for many years on the underground aquifer that also supplies the neighboring Mexican city of Juarez. This aquifer has been drawn down until some wells have had to be closed. The Rio Grande River has become so polluted and so much water is taken for agriculture that both cities are facing a major water shortage in the coming years. Without the power to pump, filter and treat the water, these cities face a difficult future. No one even mentions the fact that the population of these cities has rocketed in the past few years, and there is never any suggestion that the population of this desert area should be limited to a number that can be adequately sustained by the replaceable water supplies.

With a supply of electricity that is limited to that generated from replaceable resources, it may be necessary to limit the way that water is used in non-essential purposes. It seems likely that here in the USA we will be able to provide sufficient water for drinking and personal requirements, except in some of the dryer western states, especially in the more densely populated cities. One of the first forms of population control may well be to limit the number of people living in these centers, simply because of the cost in energy that is required to provide an adequate water supply.

Our present overpopulation is polluting the water supply in many areas and if we can reduce the number of people living in those places we will obviously ease this situation. However until we can arrive at an acceptable number, and enforce this limitation of the population, we have to recognize the cost in both replaceable and non-replaceable resources to control this pollution level. It will only be when the population is lessened that we will be able to relax the very tight environmental restrictions that are presently applied to these areas.

Today it is impossible to pick up any newspaper without seeing several articles relating to the degree of pollution that is damaging our environment. These range from the worldwide "global warming" that is threatening to cause melting of the ice cap at the North and South poles, to local smog from automobiles. One recent study shows that pollution from automobiles eventually kills more people than those who die from car accidents. Not only is pollution damaging to the animal and plant life of our world, it is costing us resources that we can ill afford, in an attempt to limit the harm it is causing. From catalytic converters on our automobiles to filters in factory smoke stacks, and filtration systems in our drinking water supplies, these systems attempt to reduce the problems caused by pollution but totally ignore the basic cause. Too many people struggling for the limited resources of our world inevitably generate this pollution both directly and indirectly.

The pollution levels must certainly be corrected, but we never see any sign of concern for the ultimate cause of all of this pollution, indeed it seems to be taboo to even suggest the fact that there are too many people in the world. There is a certain degree of contamination that nature can accept and correct without any assistance from mankind, but we have now far exceeded that limit and all our corrective actions are essential. Unfortunately most of these demand the use of power, and other limited materials. We are not solving the problem, merely delaying the ultimate results of overpopulation by consuming our non-replaceable resources at an ever-increasing speed.

The effect of "greenhouse gasses" on the increasing "global warming" is well known and the subject of considerable debate at the very highest levels of government. What is never even mentioned is the heating effect of another few million people. Yet here is a direct source of warming of the environment. We have all experienced the rising temperature when there is insufficient ventilation in a room full of people. We all know how hot we can get when we wear too many clothes. The heat that each of us generates is added to the environment twenty-four hours a day, and is the equivalent of switching on several large electric light bulbs for every person added to the population. For every additional million people in the world, the heat generated is equivalent to switching on several thousand electric heaters. Irrespective of whether we believe that smoke stack gasses affect the temperature of the environment, there can be no doubt that more people in the world means more direct heating of the environment.

Similarly all human beings directly generate waste that amounts to millions of tons every day. This is not a pleasant subject of conversation, but has to be considered. Some human waste is duly processed and the effluent is then pumped into the rivers and oceans. While this does not normally contain any directly dangerous materials, it can and does affect the water composition, causing changes to the plant, fish and animal life as the latest report on pollution in the oceans explains. However by far the largest amount of waste is merely deposited into the earth and it is left to the bugs in the soil to eventually break this waste down into harmless and useful products. There is a limit to the amount of waste that the earth can effectively break down, and of course using a sewage system requires power and the expenditure of non-replaceable resources. Even then the effluent has ultimately to be pumped into our rivers and oceans where it often causes pollution problems.

