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| Such a good plot twist. |
Lately, it's been very hard for me to find books to read outside of school. Maybe I just don't have the time or patience to stick with it until it becomes interesting. But every once in a while, I find a book that is so gripping I can't put it down and if I do, I can't stop thinking about it. One such book was Inferno by Dan Brown, who is one of my favorite authors. Centered around Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy, the book finds Robert Langdon in Florence as he wakes up in a hospital with a cylinder bearing a biohazard sign and no memory of what happened to him. As he tries to figure out what the heck is going on, he gets wrapped up in a plan woven by an ingenious geneticist, Bertrand Zobrist, who warns obsessively that if the global population isn't checked fast, humanity will find itself in a cesspool of suffering, poverty, and misery in a world that will look just like Dante's inferno.
Inferno got me thinking deeply about the issue of overpopulation, a very pressing one, and since it has to do with the health of our planet and the balance of life, I'm going to explore it some more right here.
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| From The Scientific American, by Hana Ševčíková and Jen Christiansen from September of 2014 |
Worldometers shows a live count of the current population, which as I write is about 7,286,739,000 with nearly 3 million people born this year already. The world's population is growing by about 80 million or 1.14% per year, which seems like a small number, and it's actually projected to decrease to under .5% by 2050. Even at that low growth rate, the UN predicts that global population will reach 8 billion in just ten years, 9 billion by 2042, and will stabilize at about 10 billion by the end of the century.
These numbers frankly scare me, and it certainly seems like Bertrand Zobrist had a point. Just because the population will stabilize at 10 billion doesn't mean it will happen in a positive way or that 10 billion humans will live comfortably on Earth. In nature, overpopulation in ecosystems is usually reversed either through lack of resources, predator-prey relationships, or disease. And though humans seem to cheat nature every once in a while, there will come a point where there simply won't be enough water available for every person, let alone food and shelter and money for a decent salary. Conflicts for resources will escalate and disease will spread quickly through increasingly crowded areas.
Is it humane, then, to withhold food, medicines, or aid to people plagued with disease and starvation because that actually decreases global population a little? Is it humane to let conflicts run their course, even if thousands may die? After all, it's for the good of the planet, and therefore for the majority of humanity.
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| Hong Kong | Urban Barcode by Manuel Irriter. The artist made a series of photographs showing overcrowded apartment buildings in Hong Kong |
Of course, very few people want to even discuss overpopulation let alone suggest killing people. It's the elephant in the room more so than climate change, (there actually exist strong arguments saying that overpopulation is a primary cause of climate change). So if overpopulation is closely tied to the slew of environmental problems threatening the planet, something must be done to reduce the growth rate even more, or even to turn it slightly negative.
I think this is why Inferno is such a provocative book: it takes a highly controversial, seldom-discussed topic by the horns. Brown doesn't suggest a real answer, but uses Bertrand Zobrist to create a hypothetical solution. But more importantly, he draws attention to the issue to make readers really think about the implications of overpopulation and to point out that it's a really hard question to answer. For me, the book started a discussion both in my head and with my mom, and any book that achieves that is, to me, genius. I'm not going to tell you what Zobrist does by the end, because it's extraordinary and a part of a super exciting plot-twist. And so, I'm going to leave this post open-ended, because I want to know what you all are thinking. Is there anything to be done?
If you have some time and wish to learn more about overpopulation, I recommend watching this video from SciShow by Hank Green.
If you have some time and wish to learn more about overpopulation, I recommend watching this video from SciShow by Hank Green.
I once heard an "edgy" individual claiming we should not spend millions of dollars per year trying to find cures for diseases. For example, he claimed cancer is necessary for controlling the population. Back in the old days, cancer was not as common because other things like infections, flu, and colds killed off people when they were young. Now, the rise of modern medicine and the easier access to antibiotics have extended human longevity. Since cancer usually appears with old age, lots of people die from cancer. Should we continue the research? The "edgy" guy did bring up good points. In general, I do feel like the world has become nicer and for the lack of a better term, "softer'. Actually, the 21st Century has seen less violence and deaths than the 20th century. In addition, we are more active in saving people, the earth, etc. Life is pretty good. The world is a decent place to live.
