Opinion
Overpopeulation: The Church’s Condom Code and Demographic Disaster
March 24, 2009 - 11:00pm
Last week, Pope Benedict XVI told reporters that condoms exacerbate the spread of the HIV virus. Put another way: Last week, the Catholic Church confirmed, yet again, that it is stubbornly dogmatic, shamefully tone-deaf and far too willing to wield its influence in a grossly irresponsible and socially destructive way.
Even beyond its lamentable misrepresentation of the AIDS issue, the Church’s position on birth control turns a blind eye to a global trend that begs urgent attention: overpopulation. It is an issue that underlies a collection of environmental, economic and international health issues (beyond even the HIV virus), which together represent one of the most serious challenges to the continued prosperity — and, ultimately, to the continued survival — of billions.
We are a species of organisms guided, like all other living species, by principles of population growth, grounded in a delicate ecological framework. In the last two centuries, however, we rose above the Darwinian struggle for survival. We have developed medicines to stave off early death, whether by disease or injury, and we have invented technologies to accommodate the resulting demographic surge. The result is population densities seemingly impossible in centuries past. Today we are nearly seven billion strong, a testament to our dominance over nature.
But hegemony comes at a price, and we are flirting with disaster on an unfathomable scale. All the talk recently of financial bubbles should alert us to a far larger and more threatening one — the ecological bubble. Our planet simply cannot sustain seven billion people, much less the billions more to come. According to a paper by Prof. David Pimentel, ecology and agricultural science, “the best estimate is that Earth can support about one-to-two billion people with an American Standard of living, good health, nutrition, prosperity, personal dignity and freedom.” We passed the two-billion mark sometime during the first half of the 20th century.
“I told you so,” says the ghost of Thomas Malthus, the famous 19th-century thinker who insisted that rapid population growth was unsustainable in the long run. Since his time, industrial society stubbornly underwent a series of social and scientific revolutions that seemed to disprove Malthus’ grim theories. Now, however, a mounting avalanche of evidence suggests that he might actually have been on to something.
Consider the global food crisis that has already gripped a large swath of sub-Saharan Africa, and how much more widespread it could become if agricultural yields continue to dwindle while global population growth maintains its blistering pace. And, if you want to talk geopolitics, consider India and Pakistan, both of whom get their drinking water from the Himalayan glaciers. The two nations were never the best of friends to begin with; what happens when they have to compete for an increasingly meager supply of water?
International decision-makers — most importantly, governments and global business leaders — need to develop technologies that can sustain a bloated population while reducing the ecological imbalances that threaten us. Just as important, however, someone needs to figure out a way to slow further population growth. That means, at the bare minimum, making a concerted effort to encourage responsible family planning, particularly by promoting the use of contraceptives. The U.N. and countless NGOs already do that, but their influence is muted in many of the countries most in need of their services.
Where governments are weak or dogmatic, and where poverty precludes the kind of education truly useful to promoting safe sex practices, the only voice that can break through is often the Church. The Pope needs to accept the reality of the times: people will have sex, regardless of what he says — it’s human nature.
Many of the problems presented here might seem out of the control of Catholicism, but the Church has proven recently that it still wields influence even in a more modern and secular global community. After all, Pope John Paul II was instrumental in generating resistance to the Soviet Union in Poland in the 1980s. Some scholars argue that he played as large a role as any man in ending the Cold War. The Pope can’t solve overpopulation, but he can make an impact.
And, at the very least, he could send a message to his 1.1 billion followers that religion is no excuse for exploiting the naïveté of a sexual partner. That men in underdeveloped nations can point to doctrine to justify the disuse of condoms is outrageous, and occurs far too often. In addition to mitigating the AIDS crisis, a few condoms would go a long way towards promoting equality of the sexes in developing nations the world over.
Whatever the case, the threats to our planet are too severe to ignore. An institution with as much influence as the Catholic Church has a responsibility to help alleviate the strain of these historically vast problems. Anything less amounts to criminal neglect.
Last week, Pope Benedict XVI told reporters that condoms exacerbate the spread of the HIV virus. Put another way: Last week, the Catholic Church confirmed, yet again, that it is stubbornly dogmatic, shamefully tone-deaf and far too willing to wield its influence in a grossly irresponsible and socially destructive way.
Even beyond its lamentable misrepresentation of the AIDS issue, the Church’s position on birth control turns a blind eye to a global trend that begs urgent attention: overpopulation. It is an issue that underlies a collection of environmental, economic and international health issues (beyond even the HIV virus), which together represent one of the most serious challenges to the continued prosperity — and, ultimately, to the continued survival — of billions.
We are a species of organisms guided, like all other living species, by principles of population growth, grounded in a delicate ecological framework. In the last two centuries, however, we rose above the Darwinian struggle for survival. We have developed medicines to stave off early death, whether by disease or injury, and we have invented technologies to accommodate the resulting demographic surge. The result is population densities seemingly impossible in centuries past. Today we are nearly seven billion strong, a testament to our dominance over nature.