It becomes very obvious that as the number of people in the word increases, we reach a point at which the natural system can no longer take care of this waste. Depending on our ability to generate enough electricity from renewable resources, we may or may not be able to provide sewage systems to all needing this service. This then is another area where the number of people in this world has a very direct effect on the consumption of non-replaceable resources, and in turn our ability to use the replaceable resources efficiently has a direct effect on the number of people the world can support indefinitely.

From the examples discussed above there can be no doubt whatever that overpopulation is consuming the world’s non-replaceable resources at an unacceptable rate. If this continues then we will have little or no time to configure our civilization to function with only our replaceable resources. The result will be chaos as peoples fight for the limited resources. If however we can control the number of people in the world, we may still have an opportunity to make the change in a controlled, civilized and efficient manner.

In the previous chapters we have discussed three very simple facts.

1). Many of our world resources are finite and will eventually become depleted.

2). Some of these resources will become exhausted in the near future.

3). The continuously growing population is rapidly polluting the environment.

The steps that have to be taken if we wish our civilization to continue have been shown to be much more complex than they first appear. However when we begin to factor in the politics of our world the problems become even more complicated. The outcome of any particular action is almost impossible to forecast, as now we are dealing with people, attitudes, prejudices, and power which ultimately affect our very lives.

Inevitably as some resources become depleted, the countries that own them will increase the price to the rest of the world. We can hardly complain, for many years we have touted competitive capitalism as the superior method of distributing our resources. We are already seeing the weakness of this philosophy with the oil producing countries that are steadily escalating the cost of this product. We complain about the present cost of gasoline, but in a capitalist society this must be expected to increase as the supplies becomes reduced and at least it begins to give us a hint of what lies in store as the supply starts to become exhausted. We have heard the rhetoric that resulted from the last increase in the cost of oil and these cost increases will continue until the oil supply is exhausted.

Now look ahead another twenty years and consider what is likely to occur as OPEC reduces output and the cost of gasoline in our country reaches $20 per gallon. This may well trigger off a demand for military action as the politicians in the more prosperous countries struggle to retain the support of their people and their votes by maintaining the supply of fuel. We are already seeing the changes in the social conditions in India and China that are resulting in a growing demand for personal transport in those countries and they will obviously enter the competition for the remaining oil supplies. The added growth in the world’s population during the next twenty years will only inflame the situation.

The outcry from the shortage of gasoline will fade into nothing compared to the demands for food as the world population grows and we find that we are unable to meet the demand. As oil becomes scarcer, the cost of producing, storing and transporting our food will rise and as a consequence so will the price of the food. The shortage of oil will also cut back on the use of machines in the fields, which will also inevitably reduce the food supply. The depletion of the aquifers in many regions will limit the water available for irrigation. As the population grows, it will become more difficult to make the choice between producing hydro-electrical power, or providing water for our cities and agriculture. These factors alone will inevitably reduce the amount of food that can be produced in the world.

Now consider the outcry when the peoples of the major food producing nations are asked to limit their demand for food so that the people of some of the other countries can be fed. Already there is famine in many parts of the world. This at present is only happening in comparatively small areas of the Third World and in little known countries. There is little publicity on the plight of these peoples and they are largely ignored, although hundreds of thousands of people die each year from starvation. We have shipped food to some countries when they have requested assistance, but in almost every case this has been from our surplus supplies. No one here in the USA has gone short of food as a consequence of these acts.

However as the world’s population continues to grow, and we steadily use up our non-replaceable resources, it is inevitable that we will eventually reach the point where we can no longer provide enough food for ourselves and keep others supplied as well. This will then raise the extremely difficult question that our leaders will have to resolve, and that each of us will have to face. Do we reduce our own standard of living to feed others in far off countries of the world?

This is one very good reason why the entire question of limiting the world’s population has to come out into the open. This is not a problem that will affect one or two nations. It will affect every person on this planet. We are all responsible for the present situation, we will all have to work together to produce a satisfactory solution. Very soon the effects of the ever-increasing number of people will be even more evident than they are today. We will have to take action now or it will be too late because it takes time for the reduction in the number of births to take effect. We must clearly demonstrate the danger that will soon strike the world from overpopulation, and then we must persuade the people to take action. This will intrude on the private lives of us all but may be necessary to hammer home the fact that our world does not posses limitless resources and that we are using up those that are available at an ever increasing rate. This is where the political attitudes of our leaders will become critical.