ReplyDeleteIt is a scary feeling to realize that our efforts in helping out everyone might put us all in peril. I am currently writing this post during my biology class and our current unit is evolution. Humans are animals and only the fittest animals survive in the end. We often forget we are not controlled by the laws of nature. Nature will works its magic to kill of the humans that are not suitable to live.
Food for thought... food for thought
Thank you for the blog post. I enjoyed it very much. Also - I recommend the actual book by Dante. Very enjoyable.
Of course, Dan Brown is one of my favorite authors too! I hope you've read all four of his books ("The Da Vinci Code," "Angels and Demons," "Inferno," and "The Lost Symbol") and Inferno is definitely one of the best of his books with Robert Langdon. I just can't get enough of these books that are a mix of historical fiction and mystery! I thought the exact same things you did while reading this book, and the "final solution" (you know what happens in the end!) ironically seemed like a logical idea to me, if not scary and unfair. The entire book reminded me of "Ishmael," the first Academy book that we read over summer vacation before freshmen year. That giant gorilla suggested that we do something along the lines of not feeding the poor, because in his reasoning, if you feed the poor, there will only be more poor people. You were right to tie global warming into this. More people equals more detriments to our environments, the irony being that we are slowly killing off the only place where we can live. The question I have is: is it better to destroy our entire race or push aside thoughts of conscience and morality to do what's needed to save us all, as "Inferno" suggests?
ReplyDeleteI liked how you made a connection between this book and overpopulation. Well done. In return, I'm going to make two more connections. First, I was wondering if you remember the energy presentation GBS had last year. The speaker had talked about various aspects of the energy crisis on a global scale but the thing that struck me the most was when he discussed the rising population of Africa and its eventual effect on the world. While gaining electricity and more fuel increases the quality of life for people living in underdeveloped countries, ultimately we are neglecting the fact that the Earth simply does not have the resources to sustain the population of Africa's newfound dependence on energy sources. There is an interesting balance, similar to what you had mentioned in your post, of wanting to increase the quality of life for others while at the same time managing a huge flow of people. The second connection I'm going to make is to National Geographic. While you brought up that overpopulation is the big elephant in the room that no one is willing to address, National Geographic has taken an entire year's worth of issues to answer the following: how are we going to feed a growing population? In each issue there is one feature article that focuses on this growing problem. Considering your interest in the overpopulation problem, you may want to read some of these articles to see how National Geographic sees it.
ReplyDeleteRuxi- I have also read this book and think it has an amazing balance between being a thriller and trying to teach or foreshadow an issue that has already begun to plague our world. I think the most important takeaway from this subject is that overpopulation has become a real inevitability. Perhaps the most troubling part of this whole narrative is that there is nothing rationale and humane that we can do to reverse this trend, and we are simply going to have to look for alternative solutions such as relocating to another planet. While this is something that will be contemplated in generations far in the future, I think it's a very positive sign that many are becoming aware of this problem now and are looking to at least discuss the topic in order to increase the awareness of others.
ReplyDeleteI have to say (and unfortunately I say this often) I highly disagree with the crux of this blog post and the comments already posted. The concept of the dangers of overpopulation has been around forever - famously, in the 1800's (I believe) a philosopher called Malthus predicted catastrophe due to the rising human population. He was wrong. And, it seems like the whole principle is wrong. Humans have always overcome problems with limited food and land through technological advancement, and there seems to be no indication that this cannot continue.
ReplyDeleteConsider the case of oil. I have heard over and over again that it's going to run out and that alternative energy is something humans have no choice but to invest in. However recent advances in fracking have all but proven this wrong (now, there are major problems with this method of obtaining oil, but it's the principle that matters). Soon, we will be able to create our own resources.
Although I have not read this book, I am definitely going to give it a shot! Actually I would like to disagree with the comment above mine....yes overpopulation has been mentioned for a long time, and the effects of it are seen in nations such as China and India where it is a significantly greater problem than it is in the United States. Overpopulation in these areas has caused severe shortages of food, resources, availability for Medical help, etc. Nature itself demonstrates that there is only a certain extent to which the population can go before some environmental factors began to reduce the population once more, especially through the deer experiments back in 1998. You cannot keep building upon something without expecting consequences....air pollution, water pollution, food diseases, and some would even argue human diseases, are caused by the fact that we are reaching our leveling point. We need to rethink the idea of population as a whole and what might be the consequence if we ignore these signs and just continue to rely on technological advancement
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