Overpopulation? Several news items

This morning I watched a little bit of Good Morning America, which included a story about a man in Dubai who is aspiring to father 100 children. Of course, he has had more than one wife, seventeen, in fact. So far, the man has fathered 86 children, with two more on the way. He is a very religious Muslim and believes that in having a large family, he is doing God's will.

Later, I ran across an article about the effects of population explosion on the planet, which reminded me of a conversation I had with Tom this weekend as we were gardening. While we support organic gardening and local farmers, we realize that modern farming practices have made it much, much easier to feed the planet's population. I remember when population control was in the news in the late 1960s and early 1970s; people thought the burgeoning population would lead to apocalyptic crises. Well, those crises haven't occurred in wealthy countries such as the United States, but it's debatable whether or not other less wealthy parts of the world suffer from population growth. It's true that modern farm practices certainly enable us to feed more people than one could have once imagined.

Of course, there are problems with too many people on the planet. People gobble up natural habitat in their search for food and shelter--understandable, for one wants to live and to support one's family. But other species become extinct, fuel consumption goes up, millions of acres of land are denuded of trees, and greenhouse gases affect the health of the planet. I am certainly not for coercive population control, but I do think we each have individual responsibilities to make the world a better place. I'm not sure that having oodles of children is a way to do that. (Cue here the story of the mother who recently gave birth to octuplets.)While one man's goal to father 100 children isn't going to tip the balance, there would be a problem if many men sought to father 100 children, a problem not just for the planet but for women, too!

If such fecundity is God's will, perhaps he'll provide us with ways to deal with the consequences. And--just in time--NASA is launching the Kepler satellite, which will spend over three years looking for other planets that can support life. Our life, that is, human life. Other earths just waiting to satiate our ravenous appetites. Hmmmmm.......