If we look at our situation in very simple terms the problem becomes extremely clear. Imagine that we are a small team of six people who have been sent to carry out a long term survey on a small remote island where we will probably be cut off from the rest of the world for several years. We have brought with us sufficient food and water to last for twelve months by which time we must have dug a well to provide drinking water, and planted seed to provide food.

At the end of the first month, two survivors from a wrecked ship swim ashore onto the beach. We feel that by careful use of our resources we can absorb them into our party, and they can assist us by helping to dig the well and plant the fields. But then a few weeks later another shipwreck drives two more survivors onto the island. This time we find it much more difficult to absorb them into the group, but by cutting back on our rations of food and water we can all survive until the well is completed and the fields are productive. However during the next month a further four survivors arrive and there is no way that we can all live off the food and water available. If we try to provide for them we risk inadequate food and water for us all. Then in our weakened state the well will never be completed or the fields planted and few if any of us will survive. In addition we will have to eat the corn that has been brought for planting in the fields so that no food will be grown. In other words we have limited resources, our food and water that must keep us alive until we can organize our renewable resources, our well and our growing fields of corn. Each additional person reduces the resources available to the remainder. This is precisely the status in our civilization today, but because of the number of people involved it is difficult to see clearly the effect of another one of two million people. However, each additional child born into this world reduces the resources that are available to us all. When the population increases by 50%, the resources available to the rest of us are cut in half, and the amount of contamination is doubled.

We have a choice. On the one hand we can recognize that this is a worldwide problem and work together to reduce the world’s population in a controlled and humane manner. In this way we can extend our civilization as long as possible and provide our people with a happy and contented way of life. On the other hand we can do nothing and hope that the world’s population will fall in some ill-defined way. It is hardly likely that this will occur in time to avoid the famine and power shortages that will devastate our way of life. We must begin now to assure total cooperation between countries, otherwise it is inevitable that the struggle between different societies as they try to obtain some of the world’s limited resources for their people will decimate the world’s population.

The ultimate result will be the same. A drastic reduction in the number of people in the world. If done in an organized, co-operative manner it need not physically harm anyone. It may require quite dramatic changes in attitudes and beliefs, but the alternatives are too horrible to be accepted. Millions of people dying, not only from starvation, but also from the bombs and weapons of invading and defending forces as they struggle to control the limited resources of food and materials.

So we can see that what at first appears to be a very simple matter of persuading people to minimize their families can quickly become an enormous political problem. The longer we continue to do nothing, the more difficult the problem becomes. If we delay much longer there will not be enough time to take the controlled humane approach. The questions for the politicians will then become difficult and partisan. Continue to retain the support of the voters or ration the supply of power and food to the citizens of the USA so that other countries can take their share of the world’s resources? What happens when there is insufficient food for the world’s entire population? Who decides who will starve?

A far more immediate question relates to the controls that will be necessary if our society is to survive the forthcoming shortages. Gasoline and other oil products appear to be the first to fall under this category. We have for many years promoted and enjoyed a way of life that is based solely on free competition. Indeed such terms as socialism and government control are viewed with a similar hatred to that reserved for dictatorship, fascism and communism. Yet when shortages have occurred in the past, for example with gasoline in WW2, we have not hesitated to install some form of rationing to assure equality for all our people. Similarly we hear the term "socialized medicine" used almost as a term of disgust, yet we eagerly support Medicare and Medicaid. As a nation we have shown compassion for those who are unable to procure the necessities of life for a variety of reasons.

We have also developed a society based on the automobile. Even those citizens applying for government aid because of a low income, are permitted to own their own automobile. Indeed in most places other then the inner cities it is quite impossible to live without a car. Certainly the use of public transport will have to become part of everyone’s daily life, and these services will have to be expanded. All of this will require very tight controls, rationing of gasoline and a change to other forms of energy for those currently using oil and gas to heat their homes.