But hegemony comes at a price, and we are flirting with disaster on an unfathomable scale. All the talk recently of financial bubbles should alert us to a far larger and more threatening one — the ecological bubble. Our planet simply cannot sustain seven billion people, much less the billions more to come. According to a paper by Prof. David Pimentel, ecology and agricultural science, “the best estimate is that Earth can support about one-to-two billion people with an American Standard of living, good health, nutrition, prosperity, personal dignity and freedom.” We passed the two-billion mark sometime during the first half of the 20th century.
“I told you so,” says the ghost of Thomas Malthus, the famous 19th-century thinker who insisted that rapid population growth was unsustainable in the long run. Since his time, industrial society stubbornly underwent a series of social and scientific revolutions that seemed to disprove Malthus’ grim theories. Now, however, a mounting avalanche of evidence suggests that he might actually have been on to something.
Consider the global food crisis that has already gripped a large swath of sub-Saharan Africa, and how much more widespread it could become if agricultural yields continue to dwindle while global population growth maintains its blistering pace. And, if you want to talk geopolitics, consider India and Pakistan, both of whom get their drinking water from the Himalayan glaciers. The two nations were never the best of friends to begin with; what happens when they have to compete for an increasingly meager supply of water?
International decision-makers — most importantly, governments and global business leaders — need to develop technologies that can sustain a bloated population while reducing the ecological imbalances that threaten us. Just as important, however, someone needs to figure out a way to slow further population growth. That means, at the bare minimum, making a concerted effort to encourage responsible family planning, particularly by promoting the use of contraceptives. The U.N. and countless NGOs already do that, but their influence is muted in many of the countries most in need of their services.
Where governments are weak or dogmatic, and where poverty precludes the kind of education truly useful to promoting safe sex practices, the only voice that can break through is often the Church. The Pope needs to accept the reality of the times: people will have sex, regardless of what he says — it’s human nature.
Many of the problems presented here might seem out of the control of Catholicism, but the Church has proven recently that it still wields influence even in a more modern and secular global community. After all, Pope John Paul II was instrumental in generating resistance to the Soviet Union in Poland in the 1980s. Some scholars argue that he played as large a role as any man in ending the Cold War. The Pope can’t solve overpopulation, but he can make an impact.
And, at the very least, he could send a message to his 1.1 billion followers that religion is no excuse for exploiting the naïveté of a sexual partner. That men in underdeveloped nations can point to doctrine to justify the disuse of condoms is outrageous, and occurs far too often. In addition to mitigating the AIDS crisis, a few condoms would go a long way towards promoting equality of the sexes in developing nations the world over.
Whatever the case, the threats to our planet are too severe to ignore. An institution with as much influence as the Catholic Church has a responsibility to help alleviate the strain of these historically vast problems. Anything less amounts to criminal neglect.
This is a stunningly ignorant article
The writer tells us that the world is overpopulated at present, and blames the pope because he wants fewer children to enter the world. But wouldn't the problem of overpopulation be more readily solved by culling the herd a bit? I mean, c'mon, if we need to eliminate 4-5 billion people from the planet--as per the writer's figures--wouldn't we be better off executing and disposing of those who are already here rather than simply encourage the Catholics, who only make up 1 billion of the world's population anyway, to have safe sex? (The writer doesn't tell us how many Catholics practice safe sex despite the pope's condemnation of it.)
A couple of sentiments made me laugh out loud: "In the last two centuries, however, we rose above the Darwinian struggle for survival. We have developed medicines to stave off early death, whether by disease or injury, and we have invented technologies to accommodate the resulting demographic surge."
When did we rise about the Darwinian struggle for survival? Which day or year was it? Are medicines only 200 years old?
Here's a suggestion: find out, per the developments in the arctic ice, when the world's population was last at its most industrious. (You can actually find this out easily.) Then find out what sort of medicines, standard of living, etc. people had back then. Then ask yourself whether a larger or a smaller world population makes that standard of living easier or more difficult.
Peter, the Catholic Church
Peter, the Catholic Church has remained uncompromising in its defense of human life. There was no population problem until the Protestant churches decided to accept birth control in 1930. If birth control measures were the answer they would have worked by now, seventy years later. It ought to be clear to everyone that birth control does not accomplish what it claims. It accomplishes the opposite. The answer lies deeper within human society, which is the message of the Pope. The Pope has not misrepresented anything. He has announced with unflinching clarity that knowledge and respect of self provide appropriate boundaries. That is the real world. Western logic offers a painful and false solution to the mystery of human life. A further example: The fifty million aborted lives would have made a positive difference in the Social Security System which is now destined for depletion because of too few workers supporting the too many retirees.