The Bomb

Buck Emberg

It is very simple. So simple it seems that virtually no government has done much about the problem because the goddess MYTH is growth. Growth is good. More is better and plenty is perfect. Abundance is our birthright. Tomorrow will be better. All of the above is NOT true. Humanity has reached its apex. We may plateau for a few generations but the fact remains. The ticking bomb of nuclear war is said to be five minutes to twelve. The ticking bomb of overpopulation of the world is now.

BOMBS in Iraq. Bombs in London. Bombs in Spain. I have even started to dream about bombs in Launceston. The latest bomb threat in Tasmania seems to be the unexploded bomb of the Perhaps Pulp Mill. Community angst grows as does the conflict between the “Thems” and “Us”.

Hidden amongst the People’s Movements of the last few decades is another bomb that seems to have been forgotten. It is the Big One; the bomb of population explosion.

No less than Malcolm Frazer said that Australia should aim for a population of at least fifty million. Now, in the midst of the “worst ever drought” we are having water troubles with a mere twenty million people. Malcolm is wrong. Very Wrong.

Emigration problems? Immigration problems? Mega city growth problems? Food problems? Air? Water? Resources? My father, in his unique Pennsylvania dialect, would have said the problem is “We-uns” and “You-uns”. There are just too many of “Us-uns”.

Lost in the drive for economic growth, globalization and bigger and better everything are a few truisms. I give a few to jolt the readers’ memory. The USA added over 100 million people in the last thirty-nine years. Beijing, China has enough water resources for 14.4 million people; population today is over 15 million. In Africa the number of people living below the poverty line increased by 140 million in 12 years. Do you need anymore statistics? No, our ears are closed now. We just want to get on with our lives of affluence and growth.

But where will the increasing hordes move to? In Mexico, degradation of cropland pushes 700,000 people off the land each year. Nigeria is losing 3,000 square kilometres of land to desertification and China loses the same amount of land to its encroaching deserts annually.(W.O.A. statistics)

It is very simple. So simple it seems that virtually no government has done much about the problem because the goddess MYTH is growth. Growth is good. More is better and plenty is perfect. Abundance is our birthright. Tomorrow will be better.

All of the above is NOT true. Humanity has reached its apex. We may plateau for a few generations but the fact remains. The ticking bomb of nuclear war is said to be five minutes to twelve. The ticking bomb of overpopulation of the world is now.

The problem is Us-uns. This seems to be overly pessimistic. I wish I knew a way out.

My twenty grand children will not forgive me.