Similarly it appears that for some time the amount of electricity that can be generated will be limited and some forms of control will be required to assure a supply for personal and essential users. This will see an end to the use of electricity for advertising displays and the bright lights we have been accustomed to in our cities. This shortage will inevitably intrude into our homes and offices and may well eventually call for some form of usage control as we have already seen on occasions in California.

For these forms of energy we will initially see the market forces of higher cost and limited supply affect our way of life, until the cost becomes such that some form of control will be required and ultimately some form of rationing will extend to all users. With these pressures will come a demand from our citizens to take drastic actions and at this point I believe we will begin to see some of the actions necessary to reduce our population to a point where we can all enjoy a reasonable way of life. This pressure will also recognize that we have to rely solely on our renewable resources, and we will begin to work more effectively on improving our electrical supply from such sources as wind, solar, tidal and geo-thermal sources. Whether this will allow a free use of electricity will hinge very much on the number of consumers and therefore the degree to which our world population is reduced.

Of course with a reduction in population it will once again be possible for the hardy souls among us to retire to the wilderness and the old self-reliant way of life. However with the reduction and probable elimination of personal mechanical transport, this will truly become a way of living of two hundred years ago, with little or no contact with any but immediate neighbors. However by using the potential of the computer and other communication systems isolation will be much less of a hardship.

In a previous chapter we discussed at length some of the reasons that made large families the rule in past years, and the fact that some of these pressures still remain today, especially in some of the Third World countries. Yet it is difficult to use these reasons to explain the growing population in some of the more highly educated and skilled communities. The facts are extremely complex and touch on some of the personal beliefs and philosophies that make this subject extremely difficult to discuss with many people.

There is the traditional and common saying "our future lies with our children", and this is certainly true. However when we consider this phrase more carefully we have to agree that if our future is to be prosperous, it refers more to the education and ability of our offspring than to their number. In many of the Third World countries we see so many children who will grow into adults without the benefit of good health, education or the development of any skills. They have not helped to improve the lot of the country as a whole, in fact in many places they have placed an enormous drain on severely limited resources that has pulled down the living standards of everyone.

In spite of this there is still the traditional belief that there is something wrong with a family which does not produce a large number of children. There is also the point in many countries that the size of the family reflects on the virility of the male. In one family, here in the USA, with eighteen children, the husband was very proud of his performance and frequently mentioned how wonderful it was to have so many sons and daughters. In private, his wife only said that the family would have been very much smaller if he had been the one who had been forced to give birth.

There is also the "cuddly" factor that nature has built into our society. In order to enhance their chance of survival, nature makes almost all the young animals extremely attractive to us. We all "Oh" and "Ahh" when we hold a tiny kitten or puppy in our hands and the same feelings wash over us when we see a small child. In our desire to enjoy these very attractive little creatures both animal and human, we frequently ignore the fact that they very quickly grow out of this delightful age. The new baby is just as likely to develop into a Hitler as a Mother Teresa? We often hear favorable comments on how lucky the parents are when the number of children in a family increases, with little or no thought as to their cumulative effect on our society as a whole. Consider the efforts that are made to spay and neuter stray cats and dogs to reduce their numbers and avoid the subsequent cruelty caused by too large a population of these animals. Yet we congratulate ourselves when this growth occurs in the human race.

The reasons why people in our major societies today want large families defy practical discussion. During a conversation regarding family size, one lady explained that she wanted four children, she and her husband could afford them and gave as the reason that she simply liked to have a lot of children around her. Another family initially had two daughters but ended up with a total of five children because the husband was determined to continue having children until they produced a son. These at least were planned births and all the children were well brought up, cared for and educated. However the parents could not comprehend that in having more than two children they were demanding more than their fair share of the world’s resources. At a meeting of environmental activists, one woman could not understand the laughter when she stood up to support a particular proposition and used the following words. "We must do something to stop all this pollution. I have seven children and I want them to have a clean and natural environment when they grow up".

