What Will We Do When Our Resources Run Out?

It is widely believed that some type of human beings came into existence about 300,000 years ago, based upon archaeological discoveries to this point. The “Behavioral Modernity” - the possession of cognitive and behavioral traits which distinguish modern humans from earlier versions - of our species has only existed for the last 50 to 65,000 years.

Our enormous planet, which had a 4 billion-year head start, always had more than enough resources to satisfy the needs of every human; for all the myriad issues that faced people of antiquity, that was never one of them.

It is estimated that the Earth’s population reached 1 billion in roughly 1804, 2 billion in roughly 1927, and 3 billion around 1960. The compounding growth has continued to steepen, and there are over 8.2 billion people in the world today. So it took nearly 3,000 centuries to reach 1 billion people, and just over two centuries to add over 7 billion more. As we all know, the surplus natural resources that were readily available throughout human history are now strained.

We’ve combated this with technology, which is why populations have continued to grow. Ever improving efficiency regarding livestock and fishing, agriculture, medicine, shelter, transportation, and communication has allowed us to produce, gather, and distribute resources at a much greater scale, to address the shortcomings of what occurs naturally.

The challenge, of course, is whether our rate of technological advancements can keep up with the growing population. Humanity produces more food right now, for instance, than at any time in its history, and has less hunger than in years past when there were fewer people to feed. Technological advancements since the Industrial Revolution have far surpassed the population growth rate, but will they continue to be able to stay ahead?

We have made some things, like access to the oceans’ fish, much more accessible, but we can’t make the fish breed any faster when we cut too deeply into their numbers. We’ve invented ways to modify plants to grow bigger and faster, but the limited earth beneath them still needs time to recover between harvests. At what point will there simply not be enough, and how will we address that as a species if the population keeps growing at such an exponential rate?

Many feel the world is already overpopulated, and that we should stop having babies. They feel fewer people = less need for resources = enough for everyone with less damage to the planet. And on a simplistic level, that’s true. But human existence is not simple.

Putting aside the totalitarian effect of controlling individual procreation choices, the conundrum lies in the uneven representation of age groups. There are quantifiable examples of this phenomenon, both in cases of societies which avoid parenthood voluntarily (as has been happening contemporarily in the West) and compulsorily (as happened with China’s one child rule).

Any look at a population pyramid will show the damaging effects of this on society. A healthy population balance should gradually expand as the ages lower.

But in places where the birth rate has declined, such as China, the pyramid looks quite different.

As their high percentage of middle-aged working people leave the workforce, there will not be enough young people entering the workforce to compensate.

In a world where lifespans are continuously extended, the significance of the elderly population and its care must be considered. When there are fewer children and more old people, the balance is thrown off. As those children reach adulthood, there will not be enough of them to take care of the previous generations. This is not just a physical burden, but also a financial one, as there will be fewer people to earn and contribute what is necessary.

Birth rates need to remain stable, or preferably continue to grow at least slightly, in order to balance increased longevity. Combining increased birth rates with longer lives, however, will continue to increase the population. Besides resource concerns, simple math dictates that the planet will eventually run out of space as well.

Will our continued implementation of improved technologies be able to keep up? Will efforts to break away from genetically modified food sources and toward water desalination and protecting the planet from over-farming and over-fishing be timely enough? And if they are, will they then inhibit our ability to feed everyone?

If we don’t come up with solutions soon, colonizing Mars will start to look less and less crazy.

Zephareth Ledbetter’s latest book, “A White Man’s Perspectives on Race and Racism - Rational Thoughts on an Irrational World”, is available cheap at smashwords.com/books/view/1184004

Wrong Speak is a free-expression platform that allows varying viewpoints. All views expressed in this article are the author's own.