Society as a whole generally admires and congratulates the parents of large families, without truly considering their eventual effect on the standard of life of the world as a whole. This is doubtless the philosophy that remains from the days past when an increasing population guaranteed prosperity and the labor force that was necessary for the growing industries. This philosophy will be extremely difficult to change, although it is very easy to recognize that it no longer applies today. Consider the many unwanted children who are born because of accident or carelessness, and suffer a miserable childhood often leading to a less than happy life. This becomes very obvious when visiting some of the Third World countries. The hundreds of small children to be seen, lacking food, clothing and medical care, who will grow up with little or no education, can do nothing to lift up their families, indeed they will only drag the population further into poverty and starvation.

We also have the various religious factions that view large families as the requisite way of life demanded by their spiritual leaders. We have all heard the phrase "Be fruitful and multiply", and when this was written it was very obviously one of the duties of the faithful. But that was centuries ago when the death rate among infants was extremely high and the world’s population was a small percentage of what it is today. During the intervening years the population of the world has increased so enormously that from any reasoned viewpoint this phrase is now totally ridiculous. Indeed if we honestly look at the facts today, for the sake of us all, it is our duty to minimize the impact of the growing world population by keeping our families within the limits that will not overburden our rapidly diminishing resources.

Many of us will find the idea of deliberately limiting our family as intrusive and extremely difficult to accept, but the alternative is much worse and cannot even be considered. Of course we will have to assure our population that the lack of a large family will not affect their standard of life when they become old and possibly infirm and this will involve some kind of universal care program for the elderly. Once this fear no longer exists then there is no longer any practical reason for wanting a large family except the very personal and private desire to be surrounded with our children. But in producing a larger than replacement size family we reduce the standard of living for every other family in the world. We are not advancing our civilization by having more children, we are merely grabbing more than our fair share of the dwindling resources of the world.

We have to control the natural desire to produce more children so that we can maintain the stable level of population that the world can effectively support. We hear of the tremendous cost of the medical resources that are used to attempt to produce a child when the normal process fails. We see cases of post menopausal women demanding artificial implantation of fertilized eggs, we hear of the use of surrogate fathers and mothers. Yet the world is full of orphans and other unfortunate children who need a home, parents and the love and support they can give. These artificial attempts to produce a child are surely the epitome of selfishness, especially when our world is already overpopulated.

There then comes the concern that some groups, be they for purposes of religion, politics, race or merely the desire for power, will pressure their people to have large families so as to exceed the population of other groups, and thus take control of a particular society. One small religious enclave in New Jersey proudly declared that they guided their followers to have at least 18 children in each family. We have seen this occur in the past, and to some extent it continues today especially among some religions. This is probably one of the most difficult aspect of the entire problem and suggests that we will be unable to solve the problems of overpopulation and limited world resources until we can obtain worldwide agreement.

If world agreement cannot be found, then the only alternative is for those countries that manage to control their population to put up the walls around their borders and strictly regulate the flow of immigrants. It is only natural for people in the less well organized countries to wish to live in a place that offers a good standard of life. But uncontrolled immigration will eventually bring all countries down to the same level. Surely it becomes the responsibility of each country to stabilize their population growth and provide the lifestyle their people desire. It can hardly be considered fair for a country that does not control its population to permit its people to flood into a country that has managed to limit its rate of population growth. However if the world population continues to grow at the present rate, the flood of people may be such that even well guarded boundaries will not keep them out.

There appears to be no logical reasons therefore, other than selfish desires, for producing large families today. However we have to recognize that the old emotions and the natural feelings demand very strict self-control if we are to maintain a stable population in the world. This requires education and publicity to assist in the struggle, and possibly incentives in some form or other to reward those who voluntarily limit their families. Perhaps as a start we should offer the standard income tax reduction for the first child born into a family, which should be reduced by half for the second but then becomes a tax increase for the third child increasing further for each additional child.